Time has come for Aufona to stop the rumour mill that’s been whirring around a potentially highly significant story involving The Mack in recent weeks.
Lots of little birdies have been whispering that the busy leader of Northampton Borough Council – who will be in the Royal Box for next Saturday’s play-off final at Wembley no less – has been omitted from the Conservative Party’s list of approved candidates to fight the General Election in two years’ time.
One or two have added, with relish, that this will mean The Mack missing out on the chance to stand for the party in Northampton South if – and it remains an if – Binners decides not to go for a third term in 2015. However, Aufona can categorically confirm he is, in fact, on the Tory list which would enable him to stand if Binners steps down. Indeed, it would enable him to stand anywhere potentially.
Overall, around 1,000 candidates are approved by Conservative Party Central Office, who can put their names forward for possible selection in a number of different seats. Binners, for example, is understood to have had more than 140 rivals for the Northampton South gig in 2003, ahead of the 2005 poll, with a final shortlist of a dozen whittled down to an eventual choice. There’s a long way to go in other words. As we reported here previously, no decision is expected for several weeks while Binners completes his treatment for a recent illness, but we can at least scotch this one rumour started by...
GONZO, meanwhile, is said to be still “contrite” after all that #AdamsParksgate palava a few weeks back, which didn’t prevent him getting elected in East Hunsbury. He now faces a nervous wait to see if Norman Hacker’s inevitable reshuffle will cut him adrift or let him back into the Inner Circle. Methinks he might do the latter.
OVER at West Hunsbury Parish Council, special congratulations to John Smyth who pulled in 489 votes, more than any of the other 16 candidates. John’s an independent, but he fought on the ticket of “Opposer of this Expensive Farce”. Good show.
THIS year’s county council information pack for the elections included a lovely cover photo of BBC Northampton’s veteran political hack, Willy Gilder. Willy had a helper (the Beeb usually do) at Friday afternoon’s count, but our snout claimed the atmosphere became “increasingly and awkwardly tense” between the two as the afternoon wore on. Let’s hope they’ve made up since.
HARD to reach any other conclusion than Labour must have felt deeply disappointed by last week’s poll. They now have fewer seats in Northampton than the Lib Dems and, by all accounts, there was a proper “blood-letting” de-briefing on Saturday to find out what went so badly wrong. Astonishingly too, Red Bev Mennell failed in her bid to become the group’s leader on the borough council.
PS: Bad luck Tony “Astragate” Woods: 80 votes in Rushden Pemberton left you a bit short.
Glorious news from Geddington. No, not local resident Norman Hacker scraping home by 174 votes for another term, although that is wonderful. It’s that we can now reveal the cost of last year’s “Geddington Olympics”. Well not just Geddington, the whole of Northamptonshire too. That day last July when the Olympic Torch came to the county, including, out of all the villages it could have visited, a trip to Geddington and the blink and you’ll miss it hamlet of Dingley. A Freedom of Information request reveals it cost – drum roll – £1,246.49 to council tax payers. This included “a £773 contribution to local event costs in Geddington & Dingley”, a £54 contribution by County Hall for bunting and flags – (push the boat out why not Jim?) – and highway costs of £420. The council received a £15K grant from Transport for London towards flags and bunting and no sponsorship was secured, nor income generated. In other words the biggest single outlay was ensuring Geddington and Dingley had a day to remember.
PS: Genuinely delightful letter from ex-Tory cabinet member Bob Seery arrives after last week’s reference to him standing as an Indy in Thrapston.
His own leaflet, helpfully enclosed, says it all: “All parties including the one he previously represented have lost sight of the fact the public are only interested in being effectively represented at local level which has, and will continue to be his personal objective...”