The Sacrificial Ham

I appreciate where you're coming from. We'll have to agree to disagree about Polly's ability as a Cllr. Going off piste slightly, have you seen the state of the new trees along Newmarket Street? Absolutely shambolic - I'm sure they've died. Looking very withered with no leaves in mid-may. Those trees were so inherent to softening the new infrastructure. I've had no reply to my query to the Council as of yet.

Long time lurker, first time poster here. Thought I'd provide some general thoughts. I'm as dismayed as the rest of you at the seismic leap backwards that this past couple of days represents for local politics. That being said, I don't apportion the bulk of the blame to the people of Hereford or even the Tory candidates - I'll blame them for most other things, but not their election to the Council. The most significant determining factor, in my opinion, is the foolhardy leadership of the IOC and Independent. It might be that both are to blame, it might be that just one or the other was too obstinate and blinkered to negotiate with the other. Whilst I've have read on here that the IOC have had numerous attempts to coalesce or at least synergize the two parties approach to local politics rebuffed by Cllr Matthews, I do not have any substantive knowledge on this matter so it would be unfair of me to lay the blame solely at his door. Eitherway, I'm afraid the ABC (Anyone But Conservatives) opposition need to look internally for reasons of failure before blaming others. I would go as far as to say this point in time is the crossroads of local politics for the foreseeable future - keep on as two individual entities and the Tories will continue to sneak seats with 35-40% of the vote and remain in power; or have a bit of joined up thinking and at least force the Tories to need closer to 50% to take each constituency. The most obvious (and galling) case in point is of course Hagley Ward. Bingo's mate takes the ward with a 37% (!!!!) portion of the vote. The combined efforts of the two candidates with more humane morals (and hair growth) had 63% of the vote. That's not clutching at straws. Add in any proportion of uncertainty and the joined up thinking of IOC and Indies would've smashed Hagley Ward. On a separate note, I feel for Amanda who is clearly someone in politics for the right reasons, but is Cllr Andrews really the one to take the fight to, to use one of your best weapons against? From where I am, Polly has done a great job and Herefordshire Council is better for having her within it's make-up. We shouldn't have been forced to chose between the two, we should've had both. As someone else has suggested, perhaps a switcheroo with Whitecross and Widemarsh IOC candidates. Finally, advertisement! Where was it? I didn't feel the campaign outside of a couple of constituencies yet Tory banners were everywhere. With better advertising and championing surely a few more close seats could've been edged? Please don't take this as a slight against individual efforts which I know were often huge, it's more about the IOC branding, for those of us who weren't in when the knock came or for those who, as has been mentioned previously, just picked a familiar name. To retake a politics quote from it's sporting foster parent, it's all about marginal gains. A better overall strategy may manifested itself in a signifcant cahnge to the make up of the Council we see now. A good, and quite unbelievable, example would be the Tory Fort Knox of Golden Valley North. Firstly, IOC and Indies combined came close being just 20 odd votes behind. Unite the ABC approach and we're almost there. On the back of a strong County-wide campaign and who knows! Errors we're made, but oddly, this very fact gives me hope. There's so much to improve on, so many ways to work on what are very solid foundations. I just hope that in 4/5 years time, we look back on these errors as necessary learning curves for growth and not damning mistakes.