As if we thought Ledbury Town Council, the ancien regime that is, could be any worse, devastating new evidence of dishonesty and recklessness is emerging.
 
Piecing together the sequence of events surrounding the councillor bannings of Harvey and Harrison has been difficult since so much of the legal documentation was removed and destroyed by ex-councillors, and possibly ex-staff. Even so, some of the missing legal material has been recovered – at the Council’s expense – from the various solicitors engaged by the Council during 2016 and 2017.
 
The latest bundle shows that after they had banned Harvey and Harrison, the delinquent ruling councillors knew that what they were doing was indefensible and reckless.
 
In the aftermath of the original bannings in May 2016, the town council consulted local legal firm DF Legal to help it to take measures to ‘protect’ council staff from alleged bullying and harassment.  The advice received was disagreeable, not at all what they had expected.  During the autumn of 2016, the lawyers told the then Mayor Debbie Baker and other ex-councillors, that the councillor bannings were unlawful.
 
The little inner circle of ruling councillors – Crowe, Barnes, Fieldhouse, Eager and others – demanded an expensive ‘barrister’s opinion’ to confirm this position.
 
Read out, line by line, to Bob Barnes and Mayor Debbie Baker in a fractious meeting during late 2016, the barrister wrote that Ledbury Town Council would be unable to defend itself in court should Harvey launch legal action to have the bannings rescinded.  Barnes and Baker did not apparently wish to have this galling information fed to them spoonful by bitter spoonful, but their solicitor, with commendable ethical determination insisted that they not only listen, but confirm that they had understood.
 
It was agreed that Baker and Barnes would consult Council colleagues to decide a way forward. 
 
At this point the trail goes cold. There are no more meetings with DF Legal.  It is assumed the barrister’s opinion was brought to the Standing Committee of Barnes, Crowe, Eager, Fieldhouse and Baker as chair in January 2017. This isn’t certain however, since the committee minutes are opaque.
 
What is beyond dispute is the fact that all of the legal opinions received by the ruling councillor circle were withheld from their fellow town councillors.
 
Over a two year period, they received three separate legal opinions which said that the council had been acting beyond its powers, ultra vires, in banning the two councillors:

• From Herefordshire’s Council’s Monitoring Officer (chief legal officer) in April 2016 and again in May 2017 advising Ledbury Town Council (LTC) to desist from its investigation, and later sanctioning of the councillors.
• From Liz Harvey’s barrister, Jonathan Wragg, who told the council it was acting unlawfully. Mr Wragg normally advises the National Association of Local Council’s, the parish council  umbrella body.
• From the barrister engaged by DF Legal (Colin Bourne, of  Kings Chambers), in December 2016 advising that LTC was acting ultra vires and would not be able to defend itself in court.
• From Adam Hepenstall, barrister, in August 2017 advising LTC to settle with Liz Harvey outside of judicial review as he believed the Council would lose.
• There was a fourth barrister’s opinion (Lisa Busch QC) that gave qualified endorsement of the Council’s ‘vires’ in the bannings, but advised that it would be unable to defend the remaining two grounds (namely substantive and procedural unfairness) meaning the Council would have lost the judicial review anyway.

 
What part of You're Going To Lose did these town councillors not understand?
 
Far from seeking to diffuse the crisis, they continued intentionally to act against the two councillors by extending and expanding the scope of the sanctions in May 2017, even when Herefordshire Council’s independent investigation into the conduct of the two had found the bullying allegations against them to be baseless.
 
In prosecuting the banning and denunciation of the two councillors, it is now beyond question that this group of town councillors (some now resigned) knew precisely that what they were doing to Harvey and Harrison was entirely wrong.

The Old Mother Crowe is feeling dejected because her friend Mags has stolen all the attention recently. Even more galling is that slippery fish Lynda Wilcox who knows everything but is never there when you need her. For someone who shrinks from the limelight, she's certainly been getting a lot of air-time, what with her insurance-backed legal opinions and useful contacts. And where is she? Nowhere to be seen as usual.
 
Now look at us. Staring down the barrel of a loaded cannon while that bitch Harvey tamps in a bit more powder. Mags is all cheerfulness and bonhomie. So annoying when things are moving into the appalling bracket.
 
She even had the cheek to tell me to try some concealing eye cream to mask the black circles round my eyes. 'Boots have got some great end of line reductions', she said, trying to be helpful. I know she's a friend, but if you'd not slept a proper wink for months, you'd have eye sockets like Wookey Hole.
 
That Hadley is at the root of the trouble. First he writes about The Trout, then Mags, he's even done a long piece on The Bungalow. Bwaah! What about me?
 
In fairness, I have been trying to keep my head down a bit lately. Gary's cycle race picture of me on the front page of The Reporter was fabulous of course (but sadly they took it off the online version. Pity). Mind I did get a quote. Here is what they said I said:
 
TOWN COUNCILLOR AND HOMEND TRADER, ANNETTE CROWE SAID: "THIS IS A FANTASTIC THING FOR LEDBURY. APPARENTLY, WHEN THEY DO THE SPRINT SECTION, THERE ARE USUALLY THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WATCHING.

"I JUST HOPE THE ROAD SECTION FROM THE ORCHARD LANE JUNCTION TO THE TRAIN STATION WON'T CAUSE TOO MANY PROBLEMS FOR THEM."
 
Gosh those boys look fabulous in their lycra. But other than that, the phone hasn't been ringing. Doesn't my opinion count for anything these days? It's not as if there's nothing to complain about. Littering youth. Loitering burglars. Stone throwing ne'er do wells and fire-raising vandals. Honestly, that Dog Hill Wood is more trouble than it's worth sometimes. The town is lovely, but it is going to pot. And that's another thing. The lads down at the Rec. The clouds of skunk smoke are unbelievable. I've told them so many times. Look love, I said to that burly one on the end, if you must do it, have a bit of respect and pass me a toke, would you? They just cracked up, making croaking and cawing sounds. What's so funny? Especially after all I've done for them setting up and running the Youth Drop-In Centre. There's no gratitude.
 
Never mind. When the brown and sticky hits the fan with Harvey's legal thingy, there'll be plenty of attention on me again. I'll show them. I'm at my finest when they're baying for blood. I love hearing my voice drowning out all those whining halfwits. That snivelling creep Hadley called me Ethyl Merman. Pah. Lightweight. I've said it before. I'm a Brummie. My voice carries for miles.
 
Anyway, I've got this little ditty by some poet or other. I used to be on the Board of the Poetry Festival of course. I had to give it up due to being so busy running my business and the town council. Apparently, this Ted chap was impressed with my contribution so he wrote this piece specially for me. A really nice touch.
 
Crowe's Fall

When Crowe was white she decided the sun was too white. 
She decided it glared much too whitely. 
She decided to attack it and defeat it. 

She got her strength flush and in full glitter. 
She clawed and fluffed her rage up. 
She aimed her beak direct at the sun's centre. 

She laughed herself to the centre of herself.

And attacked. 

At her battle cry trees grew suddenly old, 
Shadows flattened. 

But the sun brightened-
It brightened, and Crowe returned charred black. 

She opened her mouth but what came out was charred black. 

"Up there," she managed, 
"Where white is black and black is white, I won." 
 
(Editor's note. Huge apologies are offered to the memory of poet laureate Ted Hughes. Readers are urged to read his poems in the original. A selection can be found here).

The mounting sense of crisis at Ledbury Town Council was revealed in sharp outline last night (29 August 2017) when it decided controversially to fight on with the judicial review into the banning of two councillors.
 
Worries about the six figure costs involved were waved aside on the questionable assumption that the professional indemnity insurance of its legal advisers would cover the council's financial exposure if it loses. 
 
The town council leadership says that the National Association of Local Councils confirms that the sanctioning of councillors for staff bullying using Health and Safety procedures is legally sound. Lawyers for Liz Harvey argue that this is unlawful and against the terms of the Localism Act 2011, the most recent local government legislation. It is upon this question that the dispute hinges.
 
Before the formal meeting, residents were given time to ask questions and make their views known. Among the thirty-strong crowd, there was dismay that the council was again intending to vote to exclude them from the debate on grounds of confidentiality.
 
Mayor Elaine Fieldhouse claimed that all the information pertaining to the legal action was legally sensitive, including even the naming of the London firm of solicitors which the town council had recently appointed. 

​Other councillors, including Nina Shields, protested that the principle of whether the town council should pursue the legal process was firmly in the public interest and not of itself confidential or sensitive. Residents should be allowed to understand why the council is challenging the judicial review and committing itself to so much expense, she argued.
 
'It's our money', shouted residents from the public seats, tempers rising. 'We are entitled to hear your reasons for spending it'.
 
