Does your Councillor live in your area?

Does your Councillor live in your area?

Author
Discussion

Mojooo

Original Poster:

12,783 posts

181 months

Friday 22nd April 2011
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How far away from your house (and out of your ward/area) would a Councillor candidate have to live before you think they live too far away?

Oakey

27,610 posts

217 months

Friday 22nd April 2011
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Gordon Marsden. Labour MP for Blackpool South. Lives in Brighton. If he was any further away he's be in France.

Sheets Tabuer

19,087 posts

216 months

Friday 22nd April 2011
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Not only does he live near me he sends the whole area letters about what he's achieved this month.

I have to say the guy is fantastic, had most of the roads resurfaced, all the green areas maintained and got the bin men sent back out to pick stuff up they had dropped, hell of a guy.

http://www.coventry.gov.uk/councillors/15/kevin_fo...


sussexjob

2,000 posts

232 months

Friday 22nd April 2011
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Brightons Green MP lives in Brussels

http://hanoverelmgrovelabour.blogspot.com/2011/02/...

Pupp

12,254 posts

273 months

Friday 22nd April 2011
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sussexjob said:
Brightons Green MP lives in Brussels

http://hanoverelmgrovelabour.blogspot.com/2011/02/...
So what has that got to do where your councillor lives?

Chrisgr31

13,505 posts

256 months

Saturday 23rd April 2011
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ine lives around 20 miles away from his ward. Think he might even live in a different council. Having said that he is a good councillor even if he was struck off as a solicitor (alledgedly).

Pints

18,444 posts

195 months

Saturday 23rd April 2011
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Apparently our local Tory MP is only few houses down from me.

Puggit

48,526 posts

249 months

Saturday 23rd April 2011
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I can answer this because in her flyer yesterday she points out she's lived in our ward for over 20 years.

I met her at the door a few weeks ago and she asked if I'd vote Conservative - I told her I would vote Conservative locally but not nationally, she indicated that's a frequent response in these parts...

elster

17,517 posts

211 months

Saturday 23rd April 2011
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I am standing this year, and I do not live in the ward.

I live miles away, well about 200 yards.

Main reason being the people who stand in seats where there is a possibility of winning with an active campaign are not always wards they live in.

There is very rarely enough people who actually want to be a councillor in the ward for each party.

Most of the candidates on your ballot form will be paper candidates and not actively pushing to get elected.

Uncle Fester

3,114 posts

209 months

Saturday 23rd April 2011
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A Councillor has to live within the Borough for which they're standing, but not the ward.

A political party may have a sitting candidate in a constituency who's has an established support.

Another party member may move into the ward/constituency. Alternatively on existing resident may become willing to stand.

The party can't put up two candidates for the same seat without splitting its vote, effectively preventing the newcomer standing.

Local politics if often the training ground of future national politicians.

If people could only stand in the ward or constituency in which they reside then they'd effectively have to wait until the sitting member stood down, which is impractical. The sitting candidate may not go for decades.

Additionally the situation may change. A member of my family was a Conservative MP from 1910-1945. During that time he intended to live in his constituency. Government posts prevented him doing so several times, sometimes for years, including overseas postings.

If a politician has to live within his constituency then he would have to step down. When the post required being an MP that's a problem.

And to the OP, be careful what you wish for.

Having a Councillor live too close has disadvantages.

In my personal experience they practically live in my bathroom. Then have the front to blame me for hair in the plug hole when I have no hair and can't get a turn of the bathroom anyway.

And then they have the cheek to claim hair product expenses from my bank account.
irked


Edited by Uncle Fester on Saturday 23 April 20:42

hesnotthemessiah

2,121 posts

205 months

Saturday 23rd April 2011
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Yep. Politics's latest whipping boy Nick Clegg lives at the bottom of my road.

adycav

7,615 posts

218 months

Saturday 23rd April 2011
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My Councillor lives on my road, 9 doors down I think. I see him most days, he tends to walk his dog early in the morning when I'm out trying to shift my love handles.

WhoseGeneration

4,090 posts

208 months

Saturday 23rd April 2011
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Uncle Fester said:
And to the OP, be careful what you wish for.

Having a Councillor live too close has disadvantages.

