Time has a way of ensuring that the truth comes out. For politicians that make false claims and false promises, that is somewhat inconvenient. This brings me nicely to the last Crawley Borough Council election campaign in 2016 and the main election leaflet put out by the Crawley Labour Party exactly two years ago, that stated on its front page: “The alternative is a return to Tory control. Last time around they couldn’t even keep the grass cut”.
This assertion was of course complete nonsense but that doesn’t stop this falsehood being perpetuated. Fast forward two years to this year‘s Crawley Borough Council election campaign, and the Labour leaflets and letters say that Labour-run Crawley has “restored the grass cutting.”
Unfortunately for Labour, most of us in Crawley are able to actually see the current state of our grass verges, many of which are in an appalling state and have yet to have been cut before May arrives. Unlike Labour, I’ll be honest by saying the state of grass verges varies greatly each spring as weather conditions are a major factor in March and April. This was no different in years when we Conservatives ran our local Council and adverse spring weather also affects road surface conditions too.
I’m not going to make silly claims about which party can cut the grass better, but I do fully recognise that Crawley residents want our town to look nice, and a future Conservative-run Council will do everything we can to make it so.
Whichever party runs our local Council, It is of course the same council staff that actually does the real work, and by and large I think they do a good job. The key difference locally is that Conservative Councillors will always put Crawley first by getting on with the job and looking at ways to try and improve services, while Labour Councillors have a track record of making everything political and they put making political capital (i.e. attacking the Conservatives) ahead of everything else. In a nutshell, that is the choice facing Crawley this week at the ballot box.
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
2nd May 2018