An ex-councillor, Maria Mackness read out a statement reminding the Council of the resolution to dispense with Lynda Wilcox's services in December 2015. She explained how this decision had been withheld from the council on spurious grounds of 'confidentiality' and still had not been properly minuted in the public record.
 
'I had great difficulty with the interpretation of the word 'confidential'.  I couldn't get to grips with the flexibility with which it is applied in LTC', she said. 'It seemed to be for the benefit of whoever wanted to use the word'.
 
A resident asked whether councillors would be so keen to proceed with the legal action if it were their own money being used. 'It's so easy to dip your hands into public funds', she said.
 
Several other people asked about the council's progress in setting up mediation, but to a chorus of jeering, Elaine Fieldhouse said this topic too was confidential and couldn't be discussed in public.
 
Reaching a stormy conclusion before the public and press were ejected, there were questions about whether competitive quotes had been obtained for the appointment of the council's London solicitors. 
 
In an acrimonious exchange Andrew Harrison, one of the 'banned' councillors, accused the mayor of having broken its financial regulations in not presenting three quotes to council, nor having sought the council's permission to accept just one tender for the legal work. He read out the relevant paragraphs from the regulations. Fieldhouse said the council's action was perfectly legal but then, amid shuffling of papers, failed to provide the evidence that confirmed this.
 
After several chaotic votes, the Mayor expelled the public and the council went into closed session. The mood afterwards downstairs was furious, with talk of demonstrations and civil disobedience.
​

It was pointed out several times by concerned residents that local councils have a legal duty to adhere to the highest standards of transparency and openness in their decision-making. The onus is on them to justify their actions and decisions, not on the public to justify why they should be allowed to know things.
 
Once again, Ledbury Town Council has turned this principle, democracy itself, on its head.  Handling of the largest tranche of money to which the council has ever committed itself - challenging the Judicial Review - has been kept secret from the general public, but also from town councillors themselves.
 
It is believed that councillors voted to hand over the management and decision-making for the entire legal process to a small sub-committee of the council comprising Elaine Fieldhouse, Keith Francis, Annette Crowe, Bob Barnes and Tony Bradford.  At least four of these people have been conniving in the vendetta against Liz Harvey and Andrew Harrison since the start, in December 2015.
 
Despite being warned by their ex-colleague Maria Mackness 'not to be misled by these people', councillors, by a slim majority handed over the reins to the very people who have led Ledbury Town Council into this catastrophic mess.
 
The council's Kafkaesque manipulation of financial regulations, incomplete meeting minutes, missing agenda items and blatant deceptions to the council and to the general public, raises profound questions about some councillors' fitness to hold office.
 
Make no mistake: Ledbury is in the grip of a secretive, authoritarian and malevolent regime. Its behaviour will cost the town - and its residents dear. Not just in financial terms, but arising from all the missed opportunities and flunked necessities, Ledbury will be impoverished and denuded while the crooked gang running the council continue to obsess about their legal travails. And then there will be the legal decision and the further legal wrangling over who pays.
 
We have arrived at a turning point. The council has jumped the Rubicon, and the consequences will be fateful. There seems no turning back. The choice for us, the public, is to look on like dummies and let them squander our money and chances. Or to fight back.
 
Which is it to be?

Whirling about the county in her sleek Mercedes coupe and natty pastel twinsets, Lynda Wilcox cuts a hectic, even heroic, figure in local parish politics. She is the chief executive of Herefordshire's Association of Local Councils, the 'wise owl' of the county's first-tier councils, general factotum and authority on all things parochial.
 
Mrs Wilcox has been a frequent visitor to Ledbury of late. She has been providing welcome advice to the town council in the prosecution of its moral crusade against bullying and harassment by some of its recalcitrant members.
 
The really super thing about Lynda is her great flexibility and versatility. In the cauldron of parish politics, especially if you're in a tight spot, she's the go-to woman in Herefordshire. When under fire she keeps an ice-cool head, and is able calmly to explain, without sounding at all confrontational or patronising, exactly what is, and what is not. "Your Council will decide... " is one of her favourite mantras, always said with grave emphasis on the 'your'.
 
Let it be said that Mrs Wilcox is renowned for her quicksilver intelligence, swift to recognise the most subtle of distinctions, so that what might appear to be contradictory at first, is in point of fact, a logically ineluctable truth; a comma here, a word there. Sorted! As a mere consultant to town clerks, her forensic legal skills are truly wasted. What a shame that she never did fulfill her lawyerly calling - even though it would have been to Herefordshire's detriment.
 
Not wanted.
 
At one of its many acrimonious committee meetings, Ledbury town councillors resolved that it would not be appropriate to have Lynda Wilcox provide administrative and advisory support concerning an 'employment matter'. There was talk of a conflict of interests and a lack of impartiality; such calumnies; how unkind.
 
Worry not, she told her protégé, the fretting town clerk Mrs Karen Mitchell and her supplicant councillor friends.
 
In a procedural gavotte of outstanding grace, the lady simply recommended that the 'employment matter' be taken off said committee and given to the whole council to consider. The main thing then was to ensure that said committee would not be convened until the 'employment matter' was concluded with the banning and denunciation of the two bullying councillors concerned. The grateful smiles of Mayor Annette Crowe and her Deputy Keith Francis told their own story. 'Your council can do exactly what it wants,' she reassured them in her distinctive creamy voice. 'There's not a thing they can do.'
 
Distinguished Tory lady.
 
Don't be deceived by Lynda's quietly dulcet tones. Her professional hand of steel and head of ice has been behind the rise of her well-known husband, Cllr Brian Wilcox, Chairman of Herefordshire Council, bastion of the local Tory establishment and something very high up in the Freemasons, a grand wizard or some such. (Apologies if I have the title wrong; I am hazy on the ways of the Masons). As such La Wilcox, has become a qua personage hereabouts, consorting regally with the County Lieutenant Dowager Lady Darnley, the Bishop and other local luminaries. Kremlin-watchers say that it isn't so much the ceremonials that she relishes, but more the heady nip of political influence that fires her up.
 
No wonder that Mrs Wilcox has emerged as a thought-leader among the national network of county umbrellas like HALC, a true maven of clerks and clerking. As the National Association of Local Council's chair of the parish council forum, she is able to draw on best practice from all and sundry, as well as promote causes dear to her heart.
 
Minutes are a particular bugbear. Why do people continue to flesh out meeting reports with key points of discussion and contextual detail, when everyone knows that the baldest of accounts is perfectly adequate, indeed, preferable? Lynda has learned well the pitfalls of putting too much in writing. She is always careful to provide verbal advice to parish clerks on procedural and governance matters but never in writing. Any two-bit solicitor will tell you that! The less you commit to the record, the less argument can there be about accuracy. In this way, Mrs Wilcox and her clients, often remain gloriously unimpeachable.
 
Reality check.
 
Actually, Lynda's ideal minutes would say nothing at all, and sometimes they don't. Like those fleeting quantum particles which both exist and don't exist at the same time, Mrs Wilcox's meeting reports challenge conventional notions of ontological understanding.
 
When it comes to agreeing the accuracy of minutes in committee meetings, she has been firm in stressing that it is only what is written that can be subject to debate. Things that are left out, are not strictly inaccuracies and therefore shouldn't be open to challenge. This much, to impressive effect, Ledbury's Town Clerk has learnt from her alma mater.
 
At that awful meeting where she was cashiered, such minutes as were eventually produced by Mrs W omitted the inconvenient detail that she had been let go. This meant that fortunately for all concerned, most Ledbury town councillors had no idea that the unkind, hurtful and frankly damaging allegations about her lack of objectivity had ever been raised. Months of tiresome wrangling eventually revealed that there were in fact two sets of minutes for that meeting: an 'official' one in the public record, and a 'confidential' one, yet to be written, where all the missing information would be detailed.
 
Stone the crows, but when Lynda was finally compelled to write up the confidential version, they still didn't mention that she had been given her marching orders by the committee! Councillors pressed her on why she had not included the missing resolution concerning her discontinued employment by Ledbury Town Council and she said: because that's what I did. Next?
 
Sheer brilliance.
 
It isn't just Ledbury's minutes that defy the laws of physics. Lynda's riverine approach to the public record is as sinuous as a slippery trout coursing its watery way up and down the county. In the quiet Wyeside village of Hampton Bishop (where she is parish clerk: how does she make the time?) minutes of parish council meetings might or might not be produced or at least posted on the council's website: who can say? As of today, the last published minutes appear to be those for 24 November 2016, and the last draft minutes for the January 2017 meeting.
 
A local resident drew attention to the parish council's non-compliance with the Transparency Code recently introduced for first-tier councils. He said mischievously: 'One might suggest that the Clerk (Mrs W) should be sent on one of the Transparency courses being run by HALC, but that would clearly be worthless because they are being run by the Clerk's alter ego (Mrs W)'. Ho, ho.

