Like a tory council: local elections 2010 round 2

If I were Mr Tomlinson or Mr Buckland I’d be worried. Not because of how their party’s lead has diminished in recent national opinion polls. Nor because of particular campaigning successes of their opponents, Mr Agarwal and the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, respectively. No, what would worry me would be the antics of the leadership of Swindon Borough Council. Mr Bluh through his arrogance and extravagant splurging of local taxpayers’ money on vanity projects, is giving the opponents of his party’s candidates in the national elections an easy target.

The leaflet dropped through my letterbox today by Mr Wright in the company of Mr Montaut is devious in its attempt to confuse national politics with local politics. Thus it compares recent expenditure by the blue nest controlled council with alleged ‘investment’ by national government — bragging about money spent by Mr Brown’s government without mentioning the record-breaking debt they’ve run-up is like praising a bullion robber for their money laundering skills. But all that is a side issue in comparison with the simple messages of Mr Bluh’s vanity projects — wifi, tabernacle stones, the Radio 1 Big Weekend — and a simple claim.

David Cameron has already said he would run the country like a Tory council – don’t give him the chance.

I can’t find the source of that claim. And if Mr Cameron were to run the country like most Conservative councils, I wouldn’t mind. But Swindon Borough Council isn’t like other Conservative councils — it’s one with a legacy of Mr Bluh’s failed vanity projects.