Gscene News Archive

Lis Telcs, the Labour and Co-operative candidate for Goldsmid ward, is calling on Cllr Paul Lainchbury, the Tory candidate propping up Brighton & Hove’s minority Tory administration, to do the decent thing and resign from his position as the sitting councillor for Goldsmid ward.

In January 2009, Cllr Lainchbury stopped taking his £11,000 councillor’s allowance.

Telcs said:
“If he is not being paid for doing the job, and isn’t representing the people of Goldsmid ward by turning up to meetings, why is he still a councillor? I’m calling on him to resign so that the people of Goldsmid can once again be represented by three councillors rather than two. I know the work involved in being a councillor so won’t back out like Paul Lainchbury or the former Green councillor for neighbouring Regency ward. I’ll be there to listen to Goldsmid residents and speak up for them on the city council.”

Lis is 43 and has been a primary school teacher in Hove, Shoreham and Worthing for almost 20 years. Her grandfather was a celebrated Hungarian sculptor and her father a journalist who fled Nazi-occupied Europe in World War II, going on to become a BBC World Service presenter. She is secretary of the Sussex Cooperative Party and a member of Labour’s South East Regional Board. She is backed by the Co-operative Party and the GMB Union. Lis has been endorsed by a national LGBT organisation.

Richard Angell, secretary of the Labour Campaign for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Rights, said:
“Lis is a great friend of the LGBT community and the kind of person we need to see on the Council. We need someone who will champion the LGBT community and fight for equality. Lis is that candidate.”

Lis said:
“I’m proud to get this backing from a respected group who have helped achieve so much over the past decade – adoption rights, equal age of consent, hate-crime legislation and so much more.”

In 2007 Lis won an award from the Labour Party for her innovative campaigning work on equalities, and also pressed for legislation to ban discrimination in the delivery of goods and services on the grounds of sexuality at the Labour Party Conference. This was later passed into law.

At present the Tories run the city with the help of the casting vote of the Mayor. A by-election in Goldsmid ward resulting in the Tories losing the seat would effectively cost them control of the Council, which is why they’ve been working hard to keep Cllr Lainchbury on board.

Cllr Lainchbury was identified by the Tories as one of their gay candidates during the local election campaign in May 2007. He told Gscene in 2007 that seemingly ‘little’ things affect the quality of life of Goldsmid
residents: the length of time rubbish is left on the streets, the quality of roads and pavements and the state of disrepair of some of Brighton’s listed buildings. He wanted to see Brighton & Hove do more to be able to continue calling itself
‘Britain’s greenest city’.

When elected, Cllr Lainchbury worked in financial services, running his own business in Brighton & Hove. He’s collected more than £21,000 in expenses in the past two years, despite rarely attending meetings or committees.

He has never, to Gscene’s knowledge, attended an LGBT community meeting. Labour finished just 37 votes behind the Conservatives in the last election in 2007 and is best placed to defeat the Conservatives in Goldsmid this time.

Leader of the Labour Group on Brighton Council, Gill Mitchell, said:
“The residents of Goldsmid ward deserve to be represented by three full-time councillors. Since being elected two years ago Conservative Paul Lainchbury has hardly attended any community group meetings or meetings at the council and yet up till recently has been drawing an allowance. He must do the honourable thing and resign to give residents the chance to choose someone who will better represent them.”

Green Convenor, Bill Randall, said:
“The issue is Council Leader Mary Mears’s reluctance to do anything about the Tories’ democratic deficiency in Goldsmith. She
should insist that Cllr Lainchbury take an active role or resign. We can only conclude that she and her colleagues are dragging their feet because they’re running scared of a by-election and losing control of the council.”

Pictured: Lis Telcs and Cllr Melanie Davis
Cllr Paul Lainchbury