In my personal experience they practically live in my bathroom. Then have the front to blame me for hair in the plug hole when I have no hair and can't get a turn of the bathroom anyway.

And then they have the cheek to claim hair product expenses from my bank account.
irked


Edited by Uncle Fester on Saturday 23 April 20:42
So, is there a truth you should confess to we few here?
Believe me, we won't hold it against you.
Unless, "Green" stuff is in evidence.

Uncle Fester

3,114 posts

209 months

Sunday 24th April 2011
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WhoseGeneration said:
So, is there a truth you should confess to we few here?
Believe me, we won't hold it against you.
Unless, "Green" stuff is in evidence.
You haven’t read many of my posts have you?

Ok, so Shrek may have my physique and good looks, but I don’t have his green tint.

Actually I agree with a lot of Green ideas. For instance Global warming is a great Idea. So is saving the rain forests. If we warm the globe enough perhaps we could have a rain forest here. What we need is more V8 engines to warm it.

Then we could save endangered species like the tiger by granting them asylum. After all, the world is running out of people we haven’t already granted asylum to. I like tigers. When I was young my Grandfather used to strap the tiger skin rug around himself with his belt and prowl around for us to shoot.

Granddad shot the tiger when he lived in India. We only got to shoot tiger with a gun that fired corks. If we had rain forest here then we could have proper hunting here too.

We have a plague of vermin since fox hunting was banned. Tigers understand hunting and eating meat is natural; unfortunately this seems beyond the intellectual powers of greens.

If we had tigers then they could eat the foxes and Gaia would be happy to have her harmony restored.

When I was growing up my Mum said I should eat greens. Perhaps Tigers tell their cubs the same thing. If only we could get the tigers to eat all our greens.


WhoseGeneration

4,090 posts

208 months

Sunday 24th April 2011
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Uncle Fester said:
You haven’t read many of my posts have you?

Ok, so Shrek may have my physique and good looks, but I don’t have his green tint.

Actually I agree with a lot of Green ideas. For instance Global warming is a great Idea. So is saving the rain forests. If we warm the globe enough perhaps we could have a rain forest here. What we need is more V8 engines to warm it.

Then we could save endangered species like the tiger by granting them asylum. After all, the world is running out of people we haven’t already granted asylum to. I like tigers. When I was young my Grandfather used to strap the tiger skin rug around himself with his belt and prowl around for us to shoot.

Granddad shot the tiger when he lived in India. We only got to shoot tiger with a gun that fired corks. If we had rain forest here then we could have proper hunting here too.

We have a plague of vermin since fox hunting was banned. Tigers understand hunting and eating meat is natural; unfortunately this seems beyond the intellectual powers of greens.

If we had tigers then they could eat the foxes and Gaia would be happy to have her harmony restored.

When I was growing up my Mum said I should eat greens. Perhaps Tigers tell their cubs the same thing. If only we could get the tigers to eat all our greens.
Good dinner then?

F93

575 posts

184 months

Sunday 24th April 2011
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Most of the people who make the decisions in Cambridge live in Duxford.

Anyone seen South Cambridgeshire District Council's head office? It's like something from a bloody Soviet film, high on a hill, cost goodness-knows how many hundreds of millions. And the best thing is that, when it snowed masses and masses and the roads filled up, the Council had their vary own snow plough on reserve to keep the drive up to the head office clear, when all over the county they were short of ploughs.

This is the UK, not bloody Belarus...


Mojooo

Original Poster:

12,783 posts

181 months

Sunday 24th April 2011
quotequote all
F93 said:
Most of the people who make the decisions in Cambridge live in Duxford.

Anyone seen South Cambridgeshire District Council's head office? It's like something from a bloody Soviet film, high on a hill, cost goodness-knows how many hundreds of millions. And the best thing is that, when it snowed masses and masses and the roads filled up, the Council had their vary own snow plough on reserve to keep the drive up to the head office clear, when all over the county they were short of ploughs.

This is the UK, not bloody Belarus...
I would have thought keeping council offices open was a priority for any council even if it meant that some minor B roads didnt get cleared. I would imagine that people trying to contact the council in poor weather goes up significantly for some departments