Sutton (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Mystery deepens as LibDems withhold a key ‘Suez-Gate’ video ahead of a Sutton ward by-election, raising concerns of political censorship.
In an attempt to hide their party’s backing for a proposal to construct a potentially explosive food waste industrial plant on Beddington Lane, the Liberal Democrats in Sutton have been charged with stifling an official recording of a recent planning meeting.
On April 2, the planning meeting was held. However, a week later, the meeting’s video footage is still missing from Sutton Council‘s website.
According to one wag with an extremely long memory, “Liberal Democrat Sutton will soon have more missing tapes than Richard Nixon’s Oval Office.”
Some opposition groups are complaining that the council’s chief executive, “Hapless Helen” Bailey, who makes £240,000 a year, is favoring her LibDem friends by stifling the video nasty from the planning meeting, especially since the LibDems are attempting to retain a council seat in a by-election in Sutton Central ward today.
Senior Liberal Democrats like “Calamity” Jayne McCoy chimed in with enthusiastic acclaim for a proposal that, if approved, would have seen 100,000 tonnes of food waste trucked into the borough annually, but the opposition members of the committee rejected Suez’s planning application.
The top legal official for Sutton Council, Tim Martin, stated earlier this week that “some technical issues” prevented the footage from being posted.
“It appears that our providers are still attempting to recover the actual recording of the meeting as it may not have been captured due to these technical issues,” Martin wrote in a letter to one council member.
Not everyone who understands how LibDem-controlled Sutton operates is persuaded.
According to a Sutton insider, “history is repeating itself.”
Only once before, after McCoy had assisted in passing an application to give Viridor permission to burn hundreds of thousands of tons of high-sulfur diesel fuel at their Beddington incinerator, did a recording of a Sutton meeting “mysteriously” vanish.
Tim Foster, the independent councillor for Beddington who raised the latest missing tape issue with Martin, today told Inside Sutton that the monitoring officer’s response was “weak”.
Foster said,
“Since my election in 2018, I have only been unable to review two committee meetings – both in planning and both involving waste proposals for Beddington Lane.
It is clear that council officials and the ruling Liberal Democrats are prepared to do anything to make Beddington the dustbin of the borough.
Air quality, HGV erosion of the environment and resident health appear to be, in their opinion, acceptable casualties of a perverse business strategy.”
Only because former LibDem deputy leader David Bartolucci failed to attend council meetings for over six months is today’s by-election being held.
Bartolucci had a fit and simply failed to show up after his party colleagues passed him up for the top position when Barry “Basher” Lewis took Ruth Dombey’s place as council leader. Naturally, during his six-month absence, Bartolucci continued to receive thousands of pounds in councillor allowances.
The day after Inside Sutton revealed that Bartolucci had been disqualified, Sutton Council confirmed the date of the by-election.
Opposition parties have used the controversy around the missing film as a means of attacking the Liberal Democrats’ approach to accountability and openness throughout the by-election campaign. Undecided voters who respect transparency and integrity in local government may be influenced by this issue.
The video recording is significant because it has the potential to affect voter choices in the by-election, alter public perceptions of the Liberal Democrats’ accountability and openness, and offer proof of their position on a divisive issue.
The Sutton Central election campaign has seen what is believed to be a first in a south London council election – leaflets written in Cantonese – alongside a tried and trusted LibDem campaign tactic: deliberate deceit.
As the ever-excellent Andrew Teale notes in his preview of today’s Sutton Central by-election,
“The LibDem majority on Sutton council has… slipped in recent years, and the 2022 elections… returned 29 LibDem councillors against 20 Conservatives, three Labour and three independents.
One of the Labour councillors resigned last year and the Conservatives gained the resulting by-election in St Helier West ward.”
And Teale writes,
“The fall in Sutton council’s LibDem majority in 2022 shows that not all is rosy here for the yellow team… It appears that Bartolucci basically stopped fulfilling his democratic duties… and he was automatically disqualified from the council last month for failing to turn up to any council meetings within the previous six months.”
Seven people are vying for the position in a ward where the Liberal Democrats took three seats in 2022 with 39% of the vote, followed by Labour candidates with 27%.
Reading one of the LibDem pamphlets wouldn’t tell you that.
By encouraging their followers to vote against the Tories, the LibDems are attempting to “squeeze” the Labour vote.
“Remember!” is written in large, bold capital letters on the LibDem leaflet. “LibDems or Conservatives are in control here,” meaning that Labour cannot prevail. Ed Davey must feel quite proud.
In addition, a popular bar chart used in Liberal Democrat campaigning places the LibDems at 40% and Labour at just 17%. The numbers intentionally mislead the voting patterns in the Sutton Central ward and are derived from the 2022 borough-wide poll.
The information on their leaflet’s artwork is even titled “Squeeze,” demonstrating how blatantly the LibDems are using this dishonest strategy.
The LibDems are also the source of the Cantonese leaflets, which target the region’s sizable exiled Hongkonger population. Choi Ka Yuen, as he is listed on the ballot, or Richard Choi, as he is listed on the party’s leaflets, is their candidate.
Choi, who relocated to Sutton in 2008, owns a small business. He had been chosen by the LibDems prior to Bartolucci’s official disqualification.
Businesswoman Maria Arif is running for the Conservatives, while Kerrie Peek, a Labour candidate, ran in the district in 2022.
Ashley Dickenson of the Christian Peoples Alliance, Joanna Bishop of Reform UK, Peter Friel of the Greens, and Pamela Marsh, an independent resident candidate, are also in the running.
Given current polls and past council by-election results in London, Sutton’s Liberal Democrats are believed to retain the seat because they have never lost a council by-election in a ward when they were the incumbents.
Tonight, polling places are open till ten o’clock. Voters are reminded that in order to cast a ballot, they will need to present a valid ID.
Why is the video recording of the planning meeting important for the by-election?
The discussion and decision-making process surrounding the Suez food waste industrial facility project would be clearly documented in the movie. To guarantee that council members are held responsible for their words and deeds during the meeting, this openness is essential.
The video might show how Jayne McCoy and other Liberal Democrat council members backed the Suez proposal in spite of other committee members’ objections. This information is important because it may affect how voters view the Liberal Democrats’ positions on health and environmental issues.
Opposition organizations and locals are suspicious that the Liberal Democrats are attempting to hide their support for the contentious project because the video tape is missing.