The location of Thurrock in Essex.

There must have been many  people who like me were outraged at the proposal by Labour and Conservative members on Thurrock Council in Essex to freeze out recently elected UKIP councillors.

This plan was the subject of intense media scrutiny from places like Breitbart London and other outlets.  However, the growing public knowledge of this plan has backfired on Labour and Conservative and this ‘grand coalition’ against UKIP has been abandoned.

Breitbart said:

“Plans between Labour and Conservative councillors to establish a ‘grand coalition’ to lock out UKIP colleagues are being abandoned after media reports earlier this week.

Meetings were in place to discuss Tory and Labour councillors’ power sharing on Thurrock council in order to make UKIP’s gains in the area irrelevant. But after negative publicity around the move, talks have been cancelled.

The Thurrock Gazette reports that a meeting scheduled for yesterday afternoon between Labour council group leader John Kent and senior Tory Rob Gledhill was cancelled “following theThurrock Gazette’s front page story this week.”

Mr Gledhill said: “John Kent invited me to [Friday’s] meeting on Wednesday. There were no details on what was to be discussed. This meeting was then cancelled on Thursday afternoon, again without details.”

The initial plans which sought to lock UKIP’s six councillors out of the decision-making process were slammed by UKIP, Tory and Labour activists alike. “

Read the rest here:  http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/31/thurrock-labour-tories-cancel-grand-coalition-talks

This is truly a case where sunlight has proved to be the best disinfectant and it has shown up the cynical politics of the mainstream parties which cannot but damage the mainstreamers at the next general election.

Sometimes media scrutiny whether by local newspaper, online resource or broadcast media can make a positive difference.  In this case the media has acted as a proper handmaiden for democracy and for that we should all be grateful that the media has done its job properly.