I should imagine these are the words that Roger Gale MP might be saying to Cllr Ezekiel tonight. If they are not, then shame on him and the rest of The Conservative Party in Thanet..
It is my understanding that The Standards Chair, Mrs Jennifer Sterndale sitting with Cllr Tom King (Ind) and Mr Brian Hinchley felt the need to censure the conduct of Cllr Ezekiel in The Edinburgh Woollen Mill in June last year. I will wait for the precise details of the official decision that will appear,hopefully, in the minutes in due course.
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Lets be quite clear about the decisions of The Standard's Board of England and the decision of TDC's own Standards Committtee. They have both found that in simple terms The Leader of TDC has failed to act in a proper way on TWO occasions (April 2007 and June 2008) and has thus bought his 'Office' and the reputation of TDC into disrepute.
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Now is the time for all good Conservative Councillors 'to come to the aid of the Party' and insist that Cllr Ezekiel either resigns or is replaced.
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As far as Cllr Latchford is concerned, his 'leaping' antics do him no credit nor did his written submissions and 'evidence'. His saving grace is that after 4 attempts to get his Leader to leave, he eventually succeeded. He should accept that like C S Forester's 'The General', perhaps its time to head for the 'bath-chair' at Bournemouth and a peaceful retirement.
25 comments:
Trouble is Bertie that politics in Thanet is so very nasty that nobody else really wants the job!
Bertie, perhsps it is time for the the conservatives to reveal the many allegations of bullying and harrassment against cllr.ezekiel's wife by a former mayor that have never been addressed for you to understand what is really going on in thanet and in sandys mind. And what about the fabrication of the story by cllr.johnson about the wardens from being withdrawn from margate that made the traders sign a petition that caused all this fuss in the first place. Your blog is like the sun newspaper. All huff and puff to apease the masses, but not a lot of truth. Do you really believe that the conservatives would support sandy if they didn't know the whole story? and what does that make hart, johnson, aldred and all the others? complicit in repeated bullying againsta woman and not a word said. How noble is that? That is even more disgusting than anything the leader has done.
To say this was a 'whitewash' is an understatement. The refusal of the Chair to use a microphone made it very difficult to hear the first part and the two gentlemen of the press had to lean over the table where they sat trying to report accurately.
I was disappointed that having decided Cllr. Ezekiel 'was found to be in breach of the code of conduct' the sanction imposed was limited to censure. The Chair refused to take questions apart from when someone asked from the public gallery what 'censure' meant. What it means isn't clear. Is it just a metaphorical slap on the wrist or something more?
I was disappointed to hear Thom Morris from the Gazette say the story wouldn't be front page, more page three as 'people aren't that interested in it'. This is the second time Cllr. Ezekiel has been found guilty of bringing his position into disrepute in 15 months and the public should be interested. After all he represents not just his party but Thanet.
21.27, you clearly fail to grasp the pertinent issues and if you are typical of the Conservative mind-set on this issue in Thanet , then I will have to resign from the Conservative Party!
Lets take your points and answer them:
1. If Mrs Ezekiel's wife had any issues of bullying as an employee of TDC, there was a proper channel for those issues to be dealt with and they are irrlevant to Cllr Ezekiel's conduct in April 2007 and June 2008.
2. Whether Cllr Johnston was correct in her interpretation or not, concerning the issue of wardens, has no bearing whatsoever on the events described by two members of the press.
3. What exactly on 'Strife' is not the truth in regard to The Wollen Mill incident? I have quoted from material in a report considered by TDC and highlighted some inconsistencies e.g No evidence sought from the manageress?
4.Criticism of other Cllrs you name is irrelevant. If you have a complaint to make against them, then do so through the Standard's Committtee.
What you fail to grasp is the enormity of what has now happened in Thanet. The Leader of our Council has been found on two occasions within 15 months to have been in breach of Standards expected of him and as such is perhaps the only Leader of a Council in the UK to be in this position. Apalling.
21.35, I am concerned that you consider this a white-wash. The essential point is that Cllr Ezekiel has failed to conduct himself on two counts in a manner expected of him as a Cllr , let alone the Leader of TDC. The Standard's system has no teeth in reality in regard to 'punishment' and is unlikely to do so when matters are dealt with internally. The inescapable fact is that Cllr Ezekiel has not just once but twice, brought his office and TDC into disrepute. What more must he do before he, or others in his Party, think he should resign?
Your comment about the IOTG reporter's comments alarms me. If our local press fail to see the significance of tonights events, then heaven help us!
