Time to do the honorable thing

Sir, Last week 3,550 voters in Rotherham Constituency chose to back an Independent candidate in the local elections.

Sir,  Last week 3,550 voters in the Rotherham Constituency chose to back an Independent candidate in the local elections.

However, only 2,366 of them voted for Peter Thirlwall to be their MP.

Despite all the hype, despite all the free coverage for him in The Advertiser, despite his ever-increasing ego, it turns out that one-third of Independent voters still couldn’t bring themselves to back Mr Thirlwall.

Far from being the charismatic saviour that he believed himself to be, he turned out to be the biggest handicap for the independent campaign, and I can only hope that he can squeeze his ego back into its box and stop wasting everyone’s time from now on.

Having now formally stood against a Labour Party candidate, despite last being elected as a Labour candidate himself, will Cllr Thirwall now do the honourable thing and ask to voters of Wickersley to endorse him without the Labour badge or will he continue to draw his publicly-funded allowance without any legitimacy and now also without the pretence of any level of mass support?

Mike Britland