East Brighton by-election
On Thursday 8th February the voters of East Brighton ward go the the polls to find a replacement councillor in this safe Labour seat.
Brighton & Hove City Council’s 21 electoral wards return two or three councillors each and East Brighton is represented by Labour leader Warren Morgan, his deputy Gill Mitchell and Lloyd Russell-Moyle who because of his spectacular general election win to Westminster last year is resigning as a city councillor.
Therefore a safe Labour seat is up for the grabs and the local party have chosen Nancy Platts, no stranger to Brighton politics through having lost more elections than anyone else in recent times.
Yet, such is her standing with Labour’s revolutionary new membership is she is finally about to join the gravy train at long last.
At the 2010 General Election Nancy Platts lost Brighton Pavilion, a seat held by Labour for 13 years, to Green Caroline Lucas.
In 2015 she was selected as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown. Again she lost, this time to an increasingly unpopular Tory, who was subsequently swept aside by Mr Russell -Moyle MP in last year’s general election.
So it must be Labour’s hope that she isn’t rejected yet again by the electorate in this safest of their council seats. In that event our headline will have to be;
“Jonah screws it up again.”
Assuming she will be elected she will receive some £11,000 a year in councillor’s allowances and be free to pursue any good cause she so desires.
In the past one reason put forward for her rejection by the electors was her championing of the Fire Brigades’ Union during the election. Undoubtedly a worthy cause, but nonetheless it is her hobby, and should a politician be pursuing such at the expense of the taxpayer?
Is there a Fire Station in East Brighton ward? Will other voters get any of her time?
Of the City’s 54 councillors a number are extremely hard working and it is an honour to meet them. Others are sadly, a disappointment.
What would be fair on hard pressed council tax payers is if the majority of councillors accepted that politics is just a hobby and stopped claiming their allowances.
Then the top ten councillors could be paid full time salaries and represent everybody with the assistance of staff if necessary. This measure would bring forward the city’s best councillors and give every voter access to the higher calibre councillors.
Nancy Platts, if elected, could set herself apart from the rest by being the first Brighton & Hove City councillor to waive her allowances right from the start. That would make Labour’s Jonah the darling of the people.
East Brighton by-election
