The New Arms of St Edmundsbury Borough Council?

Rotten Borough

In the bad old days history tells us parliamentary seats were controlled by local interests, this insured MPs were returned to Westminster by just a few voters. For example, towns such as Dunwich, which had a tiny population because most of it had been washed out to sea.

Politicians tell us how we should be grateful that the bad old days have gone and that we have a wonderful democracy that the entire world should copy. Unfortunately while the British taxpayer is spending money and British soldiers are spilling their blood, in order to bring about democracy in Iraq, democracy in the Borough of St Edmundsbury remains somewhat more elusive.

Political make up of Borough Council

The Borough of St Edmundsbury council consists of 45 councillors, it currently comprises 28 Conservatives, 10 New Labour, 5 Independents and 2 Liberal Democrats councillors. The last full council election was on 1st May 2003.
http://www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk/sebc/live/elecres.cfm

Non-elected councillors

Of the 45 councillors that make up the Borough of St Edmundsbury, 12 councillors were not elected. This is because no other candidate stood in the election, so they became councillors not because the majority of electors voted for them, but simply by default. Moreover, the by-elections that have occurred subsequently, these do not change the number of councillors appointed following uncontested elections in the Borough rather than elected upon a mandate.

This is not to suggest that any of these councillors have done anything improper, they stood according to the electoral rules and won by default under the same rules. However, when a quarter of the council seats are won by default how can this be democracy?

It also means that St Edmundsbury Council driving through the Cattle-Market development was elected by less than 24% of those eligible to vote on 1st May 2003.

"The unelected 12 apostles of Mammon"

David Ray, councillor for Barningham

Ian Houlder, councillor for Barrow

Peter Stevens, councillor for Cavendish

Nigel Aitkens, councillor for Chedburgh

Jeffrey Stevens, councillor for Clare

Michael Jones, councillor for Fornham

Margaret Horbury, councillor for Great Barton

Margaret Warwick, councillor for Hundo

John Griffiths, Leader of the council and councillor for Ixworth

Helen Levack, councillor for Risby

Jim Thorndyke, councillor for Stanton

Robert Clifton-Brown, councillor for Withersfield

Institutional majority

All 12 councillors are Conservatives and they represent 25% of the total number of councillors on the Borough council. This produces a massive institutionalized majority for the Conservative party in the Borough of St Edmundsbury.

By contrast, in the Parliamentary election of 2001 Bury St Edmunds voted : Conservatives 44%, New Labour 38%, Liberal Democrats 14% and others 4% of the vote. This would translate into 20 Conservative councillors, 17 Labour councillors, 6 Liberal Democratic councillors and 2 other councillors on the Borough council. This is a far more representative sample, which does not give the Conservative party an overwhelming and inbuilt majority.

Rural councillors and urban issues

All of the 12 councillors represent village constituencies, none of them live in the town of Bury St Edmunds. Therefore, none of the councillors or their constituents will have to deal with the unemployment, eye-sore, crime and anti-social behaviour that will inevitably result from the proposed Cattle-Market development.

Furthermore, this does not prevent Council Leader, Cllr. John Griffiths (Ixworth), Cllr. Helen Levack (Risby), Cllr. John Hale (Bardwell), Cllr. Dereck Redhead (Wickhambrooke), Cllr. Christopher Spicer (Pakenham) or Cllr. Ann Thomas (Haverhill) from sitting on the Bury St Edmunds Cattle-Market redevelopment working party. These councillors are pushing forward a development that will not directly impact upon the communities they represent. Indeed non-Bury councillors hold the majority seats on the Cattle-Market redevelopment working party, in a town where none of them live!

Bury St Edmunds Town Council

Many had hoped that the creation of a Bury St Edmund Town Council would redress the balance between the urban and rural elements on the Borough Council. However, of 17 Town Council seats only 5 were contested in May 2003 and Eastgate Ward did not have a single candidate stand!
http://www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk/sebc/live/elecresbury.cfm

Despite this inauspicious start, when it became clear that the Town Council would not tow-the-line and was in danger of actually starting to represent local democratic wishes over the Cattle-Market development, the Borough Council turned on it.

Until recently the Town Council was led by Cllr. Francis 'Frank' Warby, a property manager, who sat on the Bury St Edmunds Town Council, St Edmundsbury Borough Council and now sits on the Suffolk County Council. On the Borough Council Cllr. Warby acted as Council Leader, Cllr. John Griffiths, substitute when Mr Griffiths was not in attendance.

When the Town Council decided, against Cllr. Warby's advice, to ballot the town on the development plans Cllr. Warby objected to residents advertising where the polling station were, threatened with prosecution those who put up posters to tell the public where they could vote and restricted the voting times to 4 pm and 9pm on a freezing foggy evening in December 2004.
http://www.burystedmundstoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=843&ArticleID=854223

When a town meeting was called in summer 2005, Cllr. Warby complained that members of the public tried to advertise the meeting, threatening to prosecute those who fly-posted information about the meeting and even refused to discuss the Cattle-Market development. At this meeting residents were banned by Cllr. Warby from mentioning the Cattle-Market at all and were forced to refer to it as the "place we cannot mention"! Not surprisingly a third of the audience walked-out in disgust.
http://www.burystedmundstoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=843&ArticleID=1041088

Having failed to be able to control the Town Council, Cllr. Warby quit claiming that the Town Council is failing, dismissing it as an institution a mere two years after he himself had help set it up. This was probably a wise move by councillor Warby who began to appreciate his vulnerablity when it emerged that no member of St Edmundsbury Borough Council had ever read the Cattle-Market development agreement made with Centros Miller.
http://www.burystedmundstoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=843&ArticleID=1093358

This is Suffolk not Zimbabwe

While Mr Blair talks about the need for democracy in Iraq, his party is unable to field candidates in local elections in Suffolk. If big party machines like the Lib Dems and New Labour expect to enjoy the advantages of being national political parties, why are they are unable to find enough candidates to at least offer the electorate of West Suffolk some sort of choice in 25% of council wards? Politicians talk about elector apathy, but frankly if they as the professionals cannot be bothered to stand candidates, why complain about the electorate not voting?

Moreover, those people who find themselves recruited as councillors, by various political parties in the last twenty year, hardly represent the best or the brightest. By default selection is made of those who possess either the perverse desire or stomach, to sit through the tremendous tedium that are local government meetings. Such meetings might delight the aficionados of bureaucracy, such as the non-elected officers, but they are desperately dull and effectively exclude the vast majority of the population from participating in the democratic life of Britain.

Ironically the Conservative controlled St Edmundsbury is not imposing the Cattle-Market development on the town because this is a Conservative party policy. The policy to destroy Bury St Edmunds unique character is a wholly New Labour policy, which begs the question why is a Conservative Council using its inbuilt majority to enforce Mr Prescott's policies against the democratically expressed wishes of the people of the town?

The Knights of St Edmund endorse no political party, but do insist upon people's right to some sort of democratic choice, however limited, at elections. In built majorities are unacceptable be it for the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats or Baath parties. Without a choice of candidates in an election there can be no local democracy be it in Zimbabwe or Bury St Edmunds. How Mr Mugabe must envy such a political situation.