Julien Parrott, independent councillor of Ellacombe, Torquay, was a bit of a lonely boy when he stood to be selected by UKIP as their candidate in Torbay – he was the only one up for the role, and he shook off his independence to do it.
He told thisissouthdevon: “I am standing for something I believe in. I have never belonged to a political party in all my life so that’s an indication of how important I think this is.
“It is a measure of how seriously I, and many others, take this as all the other major parties have wasted so much time and have not come to a credible position.”
A bit of a downer then when UKIP constituency chairman Mike Simpson said: “Julien was the only one to come forward as a candidate.”
Let’s hope he has better luck than when he ran for mayor in 2005 – he came 12th out of 14.
He was chairman of the Torbay Council scrutiny and overview board until September last year, when he ‘jumped before he was pushed’.
• Know who your PPC is? Get in touch! Comments below, please.
Loading ...
Of course Julien was not the ONLY candidate. But he was the only one to be ‘head hunted’ by us after Julie became Ill, as his website and our personal knowledge of him ‘told’ us that he was an ‘ideal’ UKIP’er.
Our FORMER PCC Julie Harrison Who was also excellent, had to drop out due to getting Breast Cancer.
spin that… ‘Peoples republic’ (who I have never heard of before !
Ian Walsh (Torbay UKIP Vice chairman)
PS. your site has a VIRUS
Of course, to ’spin’ it we can always say he was ‘groomed’ by UKIP, but we’d rather let your words speak for themselves.
Sorry that you haven’t yet joined our thousands of readers and subscribers – we did get in touch with UKIP through its website a number of times during the county elections, which probably weren’t passed on to the Torbay UKIP crew (what with it not being involved in the Devon County Council elections). That said, no one got back to us anyway.
To keep your finger on the pulse and to stay in touch with the PRSD you can check out the site everyday, follow us on Twitter, or Facebook, or MySpace, or Bebo or on RSS, or sign up to the daily email updates, or our email newsletter. And we’ve even been covered by the Western Morning News – twice!
Now that we’ve got you interested though, we’d be happy to receive press releases and even a column from your PPCs. Just check out our community guidelines and away you go.
(We are checking out the ‘virus’ – cheers.)
I apologise I got out of bed the wrong side. What with the Herald’s obvious (but expected) Bias. I did not want to see more here.
yes you could say that Julien was ‘groomed’. bur anyone who knows him would know that not be true.
I was annoyed at the Heralds play (and your copying) of the ONLY candidate bit. The fact is that if you approach someone you think would do a great job you don’t tell them after agreeing (and a long process that was.) that they will then be chosen from a room full of others you asked too. YOU ONLY do it the once if that person aggress to join you….And Julien did. how hard is that to see ?.
Ok if you will pint the truth WE WILL be back… telling the truth… fair enough ?
Ian Walsh
(UKIP)