Over in Whitbourne, Mrs Wilcox parachuted in at short notice to administer their important 'annual council meeting', which went well by all accounts. Afterwards, the local parish council patiently awaited the arrival of the minutes, and waited some more, before chasing their trusty stand-in. According to statute, draft minutes, after all should be produced within four weeks of a meeting. Oh dear no, she told them frostily: since they hadn't yet settled her invoice for running the meeting, she wouldn't be troubled to let them have the minutes until they did. Don't these people understand anything? You pay for work before it is completed, not afterwards. Mrs Wilcox kept her wintry cool, no money upfront, no minutes. Three years later, Whitbourne is still waiting.
 
Who's the mug?

Evidence of involvement in rancourous situations is rare in the usually serene Wilcox universe.  Some years ago, an elderly parish councillor got into hot water over the purchase of china mugs to be given to local school children to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Flouting strict financial procedures, the well-meaning gent paid £390 in advance to a local market trader so as to ensure they'd be ready in time for the big day. So outraged were Little Dewchurch parish council at this unlawful breach of financial procedures, that they called in HALC to investigate.
 
As reported by the Daily Mail, "Lynda Wilcox said: ‘When you’re dealing with public money you need to debate the issue at hand as a council before you agree to spend the money. On this occasion an individual spent money without prior agreement and then expected the council to pay him back. Procedures were not followed.’ She said allowing a retrospective payment to Mr Sainsbury would amount to the council condoning what had happened and would set a precedent for the future. She added: ‘The mugs are his to do with what he wants to do.’" Quite so.
 
This is a fine example of one of those thrilling reality flips in which quicksilver Lynda is so adept. A retrospective £390 for Jubilee mugs is clearly unlawful and so morally unacceptable that the gentleman responsible should resign. Yet in Ledbury under her tutelage just last year, a good few thousand quid was committed for legal advice to fortify Ledbury's drive on bullying; this was many months before the Council had been consulted on whether it wanted to spend so much.
 
The critical difference is in the philosophical underpinning of the two situations; it all comes down to questions of moral obligation, mutual loyalty and higher purpose. As any upright Freemason would attest, these aspects can easily supersede the mundane legalities when needed. So befitting of this doyen of Herefordshire conservatism, Lynda Wilcox is imbued with that fiery righteous spirit of the Knights Templar, our county's illustrious crusaders of yore.
 
What, still no gong?
 
Back to earth, on her website, HALC is described as 'the only specialist source of insurance backed information & advice for your Parish Council. Without HALC, obtaining robust insurance-backed advice for the benefit of your council can be difficult & costly... the only specialist source of insurance backed information & advice for your Parish Council.'
 
Once more with feeling, she continues: 'Without HALC obtaining robust insurance-backed advice for the benefit of your council can be difficult & costly.' Gracious, how could anyone resist this remarkable outfit, buttressed by so much insurance-backed advice? Notice the paucity of punctuation: a small legal tic. The ampersands too are all hers, a useful timesaver.
 
It seems that Ledbury Town Council could soon be drawing freely on HALC's insurance-backers. The council is about to embark on a long court adventure fighting Cllr Liz Harvey's wholly unwarranted Judicial Review into her 'alleged banning'. Central to the case will be Mrs Wilcox's insurance-backed advice.  
 
When the lady emerges triumphant from this imbroglio as all respectable people sincerely hope, surely it won't be long before she receives her invitation to the Palace? A little bauble perhaps, but it's so nice to be appreciated. ​

Sometimes, it is in the pauses, in the absence of utterance or action, that things are at their clearest.
 
There was a searing moment in last week's town council meeting (18.1.17) when wide eyed Liz Harvey, town and county councillor, looked around with her hands outstretched and asked if anyone was going to answer her questions. The tension and embarrassment in the ensuing silence, as well as the realisation of a long buried truth, froze that crowded room. See 1.07 in the video below.
 
It came down to this. The months and years of bickering and bluster, all the outbursts of anger, the denunciations, the contemptuous asides and tortuous complaints, they were all distilled into a single dizzying moment of collective insight.
 
For Ledbury's troubled Neighbourhood Plan, there seems to be no real reason why things have happened as they have, why money was spent on this or that, why moves were made or not, who was in charge or ultimately should be responsible. At the heart of it all, the project is aimless and inchoate. There is a void. The only imperative is to get the bloody thing done - or be done with the bloody thing. Anything will do.
 
At this special town council meeting to examine progress on the town's Neighbourhood Plan and plot a future course, it was clear that events are unfolding in a way that is dislocated from detailed planning, informed discussion or the application of available professional expertise. There is no project manager it emerges. Financial forecasts of income and expenditure don't exist. Records of key discussions are not being kept. The town council which bears legal and financial responsibility, is in ignorance, nor has it been consulted at critical moments as laid down in its own rules. Nobody is in charge. The buck stops nowhere and with no-one.
 
Most damning of all, Ledbury's residents either do not know about the Neighbourhood Plan and what it means for their future, or don't care. Either way, the efforts at communication and interaction with local people have failed miserably. 
 
Non Erit Sollicitum
 
The evening started well enough. There had been an upbeat and informative progress report from consultant Sally Tagg, followed by an impassioned defence of the project by local resident Phillip Howells. He carefully rebutted criticisms that levels of community engagement were poor, saying that Ledbury's apathy was normal in these situations. Equally, costs were nothing extraordinary, given the complexity of the task, and the size of the town.  He said everything was open, above board and fully accountable. He appealed to commonsense, as a good citizen, an ex-soldier, and a professional. Really?
 
Things began to unravel. There was no round of applause. Liz Harvey got to her feet and after thanking Mrs Tagg and Mr Howells, asked the same questions she had been asking for the last twelve months.
 
The technicalities of planning policy are never rivetting. But the impact of planning decisions on people's lives is immeasurable: where a road should go, whether a view is ruined, if a school is built, or a supermarket allowed. In planning matters there are always winners - usually property developers - and losers, usually the neighbours. We elect local councillors largely to oversee a legal and fair planning process, to call decision-makers to account. In planning matters, scrutiny and 'due process' matter.
 
Over the months and years, Harvey and others (including me) have been branded trouble-makers for asking awkward, potentially embarrassing questions about the way the Neighbourhood Plan was being handled. Nor are the worries and concerns diminishing, but acquiring greater urgency as more money is spent, as the intellectual gaps are widening, and the inconsistencies becoming more egregious.
 
Tempus Fugit
 
And so once again as she ran the script, sought to get answers, the town council hierarchy and their hangers-on, sighed and shifted impatiently. After ten minutes by the clock, the mayor, Debbie Baker had had enough and told Harvey to stop talking as she'd had fifteen minutes 'from what we timed it'.
 
Why had there been a 'call for sites' while a planning appeal for new housing in Ledbury was underway? Did not the NP group think it was a risky move to invite local landowners to offer up their land for building at the same moment as barristers for a predatory development company were arguing the case in a planning court that Herefordshire needed to allow more house-building?
 
Even though there had been a call for development sites, Harvey noted that at least two landowners had been ignored by the Neighbourhood Plan after proposing seemingly viable schemes for housing and transport infrastructure.

Why had housebuilder Bovis been rebuffed when it sought a meeting with the NP group to discuss its plans south of the by-pass? Why had the Neighbourhood Plan not undertaken a public consultation on 'Development Options' as it is required to do in the official guidance? Who is project-managing the process? And so on.
 
Lacunae

New councillor Nina Shields lamented the poor response rates to the costly consultation events overseen by the consultants. Cllr Andrew Warmington wondered why the town council was not being kept better informed. Cllr Nick Morris wanted to know whether the key officer for Neighbourhood Planning at Herefordshire Council was being consulted. Cllr Andrew Harrison asked if the town council could have a monthly financial and project report. Liz Harvey questioned whether the NP group was acting in line with its terms of reference as decided by the Town Council in October 2015, particularly in sanctioning consultation events.
 
Well? Is anyone going to answer my questions, she said again. Silence.

To be continued...

Notes
​Cato the Younger: a fascinating life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Younger

Liz Harvey's written questions on the Neighbourhood Plan to Ledbury mayor, Debbie Baker 20 January 2017. Click file here.

Liz Harvey's covering email to Debbie Baker. Click file here.

Video of LTC meeting, 18 January 2017 to discuss Neighbourhood Plan.

MP for North Herefordshire (including Ledbury), Bill Wiggin is a fascinating individual with strong views and passion for his causes, everything from hunting, smoking and an end to the equality industry. People should get to know their MP better. Here are my impressions.

