TRY as I might, I really can't get worked up about the fact that two Labour councillors went to last week's Tory Open Primary and voted.
Nobody batted an eyelid when David Braid, the Clause 28 candidate at the last general election, stood up and asked a question, so why get all hot under the collar about Alan Bullen and Steve Hanlon?
At the end of the day anybody who lives in West Lancs could have attended and voted. So there was no 'infiltration' and nobody whose jaw dropped at the sight of Mssrs Bullen and Hanlon walking into Ormskirk Civic Hall that Friday night.
Indeed, I was myself asked if I wanted to vote - as was my right - but declined on the grounds that I was there to observe, not take part. The Labour councillors could have said the same if they wanted. Admittedly, I was surprised to see them but not shell-shocked.
When all is said and done, they were just two people in a large audience which, coincidentally, was made up other members of other political parties as well as people with no affiliations either way.
If the Labour group had turned up en masse in a blatant attempt to sway the outcome, then you're talking. But just two of them?... it would hardly have been worth the petrol money.
UPDATE:July 23... Steve Hanlon talks about the episode on his blog
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