Crawley's Mayor rejects call for 2 minute silence to remember the 100 dead British soldiers

1.47.43am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 16th Feb 2006

Crawley's Labour Mayor, Ben Clay, has rejected the call of Liberal Democrat Councillors Gordon & Linda Seekings for a 2 minute silence before the next Full Council meeting. He was supported in this by the Labour group leader, Chris Redmayne, and the Conservative group leader Bob Lanzar. The call for the silence was to remember the 100 British Soldiers who have been killed and the 10's of 1000's of Iraqi's and others who have also been killed and maimed in that troubled part of the world.

Writing to all Crawley Councillors after the decision was made Gordon Seekings said:

"Dear all

"For those of you who are not aware Ben Clay, as Mayor, has rejected the call for a two minutes silence before the next Full Council meeting. His rejection was supported by both Chris Redmayne and Bob Lanzar.

"Can I thank those of you - both Labour and Conservative members - who have contacted Linda and myself, either privately or more openly, in supporting the call for the silence. Can I particularly thank the Councillors, mainly Conservative, who confirmed to me that they were happy to make their support public for what we made clear from the beginning was a political anti-Iraq war statement.

"Whatever happens the war will continue.

"British Soldiers/Aid workers and Iraqi's will continue to die and be maimed; innocent families will continue to have to put up with their lives being wrecked because of the death and mutilation of their loved ones; and the quality of life in Iraq will continue to deteriorate even further.

"I'm just sorry that we, in our cosy cloistered middle class way, will not even have the opportunity to make a symbolic gesture over the Iraq conflict at the Full Council meeting."

Note: For information the Crawley Borough Councillors who have been prepared to support publicly the call for the 2 minutes silence, in addition to the Liberal Democrat members, are:

Cllr. Sally Blake (Conservative)

Cllr. Keith Blake (Conservative)

Cllr. Claire Denman (Conservative)

Cllr. Marcella Head (Conservative)

Cllr. Lenny Walker (Conservative)

Cllr. Robert Hull (Labour)

Cllr. Ian Irvine (Labour)