Our Party has never found the owner of the southport.gb.com website to be a ‘bully’ as was recently mentioned in the local press on 17 th August 2005. This false accusation has come from Sefton bureaucrats who appear to hate the freedom of speech as normally exercised in a full democracy and encouraged by Phil Rodwell on his news forum.
The Council does NOT like any highlighting of their mismanagement in Southport, usually railroading schemes through irrespective of townsfolk’s opinion. This can be seen in the horrendous and unfair street parking regime they operate in our town and often in the complete lack of consultation practised by their departments on numerous projects that they start without public discussion or acceptance.We feel that southport.gb.com news forums help to provide the checks and balances that must be exercised in a full democracy where ‘freedom of speech’ is often treated as a damned nuisance by unelected bureaucracies hell-bent on building empires for themselves whilst at the same time financially insulating each other from the reality of free market forces. This is a ploy they are quite happy to see paid for by the local taxpayer.So long may Phil’s website act as a beacon of fair debate on any subject and for any party, because suppression, as history tells us, only leads to DISTRUSTFUL administrations, dictatorships and eventual chaos.

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On a lighter note we feel that Southport’s ‘Man of the Year’ should be Alan Foxall, manager of the Botanic Gardens, who has lead his team of expert gardeners to new heights of floral display around the town this summer. This has culminated in their 2005 Flower Show triumph. So Alan, if he agrees, may like to accept on behalf of all his staff, a special award which The Southport Party believes should be nothing less than:- THE FREEDOM OF SOUTHPORT (for giving us all such visual pleasure).