Friday 21 November 2008

Sad Day

Today I read the sad news that my friend and fellow former Lib Dem campaigner and colleague Debra Storr has quit the party group on Aberdeenshire Council due the illiberal attitude of colleagues (???can I still call them that). Her crime was too look at the local issues affecting the Trump application and base her judgement on that, along with three other colleagues including David* Martin Ford the former chair of the planning committee who voted against it.

I did meet up with Debra at conference and had a conversation with her about how things were going. Then she told me that the party were planing to exclude her and her fellow no voters from the party, the meeting over Debra happened on Monday night, a meeting at which she was unable to attend, nor was she informed of the outcome.

It is a sad day that someone with such strong liberal and green credentials who stood up for many of the same fundamental values as myself has been treated in this way my members of the party I belong to. Where are their liberal and democratic principles?

* Must not mix up my Alliance Party Leaders and Aberdeenshire Councillors.

13 comments:

  1. Both Debra Storr and Martin Ford have been treated disgracefully. Little short of McCarthyism.

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  2. I agree that people like Debra and Martin Ford have been badly treated by the so-called Lib Dem group. However, Debra is just quitting the council group, not the party as a whole.

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  3. Thanks Bernard that's what one gets for skimming a poorly worded BBC report and blogging it with minutes to spare this morning. Updated.

    As for me getting David and Martin Ford mixed up that is the issue with being involved with two alligned parties. :)

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  4. So the BBC article that says:

    "A councillor who opposed Donald Trump's £1bn golf resort has resigned from her party, claiming she was the victim of a "witch-hunt"."

    .. is wrong? Surely not?

    Either way, she's been treated appallingly, as has Martin Ford. It's not just the local councillors, the MSPs have hardly supported their right to uphold the local plan.

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  5. Sadly James having as I said talked to her about it this is not the case.

    There are some of my party over whom I dispair at times. However, she has said she has recieved a great deal of support from within the party from all across the country.

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  6. Don't know too much about the ins and outs of all this, but the Aberdeen Evening Express front page after the initial decision was taken was a disgrace.

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  7. As a member of the party executive she voted for a document calling for my expulsion & alleging that a motion I had drafted for conference, calling for debate of tax cutting to improve the economy, was "badly drafted" & "too right wing" to consider.

    In fact the final draft had been written by her. She thus deliberately voted for a motion which, untruthfully, said she was incompetent.

    The executive voted unanimously that in saying windmills would not keep the lights on & that tax cuts would help the economy I was being "illiberal" & "to right wing" to be a member. Such a thing could only have been claimed by people who have absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the ideas liberalism was founded on.

    I understand that the party are now promising, clearly dishonestly, to support tax cuts.

    The description of her as having "such strong liberal and green credentials" is clearly untrue on the "liberal" part though she is certainly willing to tell any lie to support the eco-fascist cause.

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  8. Neil thank you for you contribution. I have read through the motion five times already and must agree that it is badly drafted, sadly it hard to follow any argument or proposition through the test in a clear and coherent fashion.

    Even with my degree in Economics and knowledge of classical and evolved liberalism through the centuries I can not pass judgement on your comments regarding that just yet as I'm still looking for a rosetta stone to help me break down the code.

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  9. I previously left a comment here which you have alleged on my blog that you would have published had the electrons turned up on your site.

    I asked you which part of the phrase in my motion "iv) make a substantial reduction to corporation tax in Scotland" you had trouble understanding?
    ---------------
    I note that though you allegedly did not receive my last comment you have tried to answer it on my blog.

    May I also point out that, whatever your failure of comprehension Ms Storr did, after she had finished drafting it say it was perfectly fit for presentation which is rather more important than your difficulty.

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  10. Neil to answer your accusation on how I knew you had posted on your own blog that I hadn't replied to you simply the Google Alert I recieve for my own name flashed up your blog.

    There is no alleged subterfuge on my part about not allowing a blog post as you will have noticed the two times you successfully posted a comment these were both added momentarily and I do not keep a track on posting 24/7.

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  11. 2 of the 3 times.

    Bernard Salmond, an LD blogger who covered the same story also decided to censor both my 2nd & 3rd posts.

    Which looks like a trend.

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  12. Well seeing as both Bernard and myself use blogger it may well be an outage problem at the server end.

    I only briefly had moderation turned on on this blog and that was during the Livingston by election.

    I am awaiting a reponse from Google regarding this unfortunate incident which you seem unable to believe had nothing whatsoever to do with me. My other readers may well be able to back up the fact that I have never censored anyone on here.

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  13. Well Bernard actually put up a post saying that he was banning the 1st of these 2 posts so he must have received it.

    I had named somebody he had described as "a former Liberal Democrat leader" who he correctly said I had described highly unfavourably due to his strong support of, & close links to, ex-Nazi (ie they had served in the SS & other Hitlerite forces) leaders publicly committed to racial genocide of millions of Serbs & any non-Moslems.

    The reason given for deleting it was that he alleged he feared being sued by the former leader. Taking this at face value I put up the second comment not identifiying him any further than Bernard had already done himself & also pointing out that the FM certainly knew I had said this & had evidently decided he could not succesfully sue. Strangely enough, despite having satisfied the alleged reason for censorship I remained censored.

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