Roger Giles from Ottery St Mary submitted this simple comment:
Andy Burnham ditched Steve Reed. He should ditch the stupid and damaging proposals that Steve Reed pushed through.
As an Independent town (1991), county (1993) and district councillor (1995), Roger was a tireless and effective scrutineer of local politics. He was joined in 2009 by Claire Wright following a similar trajectory.
Roger retired in 2019 after 24 years as a district councillor.
Between them, Roger and Claire, demonstrated what independent scrutiny can do to hold local majority politicians to account with Claire making early use of social media in her blog.
Between them they created an atmosphere in which the blog: Sidmouth Independent News (SIN) started in 2012 making regular posts critical of East Devon District Council.
And out of SIN, at the end of 2013, flew Owl with East Devon Watch.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to these pioneers.
East Devon Watch 
To this list of heroes (Roger and Claire) I would also add:
the original Owl;
all the other independent councillors who fought so hard before eventually they prevailed and ousted the corrupt Tory administration
Every single one of these people are heroes in my book. They did what they thought was right, regardless of what other people thought of them, were not deterred by personal attacks, and they made positive change happen as a result.
Yes – Roger and Claire started it all off – and that should make them special heroes – but it was a team effort.
And a special shout out to Ben Ingham, the turncoat turned turncoat, whose motivation as far as I could see (mostly with hindsight) was only ever to get the reins of power for himself. Ironically, it is Ben Ingham that draws into contrast the heroic qualities and selflessness of all the others.
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