Gone Missing !

I was saddened to read about the decision that Councillor Joyce Hill has made to switch her political Party allegiance just like that. I have always classed Joyce as a friend as well as a colleague.

I know that she must have felt disappointed at not receiving backing for yet another term as the Labour Party candidate for Fallings Park in 2004. Indeed we have spoken about her disappointment over a very long period.

But I am left totally bemused with the 'flip-flop' she has done and the very public declaration she has made to join the Liberal Democrats.

Last year that very same Political Party was accusing her of deserting the electorate of Fallings Park. They produced a leaflet suggesting that she had not been doing her duty as a Labour Councillor and was often 'missing'.

Now they trumpet that Joyce is 'warmly welcomed' and she now speaks of her 'determination and honesty'!That is a statement that simply just is not true.

We all know that the conversion that Joyce has undertaken has not been driven by her desire to put a long held Liberal Democrat philosophy before the electorate. She was spitting blood at the Liberal Democrats suggestion. She despised the Liberal Democrats for publishing those accusations. No... it is a decision borne out of a desire to hurt and embarrass, her former Labour colleagues. It is the politics of despair. It will lose her support, and I fear it will leave her shorn of her seat and in time her very own self respect.

I can understand her resentment when she lost the democratic vote at her Labour Party selection, indeed in the last few months we spoke of her deep disappointment, as she explained her anger to me at what she thought was her poor treatment. But none of us can go on for ever, even former Mayors of the Borough.

I was convinced some weeks ago that Joyce was going to leave the Labour Party, she had spoken to me of the thoughts that she was having of joining the Conservative Party. I urged her not to make that decision and as the time went on ....I thought that her commonsense and rational had kicked in.

Clearly anger and despair has clouded her vision, I fear that many of her electorates respect will soon also now be lost. People will question how a lifetime of Labour Party principle can be swept away, almost overnight in exchange for a place on a ticket of a Political Party that just twelve months ago was suggesting that Joyce Hill was "Missing in None Action". Indeed Liberal Democrats campaign documents suggested just that and I quote " many of the local problems , we are sure would not exist!" Inferring that Joyce was in fact part of the problem in Fallings Park......and not the heroine that they have welcomed on to their side today.

Sadly like Councillor Paddy Bradley, the Leader of the Conservative Group, I think that this decision will end Joyce Hills political career.............leaving the Labour Party and standing on principle as an Independent is what I expected her to do.
Now my friend is fair game in this Damascus type change that she has undergone and I do believe that the words that she has written down on her "Where I stand" leaflet that is being distributed by the Liberal Democrats across the Ward will act as her epitaph...........because she states herself that she was "seen as an embarrassment" .

I think that this will sadly be the case,as people equate her political gyrations as all about self interest. Clearly my friend Councillor Joyce Hill will now be in everyone's political sights, and is very fair game to aim at. Having defected as she describes herself as doing, she should now expect to be treated like a defector....... What a sad end.