Tory councillor's lazy mistake causes by-election

8.55.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Sat 1st Sep 2007

Jamie Johnson has plenty of support from local people angry at their poor treatment at the hand of complacent Tory councillors. She will make a hardworking local councillor.

Former Tory Councillor Gillian Barber-Hughes, representing Pantiles and St Marks, was forced to stand down from her position after it was found that she had not bothered to sign her form of acceptance - a task that would have taken no more than five minutes.

Jamie Johnson, the Liberal Democrat candidate in the by-election caused by Ms Barber-Hughes' mistake said, "many Conservative voters have already said they are going to support me because they want a local representative who they can trust and who will work hard for them - the Tories have shown they just aren't up to the job!".

Local party chairman, Dr Alan Bullion, has found a lot of angry former Tory voters on his travels around the ward. "Many people simply can't believe that they could be treated with such contempt by a lady who they supported by a large majority back in May" he explained. "However, I was not too surprised - it has recently emerged that she attended far fewer than half of the meetings she was supposed to in the past year. However, if she couldn't be bothered to do the job, why did she stand again in May?"

The election is being held on Thursday 13th May, between 7am and 10pm.