LETTER: Attempt to cling on to power

Cllr Helena Croft attempts to cling onto power as deputy leader by doing a chicken run in search of a seat in another Conservative Association because her own Conservative Association ditched her (19.3.15, p1). I thought your letter last week by Alan Taylor (‘ We are governed by parachutists’) caught the mood.
By The Newsroom
Published 4th Apr 2015, 07:00 BST
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On 1 May 2013, you published an interview with Cllr Helena Croft entitled ‘Preacher turned politician combines church and council. Theo Cronin speaks to new deputy leader Helena Croft’.

In that interview Mr Cronin noted that Cllr Croft was only elected to council in May 2011 ‘…her ascendancy to the top table at Horsham District Council has been spectacular’. Asked about her objectives as deputy leader, she replied ‘Number one is to support the leader, that’s the deputy’s job’, she said referring to Cllr Dawe (Storrington) ‘We work very well together’ she continued.

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Mr Cronin spent a good part of the interview probing ways her faith and church influenced her political journey. ‘I wouldn’t link it specifically to Kingdom Faith, I don’t speak on behalf of Kingdom Faith’. Mrs Croft’s declaration of interests on becoming a councillor, state she is a pastor at Kingdom Faith.

Mr Cronin persisted quoting Kingdom Faith’s ambitions on its website ‘Being an apostolic church, we have a strong belief that the raising up and releasing of men and women into areas of influence and authority within their regions will be a key in turning the tide of the godless society.’

There used to be a recording of Cllr Croft preaching at Crawley Kingdom Faith from 2013 but it has been recently removed from their website.

However part of her introductory remarks were the following ramble: ‘In the recent last 12 months I have also been elected onto Horsham District Council as a local ward member for actually working in faith churches in the whole region up to Roffey Place. They have asked me for Horsham town to say can I come up with a vision for what Horsham town will look like in ten years’ time, 20 years time, and I thought: Yes, I can do that, because we know it, don’t we, as the church. God speaks to us and gives us vision for the town and what I’ve come to realise within the town is that, you know, the world they don’t have the answers, they are looking for them and God has given us, as the church, the answers. So, when he connects the two, something powerful can happen, and again you know because I work with the most broken women, particularly within society, to be able to walk within the corridors of power, where the real decisions are made, just causes such an enabling to happen and I believe we are going to see a lot more of that, a lot more of just the influence that God wants to give us as individual members of the church. To really be involved in changing lives on the ground. It’s a good thing isn’t it? We can believe that for Crawley, for your local government? God said to me years ago: ‘You know Helena my word in your mouth is no less powerful than my word in my mouth’. The important thing is that it’s his word.’

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Is blind loyalty to leader Cllr Dawe what residents in Henfield want after 30 years of representation from Cllr Sheila Mathews, an Independent?

Can’t residents in Henfield find themselves an alternative, local candidate to replace Cllr Mathews at the election on May 7?

Dr GEOFFREY RICHARDSON

Tennyson Close, Horsham