Councillors often lose their seats in mid-term local elections. These elections are sometimes used to ‘punish’ unpopular governments.1 This is a fact of electoral life. The Collier Row and Mawney leaflet published by the Conservatives is blissfully unaware of this. They’re planning a coronation.
The leaflet (nos. 85) claims there’s a local Conservative Action Team. Their sole identified achievement was delivering the leaflet. This is an abnormal use of the word ‘Action’.
The 220 words in the leaflet are vacuous. There’s nothing about the positive impact the three councillors have made in 4 years. This is amazing because Jason Frost is the cabinet member for health during a pandemic!
The front of the leaflet2 is quaint, “Romford is a traditional English Market Town in the historic County of Essex3….” And,“…we fly the Union Jack from our Town Hall 365 days of the year!” This is so feeble it should be on a life support machine.
Meanwhile on the back there’s a surprise. There’s a series of bizarre questions. An example is Q3, “Do you agree that Havering must keep its special character as a town and country borough and should not become just another part of inner London.” This question is 57 years too late as Havering has enjoyed being part of London since the mid-1960s. Of course, the Conservatives might want to trade the London Freedom Pass for an Essex post code. In which case they should say so straight out.
Given that councillors have nothing to boast about in this pre-election leaflet, why would anyone vote for them again?
Notes
1 In 1968 Labour lost 21 of their 51 seats in Newham 1968 Newham London Borough Council election – Wikipedia
2 The Conservatives sometimes pad out their leaflets with quotes which owe more to artistic license than reality Romford Conservatives falsely quote residents in newsletters | Romford Recorder
3 Havering has been a London Borough since 1964 two years before Andrew Rosindell was born.
Politics in Havering 
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