Cottingham Lib Dems teach Tories Election Law (Haltemprice and Howden)

Cottingham Lib Dems teach Tories Election Law

November 29, 2006 7:03 PM

Failing to realise (or ignoring the fact) that simply calling for an election even at Parish Council level, automatically incurs election costs even if no other candidate stands, has landed Cottingham's Conservatives in hot water with Cottingham Lib Dems.

In a recent newsletter Cottingham Tories accused local Lib Dems of costing Cottingham's taxpayers £3,279 by putting up a candidate in a Parish Council By-election, which Lib Dems claim had been called by local Tories masquerading as Independent supporters. To avoid election costs they seem to have misguidedly expected or hoped, for Cottingham's Lib Dems to allow their candidate, an ex Beverley Borough Tory Councillor, who left his party description section blank, to be 'elected' unopposed.

But even if no actual election campaign takes place the public money for the election has to be spent, so their accusation of the Lib Dems causing financial losses to Cottingham taxpayers is totally false. The people to blame are those who called for an election and prevented the Parish Council from co-opting a candidate. Those people are the following: Mr and Mrs D Cook (the so-called Independent candidate and his wife) Miss Ros Jump, an editor of the Cottingham Conservatives newsletter and member of the local Conservative Team, and their friends Mrs J Locking, Mrs R Steadman, Mrs W Douthwaite, Mr and Mrs M Wilkinson, and Mr and Mrs D Headley-Green. These residents are the ones to blame, the Lib Dems were perfectly happy for the Parish Council to co-opt a candidate.

Cottingham's Lib Dems call upon Cottingham Conservatives to apologise for publishing falsehoods about election costs and to stop making false charges.