DAVID WARBURTON RESIGNS! Somerset Independents Led the Way While Others Followed

 

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We called for the Tory Somerton and Frome MP to go last year - at last and at least, he's done the right thing! We kept the pressure up for months and years. We investigated David Warburton many times and published here on this website.

The Mail on Sunday is reporting that Somerton and Frome's disgraced Conservative MP David Warburton has now quit!

"David Warburton, 57, says he is resigning his seat because he was denied a fair hearing by a parliamentary harassment watchdog investigating allegations that he made unwanted advances to two women.

But in an exclusive interview with this newspaper, he admitted taking cocaine after drinking 'incredibly potent' Japanese whisky with a third woman – who secretly photographed and recorded him after he visited her flat following a late-night vote in the House of Commons."

Somerset Independents puts residents first. For years, we listened to residents who complained to us that they were not being represented in the Somerton and Frome constituency by David Warburton.

Andrew Pope challenged the Conservative Chief Whip, Mark Spencer, who did nothing. We showed the type of company that David Warburton kept, including former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, and it was not pretty.

We showed his register of interests. And we showed that he was a disgraced Conservative - NOT a real Independent MP.

And we were the first to say that Warburton should resign. Others followed our lead, from the other Westminster parties.

The people of Somerset deserve better than the Tory MPs who do not represent them. 

Will the new MP be any good? Time will tell.

Somerset People Robbed Of Democracy By Westminster - But How Many of Them Really Care?

 

Lib Dem, Labour, Green or Tory - Same Old Story

by Andrew D Pope, 1st April 2023

It is no April Fool's joke. The robbery of democracy is deadly serious. And the people of Somerset will suffer, and pay for it with millions if not billions of public money.

Today is the day - yes, it is on 1st April 2023 - that all four of Somerset's district councils die, as does the Somerset County Council.

It sounds dramatic. But how many people in Somerset really care?

Few People Will Mourn the Loss - Until It Is Too Late

Council Officers and Councillors Were Paid Public Money

How many people will mourn the replacement of the district councils with a "new" Somerset council?

It might be fewer people than you think. Those council officers who will be made redundant, might mourn the loss of the council. Some of them will be relieved to have escaped their jobs. Others will have jobs in the new Council, which should worry Somerset people, given some officers' poor performance in the now defunct councils.

So council officers aside, how about the councillors who were supposed to represent you? 

Some of the councillors have been elected to the new Somerset unitary council, including some to the Cabinet. That should worry the people of Somerset, given these councillors' record of failure and profligacy in positions of power and control over public money.

Other councillors have tried to make out that they did a good job of representing you. Maybe around 10% of the councillors did actually represent you well. That is for the people of Somerset to decide.

And other councillors were forced to quit, lost their seats or chose not to stand for election. Some of them felt that they had to go, after being exposed by investigations done by Somerset Independents and our volunteers.

The People of Somerset Will Have To Pay

What about the people who matter most - the people of Somerset?

Will they care about the inevitable failures in services that affect people's lives?

How many even know about the council changes?

And will the lessons be learned from the forced mergers of West Somerset and Taunton Deane  councils?

Is it too late now?

These are open questions. Time will tell. 

What is without doubt is that the poor performance of the district councils, the councillors and officers, will leave a painful legacy for the people of Somerset.

The Experts Spoke - But Westminster Party Councillors and Council Officers Ignored Them

What is beyond doubt - as stated by De Montfort University in their Future of Local Government In Somerset (FoLGIS) report - buried by councillors in the appendices - is that democracy has been robbed. De Montfort did not use these words, but that was the message clear in their expert advice.

De Montfort told councillors that such reorganisations in the UK and the world over, do not deliver for local people.

The University wrote in the FoLGIS report that such moves would mean democracy is more remote from the people of Somerset. And the academics warned that these moves will cost money - public money.

The warnings were there. But councillors and council officers ignored them.

