Thursday, 17 March 2011

Nick & Tony - In Conversation!

Local Campaigner and prospective Lib Dem Councillor for Herontye ward, Tony Joannou-Coetzee, recently met up with the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, at the Party’s Spring Conference in Sheffield.

It was clear during this event that Nick supports the work of Lib Dem councils up and down the Country and is aware of the issues that face communities in their daily lives.  Indeed he made the comparison between two north-west cities; Sheffield and Manchester citing how the former, run by a Lib Dem authority, had achieved far greater success in managing the impact of the Comprehensive Spending Review than their Lancastrian neighbours led by a Labour local administration.
In Sheffield there will, unfortunately, be 270 jobs but this is a far cry from the loss of 2,000 positions (17% of the workforce) in Manchester.  Clearly a Lib Dem run council is much more likely to be able to protect jobs and front line services in these times of austerity.
Back to East Grinstead, Nick was particularly interested in the ward Tony is standing in and enquired as to how these were going.  It is refreshing that the Deputy Prime Minister can show a positive interest in our town and it is the same ‘man of the people’ type of approach that Tony will adopt if he is returned as one of your two Lib Dem District Councillors on 6th May.
Dame Shirley Williams definition of what it is to be a Lib Dem sums up Tony’s style of politics succinctly – “somewhat left of centre, in favour of public services, not against the market but see(ing) the market as being there to run part of the scene but not all of it.  And above all, people who are extremely conscious of inequalities in society”.

Tony is standing alongside existing Lib Dem Councillor Chris Jerry and many of you will already be aware of the tremendous work that Chris has done for Herontye over the past 4 years.

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