By Isle of Wight Observer
Ellis is no Churchill
Dear Editor,
You are to be congratulated on the in-depth analysis last week of the proposed coup in County Hall.
Drawing on considerable experience of the world of politics at national as well as local level, the report exposes the transparent power grab of what amounts to an “anti-Alliance alliance”, to be led by Tory leader, Cllr Suzie Ellis.
Cllr Ellis calls this political chicanery “what is best for the Island and its residents,” while wrapping this bundle of wonders in a cloak of secrecy, which is not leaving this resident brimming with confidence.
Unimpressed as I am by being patronised in this way, I seem to recall that Island voters themselves decided what was best for them and the Island when they chucked out the latest of a series of hopeless Tory regimes from County Hall at the last local elections. And although it is within local authority rules for the will of the people to be overturned in a change of council leadership, it is scarcely democratic.
We are due to be able to give our verdict on these shenanigans in May 2025, provided Cllr Ellis’s Tory junta hasn’t decided “what is best for the Island and its residents” is not to hold those next council elections.
In a statement, the uneasy partnership of Cllr Ellis and Cllr Chris Jarman – about whom Cllr Ellis has reportedly been less than complimentary in the not-too-distant past – dismiss concerns about the Tories’ past disasters in office. A shortened version of their rambling diatribe says: “There will always be those who exploit past matters to frustrate positive change. Historical references are merely distractions.”
That attitude seems at odds with the maxim: “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” Thus spake Winston Churchill in Parliament in 1948. I know which Tory leader’s views on the matter I prefer.
Mike Starke, Chale Green