A MESSAGE TO THE COUNTY COUNCIL - YOU HAVE NOT BEATEN A MAN JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE SILENCED HIM

This is for all of you old enough to have walked into an empty room and then forgotten what you went in there for in the first place. It is a tale of personal anxiety and deep inner questioning and also of incredible interference in the democratic process by person or persons unknown. A real shocker!

I begin by apologising to many people who for the last few months have had to put up with my erratic and at times rude behaviour, I now acknowledge that I was becoming a miserable old sod, but perhaps now in light of the truth being revealed it will be seen as all with good reason?. It all stems from my role as a County Councillor and opposition to all things Tory at County Hall. Opposition is never welcomed and I remember myself in Parliament castigating the Tory benches when first elected for seeming to oppose for oppositions sake. This was before I realised that a) they were simply doing their job and b) good opposition aslo makes good government.

So I therefore make no excuses for being a thorn in the side of my political opponents, however for the past few months I had detected a sense of disaffiliation with some officers on the Council and a growing impression that they had simply decided en-masse as a collective group to ignore me. To say "stuff Tony Clarke and his opinionated comments and requests he can go toot"

I found myself arguing more often with officers over them not carrying out the simplest of tasks requested, for repeatedly asking for my opinion on the same matters even if I had already passed judgement on them before. And for ringing me up at all hours of the day enquiring as to matters I had already dealt with. All this coupled with the discovery that at the age of 48 reading glasses were to be the order of the day, it led me to believe I was getting far too old far too quickly. Perhaps I hadn't sent that reply back to whoever it was, and maybe the comments on consultations and reviews which had pondered over stayed inside my own head and were not as I thought shared with others? Constituency case work was also getting harder to deal with, people never got back to me with any answers and I would then have to chase officers  up over every emailed request with a phone call or personal visit to ensure that any action was taken.

So was I losing the plot? or had I overstepped the mark, burnt all my bridges and been ex communicated?

The very  last straw came in the guise of a petty standards board complaint which had been made by a Tory Backbench Cllr who I have never spoken to in person and has in fact as far as I am aware never even spoken himself in the chamber since being elected. He had taken offence as to something written on this blog. I doubt it was even him behind the complaint, he was probably the Tories stool pigeon sent out to fire a warning shot across my bow for repeatedly upsetting the boss. The investigating officer kept asking me to attend for interview, and I kept replying saying I had better things to do with my time and if they really wanted to make a case then they should just go ahead and do it. I did however point them in the direction of precedent and high court rulings which made the complaint non enforceable. I also told them that I looked forward to defending my position in the public realm once concluded

To my anger I got a draft report sent to me a) saying I hadn't bothered to reply to any requests made by the officer and b) finding me in breach of something I couldn't possibly have done. So I fired off a pretty forceful response, which basically asked the investigator to remove the untruths and think again on the judgement in light of the clear evidence. The response? A final report unchanged and still full of holes and wrongful judgements and decisions. Perhaps it was time I called it a day I thought, after all do I really need all this hassle?

But in a final attempt to rescue my sanity I asked the Chief Executive why he hadn't even responded or intervened in the matter having been copied in to all the correspondence. "I never received them" he said? You must of done I replied and I showed him the "delivered" notes in my ipad version of the email sent box. Still no joy. So he sent me a test email, which I received and I sent him a reply back which he didn't receive! So I then forwarded the test email to my NTFC account and replied to him from that different inbox and account and Hey Presto it arrived, and with it the real reason why life has been so difficult for me as a County Councillor for the past 6 months or maybe even longer. You see some kind and thoughtful soul at County Hall had decided off of their own back or with others to blacklist all of my incoming email correspondence to the County Council. Not an IT blip you will understand as emails can only be blocked as either spam, or from a bad IP address or host, or with profanities within the text (This is called the Scunthorpe scenario, for all of you with filthy minds).

As my email account and its posts was being delivered to and sent from various IP addresses, all profanity free and sent to individuals or small groups (not spammed) then the block could only have be ordered and implemented by individual decision and input from within County Hall.

So for months, my requests on behalf of constituents have been totally ignored, leading to me being bad tempered with staff on the phone having wondered why they had failed to make any progress on my query, My considered comments on reviews and consultations over such important matters as the boundary review, future parking powers, changes to the councils constitution, changes to services including social care, have all gone undelivered, requests and forms sent in for empowerment fund monies all sat in a deleted box in the Council not processed. No wonder officers looked at me gone out when I got angry at having to repeat myself verbally when asked for my views on Council issues, and not once did anyone say, "we never received your email Councillor"

So just how am I supposed to feel now? Pleased to discover that I am not losing my marbles after all? No not really, in fact I feel angrier than ever before that an elected member of the Council and the constituents they represent could have been treated in such a fashion, that person or persons unknown have taken it upon themselves to interfere with the democratic process and deny myself and those I serve a voice. I feel embarrassed that my electorate have had to endure poor service and puzzlement as to why their Cllr couldn't get things done for them in the usual and expected fashion. I am furious that the relationship between myself and some officers of the council has been sullied, leading to a mistrust between us as to my opinion or lack of opinion being forthcoming or my insistence that they were not doing their job all because someone decided that Tony Clarke should be silenced.

