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| Blatant left-wing propaganda - Crawley News front page 11th December 2013 |
The Crawley
News has published a story about the attendance of Crawley Councillors at meetings over the
six month period from May to November 2013. I’ve reproduced it below in red
italics from the Crawley News website. Given the Crawley News’ strongly suspected
left-wing political leanings as shown in the photo above of their front page from
the 11th of December 2013, red feels like the appropriate colour. However, I've also
highlighted in blue a few sentences I wish to focus on within their story and in purple, the cheap shot sentence that drove me to write this article.
For the
record, the only meeting that I missed was because I was elsewhere representing
the Council on Council business. Conservative Cabinet members being on Council business is a
contributing factor as to why the Labour group have a slightly higher overall
percentage than the Conservative group. When the Council was Labour controlled,
more often than not it was the Conservative group who had the higher attendance
with this factor contributing. The figures are accurate and are provided by the
Council so we can have confidence in this part of the story.
Where the
reporting goes downhill is the focus purely on percentage and the
disregard of the number the meetings attended. While percentage is
important, only a plonker would present it as the whole story while not referencing as significant
the total number of meetings we all attend.
The Crawley
News infer that I am being politically cynical (or that I am stupid) for highlighting the
disgustingly low attendance of sole UKIP Councillor Karl Williamson (whom some Councillors believe is living in LA) while remaining
silent about Councillor Keith Brockwell who had the lowest % attendance out of all my 19 Conservative colleagues. Keith’s photo also heads up their story. In response to this, I’ll
try and spell it out to the Crawley News as simply as I can in the hope that they get it….
4 x 250% =
10.
If the
Crawley News are so keen on percentages, then I ask them this:
Why would I
highlight Cllr Keith Brockwell for low attendance when he has attended 250% more meetings
than Cllr Karl Williamson?
My question becomes even starker when I reveal that Karl Williamson received £1372
in Special Responsibility Allowance (SRA) during this period meaning his total
remuneration was £4460 as opposed to Keith Brockwell who received no
SRA and whose total remuneration was £3345, based on the six months and
1 week that the attendance figures cover.
For my percentage loving friends at the Crawley News I offer this % fact:
Cllr Keith Brockwell attended 250% more meetings than Cllr Karl
Williamson but only received 75% of his remuneration.
To conclude, I am 100%
sure that they have the photo of the wrong Councillor heading up their story!
FIGURES
revealing how many council meetings Crawley borough councillors attended
between May and November 2013 have been revealed.
Eight
councillors out of 37 went to all the meetings they were due to attend.
For Labour
those with a 100 per cent attendance record were Marion Ayling, Michael Jones,
Stephen Joyce and Chris Mullins.
For the
Conservatives Nigel Boxall, Richard Burrett, Vanessa Cumper and Alan Quirk had
a perfect record.
Related
content
Labour
councillors had a better overall record than their Conservative counterparts.
Labour
representatives attended 90 per cent of meetings while Conservatives attended
84 per cent.
The sole
UKIP councillor, Karl Williamson, attended four out of seven meetings – a 57
per cent attendance rate.
The
councillor with the worst attendance was Conservative Keith Brockwell, who
attended ten of 18 meetings, giving the Pound Hill North ward representative a
56 per cent attendance rate.
Councillor
Williamson's attendance became a talking point last month when Conservative
councillor Duncan Crow called for him to resign.
He accused
the former Tory of effectively giving up his council responsibilities while
continuing to get paid for being a councillor.
While Cllr
Williamson has the second worst attendance record, Cllr Crow made no mention of
his fellow Tory, Cllr Brockwell's record, which was slightly worse.
HOW MANY
MEETINGS DID YOUR COUNCILLOR ATTEND?
Councillor -
Possible meetings they could attend - Actual meetings they attended -
Percentage of meetings attended
*Marion
Ayling (Bewbush, Labour) - 8 - 8 - 100%
*Keith Blake
(Gossops Green, Conservatives) - 14 - 13 - 93%
*Sally Blake
(Pound Hill North, Conservatives) - 26 - 22 - 85%
*Howard
Bloom (Southgate, Conservatives) - 13 - 12 - 92%
*Nigel
Boxall (Tilgate, Conservatives) - 10 - 10 - 100%
*Keith
Brockwell (Pound Hill North, Conservatives) - 18 - 10 - 56%
*Brenda
Burgess (Three Bridges, Conservative) - 21 - 19 - 90%
*Bob Burgess
(Three Bridges, Conservatives) - 18 - 15 - 83%
*Lee Burke (Pound
Hill South & Worth, Conservatives) - 18 - 17 - 94%
*Richard
Burrett (Pound Hill North, Conservatives) - 14 - 14 - 100%
*Chris
Cheshire (Bewbush, Labour) - 15 - 11 - 73%
*Vanessa
Cumper (West Green, Conservatives) - 8 - 8 - 100%
*Duncan Crow
(Furnace Green, Conservatives) - 18 - 17 - 94%
*Claire
Denman (Pound Hill South & Worth, Conservatives) - 23 - 15 - 65%
*John Denman
(Ifield, Conservatives) - 19 - 15 - 79%
*Carol Eade
(Furnace Green, Conservatives) - 17 - 14 - 82%
*Ian Irvine
(Broadfield North, Labour) - 21 - 20 - 95%
*Michael
Jones (Bewbush, Labour) - 10 - 10 - 100%
*Stephen
Joyce (Langley Green, Labour) - 19 - 19 - 100%
*Peter Lamb
(Northgate, Labour) - 10 - 9 - 90%
*Bob Lanzer
(Pound Hill South & Worth - Conservatives) - 20 - 15 - 75%
*Colin Lloyd
(Tilgate, Labour) - 17 - 16 - 94%
*Liam
Marshall-Ascough (Southgate, Conservatives) - 16 - 10 - 63%
*Colin
Moffatt (Broadfield South, Labour) - 18 - 16 - 89%
*Chris
Mullins (Gossops Green, Labour) - 8 - 8 - 100%
*Chris
Oxlade (Ifield, Labour) - 10 - 7 - 70%
*Duncan Peck
(Maidenbower, Conservatives) - 7 - 5 - 71%
*Brian Quinn
(Broadfield North, Labour) - 9 - 8 - 89%
*Alan Quirk
(Broadfield South, Conservatives) - 19 - 19 - 100%
*David
Shreeves (Langley Green, Labour) - 15 - 14 - 93%
*Brenda
Smith (Langley Green, Labour) - 11 - 8 - 73%
*Peter Smith
(Ifield, Labour) - 21 - 19 - 90%
*Geraint
Thomas (Northgate, Labour) - 24 - 21 - 88%
*Ken
Trussell (Maidenbower, Conservatives) - 18 - 17 - 94%
*Lenny
Walker (Maidenbower, Conservatives) - 11 - 8 - 73%
*Bill Ward
(West Green, Labour) - 22 - 21 - 95%
*Karl
Williamson (Southgate, UKIP) - 7 - 4 - 57%
