EDA candidate videos now going on Youtube.
Just search for East Devon Alliance and there they are!
They will also be linked from the candidate pages on their website.
eastdevonalliance.org.uk
Twenty-first century technology for twenty-first century candidates!
Many speakers including local prospective parliamentary candidates – see links in Dates for Your Diary for more information.
A Good Day Out! And the more placards the better!
… because most of the people using them are young!
They obviously haven’t cycled around East Devon – where many of the cyclists could hardly be described as young! Still, at least they haven’t blamed the EU! And they haven’t blamed people on mobility scooters for traffic jams.
Claire Wright’s public meetings are open to everyone. She has been visiting people in the constituency for months, she IS out on our streets pretty much every day, true public meetings are frequent, questions are not chosen, no charge is made, though individual donations are welcome. Compare with the following:
“Each of the “public meetings” I have attended have required people’s names to be on a list to get in. I saw a woman showing her passport to those running the door at Tony Blair’s event in Sedgefield.
In Dudley, Ukip were charging their pre-screened audience £5 a ticket, for the privilege of submitting any questions they may wish to ask to a moderator, who selected the ones he liked and declined them even the opportunity of being allowed to read them out themselves.
On a vast deserted building site in Watford, sanitised even of construction workers, we looked at Clegg looking at some architect’s drawings. Then we drove to Cardiff and waited outside a factory test kitchen while he made a pancake. …
… But surely the ultimate positive example of politicians going walkabout somewhere real is last year’s Scottish referendum. I didn’t cover that, but those who did, and friends who were there, tell me the leaders and big beasts were out on the streets and available for interaction. Can it be a coincidence that the campaign invigorated politics in a way many had imagined impossible?
Yet it feels a million miles away from the current electoral offering. At many Tory events, specially selected activists are made to stand behind Boris or Cameron or whoever is speaking, holding aloft campaign slogans. In the still pictures which make the news, it looks as though the politician’s speech is rousing a crowd of supporters to wave placards with riotous approval. In real life, this dynamism is a sham. The supporters are static, posed in bizarre tableaux vivants, their arms presumably getting more and more tired.
The effect of this, and indeed of all the parties’ stagey micromanagement, is to do a terrible disservice to the spectators, who are, after all, the voters. Placed in these ultra-managed situations they cease to really be people. They become people-effect wallpaper. Meanwhile, politicians withdraw from civic spaces in favour of their own kitchens. Unless this way of doing business is radically altered, we are reaching a stage where it would be less embarrassing or absurd to green-screen elections.”
Interesting discussion on the Today programme about Party Manifestos and promises.
Three well-known historians agreed that they count for nothing and should be seen at best as aspirational and at worst as fantasies.
Is this aspirational or fantasy?
Is the Party cat going up the the stairs or down or Photoshopped!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/10/cat-upstairs-downstairs-photo_n_7040446.html
Usually well-informed sources tell us that Paul Diviani and Andrew Moulding have been seen together being very, very friendly and obliging to an independent candidate.
Now why should that be, when, as Tory Whip Phil “I’ve never whipped anyone in my life” Twiss memorably said: Independents never do anything useful for their electors?
Is it remotely possible that Paul and Andrew are desperately trying to nobble a few new recruits to make up the Tory losses expected on May 7th?
Whilst it is true that, at EDDC, it was Councillors Troman (in particular) and Hughes (in general) who helped to get the ridiculous Sidford Fields business park deleted from the draft local plan, it was the constant work of EDA members in Sidford, Sidmouth and beyond, that kept the issue at the forefront of the discussions and publicity that led to the change:
The remarks of CEO Mark Williams about that change are mind- blowingly insulting. He said:
“The inspector has already heard everything we have said and is yet to tell us what his view is on that part of the application. He may recommend that this site is not suitable and should be removed. It’s his decision now, not yours.
“It’s your funeral if you want to take it out.”
What he did not add is that, entirely without consultation or reference to any committee, except the Development Management Committee on the day, FIVE extra business parks, closer to Exeter, had been added to the draft recently.
A massive number of changes have been made to the latest draft, yet this one amendment, made by democratic decision in a transparent way, is the only one Mr Williams was worried about.
The Sidford Fields site was added AFTER public consultation on the first draft local plan, with no explanation whatsoever for its inclusion, as noted in a letter in this week’s Sidmouth Herald.
Councillor Mike Allen, in the same article, laid the blame squarely on Councillor Andrew Moulding:
“Cllr Moulding was accused by Cllr Mike Allen of being the person responsible for the allocation’s original inclusion in the plan.
“Cllr Allen said: “There’s no demand, no economic case and it would damage the tourism industry in Sidmouth. There’s no justification for keeping it. Please could we get rid of this site once and for all.”
Anyone making a Freedom of Information request for correspondence or meetings about inclusion/exclusion of the site?