Thom Morris could not write a decent story if he was involved. Oh that's right he was!!
Therefore, he can't write a decent story because his editor won't let him!
Bought off and paid for by TDC and certain pub owners advertising no doubt!!
With Labour in disarray, the country bankrupt, elections looming the only tool in the socialist locker is to carry out frivolous,vindictive attacks on dedicated people serving Thanet.I understand, that Cllr IJ's pointless complaint has cost the tax payer close on £20,000 of lawyers fees and officers time, for what? just to carry on the personal attacks on the Leadership, along with the "gang of seven" in the Labour Group Leadership. This is the totalitarian state that Labour has now imposed by stealth, its time to wake up , smell the coffee get rid of those politicians on the Labour Shelf, who fritter tax payers money to serve their own nasty agenda. Sandy Ezekiel should do what he has always done and that is to put Thanet first and get on with the Job he has been elected to do,
21.27 your comments are exactly the sort of nasty vindictive attacks that keep coming from Conservatives close to the leadership - personal attacks have no place for normal decent conservatives, and that is why we (many of us) are not voting for you locally we are not attracted to that sort of politics and if you are trying to get candidates to stand for election ..perhaps you arent but you will do in the end when you are all voted off. The sooner you all go the better for Thanet.
Bertie,
By 'whitewash' I meant everyone there knew it was unlikely any sanctions with teeth would be imposed. The carefully composed apology on TDC notepaper, incidentally,several months after the event, was a clear attempt to try to brush the affair under the carpet.
Interesting that only two Tory councillors attended although one did have two parish councillors for support. Discounting the various councillors present, only six members of the public came and four or five of those came to support Cllr. Johnston.
If you think Roger Gale has that much influence Bertie you must be living in another part of the country. He is much too weak to keep control of his councillors, otherwise he would have seen many of them off beforehand or even vetoed their selection. They are just a small band of characters who are a law underto themselves and not representative of the decent people of Thanet.
If any Labour councillors criticise the conduct of a Tory then an immediate referral is made to Standards. Politics is nasty, according to the first comment here. Who made it so? Who can't accept criticism when justified? Why do only a handful of the public turn up for the meeting last evening? Stupid timing, of course, but more likely as Thom Morris is quoted as saying 'the public isn't interested'. Is it any wonder the public is getting switched off over politics and saying 'why bother?' Why can't these grown-ups get on with the job they were put in to do? get something done about Thanet. Work together to the same end!!
Bertie, you have missed a point here, there was no IF regarding Mrs Ezekiels complaint of bullying, it happened, as was acknowledged by her union, who took up the case. She is not an employee of TDC, but of the Margate Charter Trustees. TDC Cllrs form the Charter Trustees, but when the case was presented to the Standards board because a cllr had contravened the code of conduct on several accounts, it was not accepted..why, perhaps because the complaint was against a labour cllr? The whole thing stinks. Cllr Douglas Clark was never brought to account for his dreadful behaviour, no doubt there will be cries of he is a sick old man now, but he wasn't then.
Prevous comments have alluded to a cover up for the labour party and a set up on the tory party, funny how after apologies being made that johnston still wanted blood, nothing to do with her standing for kcc then?
cllr johnston is not innocent in this, it is just well orchestrated stage mangaged publicity prior to June, and Cllr Ezekiel has been led into it by having his commitment to the town questioned and his wife bullied and harrased.
I doubt anyone has spoken to her about what happened, and how she feels about it, perhaps as 21:27 said, the facts should out, and reveal Cllr Clark for what he is and the laour group for condoning it!
05.56, you are of course entitled to your opinion and 'take' on these matters. You may obfuscate the issue as much as you like but the point that Cllr Ezekiel has been found to have contravened Standards on two counts in 2008 and previously in 2007 and Cllr Latchford on one count is all that matters. To describe a complaint as frivolous when most of it is up-held, shows your blind support of men who have shown they do not know how to conduct themselves properly. We must beg to disagree.
09:52, I accused Mark Nottingham at the week-end of 'raking over the ashes' of Cllr Latchford's inappropriate e-mails and how it was irrelevant to the issue decided by TDC Standards yesterday. I make the same point to you about Cllr Clark. As you yourself state, the matter you refer to was dismissed by Standards at the time, so he has nothing to answer for in that issue.
I am worried that your interpretation and almost fanatical stance, flies in the face of all the evidence and yet you persist in it. Go and read the 'apologies' (they are on an earlier post) and ask yourself, would you accept them if you were Cllr Johnston. Their timing, structure, content, use of TDC headed paper and most importantly their DISTRIBUTION, was clearly not a genuine apology but an attempt at damage limitation.
