IN his recent letter to you, thanking the 85 per cent of the actual voters (in fact only 425 Tory votes out of a possible electorate of 6,764) who voted for him, the new Lydney Town councillor Alan Preest wrote that he had detected missing elements! 1: the lack of poll cards. 2: the lack of a Labour candidate, and 3: the lack of courtesy shown to him by the local MP.
The lack of poll cards was singularly fortunate for him, for had people realised that there was an election, their minds might have gone back six months to an earlier election, remembered his name and his, then, political description and voted accordingly.
He asks whether the conveyor belt of Labour candidates has dried up? I don't know whether it has, but from the recent evidence it is certainly true that the Tories must have been scratching around.
Only months ago, Alan Preest stood as an opaque Independent against a Tory in that Lydney Town Council by-election. Now, some months later, up he pops again, but this time as a pre-loaded true Blue Tory, seeking yet another vacant Town Council seat!
The Damascus road seems to be an excellent Tory pick up point these days.
Presently, he has the effrontery to expect that his pamphlets should be treated with less than contempt, when, cavalier like, he has treated the intelligence of the Lydney voter with utter contempt!
Vicars of Bray are more alive and kicking than ever! – Tom Wilcox (sometime Mayor of Lydney).