I will of course deal with what is an  insignificant standards board complaint by a Tory Cllr in a future blog posting, once the truth has outed, and the mistakes in the report corrected, but there is a certain irony that it was this complaint that would eventually be the matter on which a far more serious abuse of local government power has been revealed.

I doubt for one minute if any who know me would think I could ever be silenced, and it is in some ways complimentary to think that some will still try, but I believe that I am owed a full answer to how this could have happened who was responsible and what were the reasons behind the action. Whilst I await the outcome of the inquiry , I must take some solace in discovering that age has not truly caught up with me yet and that if I am still annoying someone to the point of them taking such crass actions then I must still be doing something right along the way.

I wish I had just moved that Bl**dy Car

***STOP PRESS*** 5.30pm Wednesday 7th Oct 2009 NEWS JUST IN OF PRESS RELEASE DUE FROM NBC BEFORE 6PM ANNOUNCING THAT TONY WOODS HAS STOOD DOWN AS LEADER OF NORTHAMPTON BOROUGH COUNCIL AND AS LEADER OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT GROUP: ENDS

News reaches me from yesterday standards board hearing that the Potentate Tony Woods was found guilty on two counts of breaching the Councils Code of Conduct.

Not news in itself as most of us who followed the story from the start knew he was guilty from day one. In fact I often wondered why in the face of such irrefutable evidence why TW didn't just come clean, get his apology in early and make a suitable donation to the Mayors charity to cover any cost or advantage assumed.

But as I alluded to previously the issue was never about the car, it was always about attitude, and whether or not Tony had it in him to either accept or admit his guilt or apologise not for an error of judgment but for the act in itself.

In many ways the standards board could not have been more severe with him yesterday, many will think he is lucky not to have been suspended outright, but Tony would have welcomed that as it would have gave him the right to appeal to a higher body and prolong the pain further. But to order him to write and apologise and to dictate to him the words he will use in the letter was the very worst punishment you could ever dish out to someone totally unwilling to accept the part they themselves played in this whole sorry affair.

I am told he spent the whole day blaming everyone but himself? John Dickie got an earful, as did the Chronicle and Echo, as did members of the Standards Board at the end. Although the act of loudly clicking a ballpoint pen on and off in the face of the chair whilst she is trying to read the judgement seems bizarre behaviour in the extreme.

But on top of all this I understand I too got a walk on part. Woodsie it seems was very upset by my blog entry of August 19th

http://tonyclarkeindependent.blogspot.com/2009/08/astragate-fallout.html

where I shared with readers the Market Traders reference to TW as Il Duc'e and my own observations as to the pictorial likenesses between the two. But my fellow independent Fitzy must take the original credit for the character observation which was first seen in his blog in January when he wrote:

"Portly Woods sauntered to and fro like a latter-day Benito Mussolini, gesturing behind his own back as he spoke, which is a particularly interesting habit if you've ever studied body language and psychology."

http://www.fitzynorthampton.co.uk/archives/61-Nick-Clegg-Whitewash-Meeting.html

What this all has to do with him abandoning his car is difficult to fathom? but I was told that TW is now considering reporting me to the Standards Board or even suing me for daring to publish my view.

Well Tony if that's your answer, then bring it on, I will add it to the collection of knives regularly pulled from my back in the shape of pointless references to the Standards board for varied trivial reasons, and also in the shape of Councillors who won't sit next to me in the chamber and draw up secret pacts not to talk to me or work with me!

Why you as Leader of the Council, or for that matter any other group of Councillors on the Borough Council are so worried about one independent Councillor is beyond me. But I thank you all for the compliment.

But if we do fall out over my previous posting (let alone this one) then all I will say is that I sincerely wish that you had spent more time reading the advice I gave within the post and in the Council Chamber rather than concentrating on what was meant as nothing but humour.

If it helps jog your memory , I said to you at full council earlier this year that

"It's never the big things that bring administrations and Leaders down, it is often the smallest sometimes trivial events such as leaving your untaxed car in the Council car park for months which will get you in the end."

And in my post of August 19th I commented on your case by saying that:

"It is the air of arrogance and indifference when questioned that condemns him, not his actions alone" after the reports from yesterdays hearing I stand by this completely."

I also offered the following advice:

"Sometimes saying Sorry at the outset not at the end is a far better policy. Sometimes remembering that whatever the title says on your post that you are no more important now than you were first achieved office and supposed greatness is also very good practice."

"It's humility, and genuine remorse that will save you Tony not belittling your detractors and undervaluing their opinion."