No Yes/No Referendum - But Somerset Independents Tried

Somerset Independents campaigned loudly for a Yes/No Referendum, but the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, Labour and Greens all failed to make it happen. 

Local media outlets did not help report on our Referendum campaign, or shine a light on the shocking decisions being made by Councillor David Fothergill and his Conservative cronies in Taunton and Westminster. The lack of vigorous reporting on such matters also shows how democracy is not being served by journalists holding those in power to account.

Instead, Somerset people had a Referendum on which of two buckets of manure they wished to have poured over the heads. Two councils or one council in Somerset. But that was also a lie promulgated by the deposed Leader of the County Council David Fothergill. There are already two other unitary authorities in Somerset - North Somerset Council and Bath and North East Somerset Council.

No Yes/No Referendum was given to the people of Somerset. This was despite the last Referendum on the issue - in 2007 - delivering a resounding 82% NO to a unitary authority.

Democracy has been robbed. It is deadly serious. And it is not an irrelevance of reorganisation. These changes will affect people's lives.

Deluded Fothergill's Bruised Ego Can't Let Lib Dems Take Credit

Yet Councillor David Fothergill is claiming it as some sort of victory for him. 

Brass-neck award of the year? Possibly.

My first conversation about a unitary Somerset Council was in Sept 2017. Nearly 6 years later that day has arrived! For their help in making the vision a reality I am very grateful to @RishiSunak @SimonClarkeMP @michaelgove @LukeHall @KemiBadenoch and the late James Brokenshire pic.twitter.com/DTAMNINxsw

— David Fothergill (@DJAFothergill) March 31, 2023

This was despite the people of Somerset removing him as Leader of the County Council. And removing many Conservative councillors in the local elections, some of whom had voted to delay elections and lobbied their Tory mates at Westminster to scrap the councils - against the wishes of the people of Somerset.

Let's not forget - Councillor Fothergill did not want to speak to Local Democracy Reporter Daniel Mumby when the results of the elections were coming in and it was becoming clear that his actions and those of the Conservative Party, led to his demise as Leader of the Council and the loss of control of the Council.

Councillor David Fothergill Refuses Media

The Lib Dems' Profligacy Was Proven At The District Councils

The Liberal Democrats gained a majority. Perhaps that explains their pathetic capitulation and acceptance of this thievery of democracy and public money from the people of Somerset.

Yet the people of Somerset voted the Lib Dems in. Somerset Independents chose not to stand any candidates, for reasons explained elsewhere on this website.

Already the Liberal Democrats are getting their excuses in, blaming the previous Tory administration for financial mismanagement. The Leader of the County Council Lib Dem Councillor Bill Revans was trying to soften the people of Somerset up for the inevitable let down, and has been warning of budget gaps and cuts. Just as David Fothergill blamed the preceding Lib Dem administration for their own failures, the Lib Dems are doing the same. Lib Dem or Tory, same old story.

Yet it was the Liberal Democrats who controlled three of the four district councils, and who have gone on rampant spending sprees with the money of the people of Somerset for electoral gain. But it will be the people of Somerset who will have to bail them out with public money.

The Tories were in control of the County Council until they lost it to the Lib Dems. And also in control of Sedgemoor District Council, whose Leader apparently did not agree with the forced reorganisation, but it happened anyway.

A Pretence of Democracy Ignoring the Failures of Cornwall and Wiltshire

All those district and county councillors and councils have been lost, to be replaced by a pretence of democracy. A unitary council covering most of the large county of Somerset. The mistakes of Cornwall and Wiltshire have been repeated in Somerset.

Instead of councils closer to the people they are supposed to serve, albeit they did it very badly as we pointed out on many occasions, Somerset people will have inept and powerless parish and town councils and councillors. And something called "Local Community Networks" (LCNs).

Nobody asked for it. There was no Yes/No Referendum.

It has been forced on the people of Somerset. And it is them who will pay.

