.The letter pictured above is my official confirmation from the council that my name and party emblem will appear on the ballot on May 5th. It was a bit of good news on a sad day, the day that Eastville Library closes. Moves are afoot to turn it into a community hub, which it was already. This is better than being demolished and turned into flats, I suppose, but it still represents a cut imposed on Bristol City Council by the Westminster government. A regional assembly with tax-raising powers would allow the people of Wessex to set our own priorities for spending, rather than the City of London constantly having to turn the rest of the country upside down in order to help itself to whatever falls out of our pockets.
Being Greek Orthodox, I won't be celebrating Easter until May 1st. But thanks for all the cheap Easter eggs I'll be able to pick up on Monday or Tuesday at knock-down prices!
Well, actually, a city and a town, but I doubt Charles Dickens would have approved of such a clumsy title.
The town in question is Marlborough, where the town council is protesting cuts made by Wiltshire Council to local bus services. Here in Bristol, we don't have parish or town councils, we have neighbourhood partnerships, which are considered a division of Bristol City Council rather than an independent elected body capable of holding it to account. Had such an arrangement existed in Wiltshire, the Marlborough Neighbourhood Partnership would consist of members of the very council that had voted to cut the bus subsidies. The Wessex Regionalists believe that every neighbourhood should have an elected community council capable of standing up for local people. True democracy comes from the bottom up, not the top down. I had my meeting today with the council's electoral services department at their offices on Smeaton Road. I was slightly delayed due to the traffic disruption caused by the Metrobus works, thus giving me ample time to prepare my big speech to the council, if elected, asking why it is taking them 18 months to build a glorified bus lane when Brunel managed to convert the entire Great Western main line between London and Bristol from broad gauge to standard gauge in a weekend.
The officers of the council spent a long time dotting every i and crossing every t, and ensuring that everything was signed in triplicate, but eventually my papers were accepted. The only thing that remains is for them to verify the names on my nomination paper, but I don't anticipate any problem with that. The preparation is over. It is time to begin the campaign in earnest. I have my appointment to see the Candidate Liaison Officer next Tuesday, 22nd March at 1030. Provided that there are no errors in my paperwork, and I don't think there are, I will officially be a candidate for election. It's starting to get real, folks. Stay tuned.
I have asked for an appointment with the Candidate Liaison Officer for Bristol City Council, having successfully obtained the ten signatures of registered voters in Eastville Ward necessary to get my name on the ballot. Many thanks to the friends and neighbours who signed my nomination papers. Members of the major parties can just get ten members of the local party to sign, but that is not an option for small-party or independent candidates like myself. We have to ask the people who know us, or who live next door to us, which is what community politics is all about.
One signatory, who I won't embarrass by naming in public, asked me what the Wessex Regionalists were all about. I explained that we wanted a regional parliament for Wessex, to stop the vast majority of the nation's resources going...at that point, she finished my sentence for me; "...to London. Say no more". She added that she used to live in the Wen, and knew what a den of iniquity it was. It seems I struck a nerve! |
AuthorNick Xylas is the Wessex Regionalist candidate for Eastville ward in the Bristol City Council election for 2016.
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