Other Obtiser articles

In the paper, BNP Councillor Nick Griffin describes how the other parties " behaved disgracefully " during the campaign, presumably referring to the Searchlight leaflets and the anti-BNP slant of the Labour leaflets.

A little bird tells me, however, that the police contacted him during the election to enquire about what the MBIs had put out that was supposedly illegal and libellous as the leaflet claimed that the police had been contacted and nothing had been heard at Morley Police Station. His reply was to the effect of he had no idea what it was about...

In amongst the thanks to the electorate by various candidates, there is a letter from Derek Bradley's Wife, Hazel, commiserating for the stalwarts who had lost their seat.

IN writing to thank the many voters who have had the confidence in us to represent their interests in our town and Scatcherd ward, our thoughts turn to two former town council stalwarts who will no longer represent parts of the Morley electorate.
I refer, of course to Mrs Amy Teale and Stuart A Welham.
My husband tells me of Amy's unfailing courtesy whenever addressing councillors within and out of the council chamber. Her questions on issues were well researched and penetrating and she always appeared to have the support of her fellow councillors. She always led from the front.
How do you condense 45 years political service into a few lines? With great difficulty.
Stuart served the people of Morley unswervingly both on our old, illustrious borough council as a Labour councillor, thence on to our new town council as an independent since inception in year 2000.
He regularly brought some of the traditional wordplay of the borough before the new town council and - by so doing - reminded us all of the right way and the wrong way to address the Councils a body.
For many years he was chairman of the Highways Committee and always made sure the interests of our citizens was of prime importance, indeed paramount.
His being fluent in German also suggests his motto could well be "ich dien" (I serve) - and he did, too.
We shall miss more councillors in the future. Let us hope they have elegies such as these.
COUN MRS H P BRADLEY
Scatcherd Ward,
Morley Town Council

The letter has the tone of being written by Derek himself and the praise for Amy seems a bit over the top- she frequently demonstrated that she was clueless on procedural matters and could get hopelessly muddled if the meeting strayed off-message from the briefing. This is someone who thought that converting a former toilet block to a Cafe couldn't be allowed because it would be a health hazard...

The praise for Stuart Welham is also somewhat over the top- although I admired his political incorectness, he would frequently make derogatory comments of others that were clearly audible but discreetly ignored for the sake of an easy time of it. He also typified the area in his hubris- You can always tell a Yorkshireman but you cannot tell him much...