It was brave of Conservative Patrick Ratnaraja to use the Croydon Guardian letters pages columns to warn against Croydon Conservatives being seen as the “nasty party” for being vindictive about Andrew Pelling, their former local leader.
Criticism of the party is not well received in some less sensible Conservative quarters locally.
I can recall being hauled into a darkened room with a spotlight on me, unable to see my accusers, to account for my expressions of concern regarding the poor treatment of Andrew Pelling by the Conservatives - a most extraordinary experience I had not gone through in the over eighty previous years. I was told that there was a problem with the electrics.
I left the party in disgust at the way Andrew was treated but I am a Conservative party member again now and I do hope that Waddon Conservatives can try to exhibit the kind of class that out local Conservative MP Gavin Barwell exhibits when he says that Andrew Pelling was a good MP.
Resorting to attacking Andrew for his battle to recover from a depressive illness will leave voters treating us, as Conservatives, with contempt.
Just a very few of us as Conservatives helped Andrew through that recovery and that personal involvement means that I know how Andrew tackled that ill-health.
Contrary to the recent false assertion in the Croydon Guardian letter pages columns Andrew found his health again over a three month period, paying occasional brief visits to his supportive friends in the city and voting twenty six times in the Commons.
He most definitely did not abuse the finances of the Commons.
Andrew came 625th out of 645 MP’s for the amount of his salary and all expenditures. That was a much better record than his Labour predecessor as the Croydon Central MP who came first in the MP spending list.
Conservatives should just get over Andrew being active for labour. Politics is his life.
Conservatives mistreated him and expelled him and for their own good they should cease the silliness about his party political involvement elsewhere. They can’t get him back now.
Shirley Trimmer
Mill View Gardens, Croydon
- Send your letters to: letters@croydonguardian.co.uk
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