I honestly feel that you should have heeded this advice far earlier and before you were forced to do so. Imagine if you will, standing up in the chamber in January and saying:

"Mr Mayor, this was an error on my part, I should have moved the car earlier, I apologise to the whole council for not doing so I have now moved the vehicle and I will make a donation to the Mayors charity by way of recompense for any cost incurred or privilege wrongly taken"

Hindsight I know is always easy, but I believe you had plenty of time before then to come up with a better defense than denial and obstinacy.

The other part of my advice in my blog of August 19th was that:

"The local standards board committee will of course have the final say, and that's how it should be, but the damage to his reputation and the Lib Dem group on the Council not to mention his standing within his own group are probably damaged far beyond the level they need to be."

The standards board have now had their say, nothing to do with me, or your pictorial likeness to Il Duce, and I understand that the Lib Dem group will do likewise on Friday.

No one Councillor of the forty seven serving NBC is better than any other, not one of us should be treated or be expected to be treated any differently either, all of us are in control of our own actions, and each of us should learn that disrespect for each other outside of the normal political knock about and disrespect for our office will comes with an expected ricochet when fired out into the public arena.

So write the letter, accept that you were wrong and move on, one thing on which we will both agree on is that at present the council has far more important things to worry itself about and spend its time and energy on than your 12 year old astra.

Whether you are able to lead that challenge is now in the hands of your own members.

But please, please stop blaming me and everyone else for your own actions and ommisions.

Astragate, the fallout.

I have just read my colleague John Dickies last post on the troubles besetting local Council Leader Tony Woods following the 'Astragate' affair http://johndickienorthampton.blogspot.com and must agree to disagree with my friend and elder statesman on an important point of description

John, understandably annoyed at Woodsy's reference to him in the report as not a 'Bona Fide' member of the public has now compared the local leader of the Lib Dems in Northampton to Uncle Joe Stalin, suggesting that anyone disagreeing with the leader would find themselves sent to the gulag never to be seen again.

This is a disgraceful slur on the Leader of the Council and totally inaccurate. You see I have it on very good grounds that after witnessing Cllr Woods strutting around Northampton Market arms behind his back, nose in the air, king of all he purveys, indifferent to any opinion other than his own, that market Trader 'Fitzy' has likened Woodsie to another more self effacing member of the dictators club...............................

IL DUC'E, himself!

And judge for yourself below the resemblance is quite striking. It seems as if this tag has now caught on across the square and cries of "IL DUC'E, IL DUC'E" are now to be heard from traders whenever he sets foot on the Market.

And that should trouble Cllr Woods more than his local difficulties with the standards board. You see in my view the issue of where he parked his untaxed car pails into insignificance when placed beside the comments contained within the report from Tony Woods when interviewed by local investigator Phillip Mears.

It is the air of arrogance and indifference when questioned that condemns him, not his actions alone. See http://www.northamptonboroughcouncil.com/councillors/Published/C00000651/M00006288/AI00029532/PMearsrpt.pdf

According to 'IL WOODSY' The two complainants are not even "Bona Fide" members of the public and their interest was 'Political' It reminds me of the time he refused to attend a public meeting in the Guildhall in January because that was also 'Political'

Press interest he tells us was puerile and his whole manner of suggesting that he was far too busy to abide by the law of land smacks of self importance and lack of understanding of how others will judge his indifference. He was busy every day and every night we are told? but going to the theatre or watching the Arsenal were far more important than abiding by the law.

He also reveals that he told the Chief Executive in October 2008 that he would move his car in November when he could afford to do so, when and after he had received his backdated increase in his Cllr Allowances!

And this was before we had even discussed the matter of increased allowances in Full Council. Shouldn't he have declared an interest? after all his judgement and the decision he took to vote himself a huge pay raise in the middle of a reccession was obviously clouded by his need to get his hands on a quick back payment to ensure his car was legal again!

The report also reveals that despite alluding to the Chief Executive that he had registered the car as off road with a SORN certificate in January that no such registration had taken place and that as a result he was issued with a fixed penalty notice thereafter.

I said to Cllr Woods earlier this year at a full council meeting, when I accused the Lib Dems of not listening to the public view that it is the little things that do for you in the end, and I can't help but think that if he had been a lot less cocky, a little less arrogant, and a little less triumphant then in ridding the town of dangerous Alderman, (Like John Dickie) then the public and John would have been perhaps a bit less eager to have exposed him to a taste of his own medicine.

The local standards board committee will of course have the final say, and thats how it should be, but the damage to his reputation and the Lib Dem group on the Council not to mention his standing within his own group are probably damaged far beyond the level they need to be.

Sometimes saying Sorry at the outset not at the end is a far better policy. Sometimes remembering that whatever the title says on your post that you are no more important now than you were first achieved office and supposed greatness is also very good practice.

It's humility, and genuine remorse that will save you Tony not belittling your detractors and undervaluing their opinion.