6 days to go - In which Claire makes a bit of a fool of herself

01/05/15

Dear Claire,

I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with various Facebook threads, but it seems you’re making rather a fool of yourself with regard to your defaced election banners.

I'm appalled you feel that scattering 350 of these eyesores around the constituency represents a sensible use of money. When I hear that someone's income support allowance has been messed up, again, by the DWP, and that they were assured it would be sorted out 'in a fortnight or so', but in the mean time these people need to feed their children and heat their homes, as well as fend off the local council chasing rent payments, it beggars belief that you feel this is money well spent. Had you spent the money on a month's holiday abroad, the result of the election in Devizes would never be any different, and you'd be a lot more popular with the local electorate for a) making yourself absent and b) not inflicting this visual pollution on them.

You have made it widely known that you have reported the matter to Wiltshire Police, stressing that it’s the trespassing matter you are most concerned about. Trespassing where? On the verge of the road?

The banners nearest me are on the A338 just north of East Grafton, ½ a mile further on at the junction with The Fairmile, and at the entrance to Savernake Forest from the A4 at Marlborough.

Are you really trying to suggest that access to these signs constitutes Trespassing? Were I to stand next to any of these signs, would a passing police car stop and challenge me for trespassing? Of course not. Would the owner of adjacent land challenge me about trespassing? Of course not. Your signs are within a few feet of the road. I once sat for a couple of hours on the verge at the Fairmile junction with a broken-down motorbike, waiting for a recovery vehicle. I wasn’t charged with any crime, nor yet was I even challenged about it.

In addition, when was the last time you heard about anyone being prosecuted for trespassing by standing on somebody's land for a few minutes? How many times do people set up camp with several dozen caravans on someone's land, only for the landowner to discover that there's virtually nothing they can do to shift them, without resorting to months of appeals, injunctions and the like, maybe one day resulting in sufficient security contractors moving in to clear the site?

You are attempting to use scare tactics. That you threatened one of your constituents with an injunction for writing letters to you, points, once again, to breath-taking arrogance and stupidity. You were quoted in the  Marlborough Gazette and Herald as saying that the defacing of these banners had backfired in your favour. Whether or not that is true, your habit of brandishing the law when a) you don’t have a case, b) you don’t  know who defaced these banners and c) you really believe the police will waste time investigating these petty complaints, has backfired hugely on yourself. Given your well-publicised education and early career choices, I would have hoped for a little more common sense and a bit less self-righteous indignation on your part.

You claim you need to 'protect your family'. Who from? The phantom defacer of the banners? Who gives a damn about your domestic situation and/or your family? You flatter yourself that anyone is particularly bothered. If anything, you’re drawing more attention to the matter. Had you bothered to think it through, I hope you might have realised that it would have been far better to rise above it, ignore it or laugh it off. Now you’ve just made a complete arse of yourself. Again.

Kind regards

Polly