Published: 27 January, 2012
by JOSH LOEB

A Westminster Conservative back-bencher has said that he might not vote in the upcoming council leadership election

All 48 Tory members of the council have a vote in the poll, which is due to take place at the end of next month.

But in a letter this week to the West End Extra, Councillor Jean-Paul Floru an emphatic free-marketeer who works for a libertarian think-tank, said: “I hope that a back-bencher will stand...

“I will vote for the candidate who is most likely to stay off people’s backs and out of their pockets.

“If that’s not on offer I may end up not voting at all.”

The West End ward’s Councillor Glenys Roberts, a back-bencher, is so far the only councillor who has publicly declared her intention to seek the leadership.

Asked if she thought her announcement would cause other “outsiders” to make election bids, Cllr Roberts said: “I don’t think anyone will stand just because I have done.

“They would have to want to do the job and be confident they could.

“But they might think twice about electing the easy mainstream candidate, because that would be just to have more of the same.”