Councillor accuses council of bullying

A departing councillor has blasted the city council’s Tories accusing them of bullying and running a “benevolent dictatorship.”

Cllr Louise Griffiths, who defected from the Green Party to the Conservatives a year after being elected, will be leaving Worcester City Council ahead of May’s local elections and took a few parting shots at the council’s current Tory leadership.

Making a farewell speech during the last full council meeting ahead of May 6, Cllr Griffiths said leaving the Green Party was “probably the biggest mistake she had ever made” and had “found herself on the edge” in the last year over the behaviour of her Conservative colleagues.

Cllr Griffiths said she had watched people across the council chamber – usually women – bullied for their views and accused the council of running a “benevolent dictatorship” – which the city council’s leader denies.

“Obviously I left the Green group after a year and I have to say now that it was probably the biggest mistake I have ever made,” Cllr Griffiths said during the meeting on Tuesday (March 29).

“I’m now sitting with a group who I share very little with ideologically and who I find myself disagreeing with more often than not.

“Over the past year it has gotten increasingly more difficult to sit with this group and I have found myself on the edge, either not coming to full council meetings, watching them from home or sitting here quietly not wanting to say anything.

“What I have experienced over the last couple of months, and particularly at the last council meeting [in February], was watching people on this council, usually women, get bullied.

“Get bullied for standing as an MP candidate, get bullied for wanting air quality sensors, not once but twice at least, and I think that it is really awful.

“I don’t see very much compassion in politics in this council chamber, what I see is a bit of a benevolent dictatorship and I am very glad to be leaving.”

Council leader Cllr Marc Bayliss rejected the accusations of bullying.

“I don’t think there has been any bullying at the council,” he said. “Louise has never raised these concerns with me.

“She has had more than enough opportunities to raise any concerns with me or the group and has not done so.

“When she left the Greens she had very similar concerns, and now she has left us she has the same concerns. It’s for the people to judge and they will draw their own conclusions.”

Cllr Griffiths was elected to represent the city’s Battenhall ward for the Greens in 2018 but defected to the Conservatives a year later in a shock move.

She has chaired the council’s health and wellbeing committee since its creation last year and despite being proud of bringing active travel and child poverty to the top of the agenda, she was “very pessimistic about the way things were going.”

“I think we are about to see a lot more poverty in this city and there is very little this council or the government are doing to alleviate that,” she added.