Lib Dem Canaries: Marc Ramsbottom - Ken and Olly in "Another Fine Mess" (Hitherto Silent Comedy)

THE FIRST ALLEGATION:

Bird of Liberty said: Marc was trying to stitch up his City Centre colleague the very useful Kenny Dobson and have him de-selected in favour of one of his coterie of maverick oddballs.

DECLARATION OF INTEREST: Ken has been a member of a number of Athletic Clubs around the Manchester Area. Including my club Salford Harriers. He has left but still occasionally trains with the Club. In the rare cases when I go to Club training we have a few words. But he refuses point blank to ever talk about local politics, saying it sometimes makes him queasy just seeing me, reminding him of the close battle we had in 2004.

THE ALLEGATION IS ESSENTIALLY TRUE Our canaries have told us that both Marc Ramsbottom and his leader (for the time being) Cllr Simon Ashley did perform a strenuous ring round urging Lib Dem members in their City Centre and Hulme Branches to vote against the incumbent Cllr Ken Dobson. Of course Ken also galvanised any support he could find.
LoL veracity rating for the above 100%

"VERY USEFUL KENNY DOBSON": Ken has been on the council in this stint for almost three years and it is unusual for an incumbent to be deselected unless they are at the centre of a scandal. Last time he was on, elected as a working class hero and Poll Tax Rebel, he served until the people of the ward chucked him out, under something of a cloud.

But the Lib Dems continued to reselect Ken as a candidate. When the former Central ward was divided he insisted - because of his leaflet delivering prowess - that he be picked for the essentially "incomer" City Centre ward which combines middle to high income professionals, students and some housing association tenants.

Kenny not only won a seat in the 2004 all out election. He came second in the Lib Dem list, overhauling a barrister Peter Rothery who was, on the face of it, more representative of and attuned with the ward residents. The pair of them were around 90 votes ahead of the Labour team of Kathy Crotty, myself and Ahmed Ali.The Lib Dems won all three seats. A swing of 50 would have won Labour two seats. A good effort considering the seat was 33rd of 33 in our list of winnability.

Ken also appears to have worked extremely hard at leaflet delivery in all sorts of other wards, campaigning in particular in Ancoats and Clayton ward. On one leaflet there he appeared in photographs up to SIX times and was listed as "your local Lib Dem Councillor". Which obviously was not quite true. Though this is textbook Lib Dem strategy.

Marc was always left to deal with all the casework and media relations. Essentially it seemed as a one man band.

LoL believe it was pretty churlish of those plotting against him to raise issues from years ago to try to smear Kenny now. Though there were also some new issues.

This is not a completely isolated incident. The Lib Dems did turn on Simon Wheale fairly recently. The Lib Dems are generally organised here in pairs of adjoining wards and they allow members in either of two wards to vote in the selections in EITHER of the two wards concerned.

They also allow individuals to join on or around the day of a selection. And until recently they allowed even babes in arms to vote in these contests. A large number of new members did join and quickly voted to select Mark Clayton instead of Simon Wheale who had been a councillor in the ward for many years. He was later found another seat.

LoL feel that Bird of Liberty was correct in saying Ken was "Very Useful" in that he does lots of party political legwork. Less good in terms of getting things done for residents though.
TRUEish LoL veracity rating 50%, useful to party not people

"COTERIE OF MAVERICK ODDBALLS": Marc Ramsbottom himself has a reputation as a maverick. It is also fair to say that the Lib Dem party in Manchester as elsewhere does have a coterie of maverick oddballs. The challenger Oliver West is very much part of this gang of merry men. But LoL feel Oli is far more reasonable, intelligent and decent than most.

Paradoxically backed by hard graft from Ken Dobson himself, again straying outside the ward he was supposed to represent, Oliver did rather well in Hulme Ward when Labour had a change of candidate. He impressed neutral observers by leap frogging the Greens for second. Against an established Labour Councillor that result is very unlikely to occur again.
TRUE there is such a coterie; TRUE Oliver West is part of this; UNTRUE the implication that Oliver would be a poor candidate.
LoL veracity rating NONE AWARDED

OTHER ISSUES: Apart from harping back to Kenny's ancient history the essential narrative of the alleged Ramsbottom/Ashley conspiracy is that Ken Dobson was a thorn in their side. They told putative co-conspirators that Ken was a trouble maker. LoL are told they cited his reporting a fellow candidate, with whom he had worked very closely, for very serious and embarrassing criminal activity.

What they did not say was that senior members of the Lib Dem Group on Council had given Ken the information about their colleague and the encouragement to make the complaint. In other words set him up.

And they did not say that they were fearful that Ken who is it seems popular with hard grafting back benchers who do the legwork and was potentially a king or queen maker, even perhaps a candidate, in what promises to be an intriguing battle for control of the group when the tired and erratic Ashley finally goes.

OUTCOME OF CONSPIRACY:
We're told that nine votes were cast in the selection vote which was on Friday 12 January. The early rumbles round the Town Hall corridors were that the conspiraters had won. But we're told that Kenny won by the odd vote. Oliver West is still therefore on an unfulfilled promise of a "safe seat".