Swindon Elections : Welcome to your Rotten Parish

The hopes of the new Swindon parishes being a haven from traditional party politics were dashed, as the usual battles were fought last night.

The only things to note :

- The uncontesting of many wards by the Tories, are they afraid of Labour in their traditional strongholds?

- The number of independents that ran and won.

- The level of 'gotta get a double seat' by candidates who now have the bizarre, but self-inflicted situation of representing the same ward as a local Borough councillor and now as a Parish councillor, surely a conflict of interest and pointless ultimately. Are they going to disagree with themselves?

- The return of the previously politically dead former local Borough councillors that were persuaded by HQ to return as a parish councillor as they can do it while they sleep the sleep of the undead.

- The very unwelcome return of the disgraced former Mayor.

- The family affair of many candidates, often in the same seats, husbands and wives, mothers and sons, partners, you can imagine it must be a riot in those households of an evening.

So parishing has done exactly what people feared, created an entirely unwanted and unnecessary new layer of administration, with, mostly, the same people in charge of the biggest parts of the town (bar the independents) and a lack of imagination, especially from the Tories, with the wheeling out of undead former councillors to fill the gaps.

Onto the general.