Pot calls kettle black

We commented last week about what a sad reflection it was on our local "newspapers" that Councillor Michael Brookes had to write to them to explain his change of party allegiance because they didn't think it important enough to take the trouble to ask him.
However, our fearless hacks can never resist making space for the mouth of the Witham to clamber upon his soapbox and rubbish a council chamber colleague.
This time, Councillor Ramonde Terrence Newell, Major or Major (retired) depending on which council cushions he parks his bum on, exceeds even his usual impudence with an attack on Councillor Brookes headed "I, like his voters, misjudged Cllr Brookes."
His letter says that it is clear that Councillor Brookes "has to justify to himself and others why he has changed his political party allegiance, without reference to those of his constituents who voted for him."
Superficially - an apposite word when discussing Councillor Newell's contributions to local political debate - this all sounds very fine ... were it not for the fact that councillor Newell also made a change of party allegiance within days of joining Lincolnshire County Council.
He was elected as a member representing the Boston Bypass Independents but subsequently threw in his lot with the Lincolnshire Independents, declaring at the time so as to have "a greater stake in the political process at county level."
"What I wanted to do was get on the Highways Committee. If I remained as a singleton it would have been impossible."
Councillor Newell was at pains to stress he was not collaborating with a party, but a group.
However, as we pointed out at the time, the thesaurus treats the words "party" and "group" as interchangeable, and the County Council also defines the grouping of independents which includes Councillor Newell as a political party.
Interestingly, until his move to the Tories, Councillor Brookes was a member of this self same political group, but as he told Boston Eye: "I found myself in an Independent Group including a BBI member which has formed a Shadow Cabinet as the official opposition to the Conservative Administration (our italics.)
the council."
We raised an eyebrow at this at the time, as Lincolnshire Independents claim in their mission statement that "their first loyalty is to the people they represent, regardless of party politics," and that they have no time for the party whip and block voting."
As you might expect such a contradiction created problems for Councillor Brookes. ""This has caused conflicts and inconsistencies for me working with the Conservatives in opposition to the BBI at Boston and with one of the BBI in opposition to the Conservatives at Lincoln. This compromises me and makes it impossible to best represent my constituents going forward. Indeed the question has been posed on many occasions 'how can you work in opposition to them in one place and with them somewhere else?'
We don't recall Councillor Newell going to much trouble to inform anyone about his change of allegiance, and feel he is skating on thin ice to attack Councillor Brookes so vehemently.
And we certainly think that Councillor Brookes's reasons for his decision sound slightly more persuasive than "I wanted to get on the Highways Committee."
It would be far better if Councillor Newell confined his verbal antics to the Bostoninnies' blog  - which is currently obsessing with  BNP bashing, convincing people that Boston is the largest town in Lincolnshire in population terms, and where appropriately one of the most recent photographs was of a load of old rubbish.

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