Totnes by-election blues for the Greens

By PRSD, on Monday, February 8, 2010

The South Devon Green Party will put up a new candidate for the Totnes Town Council seat it had already won after their latest incumbent revealed that he wouldn’t be a member of the Green Party while Paula Black, the first Green Party county councillor, was still a county councillor.

It means another by-election for the town council seat, but Richard Fairfax, the chap in question, hasn’t elaborated, and Paula Black, the person he helped get elected as the first Green Devon County Councillor, said she has no idea what he’s going on about.

In another twist to this already tangled tail, the Fairfax fella said he would continue as an election agent for the Totnes Green Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Lydia Somerville.

In a spirit transparency Lydia told thisissouthdevon: “It is a Green Party matter and we are addressing it in our own way.”

Other Totnes Town Councillors have describe the whole thing as a ‘pantomime’, which continues – candidates who want to contest the once-filled and now-vacant seat on the Totnes Town Council have until noon Friday, February 12 to get their nominations in, with the election taking place on Thursday, March 11, if more than one person puts their name down.

We’re also confused as to who will stand for the South Devon Green Party in the General Election in Exeter – Paula Black says it will be her, but other sources have suggested it will be Andrew Worthley. If you know, comment below!

• The South Devon Greens is apparently the largest chapter of Greens in the country. Will they manage to make any inroads in the next elections (district and general)? Comments below, please.

Come and enjoy Devon – book a hotel and get away!

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Time to weed the Garden

Having recently rejoined to Greens in the interests of providing Torbay with a balanced democratic choice in the next election I am disgusted again by the behaviour of messrs. Somerville and Fairfax in operating their totalitarian regime. Their petty dictatorship is built on all of the principles that the Green Party purports to represent.

Since her power quest, which commenced upon her arrival at Totnes with the intention of furthering a political career that in my mind is as far removed from the "transparency and democracy" that she dares to use.

The behaviour of her elite little quango is damaging to the party, Quietzapple, especially in a General Election year - since it seems both Mr. Fairfax and herself are intent upon sabotaging any surrounding seats that threaten her little country dictatorship. It is consistently underhanded (what has been "transparent" about Fairfax's public and unexplained attack on Paula Black for instance? This is an abhorrent and juvenile smear campaign of the worst kind, leaving only questions, not answers.

Lydia Sommerville and her lackey are not only behaving publicly in a way that makes the Tones Greens farcical, but should by rights insist any members with integrity demand for her resignation and that of Fairfax for unconstitutional behaviour.

I hereby detract my membership of the Party, having witnessed every reason I joined and felt that it should exist utterly betrayed by a petty little "teapot dictator". I make it clear that I mean this as no reflection on the Party as a whole - but since Sommerville has destroyed much of the chances of local representation in a vital upcoming election, she has essentially betrayed a large percentage of the voting populace in Torbay and it would be absurd to support her in her disgraceful and detrimental tirade.

I would suggest strongly that other members petition for both her removal and that of Fairfax before she does any more damage to the electoral process.

Spin is one thing that the Greens are committed to stand against as I see it - but their barefaced cheek in using words like "Democracy" and "transparency" is absurdly farcical. I in no way mean this to reflect upon other candidates, such as Paula Black - South Devon desperately needs strong Green representation, but Lydia Sommerville little "Dibley Mafia" is not the way. An essentially self appointed tyrant who betrays all democratic principle is not the way forward. Along with Fairfax she has set a course that makes a mockery of the Party she represents.

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supporter of transparency &amp; democracy

Who stands in South Devon will be who Lydia Somerville (Totnes PPC) allows to stand.

She has stabbed the one person wiling to stand for Torbay in the back this weekend (in secret) and had her unceremoniously and permanently thrown out of the Green Party for questioning her undemocratic procedures. The member concerned, was not even consulted!

South Devon Green Party is a fallacy. It is Lydia Somerville's Party and always has been. That has never been a secret.

“It is a Green Party matter and we are addressing it in our own way.” means 'they will do what I (Lydia) tell them to do, just like always'.

Quietzapple

It may be forgotten that in the late '80s - '88 perhaps - a Green got 39.9% in Bovey Ward of DCC in a straight fight with the tory incumbent. Just about no canvassing, one leaflet and only a part of the area had been fought at all before.

Only one Devon Green CC twenty years later is better than none.