Wednesday, 23 July 2008

I hear great news from my friends in Bristol who have a new baby: Nathan. Congratulations to Ruth and Jane! Helen Price (our Volunteer Centre Co-ordinator) and I met with Roger Sands and Nicole Connors of V-involved, the youth volunteering programme.

The rest of the day I spent on our web-services and on preparations for tomorrow’s trustees meeting.

A sick rose

Ever since I first took up post in Watford I have been very impressed by what a lovely place it is, benefiting from a good community, approachable politicians, dedicated public servants, pretty good resources and many healthy voluntary groups. It is far from perfect of course, but far better than many other towns I have known.

But there was a worm in this particular rose: someone has been co-ordinating a sustained campaign against those I can broadly call "the political elite". This campaign has included: vandalism, graffiti, distributing libellous leaflets, posting pornography and making threats.

After Boris Johnson’s victory in the elections for London’s Mayor, we were contacted by Ian Oakley, the prospective parliamentary candidate for the local Tories. He wanted to meet me and learn more about the local voluntary sector. I don’t like the CVS being used for political campaigning. But we do live in a democracy and if any member of the public asked the same I would not refuse, so of course I agreed. The meeting was set for this coming Friday.

Today I learn that Ian Oakley has been arrested in connection with the police enquiry into the local hate campaign. He has resigned as a councillor in London and as Watford’s prospective candidate for the Tory Party. Of course everyone is innocent until proven guilty. But I will assume my meeting with him on Friday is now cancelled.