Whether you or I like it or not, The Leader of TDC has now discredited himself publicly not just once but twice and that is not my opinion but the finding of The Standard's Board of England in 2008 and now TDC's own Standard's Committtee in 2009. You may be happy as 'blind' supporter of The Conservative Party and Cllr Ezekiel, with this state of affairs but I am not and consider your loyalty mis-placed. We must beg to disagree.
I have just issued a Claim, in accordance with High Court pre-action protocol, against Kent Chief constable. This is to pave the way, if it becomes appropriate, to seek a Mandatory Order of the High Court to compel certain investigations.
One small aspect is the conduct of a Thanet tory councillor. The allegations include setting up a complainant in his 70s to be intimidated by local police. Phoning witnesses to dissuade evidence and so on. Rather more serious than Sandy Ezekiel's conduct.
I have been antagonized far more than Mrs Ezekiel. Yet I am pursuing the law as remedy.
If the contributors to this thread really believe their own rhetoric. Could I look forward to their making a similar defence of my conduct if I decided to throw my weight about Ezekiel style.
I am rather too tough for any Thanet copper or tory.
I have to laugh at the "Might is right" type argument of the Thanet tory fringe. They would squeal a different tune if it was them nipped ....
The law is there for a reason.
But as I wrote on another blog if you want the rule of the jungle don't cry foul.
Oh come on you all, John Prescott smacks some dude in the face, its ok. Sandy gets cross with some little irish mad woman, not ok???? do we all come from the palanet mad???
I know for a fact that one of the local reporters spoke to RG today and asked him for his view on all this, true to form RG enganged his angry mind and came out with a stunning "no commment" by all accounts.
What an MP he really is!
We need someone who will engage more, not just trot that out everytime he doesn't like the question he's being asked.
We badly need someone to come along and to fight this guy at the next election, the area is slipping into the mire with every passing day and he's asleep at the wheel...
A sorry state of affairs.
19.30, Two Jags followed with Two Jabs and then Two Shags and brought himself and his office as Deputy Primeminister into utter disrepute and yet failed to apologise to the people of this country or resign. Are you citing him as a 'role model' for Cllr Ezekiel to emulate? That is what your specious logic leads to. Heaven help the Conservatives when they cite justification for failure to resign on the antics of Prescott!
19.70 Just another example of a nasty tory. The use in a derogatory sense of the words little irish mad and woman seem both racist and sexist, obviously posted by a man that doesn't have any balls himself.
Bertie,
You moderate but allow someone to refer to a Labour Councillor as 'a mad Irish woman'? Come on, you can't sanction that.
08:04, I try to keep unpleasant and defamatory comments off Strife, for obvious reasons. I was not impressed with 19.30's posting but felt that it perhaps illustrates more clearly than anything I could write, the unpleasant attitude of a small number of Conservatives and Conservative Cllrs to Cllr Johnston. It perfectly sums up the thinking that underpins the sort of actions that took place in The Edinburgh Woollen Mill and should have no place in politics within Thanet.
Bertie, you must remove the comment that contains "mad little Irish woman"
It is in breach of legislation.
Those Tories who seek to bring Cllr Johnston's ethnicity into this debate should think very carefully. Their own leader is a perfect target for many on that score.
Hugin, you are correct and I assume you are pointing out the dark places that vitriol can take us.
Please relax, 10.06. I have had one of my 'team' contact Cllr Johnston to discuss the comment in question. She is happy for it to remain.
Bearing in mind Cllr. Ezekiel made reference to his Jewish/ Scottish heritage in something I read I'm surprised he tolerates the type of fellow Tory who refers to Cllr. Johnston's Irish background as being relevant in this debate. He claims he's aware of racism on account of his background. Being part-Scottish makes you likely to suffer racism?
As someone of English stock it was the other way round when I lived north of the border but I got over it and don't wear it as a badge.
17.48, please forgive me for removing the sentence about ASBOs! I agree with what you have said but feel that it is too close to the bone, so to speak!
Here is what 17.48 posted with a sentence removed:
"I have been waiting patiently for a half decent Tory (there must be some out there somewhere) to admit that the currently Leader of the Council is a total embarrassment to himself, his Party and the Council and should resign.
Cllr Ezekiel****************** ASBO.
Come on do the decent thing Cllr Ezekiel and resign.
If he doesn’t and it doesn’t look like he will the Tory Group should take immediate steps and remove him.
18 March 2009 17:48
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