(note: this link takes a long time to load on slow broadband)
Just two months ago the East Devon Alliance announced that it would form an umbrella group to support candidates wishing to stand at the District Council election on May 7th 2015. Yesterday, nominations closed.
Of the 29 wards to be contested, 24 will be fought by Independent candidates. A total of 37 Independent candidates have come forward to stand across the district, of whom 22 will be “Independent East Devon Alliance” on the ballot papers, and 15 will be Independent.
57 Conservatives will be standing, 19 Liberal Democrats, 6 Labour and 5 Greens. Despite free national news coverage every day for the last year, Ukip can only raise 9 candidates. For the first time ever the number of Conservative candidates – 57 – is overshadowed by the number of non-Conservatives – 76. In an historic first, the people of East Devon now have a genuine free choice at the election to entirely change the guard at their district council.
In the lead up to nominations a Conservative councillor, Phil Twiss repeatedly scaremongered the local electorate by absurdly suggesting the Independent movement was an alliance of left of centre groups. Yesterday this was shown for the false assertion it always was. Between them, the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Greens are fielding no fewer than 30 candidates of their own, who will rightly feel insulted by him.
Of more significance to him and his party comrades is that two of the most outstanding Independent candidates are well-respected members of the EDDC Audit and Governance Committee, who have honourably resigned from the Conservative party in order to stand as Independents in their areas, with the real expectation that they will be re-elected on May 7th.
East Devon Alliance Chairman Paul Arnott said, “Taken together with the unstoppable rise of Independent Parliamentary Candidate for East Devon, Claire Wright, this phenomenal offer by 37 Independents to the people of the district proves that East Devon better represents the desire for change in democracy than anywhere else in the United Kingdom.”
The Express and Echo today reports today that “the surge in Independents going for the seats can be attributed to the East Devon Alliance campaign group, which has transparency and openness at its heart, re-launching itself in February as an umbrella organisation for prospective independent councillors.
The aim was to give independents who share the objectives of the alliance, the opportunity to explain to voters who they are and what they stand for, ensuring they have equal opportunity of notoriety as their party specific counterparts.
In order to comply with electoral law the group had to register as a party with the Electoral Commission.’
A quick headcount seems to reveal about 80 people (including one assumes some party apparatchiks). Claire Wright had around 120 attendees at her meeting in Sidmouth last week.
“Nominations for the East Devon District Council closed on April 9th, and a published list of candidates is at the link below. The headline news is that there is a genuinely historic representation of Independent candidates. No fewer than 24 of the 29 wards are being contested by an Independent. 37 Independents in total are standing. And 22 of them are standing under the East Devon Alliance banner.
In a comic twist, Conservative councillor Phil Twiss – who was in the local papers again this week trying to characterise Independents as Reds-Under-The-Bed – will have to explain to the public why two of the Independent candidates were, until their honourable resignation from his party, serving Conservative councillors. Like so many of us, they’d had enough. The phoney war is over. Now let’s make every day count.”
Read more at: http://www.eastdevonalliance.org.uk/
The following town and parish councils WILL have elections in May 2015 there being more nominees than seats:
Axminster Town, Budleigh Salterton, Clyst St George, Dalwood, Exmouth Brixington, Exmouth Halsdon, Exmouth Town, Exmouth Witycombe Raleigh, Gittisham Village, Honiton St Michaels, Honiton St Pauls, Kimington, Lympstone, Membury, Offwell, Ottery St Mary (Tipton St John), Plymtree, Seaton, Sidmouth North, Sidmouth Primley, Sidmouth West, Stockland, Yarcombe.
The following councils will not face election run offs either because they have the same number of councillors as seats, or too few people have put themselves forward for nomination, so all will be returned uncontested. In some cases, too few people have put themselves forward and there will need to be co-option, or failing that, further elections.
All Saints, Awliscombe, Axminster (Raymonds Hill), Axminster Weycroft, Axmouth, Alyesbeare, Beer, Bicton, Brampton Speke, Branscombe, Broadclyst, Braodham, Buckerell, Chardstock, Clyst Honiton, Clyst Hydon, Clyst St Mary, Colaton Raleigh, Colyton, Combpyne/Rousden, Cotleigh, Cranbrook, Dunkeswell, East Budleigh, Exmouth Littleham, Farway, Feniton, Gittisham kVale, Hawkchurch, Luppitt, Monkton, Musbury, Newton Poppleford (Harpford), Newton Poppleford (Venn Ottery), Northleigh, Otterton, Ottery St Mary North, Ottery St Mary Town, Ottery St Mary West Hill, Payhembury, Poltimore, Rowe, Rockbeare, Shute and Whitford, Sidmouth East, Sidmouth Salcombe Regis, Sidmouth Sidbury, Sidmouth Village, Sidmouth South, Southleigh, Sowton, Stoke Canon, Talaton, Uplyme, Upottery, Upton Pyne, Whimple, Widworthy, Woodbury Exton, Woodbury Woodbury Salterton, Woodbury Woodbury.
