Mike O'Brien

“Council in Chaos” says MP

The Tory Mayor of Nuneaton and Bedworth has sensationally quit the Conservative Group to become an independent at the start of the election campaign.  The decision has left the Council in chaos.  Nuneaton was the prize Tory Council David Cameron visited immediately after the Tories won it for the first time in 25 years in May 2008.  Now bitter divisions among local Conservatives have been exposed.

Councillor Tom Wilson said of leaving the Conservative Group, “It’s like going into hospital and having a successful operation to get rid of something nasty out of your body”. 

He described the local group of Conservative Councillors as “disjointed and not giving value to our residents of this town…That’s been clear to me being first citizen.”

From now on Councillor Wilson has said he will be as an independent.  The decision is a bitter blow to the Conservatives as they try to launch their election campaign.  There are rumours that other Conservative Councillors may shortly defect to being independents. Indeed the Chairman of the Conservatives John Carolan has gone public in a letter to a local newspaper this week calling Tory Councillor John Ison a “moaner” because he had said the Tories were ignoring Bedworth.  

Nuneaton and Bedworth has developed a reputation as a disorganised authority ever since the Conservatives took control two years ago.  In June 2008 they agreed a bizarre secret deal with Conservatives in Coventry to build 3,500 houses in Bedworth for Coventry citizens, much to the annoyance of Bedworth people who would lose their green belt.  The Conservatives were forced to drop their support for the proposal last October.

They then proposed a merger of Nuneaton and Bedworth Council with Rugby and spending £85,000 on consulting on the project, but then denied they ever wanted to do it.

Bedworth MP Mike O’Brien said, “We’ve seen a Council in chaos. The Conservative Group have been feuding among themselves for two years and ignoring local people.  I am not surprised that Tom Wilson has got out of the nasty Party.  They have treated him badly and he has got fed up with it.  Theresa May described the Conservative Party as, “the nasty Party” a few years ago.  In Nuneaton and Bedworth they are setting out to prove Theresa May right”.