We tried to warn Somerset's people. But there is only so much that we could do as volunteers and campaigners, relying on self-funding and donations.

Perhaps it will only be when the millions of pounds of public money that will inevitably be wasted, and the failure to improve council services, that the people of Somerset who did not care, might wake up and realise that they have been robbed.

The Same Old Story - Westminster Treats Somerset Like A Distant Province

Once again, it is a case of Lib Dems, Labour, Green or Tory, and the same old story.

Westminster does not care about Somerset, or its people.

Is it too late to care? Time will tell. 

I thank those people who contacted Somerset Independents for help, and those who helped us in our campaigns.

But this is no April Fool's joke. The robbery of democracy is deadly serious. And the people of Somerset will suffer, and pay for it with millions, if not billions of public money.

David Warburton MP Under Multiple Investigations Yet Local Media Seem Keen to Forget?

 

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Somerset Independents puts residents first. Other media outlets who claim to be impartial and unbiased receive advertising monies, with some including that from political parties and MPs. We are fully funded by donations and rely on the good will of volunteers who live or work in Somerset.

Since being founded, Somerset Independents has put a great deal of work into holding Somerset's elected representatives to account - councillors, MPs and the Police and Crime Commissioners. At the same time, other media outlets in Somerset have been absent from their duty of standing up for the public interest in the ethics and standards of the County's representatives.

The Nolan Principles apply to all elected representatives. Yet some councils, council officers, councillors or Parliamentarians in Somerset seem to think they do not apply to them. Perhaps this is unsurprising, given the unwillingness of some media outlets to hold them to those Principles. The case of David Warburton is one such.

On this website, we have published details of our investigations into David Warburton, the former Tory MP for Somerton and Frome. It started when his constituents complained to us that he did not reply to them. 

Warburton has been referred to - misleadingly in our opinion - as an "Independent" MP, but this is only because he had the Conservative Whip withdrawn. The withdrawal of the Tory Whip was a result of investigations into him. It would be more accurate to call him the "Suspended Tory MP for Somerton and Frome".

We took it up with the local Conservative Party associations, who gave us some interesting information, but then suddenly the flow of information stopped.

It is important to note the plural investigations into Warburton. There has been more than one. 

For months since April 2022, the cloud of doubt hung over Mr Warburton. This was no thanks to some local media outlets, who were much more reluctant than Somerset Independents to report on the investigations. Some even defended him, including those who receive paid advertising monies from Mr Warburton.

We are grateful to some national media outlets, in the absence of publication by local media.

One Investigation...

After months, the parliamentary investigation finally reported back. As reported by The Guardian, the commissioner for standards Kathryn Stone found that Warburton "broke the MPs' code of conduct twice". But Stone did not find Warburton guilty of "paid advocacy". No formal sanctions would apply to Warburton, the commissioner ruled.

More Investigations...

But this was not the only investigation. Again, as reported by The Guardian and Somerset Independents, Warburton had also had the Conservative Whip withdrawn "over separate claims of sexual harassment and drug use", which Warburton denies.

As far as Somerset Independents is aware, these investigations are still ongoing.

In January 2023, The Times has reported that despite being investigated in a sex and drugs scandal, Warburton will be seeking re-election.

In our view, he should already have resigned and there should have been a by-election in the Somerton and Frome constituency.

Why Do Some Local Media Seem Keen to Forget?

Yet some local media outlets seemed keen to forget. Others are totally ignorant of the allegations of Warburton, preferring not to report them at all. And some have sought to defend Warburton.

Why might this be? We will let you draw your own conclusions about the independence of those media outlets and whether they are standing up for Somerset and its residents.

Somerset Independents has always stood up for residents, ever since being founded almost three years ago.

Who Are Somerset Independents?

Our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page is here.

We can be contacted at the link here and via Twitter @SomerInds, via Facebook at the Somerset Independents page and via email at somerinds [at] gmail.com.