“Bring it on!” – Potts

Confrontation

Angry dispute continues

The war of words between South Tyneside Independent Councillor Ahmed Khan and Conservative Councillor David Potts continues after last Thursday’s dreadful confrontation in South Shields Town Hall.

The Shields Gazette report is ever so slightly at odds with my own recollection of events, although to be fair it was pretty noisy in there, it may have been easy to miss one or two words of the angry and petulant confrontation.

Having been confronted with the allegation that it was irresponsible to encourage parents to remove children from school to take part in a political “peace protest” Cllr. Khan behaved as though his blue touch paper had just been lit, and by taking a couple of steps towards Cllr. Potts whilst shouting and bawling I thought that the situation looked pretty ugly and threatening. It helped not a bit that his recollection of Potts’ plan for “looked after” children was a bit suspect to say the least, however this “locking them up” charge was what resulted in Potts’ repeated retorts.

It now looks pretty certain that round two of this heavyweight council contest will take place before the Standards Board for England and Wales, unless I’m reading this release wrongly:

POTTS CALLS KHAN’S BLUFF

STANDARDS BOARD:

“Bring it on!”, says Potts.

On 27 January, the. Shields Gazette reported on a political row that broke out between Conservative Cllr. David Potts and Independent Cllr. Ahmed Khan at the meeting of the full South Tyneside Council on 22 Jan.

Cllr. Potts stated that he intended to refer Cllr. Khan to the Standards Board for alleged behaviour which he stated made him feel intimidated and he branded Cllr. Khan a “liar” for accusing him of wanting vulnerable children in care to be “locked up”.

In response Cllr. Khan stated that he could have referred Cllr. Potts to the Standards Board for branding him a “liar”.

Commenting, Cllr. Potts said

“If Cllr Khan wants to refer me to the Board then bring it on! He clearly lied about me and acted shockingly in my view. How dare this man make such frivolous remarks on such a sensitive subject involving some of the most vulnerable people in our society. This guy should stand by his claims and refer me to the Board so that we can discuss his comments in an open arena. Either that or he should retract his remarks and apologise to me, but more importantly to the vulnerable young people of South Tyneside who I am passionate about helping.”

By the way here’s reference to David Potts idea about offering an attractive education to “looked after children” and as I understand it he was particularly concerned for those who may have been orphaned.

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