Some people have the uncanny knack of always being on the wrong side of the argument. Try as they might, they find themselves relentlessly promoting lost causes and shaky enterprises. It must be a frustrating life.
 
Local MP, Bill Wiggin could just be one of those individuals. He is something of a rebel. But not in a good way, if social justice or enlightened values are worth anything at all.
 
According to his carefully crafted Wikipedia entry, 'Wiggin has voted against a blanket ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants, the 2004 Hunting Bill, and some sections of the Prevention of Terrorism bills.'
 
The unfettered right to smoke is a particular hobby-horse of father-of-two Bill. Not only has he has opposed legislation outlawing smoking in cars where children are present, but has also voted against the introduction of plain packaging for tobacco products, a move designed to get rid of the colourful branding that so entices young, impressionable minds.  
 
Bill's St Jude-complex has driven him to tireless advocacy of the repeal of anti-fox-hunting legislation, against the wishes of 84% of the British population. Like all those chasing dogs, he might yet have his day, but it's unlikely.
 
Nor is it just the stupid electorate that Bill disagrees with. He supports the controversial badger cull, in defiance of almost the entire scientific establishment which argues that the programme is futile, cruel and counter-productive.  
 
Values

With that heady mix of contrarian, browbeaten farmer and freewheeling neo-liberal coursing through his veins, Bill arrives at some surprising policy positions. He wishes, for instance, that the UK government would rescind the ban on neonicotinoid insecticides. As a bee-keeper himself and patron of the Herefordshire bee-keepers association, Bill doesn't have any truck with the scientific advice, believing that chemicals of this sort are not responsible for the serious decline in bee populations. He has also been generally lukewarm on measures to tackle climate change, voting against key proposals aiming to reduce carbon emissions. Like Michael Gove, Mr Wiggin is probably tired of experts.
 
Being a staunch traditionalist with a strong interest in country matters, he has never approved of same sex marriage legislation and has opposed every one of its provisions, including preventing members of the armed forces abroad being able to marry. It's jolly bad for morale don't you know.
 
Despite Bill's sincerely-held views, equal marriage was approved by a huge parliamentary majority and by 70% of Britons. Wrong again.
 
Of course he voted to repeal the Human Rights Act, another wretched piece of legislation got up by foreigners to confound us. 

Don't let's get carried away with sympathy for bungling Bill however. He's quite a wealthy chap and has enjoyed sucking on a silver spoon for most of his life. Son of colourful right-wing Tory MP, the late Sir Jerry Wiggin, young William was bundled off to Eton yet did not follow his clever contemporaries like Cameron and Johnson into Cambridge or Oxford, instead enjoying the more modest pleasures of an economics degree at University College, Bangor.
 
Not that a middling university education did him any long term harm. Bill quickly got work as a Trader in Foreign Exchange Options for UBS, an Associate Director of Kleinwort Benson and a manager in the Foreign Exchange department of Commerzbank. A couple of elections later and he was an MP in one of the safest of Conservative seats followed by a spell as a government whip.  You get the idea.
 
He keeps busy. MP work in London and Herefordshire is juggled with running the farm, and his prized herd of Hereford cattle. On the side he picks up a few thousand as a board member of a firm that advises rich people how to run offshore tax-planning schemes. He has also put to good use his know-how gained from steering through Parliament the Welfare Reform Act by advising a company that delivers privatised welfare benefits. True to his principles, Wiggin voted in favour of the £30 a week benefit cut to disabled people, but has declined to explain his reasoning for this.
 
In a pickle

Like his dad, Farmer Bill ploughs his own furrow and doesn't care much for courting popularity, unless it's among his county chums in the Countryside Alliance.  During the MPs expenses furore, Wiggin shrugged off several serious financial scandals which might have finished any lesser gamesman.
 
The Telegraph said: 'Mr Wiggin, a contemporary of David Cameron at Eton, received more than £11,000 in parliamentary expenses to cover interest payments after declaring that his Herefordshire property was his “second home”.'
 
A year later, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon said that “it is more likely than not that Mr Wiggin did claim for expenditure he did not incur, in respect both of telephone services and of service and maintenance.” Humiliatingly, he was ordered to pay back over four thousand pounds and apologise to the House. Then he was sacked from the whip's office.
 
That degree in Economics and trading work in the City clearly hadn't worked its magic in helping Bill address his 'chaotically muddled' finances. He hit the news again that year, when it was discovered that another five grand of his parliamentary expenses had found its way into the coffers of the North Herefordshire Conservative Association. Anyway it was all cleared up eventually, the mess put down to lapses of memory and so forth.
 
This brings us neatly to Bill's erstwhile nemesis Jim Miller, the Leominster town councillor who had exposed him as an alleged fraudster. Bill Wiggin so objected to Mr Miller's intrusions into his private financial affairs that he had the local police pay a home visit, warning him to desist in his 'harassment' of the MP. No charges were brought.
 
Despite the weighty matters of state upon his shoulders, nobody should accuse Mr Wiggin of not attending to the fine detail of constituency business.
 
In Jim Miller's 2010 by-election literature for Leominster Town Council, Bill's dodgy expense claims were given an another unpalatable airing.  To the astonishment of the local community - and national press - the MP wrote to the Returning Officer, Chris Bull, also CEO of Herefordshire Council, claiming that Mr Miller’s campaign flier made “inaccurate or false” statements and asked whether they might be “in contravention of electoral law”. Three days later Miller was disqualified from the election on a technicality (which later proved to be Herefordshire Council's fault). This handed the town council seat to Benson Ferrari, local chairman of the now reviled Conservative Future youth wing. That decision was subsequently overturned in a landmark High Court ruling and Jim joined Leominster Town Council.
 
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Leominster Mayor Richard Westwood said: 'I was just stunned that Wiggin contacted the returning officer... what in god’s name is an MP doing poking his nose into a little parish election? I can’t understand what he thinks he’s up to.' And so it went on for months and years: Big Bill versus Troublesome Jim.
 
Eventually Mr Miller dropped out of the political chase, disgusted, disillusioned and depressed while Wiggin went on to win the next election, everything forgotten it seems.
 
Keeping Active

Bill has recently rekindled his interest in parish politics. During a crowded election hustings in 2015, he took the opportunity to upbraid me for harassing 'his friend' the Ledbury town clerk, Mrs Karen Mitchell. 'It is completely unacceptable to bully a civil servant' he said in stentorian tones to the evident surprise of onlookers. When I politely told him he was talking nonsense, he held up his hands and said 'no excuses' before walking away theatrically. It put me in mind of Meryl Streep's bravura bitch in The Devil Wears Prada: 'that's all'.
 
On election day itself (5 May), he loudly repeated the same accusation to a small group of people outside the polling station at the Ledbury Community Hall. Perturbed by this serious breach of election protocol, I wrote to Wiggin and asked him to explain himself. From whom had he heard that I had bullied the clerk and on what evidence, I asked.
 
Who said politicians are slippery?

​'I am slowly getting used to being talked about, usually without any regard for factual accuracy and I hope the matter is forgotten by everyone quickly', replied Bill emolliently. 'I hope that my [earlier] apology was satisfactory and as for who said what, I would not be able to tell you even if I knew, which happily I don’t.' Tsk. That'll be another memory lapse.
 
Straight talking is good, even in public if need be. And after the Miller affair, it's reassuring to learn that Bill takes a strong line against harassment. Not so impressive is our MP's grasp of important supporting evidence, nor of remembering who are the sources of his intelligence. Let's just put it down to muddle, shall we?

​Despite the confusion and all his other interests, Bill is still finding time to attend to the slow-motion shipwreck unfolding in Ledbury Town Council. According to credible sources, he was seen in conference with Deputy Mayor Elaine Fieldhouse and Cllr Bob Barnes at the town council offices on 7 October 2016. A staff member correctly said that the group could not be disturbed, and that an appointment was needed if anyone needed to talk to Mr Wiggin. A little later Bill popped into the paper shop and in an unguarded moment revealed that he was being briefed about the ongoing crisis in the town council, as well as the staff complaints against Cllrs Harvey and Harrison.

Mum's the word
The curious aspect of this is that everybody involved was subsequently reluctant to confirm that that they had met each other. In a town council meeting, Elaine Fieldhouse denied that she had even spoken to Wiggin beyond saying good morning, and quickly passed the heated frying pan to Mayor Debbie Baker. Equally flustered, Debbie at first said she hadn't met him, and then correcting herself said that she had. 'It was a private matter' apparently.
 
Also tight lipped was Bill Wiggin when asked later what his business was in the Council offices. 'It was a constituency surgery and therefore confidential' he snapped. This is odd. The MP is usually so keen to advertise his wares, but there appears to be no record in his communications activity of this surgery ever having been publicised. No names of constituents are recorded in the Ledbury Town Council visitors book.  Perhaps it was a one-off, specially arranged 'surgery' with selected Ledbury town councillors.
 
