Top stories

MBI abuse office of Mayor

The Morley Borough Independents were slammed for abusing the office of Mayor of Morley in order to give their candidate for the Leeds City Council elections an unfair advantage. The MBI-controlled Morley Town Council elected Bob Gettings as Mayor of Morley in the year leading up to his 2007 candidature for the Morley Borough Independents in the Morley North ward. The position of Mayor of Morley was traditionally a non-party political position that was held by a councillor with a long-standing record of service on the Town Council and previous Morley Borough Council. Of all the people that could have been elected to this position, the Morley Borough Independents elected Bob Gettings, thus giving him a year of self-promotional publicity in the run up to the elections. The Morley Borough Independents may think they were very clever in abusing the office of Mayor in this way, but this previously well-respected institution has undoubtedly suffered as a result of their callous disregard for the political traditions of our town. When political parties resort to such cynical and underhand tactics in order to get their people elected, you know their days are numbered.