Three wards are missing from the list as it is presumed candidates are being returned uncontested:
Beer and Branscombe (Geoff Pook – Independent), Clyst Valley (Mike Allen, Conservative) and Trinity (Ian Thomas, Conservative).
ANALYSIS
37 Independent or Independent East Devon Alliance candidates are standing
1 independent candidate elected unopposed (Geoff Pook, Beer)
so, 15 Independent (including 1 elected unopposed)), and 22 Independent East Devon Alliance
One Independent is former Conservative Councillor Roger Boote (Honiton St Pauls) 2 candidates shown as unaffiliated are recent Conservative Councillors Bob Buxton (Dunkeswell) and Andrew Dinnis (Tale Vale) and two candidates show no affiliation Graham Long (Otterhead) and John Dyson (Sidmouth Town)
Yarty, ward of current council leader Paul Diviani, which was uncontested last time, is now being contested by Diviani again for the Conservatives but he is being challenged by Green Party, Independent East Devon Alliance and Liberal Democrat candidates.
BREAKDOWN by WARDS
Axminster Rural 1 seat: 2 candidates, neither Independent
Axminster Town 2 seats: 7 candidates including 1 Independent and one EDA
Broadclyst 2 seats: 4 candidates including 1 Independent
Budleigh 1 seat, 5 candidates including 1 Independent
Coly Valley 2 seats: 4 Candidates including 2 EDA
Dunkeswell 1 seat: 2 candidates including 1 Independent (former Conservative incumbent Bob Buxton)
Exe Valley 1 seat: 2 candidates including 1 EDA
Exmouth Brixington 3 seats: 6 candidates including 1 EDA
Exmouth Halsdon 3 seats: 6 candidates including 1 EDA
Exmouth Littleham 3 seats: 7 candidates including 1 EDA
Exmouth Town 3 seats: 8 candidates, none Independent
Exmouth Withycombe Raleigh 3 seats: 7 candidates, none Independent
Feniton and Buckerell 1 seat: 2 candidates including 1 Independent
Honiton St Michaels 3 seats: 8 candidates including 1 Independent and 1 EDA
Honiton St Pauls 2 seats: 6 candidates, including 1 Independent (former Conservative Councillor Roger Boote)
Newbridges 1 seat: 2 candidates, neither Independent
Newton Poppleford and Harpford 1 seat: 2 candidates including 1 EDA
Otterhead 1 seat: 2 candidates including one no affiliation
Ottery St Mary Rural 2 seats: 4 candidates including 2 EDA
Ottery St Mary Town 2 seats: 5 candidates including 2 Independent
Raleigh: 1 seat: 2 candidates including one EDA
Seaton 3 seats: 10 candidates including 1 Independent
Sidmouth Rural 1 seat: 2 candidates including 1 Independent
Sidmouth Sidford 3 seats: 8 candidates including 1 Independent and 3 EDA
Sidmouth Town 3 seats: 6 candidates including 2 EDA and one unaffiliated (John Dyson)
Tale Vale 1 seat: 1 Independent (former Conservative Councillor Andrew Dinnis)
Whimple 1 seat: 2 candidates neither Independent
Woodbury and Lympstone: 2 seats: 3 candidates including 2 EDA
Yarty: 1 seat: 4 candidates including 1 EDA
Our Labour candidate gives his address as London N1.
Our Conservative candidate gives “Address in the CENTRAL DEVON constituency”. The only candidate not to provide a full postal address.
He doesn’t even have a second home in East Devon let alone a first!
Perhaps he couldn’t afford East Devon prices, or maybe Central Devon is a cleaner and greener place to live …
An awful lot of Hugo Swire placards appear to have been placed on land belonging to well-known local developers and/or farmers, some of whom were very enthusiastic East Devon Business Forum members. Claire Wright placards appear to be mostly at private residences or small local businesses.
Who is influencing whom, one wonders?
Should you receive a personal letter from the Conservative Party that seems specific and personal to you (e.f. pensioner, farmer), be aware that it is actually a circular letter sent to lots of people with only the name changed:
See her latest blogpost here: https://susiebond.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/and-were-off/
You only have to look at the records of our Independent councillors such as Susie, Claire Wright, Roger Giles and Ben Ingham to see that independent councillors makes the biggest impact on scrutiny of our current majority Conservative council. Now we need them to be the decision-makers.
Recall that before Susie was elected Feniton was in the hands of ex- councillor Graham Brown …
Simon Jenkins believes so. For those who missed it first time round, here’s his evidence…http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9452952/the-myth-of-the-housing-crisis/
East Devon Watch 