What could be so sensitive that local politicians engage in clandestine meetings, and then flatly deny having talked to each other beyond saying hello?
 
I don't like conspiracy theories. I prefer to accept the most obvious solution to a conundrum, Ockham's Razor: put simply, 'when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.'
 
Let's think... Bill Wiggin is advising Ledbury Town Council bosses how to deal with Miller-esque harassment from Harvey and Hadley. Perhaps the police should be contacted. Wait. They already have.
 
At a county conference where cyber-bullying was being examined, a posse of Ledbury town councillors (including Crowe, Fieldhouse, Baker, Eager and Francis) angrily confronted Herefordshire's head of police, Superintendant Sue Thomas, and demanded to know why she had not acted on their complaints about the harassment that was taking place in Ledbury Town Council. It was an embarrassing scene witnessed by scores of local government councillors and officers. Thus having derailed the seminar, Ledbury's contingent stomped out of the conference. Their behaviour was not appreciated.
 
Once again, Bill Wiggin finds himself on the wrong side of the political tracks. As Ledbury Town Council flounders under the weight of its own incompetence, venality and political corruption, in strides 'bungalo' Bill, his Commons nick-name (nothing upstairs, boom-boom).
 
Like the albatross, his appearance at such moments is always a bad sign. It signals impending public outrage, press denunciation and the sure manifestation of an indefensible ethical position. Perhaps I do after all appreciate the Mayor's and her Deputy's caginess about disclosing their chat with him.

A last hoorah?
So to the future. Bill Wiggin's spell as an MP could be drawing to a close. Once again, fate has dealt him a tricky parliamentary hand. The political granite of North Herefordshire has turned to slippery red clay. In the bonfire of the constituencies in which the size of the Commons will be reduced by fifty seats, Bill will be dispossessed. Meanwhile his neighbouring parliamentary colleague in Malvern, Harriett Baldwin, a bright star in the Conservative firmament, looks set to eclipse him and inherit most of the North Herefordshire patch.
 
Enoch Powell said that 'all political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure.' In this instance, perhaps the impending boundary reorganisation will be a mercy to Bill: no more kicking against the traces and feeling righteously out of step with mainstream opinion, no more silly form filling, and having to go along with hare-brained political correctness and human rights.
 
In the final reckoning, Bill Wiggin, MP will be remembered as a true staunch conservative, someone who stands by tradition and against the passing whims of fashion. For him, social cohesion is founded on the unshakeable foundations of authority, order and convention. Everybody has their place. England is the finest country in the world. The market knows best. Business should be allowed to get on with business. Less red tape.
 
That is fake news by the way. I don't really know what he stands for, except what I can surmise from his voting record in Parliament and his comments in the media. Even by modern Tory standards, Wiggin junior, like Wiggin senior, looks like a trenchant right-winger. The family resemblance is striking.
 
The main thing is that Bill appears to cleave to the status quo. And why wouldn't he? With his privileged background, good connections, manly bearing and all round decency, life has been good to Bill, no real complaints at all - apart, that is from a few pesky financial rules and irritating individuals who ask too many questions.
 
When he goes, there will be many, particularly those who hanker after a simpler, gentler way of life, who will mourn his passing. Good luck Bill, and farewell!

In the present febrile climate of suicidal terrorism, readers of Ledbury's local newspaper might have missed a heart beat when they read last week's headline: 'So shocked as armed police guard parades'.
 
News that Ledbury's Remembrance ceremony 'may' have been attended by anti-terror police marksmen was direfully received by town mayor, Debbie Baker: 'I can't tell you how shocked I am... The idea of armed police is mind-boggling. It really is, and it shows the times we are in right now.'
 
Not even faraway Ledbury is safe from the shooters and bombers it seems. As shuddering Cllr Bob Barnes noted: 'We could become a soft target, and where the lone wolves are operating we do not know.'
 
If true, this report would indeed be shocking. Except it wasn't. The only shock was that so much could be made of so little. Exchanging newsworthiness for truthfulness, the story had been confected by local journalist Gary Bills-Geddes. To be 100% clear, there have been no armed police on the streets of Ledbury. The story was a fiction.
 
That Andrew Warmington had attended a West Mercia Police seminar on crime priorities began a flight of journalistic fancy which ended with a front page sensation worthy of a right-wing red-top.
 
'During this seminar,' Andrew later explained, 'the Chief Constable listed seven key concerns in crime terms for the region as a whole, giving them in descending order of importance. In fourth place was terrorism and he told the councillors present that armed police had been on guard at Remembrance Day parades at unspecified places in the region. Next thing I know, this is front page news.'
 
Consistent with the Ledbury Reporter's flourishing 'post-truth' credentials, when challenged, Mr Bills-Geddes excused himself airily: 'Cllr Warmington's report was merely the starting point for a series of questions we've been asking West Mercia police all week.'
 
The police are sensibly reluctant to divulge operationally sensitive information but after days of pestering by the Reporter, finally conceded that 'armed officers were available to be deployed to any incidents in the Ledbury area during Armed Forces Day should they have been required.' They were not required. Ergo, there was no deployment of armed police.
 
Mr B-G said this news arrived after the print deadline. But hey! Why spike a good story by waiting for a fact-check? Come on, there are papers to be flogged.

​May or did: Take your pick.
 
Gary is an experienced wordsmith. In his opening paragraph, he made sure to insert that important little caveat word: may.
 
The Daily Express does this when it runs one of its 'snowstorm Armageddon set to batter Britain' stories. 'Forecasters say the UK could be in for the storm of the century'. It's called wriggle-room. When the snowstorm doesn't materialise, those Express hacks can't be accused of exaggeration or distortion. We didn't say it definitely would, just could, runs the well rehearsed script...
 
Deputy editor of the Ledbury Reporter, John Wilson predictably wriggled in his reply to Cllr Warmington's complaint: 'Our report does not say armed police attended parades in Ledbury'. It says they ‘may’ have. If the police tell us categorically that there were no armed police at either Remembrance Day or Armed Forces Day in Ledbury we will publish it.'
 
That, Mr Wilson is never going to happen, as you well know. The police would never be so irresponsible to confirm or deny to would-be attackers any of their anti-terror manouevres, past or future.
 
Mr Wilson claims his readers are not 'dupes'. Quite so: the troubling question is that if it's on the front page with such an emphatic headline, the hushed seriousness of Gary's copy lending dead weight, bolstered with quotes from the Town Council's would-be top brass, and backed up with a portentous reference to 'talks with police chiefs' (another fiction), why wouldn't readers think it was authentic?  If it wasn't true, or in any way doubtful, the question is: why print it at all?
 
Try the 'duck test': if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
 
Who cares?
 
2016 will be remembered as the year of Post Truth. In the UK, the Brexit campaign was exposed as lying in its claim that millions of Turkish nationals were about to flood into the UK. It promised a weekly £350 million injection into the NHS if we left the EU.  Who cared that none of this was true, except the bleeding heart 'libtards' and 'bremoaners'? After June 16, the material was simply removed from the official Vote Leave web site, and it ceased to exist. There, nothing to see. Donald Trump repeated the trick before the US election with so many falsities it is difficult to know where to start.
 
The Oxford English Dictionary voted 'post-truth' as its Word of the Year. It is defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.
 
Back in the seventies, one of my favourite novelists, Muriel Spark, caught the spirit of the post-truth age even before it existed: 'It's not true', says one of her characters in Not To Disturb, 'but that's not to say it isn't right'.
 
What is truth anyway? When I was young and worked in advertising, I had a cigar-chewing old school boss who told me that 'what people believe is as good as the truth.' He was either a cynic or a genius. Or both.
 
Philosophers discuss the nature of truth a great deal. It's called epistemology. What can we ever know for certain? Is there an objective reality out there? If there is, can we ever know it? In the past, scientists would say yes, there are immutable truths and laws that govern nature; now in the realm of quantum mechanics, even they are not so sure. Social scientists are more troubled still by definitive truth claims.
 
Politicians, ideologues, advertisers and some journalists, have snatched the clothes of such sceptical post-modernist thought and refashioned them as propaganda, spin and political smear. It is how you win elections these days - and sell newspapers. You say what you need to.
 
Perhaps 'post-truth' is just a euphemism for lies. Guardian writer, Jonathan Freedland believes so: 'We’ve been calling this “post-truth politics” but I now worry that the phrase is far too gentle, suggesting society has simply reached some new phase in its development. It lets off the guilty too lightly. What Trump is doing is not “engaging in post-truth politics”. He’s lying. Worse still, Trump and those like him not only lie: they imply that the truth doesn’t matter, showing a blithe indifference to whether what they say is grounded in reality or evidence.'
 
