The Lib Dem Art of Hypocrisy: When Residents Speak and Power Laughs
Written in another age, but uncomfortably familiar today:
We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia’s wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God’s scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.
Last night, in Oswestry, some of those entrusted to govern chose to laugh.
Shropshire Council likes to speak softly about empowerment while moving loudly in the opposite direction.
This week, councillors were treated to another glossy communiqué trumpeting a £20 million funding bid, innovation partnerships, economic leadership and strategic vision. The language was expansive, confident, almost heroic. The Council, we are told, is “championing growth”.
Yet on the ground — in parish halls, town chambers and public meetings — something else is happening entirely.
Costs are being pushed downwards. Responsibility is being exported. And when residents or councillors dare to question it, they are not answered.
They are laughed at.
THE DOUBLE ACT: CENTRALISED CONTROL, LOCALISED PAIN
The hypocrisy is now structural.
Shropshire Council insists it must retain control of major decisions, assets, companies and financial strategy — yet when services fail, budgets collapse or liabilities emerge, the solution is always the same: devolution.
Grass cutting? Off-loaded.
Street furniture? Off-loaded.
Parks, public conveniences, community assets? Off-loaded. – without the money.
Funding? Rarely follows.
Parish and town councils are told this is local empowerment. Residents recognise it for what it is: double payment — once through council tax, and again through precepts.
And if anyone doubts the pressure this places on households, they need only look at what happened in Oswestry this week.
OSWESTRY TOWN COUNCIL: WHEN RESIDENTS SPEAK, POWER LAUGHS
At the most recent Oswestry Town Council meeting, a member of the public attended to raise serious and legitimate concerns about a proposed increase in the town council precept and the growing practice of residents paying twice for the same services.
While reading out a prepared statement on behalf of residents, the speaker was met not with rebuttal or explanation, but laughter from members of the Liberal Democrat group.
So disruptive and disrespectful was the behaviour that the speaker was forced to stop mid-statement and ask councillors to show basic decency. This was not a personal grievance. It was about people’s money, household pressure, and public accountability.
And it was treated as entertainment.
Two sitting councillors — one Green, one Independent — and one former councillor spoke that evening. They were treated with contempt. One councillor, Jay Moore, was laughed at so openly that he walked out of the meeting altogether.
This is not political disagreement. It is institutional arrogance.
MOTIONS THAT HAD TO BE DEFEATED — ON PRINCIPLE
Cllr Duncan Kerr proposed a motion to allocate £70,000 from the Smithfield sale towards badly needed improvements to tennis courts and park facilities. The Liberal Democrat administration voted it down.
He then proposed a modest motion to reduce daily market stall rents by 10 per cent — a small step to support local traders and revitalise the town centre. This too was rejected.
So much for supporting local business. So much for listening.
This is what virtue signalling looks like when it meets a vote.
CORNOVII: THE SILENCE THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING
The laughter matters because it reveals something deeper.
Shropshire Council’s finances are not under strain because residents ask awkward questions. They are under strain because awkward questions have been avoided for years.
Cornovii Developments Ltd represents tens of millions of pounds of public risk, yet is quietly erased from the financial monitoring reports councillors rely on to understand the Council’s true exposure. This is not a failure of reporting. It is the deliberate sanitising of danger, where language anaesthetises risk and corporate structure is used as a shield against accountability.
Financial failure rarely begins with losses. It begins when risks of this scale are quietly edited out of the story councillors are told to read.
When councils grow accustomed to not answering hard questions, mockery simply replaces transparency.
CONCLUSION
Democracy does not always die in darkness. Sometimes it dies in laughter.
When elected representatives laugh at residents, mock councillors, reject community benefit and dismiss accountability, they forfeit any claim to moral authority.
These Lib Dem councillors are the real Cowards of the County — unattractive and odious creatures they are.
The Alternative Council 