This will be the shortest blog piece I’ve ever written. In 2014, I put in a dossier of complaints and concerns to the Lib Dem Party after I resigned from the Portsmouth Council Group (and Cabinet) over its mishandling of the Mike Hancock scandal and the toxic culture that enabled it all to happen. I had a one hour meeting with Tim Farron in London, and received correspondence from him and Nick Clegg saying that my compliants and concerns would be investigated. To the best of my knowledge, despite pushes from me, no such investigations have ever been undertaken. A lot of questions remain about the conduct of the Portsmouth Liberal Democrats from 2010 to date. The fact that the Lib Dems haven't answered the questions doesn't make the questions go away. I haven’t gone away.
Read more'The Knives Are Out For You, Eleanor'
First official Council 'portrait', the day after the May 2002 elections - and after about three hours' sleep
I'm going to keep this piece blunt, because no-one likes a pity party. (Although if anyone wants to throw me one, I think you can work out the name of the new cocktail that could be served by the end of this post. Or indeed this paragraph,) This is an account of the unexpected blow that was landed on me in my early days of becoming a city councillor - the nasty, misogynistic lie of my supposedly being 'caught' doing Sex-In-The-Men's-Toilets of the civic offices with a male councillor - a lie promulgated by some of my own Liberal Democrat colleagues. I was, effectively, falsely accused of committing an indictable offence by colleagues - actual city councillors - attempting to strip me of my dignity. I'd not experienced behaviour like this ever before in my professional life. Smearing. Lying. Objectifying. Isolating. I want to tackle it head on in this piece. It's time.
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