Not everyone believes the bullshit - but enough do to stink up the proverbial army blanket. Social psychologists have found that people believe information, however implausible, which confirms their pre-existing world view. Objective evidence, however compelling, which challenges people's existing beliefs tends to be ignored or distrusted. Such confirmation bias distorts all our thinking.
 
It is hard to change people's minds, once they are made up, especially by appealing to rationality. The key is to tap into emotions. The Vote Remain campaign learned this hard lesson to the cost of the UK economy. Faced with a blizzard of technical analysis warning against Brexit, Michael Gove said: 'I think we've had enough of experts'.
 
Easier by far is to reinforce existing prejudices and cherished totems, to stir up latent feelings of fear, anger and frustration. This is why 'take back control' was such a potent campaign message during the referendum among those who already felt left behind, belittled and disregarded by a perceived 'elite'. Trump said 'Let's make America great again', understanding clearly that a great white lumpenprotelariat was similarly angry and aggrieved. These weren't just clever slogans; they were appeals to profound ideological values.

Muriel Spark again had it just right: '“For those who like that sort of thing," said Miss Brodie in her best Edinburgh voice, "That is the sort of thing they like.”' 

Irresponsible
 
And so to Ledbury and its weapons grade Remembrance parade. Why am I expounding on this story?
 
The subtext of the Reporter's news reports and editorials is worth exploring. Are they genuinely bias-free, impartial and objective in their treatment of local political topics as you might expect from a local weekly? Are 'my group', as John Wilson accuses, 'attacking the Ledbury Reporter on baseless of grounds for [our] own purposes'. Is it paranoia? Or is there something more lurking uneasily beneath the surface narrative?
 
Why did they run this story? The generous explanation would be that there was nothing else splashy enough for the front page.
 
Protestations from John Wilson belie this view however. 'We were not sensationalist,' he said angrily, 'we were not alarmist, we informed Ledbury people about something they should know about, and I don’t give a jot if you don’t like the way we have worded it.' Ouch.
 
The point is, it was deliberately crafted. It was something Ledbury should know about - but what exactly?
 
This armed police story is of a piece with Buntingate, another travesty of politically spun misinformation. It is reaching out to the nationalists and nativists in our community, just like the Daily Mail and Breitbart does. It is carefully calibrated to erode our confidence and create fear of the other. The 'lone wolves' we are talking about are not right-wing fanatics like Anders Breivik or Jo Cox's killer, Thomas Mair, but rather the religious extremists who are poisoning our way of life: the Islamists, Jihadis, Moslems. Perhaps they are refugees as Nigel Farage claims.
 
Was the real intention to remind everyone that nothing in our society - even honouring our war dead - is sacred anymore?  That we abandon our traditional ways and our patriotic, conservative leaders at our peril? That we are under attack from hateful, disruptive forces right here in our midst? I may be wrong, but I catch a whiff of town council politics here.
 
If this were an isolated blemish on an otherwise peerless record of editorial integrity, I might be more charitable. Unfortunately the pattern is clear.
 
In this instance the emotive headline, the quotes sought from the rampant thought leaders of Ledbury's patriotic tendency (but not from Cllr Warmington himself), the weasel words and the mashing up of everything red, white and blue, was cynical, mendacious and socially divisive.

This, along with three other propaganda pieces in this week's Reporter (discussion to follow), are dog whistle political stories, oozing with populist venom and surreptitious intent.
 
There are those like Bob Barnes who might be 'reassured' by - or even thrill to - the idea of a paramilitary police force on the blameless streets of our obscure little town.
 
Less comfortable would be any visiting or local Moslem families who might venture to show their faces at a future Remembrance ceremony in our town. If I were them, I would not dare.

 In future, 2016 will not be remembered as just another of Ledbury Town Council's wasted years, but its time of ruin.

Mired by resignations (here and here) and recriminations, the Council has endured months of catatonic inaction interrupted only by a few colourful outbreaks of zombie-style rage. (see Buntingate and Tolerance Motion)
 
All in all, another year of squandered opportunities and thwarted hopes has slipped by in Ledbury, another £300 thousand pounds expended on itself to achieve very little except win notoriety as one of the UK's most dysfunctional town councils.
 
As the New Year beckons, what are the chances of renewal and repair?
 
An investigation into the machinations of Ledbury Town Council is approaching its grimly inevitable conclusion. Of one thing we can be certain: there will be some Ledbury Town Councillors who will face political ruin, personal humiliation, perhaps even criminal investigation.
 
For those vanquished, it will be not such a merry Christmas.  Over the flatulent dregs of the season, all the players in this tragicomedy might at least have time to reflect on their year just gone, the mistakes and misdemeanors, all the recklessness and arrogance, the deceits and distortions.

As the Ghost of Christmas Past icily observed: “No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused”.
 
But before feeling sorrow for their plight, it's as well to reprise what led to this colossal fiasco.
 
Post Truth

The inquiry by Herefordshire Council was prompted by a slew of complaints and counter claims by warring town councillors and residents, so many in fact that an independent team of investigators was enlisted, among them a retired police officer who specialised in anti-corruption and a local government solicitor.
 
At the heart of it all, lay grievances levelled by town council staff members against two councillors - Liz Harvey and Andrew Harrison - for bullying, harassment and intimidation. The Council took these complaints seriously; so much so that it decided to rip up the rule-book and organise its own novel investigation process that would guarantee the outcome it sought.
 
Protesting their innocence, Harvey and Harrison underwent a trial by fire at successive closed council meetings and panels where they were roasted and harried by their haters: Crowe, Barnes, Eager, Roberts (Noel), Fieldhouse, Baker, Francis and Yeoman. Dispensing with all semblance of due process and natural justice, they faced a jury composed of those same hostile councillors with whom they had been battling over openness since the 2015 election.
 
They were of course found guilty as charged. A letter was sent to every local club, group or society in the district denouncing them as heinous bullies. A lawyer might say that this was quite a brave move. The foregone result of the Council's 'internal investigation' was announced at Ledbury's vicious Annual Council Meeting in May 2016 when they were banned from all committees and outside bodies.
 
This has been a war about transparency, accountability, entitlement to power, resistance to change, vested interests, jealousy, political rivalries, personal scores and the fight for civilised human values. Harvey and Harrison were among the progressives, seeking to challenge the Council's habitual secrecy, and the grip of its inner circle of cynical decisionmakers.
 
In that carefree atmosphere of pre-referendum Britain when everyone was tired of  experts, at the dawn of this post-truth era, the Town Council gladly ignored the repeated advice of both Herefordshire Council's legal officer and a leading local government barrister that what they were doing was legally indefensible. Instead they left it in the hands of the Chief Executive of Herefordshire Association of Local Councils to cobble together a process. (Twelve months on, this still hasn't been written down nor adopted officially by LTC in its standing orders).  
 
Connections

It just so happens that this shadowy presence, Mrs Lynda Wilcox, is the wife of Herefordshire Council's Chairman, Cllr Brian Wilcox, freemason, and a leading Conservative and determined political opponent of Cllr Liz Harvey from It's Our County.
 
Armed with her talents, but which do not yet appear to extend to legal expertise, Mrs Wilcox likes to make herself indispensible to parish and town clerks around the county, and in return receives subscriptions to her organisation. She organises training events creatively marketed as 'Wise Owl', 'In the Hot Seat' and 'Information Corner'.
 
Much is made of HALC's 'insurance-backed' advice on its website. This could prove useful in the future if it emerges that incorrect advice has been given to any of its clients. As Mrs Wilcox says in her blurb with no hint of irony, 'Without HALC Clerk cover, your [parish council] could easily act unlawfully.'
 
Just as she could hardly be accused of originality in her marketing, so she would struggle to give the outward appearance of being wholly impartial in her dealings with Ledbury Town Council. Annual subs to HALC pay her wages, while her husband's political group is daily locked in mortal combat with Liz Harvey's. (The Tories have never forgiven Harvey for snatching one of their Ledbury Ward seats in 2010, and then another in 2015. Politics, a dirty game).
 
Liz Harvey argued persuasively that Mrs 'Wise-Owl' Wilcox could not be neutral or objective since it was her contentious advice to the Town Council upon which the dispute mainly centred. Initially, the responsible Council committee accepted this conflict of interest and voted to dispense with her services. But then she was reinstated. Why?
 
Even the (Tory) MP Bill Wiggin was enlisted to the Council's cause with public accusations of bullying and harassment of 'his friend' the Clerk. Uncharitable souls might suspect a political conspiracy.
 
