I had no option but to stand for council
‘Stand for council’ was the headline in last week’s letters page.
Beneath it, former councillor Alec Oattes dared me to “put my hat in the ring and stand for public office”.
“Go on Bob, are you up for the challenge, to serve the people, or will you just continue to carp from the sidelines?” he continued.
Sorry Alec, I don’t do carping . . . I’m more of a carpe diem kind of guy!
Which is why I’m going to seize the moment . . . and accept your challenge. I will contest the Ayr West ward of South Ayrshire Council at the local elections on May 5!
Alec’s letter was written with his tongue firmly in his cheek . . .but I’m afraid he can’t claim to have forced my hand on this one.
This is no knee-jerk reaction or even a “protest” candidacy. I have been considering “my hat in the ring” for several months now.
I’m happy to send anyone who asks, a copy of my December 20 2021 e-mail to the Electoral Commission seeking clarification on standing for election in a ward where this newspaper column is widely read and might disadvantage other candidates who don’t have their own page of “carping” every week!
Of course, I am disadvantaged as well. Unlike Messrs Henderson, McGinley or Dowey, I can’t canvas door-to-door and exalt my five years of magnificent achievement for the hugely successful, efficient and popular South Ayrshire Council.
I mean, what a head start these guys all have!
Lindsey Hamilton of the Electoral Commission wrote “There is nothing to prevent you carrying out your normal profession while standing for election. Carrying on your column is unlikely to breach electoral law”.
However, in the interests of fairness and equality, the editor of the Ayrshire Post and I simultaneously agreed that impartiality might be best served if this column was suspended during the main electioneering period of April - and election week itself.
The cease-fire will begin on March 30. But hey, be assured, as councillor Shields or plain old carping Shields – I’ll be back on this page, all guns blazing, on May 11.
Why am I standing? And is this page big enough for the answer?
Well, as Mr Oattes was hinting, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to urge citizens to stand as independents . . . and not make the stand myself. In business, I have never asked anyone to do something I wouldn’t do myself.
And if that’s putting your arm in a bin liner and shoving it down a putrid pub toilet to remove a blockage, so be it! Anyway, from blocked lavvies – let’s get back to South Ayrshire Council!
I’ve always maintained that elected council members are only custodians – inheriting the work of others . . . then passing their stewardship on to fresher faces and new ideas. The minimum standard should be handing over as good a local authority as the one they received. Even better to have made some improvements along the way. With barely a month to go in their elected five-year term, the incumbent South Ayrshire Council has gone backwards.
As someone who cares passionately about Ayr and Ayrshire, the thought of five more years of decline was becoming intolerable.
As Edmund Burke almost said: “All that is necessary for a failing council to continue failing is for good men to do nothing”.
Last December, as Girvan fought for its Common Good land, a £36,000 offer for Darlington Church was declined in preference to a single £1, Ayr Station Hotel was kicked down the road, the Riverside Flats were being prepared for demolition and a 3500 signature petition to ‘Save the Citadel’ was rejected as an ‘improper protocol’ . . . I came to the decision that “to do nothing” was no longer an option!
I’ve used this page to point the finger at SAC for almost a decade.
If elected on May 5, I’ll be able to point my finger in the council chamber itself.
You’ll get no menacing Trumpist talk in my manifesto – I’m not going to Castle Greyskull to “drain the swamp”!
Our elected representatives aren’t bad people – they just make some bad decisions.
And too many of them toe the party line instead of speaking out against these decisions.
For me – and all the other independents standing – there will be no party whip.
I, certainly, will be supporting the people I’ll be sworn to “ne’er forget” and not any political masters.
The policies may come from the Nationalists, the Conservatives, the Labour Party, the Independents - or any strange combination of all four.
If it’s a good enough plan – I’ll support it. If not - I won’t. And I don’t care who I upset along the way.
I haven’t got a campaign team – well, not yet anyway.
I don’t even have an election agent – though I’m told I don’t actually need one.
I’m your DIY candidate.
But over the next few months, I’ll hope to put my aspirations through every letter box in Ayr West – and speak to as many people as I can.
Even though I’m a candidate, my election message is the same as it always has been – get out and vote!
Look at the people you are being asked to support – not just their parties – and ask who will best serve you and the community you live in.
I’d be honoured to be chosen as one of them.