Blackpool politics get interesting

A ROW has broken out after Tory candidates refused to take part in elections hustings which they claimed were a Labour "stunt".

Ron Bell, who is standing for the Conservatives in Blackpool South, and the party's candidate in Blackpool North and Cleveleys Paul Maynard, have both declined invitations to join the debates.
They claim the sessions would not have been impartial but Labour said each meeting was to be chaired independently.
Labour candidates Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) and Penny Martin (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) had emailed the candidates from the other two main parties asking them to take part and suggesting dates and venues.

By Shelagh Parkinson

This IS intriguing. Gordon Marsden broke a world speed record getting away from my doorstep because he could not/would not debate with me, and according to the Gazette Ron Bell is doing exactly the same to him. What a pair!!

Marsden avoids me because of the history of one sided correspondence and because I unashamedly asked if I got no response because I am an ordinary, heterosexual, former regular soldier? He accused me of being insulting an almost completely ceased replying. So much for getting £10k per annum extra precisely to communicate with ones electorate! Stinks a lot in Westminster village!

Ron Bell does not want to debate because he cannot. If someone has access to past Question Time programme, the one several years ago broadcast from Blackpool, they would witness Bell in the audience as one of the three monkeys flushed with embarrassment and incapable of unfolding his arms to ask a question. How the mother duck is he going to perform in the Commons under the close glare of a direct television camera? He will not. He will become one of too many MPs who drift silently along the corridors and appear only when to vote as the Whip dictates. If you accept the evidence, this is largely what Gay Gordon has been doing for the past 13 years.

But enough about Marsden. What about the private/public face of Ron Bell. What he will not tell you is that he once thought about becoming a caseworker for Ssafa. He lasted less than ten minutes and that was how long it took him to realise it would not be about his advancement but the caring for others. Sue me you fat shit if I am wrong.

This is a man who sneaked his way into office after office. Although not elected to office by his own Royal Marine Association he was selected into a trusteeship of the main association, and that was after allowing the true delegate to be humiliated at an AGM at Lympstone. The delegate had paid his own expenses to the venue and was eventually invited to attend as an ordinary spectator.

In his position as secretary of the local RMA he was asked to assist the Welfare Officer in finding a home for a disabled comrade. He offered none. When asked for access to Association minutes he demanded that a member undertook a 700 mile round journey to view the documents even though they were all available for electronic transfer. When he was advised that funds were available through a Forces Charity and over £5.000 given for a reunion night, the event was turned into a gala night for the local Blackpool South Conservative Party and not one of the dozens of really skint former Marines were invited to their night. And that’s just the beginning of the hostility.

When the Gazette went on their pro Conservative campaign and promoted Jim Houldsworth to a Major in the Marines, calling him a hero and eulogising over his abysmal organisation of Remembrance Sunday, not a single word was allowed in criticism. When Houldsworth eventually went who took over as Chair of the Ex Service Liaison Committee? Bell. All the anxiety expressed by former regulars has been either dismissed or ignored to such an extent that a great number will not attend Remembrance Day.

And the nadir of it all was when not a single Blackpool organisation went to the aid of Andy Miller’s family when he was stressed to death by the long arms of administrative law. Bell, a JP couldn’t give a sh*t if an 80 year old died indirectly as a result of an over zealous bailiff, even though Andy was a veteran. I doubt if he has even given the legalised murder a glance.