Thanks to all

Many thanks to all who assisted, encouraged or voted for me in the recent district elections. I was very happy to achieve a decent number of votes in not the easiest ward to cover.

Thanks also to all who read the leaflets and came on here, even if you placed your vote elsewhere or aren't in this ward. Please feel free to discuss and debate any issues raised.

Congratulations to Claire Wright for her overwhelming victory in the Ottery Rural ward. The extent of her achievement tends to have been overshadowed by the media focusing on the defeat in this ward of council leader Sara Randall Johnson. In reality the tories were nowhere, both over 500 votes behind in a ward where the electors had two votes.

Claire has shown what can be achieved by campaigning on issues that mean something to the community, an alien concept to the patronising clique that continue to run this authority. I would also suggest that the defenestrated leaderene may have marginally lost out to her tory colleague as a consequence of her attacks on the very popular winner.

Congratulations also to the other non establishment candidates who campaigned hard for encouraging, though not yet concrete results, and who had to struggle under the handicap of a local press who for some reason held their noses and ignored the election and its issues. Much more interesting to them to splash the word Paedo around the district at the start of the Easter holidays.

A big thumbs down to the Exmouth Journal and others in the Archant stable, who compounded their contempt for the voters with a rash of feel good stories, often featuring photos and quotes from retiring mayor Darryl Nicholas. They couldn't have done a better job of subliminally campaigning for the incumbents if they'd tried. We deserve a functioning local paper.