Foreign

Latin and legal scholars will be familiar with the concept of 'nemo judex in causa sua' (nobody should be a judge in their own cause) but such fine sentiments are sadly written in a long dead tongue as far as Ledbury Town Councillors are concerned. It would be almost as unintelligible to them as the lofty words of that most hated foreign body, the European Court of Human Rights: 'everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law'. (Article 6). 
 
So where next? The signs are not encouraging.
 
Either Harvey and Harrison will be found guilty of harassment towards town council staff in which case their involvement with town politics will probably be at an end. Or, if innocent, the Town Council will descend into political meltdown.
 
Sources close to the Mayor suggest that Ledbury Town Council is minded to ignore any findings of Herefordshire Council's investigation. Councillors are already saying in the local press that they have no intention of resigning, even before the report is published. More ominously, the Council's dirty tricks machine appears once again to be cranking into life, a last gasp effort to deflect attention from its own troubles.
 
Priorities

This affair has lasted two years, cost thousands of pounds of public money and wasted prodigious amounts of time in argument and dispute. On top of the four thousand already spent, Ledbury Town Council has laid up a war chest of a further £10 thousand for future legal action, this, at a time of savage local government cutbacks. It is clear where the Council's priorities lie. Itself. 
 
There will not be any winners in this game, only losers, the hapless council tax payers of Ledbury and Herefordshire.
 
At what point will they rise up and call a halt to this madness? Might 2017 finally be the year when democratic values begin to assert themself in our sorely abused community?

 
As expected, the louts from the far right didn’t materialise in town on Saturday (21 May), but this doesn’t mean the threat to democracy and free speech has gone from the streets of Ledbury. A more insidious authoritarian movement is taking root in the town, not among the more rabid elements of social media as might be supposed, but centred within Ledbury Town Council itself.
 
There is a conspiracy to purge the Council of dissenters. Some councillors appear to be waging a concerted campaign of denigration against their critics. Yes, they are telling lies, but the old guard are also busily manipulating the levers of power to firm their grip on power. The aim is to eliminate from Ledbury Town Council dissident voices, any trace of resistance. By also creating such a hostile environment, it is clear that no decent-minded person would in future contemplate standing for election. If all goes according to plan, at the next poll, there will be few candidates willing to stand for Council, just the old faces, allowing the old rotten borough practice of co-option to return with a vengeance. Neat isn't it?
 
In Ledbury, as in other politically stricken towns (such as Berwick, Frodsham, Peterlee, Tewkesbury), local democracy is being nicely snuffed out by a ruthless clique of legally sanctioned hoodlums. Town and parish councils are truly laws unto themselves: there is no oversight, no ombudsman, no higher authority to which you can appeal. Resistance is not tolerated. They are fertile territory for power freaks, narcissists and right-wing authoritarians.
 
As 'banned' Ledbury Town Councillor Andrew Harrison pointed out at last week's Annual Council Meeting (12 May 2016), our Council is a morally bankrupt institution.
 
If you express an opinion which is contrary to the majority view, and which offends elements of extreme right wing nationalists, you are now liable to be reported for bringing the council into disrepute. Even as an elected councillor, you are not allowed to state your opinion within a council debate, it seems. [i]
 
Minutes, the bedrock of legal constitutional practice, are subject to manipulation, distortion and omission of key facts which present a false account of proceedings. [ii]
 
Scrutiny by elected members is regarded at best as trouble-making, but if persistent, is subject to accusations of bullying and harassment leading to ‘banning’ (as has happened to Andrew Harrison and Liz Harvey).[iii]
 
When some elected councillors with alternative opinions attempt to put their side of things, they are told to be quiet, while others, with more palatable views, are given free rein to read out pre-written statements, wander off topic and be generally offensive or inflammatory whenever they wish. [iv]
 
The Ledbury Town Council establishment takes a very relaxed attitude to the application of its standing orders and financial regulations, either ignoring them completely or, if this proves inconvenient, chucking them aside and coming up with new rules that better suit its purposes. Meantime, some of the rules of operation are scrupulously observed, generally those that disallow discussion or are controlling in nature.[v]
 
At the head of this league table of democratic contempt is the matter of council resolutions, when a vote is taken to do something: these decisions are theoretically inviolate, as legally binding as a court judgement. But in the deceitful world of Ledbury Town Council, they are, if required, completely ignored by councillors (and sometimes staff). [vi]
 
Taken in the round, Ledbury Town Council is a corrupt institution. It has members who are motivated by greed for power, personal self-interest and covert political objectives. It is a place where objectivity, fairness and respect as core ethical values are entirely missing. Anything goes.
 
Political scientists draw a distinction between dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. The former are characterised by the rule of a single figure, or a small ‘junta’; they are totalitarian in the sense that there is no freedom of speech or expression, while democratic institutions and an independent judiciary are suppressed.
 
Ledbury is not a dictatorship – despite the increasing power and influence that has accreted to the cultish figure of the Mayor in recent years under Annette Crowe and Bob Barnes, abetted by the local press.
 
Life under an authoritarian administration is rarely much more agreeable even if it appears less overtly vicious than a dictatorship. There exists superficially a plural system to which the trappings of democracy are paid lip service with elections, legislative debate, and the toleration of dissent – up to a point.
 
In places like Russia, Zimbabwe, and Turkey however, the odds are stacked against alternative voices. There are prosecutions for defaming the government or the church, trumped up charges against opposition politicians, redrawing of the legislative framework to outlaw criticism and there is collusion with a supine press which presents one-sided reportage. Sound familiar? 
 
In this toxic setting, political corruption is rife: nepotism, croneyism, mutual back-scratching for personal advantage and shady deals to do down opponents, up to an including violence. Because the government so effectively controls the channels of mass communication, and by patronage, pulls the strings of the civil service and judges, these regimes cling to power by popular assent. Putin, Mugabe and Erdogan are undeniably popular, and continue to win elections. It doesn’t make them good people or run good governments. The people are spun a line, kept in ignorance. Critics of the regime have their reputations ruined. Dirty tricks do the trick.
 
When there are no rules to which the powerful (and rich) adhere, and when there are no mechanisms to call politicians to account, the door is open to financial corruption. If there’s nobody watching the sweetshop, why wouldn’t people fill their pockets with lollies and bonbons? In dirty politics, you do what you can get away with. Why not?
 
The cancerous nature of authoritarian administration is more than dispiriting. It robs places of their creative vigour and dynamic energy. What’s the point in trying? Advancement happens not by talent or merit, but by knuckling down and playing the game, doing as you’re told, licking sweaty arses.
 
And so to Ledbury. The miserable tarnished crew dodge and scheme their way to looming perdition. We hope. But in the meantime, the casualties are many. Not just the two banned councillors, and those who have resigned or retired in disgust (I am one of a long line over the years), but the decent souls around the town who look on in dismay, the young people sickened by politics, the ratepayers who receive poor value for money, and the enthusiasts for change and action who have their dreams quashed at every turn. Good things happen in Ledbury despite its entourage of costly politicians. Mediocrity rules.
 
Ledbury's authoritarian town council is not just a democratic obscenity, but it is a tragedy for our community.
 
Here's a final thought. I have had some harsh words to say about these people over the years. People ask me, how do I get away with saying such awful things without incurring actions for libel. It's quite simple. I tell the truth. Nothing I say, not a word, is without evidence and justification. Ledbury Town Council is at liberty to sue me for defamation. I challenge them. Do it.
 
Notes...

[i] Cllr Liz Harvey is being reported by Ledbury Town Council for bringing the Council into disrepute. Her offence was to suggest that red, white and blue bunting should not be left up all summer long as it could be construed by some people as a political symbol of the far right, of Loyalist sentiment. Cllr Annette Crowe said that ‘because we’ve had so many complaints about the [bunting issue], and that’s gone into the national newspapers, and the threat from the far right… should not be how a council acts, and I propose that [this] goes forward to Herefordshire Council [as a complaint].
 

[ii] At Ledbury Town Council Standing Committee on 22 December 2015, a resolution was taken to seek alternative clerical support and advice to that being offered by Lynda Wilcox, who was judged not to be impartial and objective in managing the staff complaints process against Cllrs Harrison and Harvey. Lynda Wilcox was acting as stand-in Clerk to LTC and is the Chief Executive of Herefordshire Council of Local Councils. (She is also the wife of Cllr Brian Wilcox, Conservative Councillor and Chairman of Herefordshire Council, but that's another story...)
 
Minutes of that Standing Committee meeting were presented by Annette Crowe to Full Council on 28 January which omitted the Standing Committee resolution dispensing with Lynda Wilcox (who also wrote the minutes). Annette Crowe presented them as an accurate record, knowing them to be incomplete and misleading.
 
