Why I hate politics

There can be no clearer reason for loathing politics more than the letters printed in the Eastern Daily Press in the last week attacking Norman Lamb MP.

Firstly, a Green Councillor from Norwich sought to claim that Norman Lamb was a hypocrite for handing in a petition with several thousand names on it defending rural Post Offices whilst, the Green Councillor claimed, at the same time Norman Lamb was the architect of the new Lib Dem policy to privatise the Post Office. Sadly, the Green Councillor had completely made up what he believed the Lib Dem policy to be and was wrong. The new Lib Dem policy is to sell the Royal Mail (the postal delivery and collection arm of the business), give one third of the shares to the employees (giving them a stake) and then using the £2billion from the sale to invest and protect the Post Office network, which will remain in public hands.

One wonders how it is that a Green Party Councillor could get it so wrong on this issue ? I guess people will have to draw their own conclusions as to why the Green's have to tell lies to make attacks on people.

The second politician to annoy me was Ron Stone, a former colleague of mine on North Norfolk District Council. One has to put Ron's attack in context. He was elected as a Lib Dem Councillor firstly in 1991, and won again in 2003 (when I actually helped print some of his leaflets). He was subsequently expelled from the Liberal Democrat group on the council for making a number of unsubstantiated allegations against council officers that he could not prove. He also made these attacks in meetings at a time when the council officers had no right of reply. He was later suspended by the Standards Board Adjudication Panel for England. http://www.adjudicationpanel.co.uk/documents/ape_0342_stone_full_final_decision.pdf
Subsequenty he resigned from the council completely. Sadly we can see why he might have an axe to grind, but he claimed in the letters page of the EDP that Norman Lamb's Lib Dems had promised to cut council tax by £100 in North Norfolk if the Lib Dems were elected. The fact remains that this is simply not true. Ron's own leaflets carried a clear promise that if the Lib Dems were elected to power in Westminster, the Lib Dems would cut £100 from Council tax, followed in later years by the scrapping of council tax, to be replaced by a fairer system based on people's ability to pay.

That's why I hate politics. People with petty axes to grind telling lies in order to make false attacks. People should remember when they accuse people of things in leaflets that they are attacking a person, a husband, a father, a friend, and not simply just a politician, a councillor or MP. Perhaps the Green's (who pretend to be so nice) in Norwich or other disgruntled people should think before they make things up in future.