Lazy Assets

CANVEY ISLAND INDEPENDENT PARTY (CIIP) plans to fight this May’s local elections riding the wave of public resentment over the Coalition Government’s financial cuts suffered a major setback this week when the party’s contribution towards resident objections to Essex County Fire & Rescue Service’s plans, to remove the island’s full-time fire engine crew, was found to be just more political grand-standing.

Having done nothing more than to promote his party’s petition against the cuts in the local press, the CIIP’s leader, Dave Blackwell, was then found to have nothing to say when it came to the important issue of persuading ECFRS to change its mind.

No statement on the important local issue was to be found on the Town Council’s new Website – and the CIIP’s own political sites were equally barren of intelligent debate on the issue.

It was left to this Blog to publicise the ECFRS meeting on the Internet – and to none other than the local Conservative Party’s Press Officer, Colin MacLean, to ensure the message reached as many islanders as possible through that party’s Facebook pages and those devoted to his personal ‘We Love Canvey’ campaign.

Had it not been for Colin, and the subsequent resident involvement from his devoting so much time to covering the issue on Facebook and the Methane, Mud & Memories Blog, the important public meeting, last Saturday, would not have generated so much public interest – and resident opinion would not have been heard.

It is notable that Colin’s Websites cost nothing (apart from his valuable time) – and yet the commercial sites of the CIIP and the Town Council absorb significant costs to run. The CIIP sites are funded by its party’s members – but the Town Council site is paid for by island residents.

Businessmen would regard both as ‘lazy assets,’ and some might say that the term is equally suited to the party and its councillors who run them.

Serious questions surround the CIIP’s leadership this week-end. Having been subliminally christened ‘Pink Sack Man’ (by none less than the Echo in Max Orbach’s piece detailing Blackwell’s complaint of not being allowed to speak at the ECFRS meeting) party councillors now face the prospect of being tarred with the same facetious brush during the local elections in May.

Certainly the image is much too good to be lost in this Blog’s own posts.

When a party leader is subject to ridicule in the only newspaper that could once be relied upon to provide its full support: it is time for that person to go; but will Blackwell ever release his grip upon the party that he formed?

More importantly, whom among the remaining CIIP councillors could possibly be considered as a potential leader?

Or are we about to see the CIIP implode?..