A verbal report was also made by Mayor Annette Crowe to LTC Full Council on 19 January, stating that it had been agreed by Standing Committee that Full Council would henceforth be handling the staff grievances (not Standing Committee). No such discussion took place. Annette Crowe actively misled Ledbury Town Council.
 
At the meeting of 25 February Full Council, Cllr Maria Mackness asked why the minutes of Standing Committee were ‘incomplete’. Mayor Crowe refused to discuss the matter and ordered Cllr Mackness to move on. Minutes of that Full Council meeting  (25 Feb) written by Karen Mitchell, presented on 7 April, omitted Cllr Mackness’s important question. Councillors challenged the accuracy of these minutes (because they were incomplete), and were told by the Clerk that accuracy could only be discussed of what was written, not what had been left out.
 
Mrs Wilcox clerked the Extraordinary Full Council Meeting (5 May) to consider ‘sanctions’ against Cllrs Harrison and Harvey.
 
Cllr Harrison questioned why Full Council was being asked to determine the  sanctions against them for bullying, when there had been a council resolution on 19 January which said that the Grievance Panel itself should set the sanctions. Lynda Wilcox said the process was within the terms of reference agreed, and LTC was acting correctly. (It was not).
 
Minutes presented at LTC council meeting 12 May, omitted Cllr Harrison’s important question: again, discussion of the accuracy of minutes was only allowed for what was written, not was left out.
 
Annette Crowe misled councillors on 19 January by not stating that Standing Committee had resolved not to use Lynda Wilcox henceforth because she was prejudiced and compromised.
 
Minutes have been systematically falsified to conceal this fact by Lynda Wilcox, and presented as accurate by Annette Crowe, Mayor.
 
Council took decisions concerning the prosecution of the grievance process which were contrary to council resolutions, unlawful in respect of the provisions of the Localism Act 2011, and outside of ACAS guidelines pertaining to grievance procedures.
 
Had they been provided with a true and accurate record, it most unlikely this process would have unfolded in the way it did.
 

[iii] Cllrs Harrison and Harvey have been found guilty of bullying, harassment and intimidation of the Clerk and Deputy Clerk of Ledbury Town Council. The evidence for this is subject to independent review by the Monitoring Officer of Herefordshire Council so cannot be discussed in detail at this point, but it will soon be in the public arena. Both councillors deny any wrong-doing and contend that they have been systematically blocked from investigating potential financial irregularities, breaches of procedure, lack of staff impartiality, and political conspiracy. 
 

[iv] As an example, during the discussion of the motion to report Cllrs Harvey and Warmington to Herefordshire Council for misconduct, Cllr Harrison attempted to say a few words in their defense (at 7’41” in the film clip). He was stopped by Mayor Debbie Baker. In contrast a few minutes earlier, Cllr Martin Eager (at 4’38”) read out a prewritten statement denouncing Cllr Harvey which had nothing to do with the motion under discussion but was allowed to speak unhindered.
 
Such two-sided treatment is a regular feature of LTC debate: if you agree with the ‘establishment’ you can speak, if not, you are silenced.
 

[v] The most outlandish recent example of this concerns the procedure LTC used to prosecute the grievance complaints against Cllrs Harrison and Harvey. In short, LTC should have referred the complaint to Herefordshire Council for review by the Monitoring Officer. Even if it had been handled in-house, the matter should have been dealt with by the Standing Committee according to Standing Orders. Instead it was given to the 16 councillors who constitute the Full Council. The reason for these hastily cobbled together changes were to load the dice against an innocent verdict by recruiting about a dozen politically hostile councillors into the process: precisely the reason why code of conduct complaints should properly be considered by the Monitoring Officer.
 

[vi] Having got itself into a mess with the grievance process against Cllrs Harrison and Harvey, LTC has twice voted for resolutions which it then has ignored because they would have got in the way of its objective to deliver a guilty verdict. 

Local reporter Gary Bills-Geddes must be thrilled that his bunting story hit the populist jackpot - and made the national tabloid press into the bargain. It's not often a part-time weekly newspaper journalist breaks a story which ends up in the Daily Mail. Somebody's got to do it I guess. Mark Twain said 'never let the truth get in the way of a good story'.
 
That Gary deliberately slanted his story for maximum impact is clear. It's what journalists do. Did he and his colleagues though really intend to unleash a true patriots versus foreigners, us and them crusade against dissident town and county councillor Liz Harvey?
 
Comparing Liz Harvey's words with the way it was reported reveals significant discrepancies. Other elements of the story from the brief Town Council discussion were also left out.
 
In the Ledbury Reporter's extensive coverage, five times the word "foreign" was used in the front page splash and related features, even though Liz Harvey did not utter that word once in her brief address to Ledbury Town Council. This is what Mr Bills-Geddes said in the opening sentence of the story: 'A councillor has voted against red, white and blue... because she fears it will upset foreign visitors.' In a photo caption of Bob Barnes the paper said:  'Cllr Liz Harvey claims the patriotic colours could 'unsettle' foreign visitors to the town.' In an editorial, it twice uses the phrase 'unsettle foreign visitors'. There is a What You Say piece; this too opens with the 'unsettling foreign visitors' phrase.
 
Why did the Reporter keep repeating that phrase 'foreign visitors'? Was it designed as a dog whistle to whip up chauvinistic, even racist sentiments?
 
It worked. Small wonder that the baying mob on Voice of Ledbury said that 'foreign visitors' can go jog on, or less polite words to that effect. The flotsam and jetsam of the fascist fringe are so outraged, they plan to demonstrate in Ledbury.
 
When a 'social media frenzy' (the Reporter's words) takes place, it's advisable to check the evidence. What Cllr Harvey actually said was: 'There were quite a few poets who came from Ireland who were on the [Poetry Festival] programme. They were really quite unnerved by the red white and blue and actually wondered whether they’d walked into a sort of National Front area because they were used to that in Ireland.'
 
She went on: 'I like the idea of bunting but ... it might be an opportunity to get some brightly coloured bunting that would look lovely in the middle of town but wouldn’t make people unsettled who come here as visitors'. She was responding to a suggestion from Mayor Annette Crowe that the union jack bunting be left up all summer.
 
From these off the cuff remarks, clearly unacceptable in these days of intolerant jingoism, Liz Harvey has been turned into a right wing hate figure, pilloried and threatened online, and now, outrageously according to Mrs Crowe, the cause of the potential fascist demonstration.
 
The Ledbury Reporter was also very selective in its commentary of the ensuing Council discussion. Cllr Tony Bradford, who normally gets full coverage, spoke out strongly against buying bunting for the Queen and said the money should be spent making a donation to the Ledbury Food Bank. At the other end of the argument, Cllr Jayne Roberts made what appeared to be a typically incoherent racist-xenophobic comment: 'Unfortunately', she said, 'the Moslems that come and visit us, the Irish that come and visit us... I'm afraid, it's our Queen...' When the vote came to buy red, white and blue bunting, seven councillors either voted against or abstained, including the Deputy Mayor, Keith Francis. This was over a third of the Council.
 
None of these 'facts' were reported, just Liz Harvey's words and vote. So much for balanced reporting.
 
By the time the tabloids had the story, it had been mangled into a loonie left councillor wanting to 'BAN' the flag for the Queen's birthday. A flower seller and barman, quite clearly fictional creations, were quoted in the piece.
 
One of the few balanced reactions to this hot-air balloon of political puff came from a contributor to the Facebook 'Voice of Ledbury' discussion (itself instigated by Mr Bills-Geddes). He said:
 
'I cannot believe the negativity directed toward one person who said so little, based upon a few published words from one person who should have known better.
 
'I believe that Gary Bills has caused quite the little race-storm, resulting in a public witch-hint against Cllr Harvey by not just writing an article so everyone could read what she said, but also publishing her picture, so everyone could now SEE who said it. Well done. Great job.

'Being a journalist (and I'm guessing a fairly intelligent person), I am convinced that he must have known that the reaction to his article would end like it has - with VOL going all "if they don't like it here they should just go home" and all that uneducated garbage. To me, this is really bad form.

'Whilst I understand that Cllr Harvey may possibly regret saying what she did, it was only (as I understand it) in reaction to a couple of Irish visitors, who inquired as to the nature of the blue/white/red coloured flags.

'Now, in certain parts of Ireland those colours are considered pretty political, so I can totally understand why they asked, and why she put it to the council.'
 
This gentleman might understand why, in a democratic country, people are permitted to put alternative points of view, but clearly our friends in the media do not.
 
We have been warned. When it comes to the flag, Liz Harvey is correct: it is indubitably used as a symbol of far right resistance.  It also seems these days that we may not question the wisdom of patriotic-nationalist imagery festooning our streets on pain of a reactionary backlash, led by the local paper.
 
You keep your mouth shut and your head down. Here's to the future! To democracy and free-speech! Not.