Shyne blasts Tories in ward wrangle

WARD wrangle: Kashif Ali

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A former Tory councillor says he has been rubbed out by his party and dropped from standing in Waterhead at the May 6 local elections.

Chris Shyne, who was a St Paul’s ward councillor for eight years between 1992 and 2003, believed he had been selected to fight for the ward.

But after he criticised the delay in selecting a Tory general election candidate in Oldham East and Saddleworth in the Chronicle in October, Mr Shyne will no longer be a candidate at the local council elections. He is now calling on other disaffected Tories to form an independent group. Mr Shyne, who was a UKIP member in 2007 before rejoining the Tories, said: “I have been redacted by the party who are spineless invertebrates.

“I said I would fight Waterhead at a meeting in October, then two weeks ago at the Oldham East and Saddleworth annual meeting I was told I was not standing.

“They said they wrote to me two months ago, but I never received a letter. I went ballistic — no-one had the backbone to tell me to my face.”

In October, Mr Shyne criticised the man eventually chosen to be the general election candidate, Manchester barrister Kashif Ali, of acting as candidate before there had been a selection procedure.

And he also criticised full-time party officials for obstructing a local selection process, and imposing a short-list of candidates.

Mr Shyne added: “This has all been done behind my back. This is totally wrong and undemocratic. They have not taken my membership off me but it seems I have been rubbed out.

“I have also discovered that the long standing Saddleworth election agent, John Hudson, will not be Mr Ali’s agent. I would like any Tories who are also disaffected like me to get together to form an independent Tory group.”

Mr Hudson said: “I was under the impression Mr Shyne had been sent a letter, but if he says he didn’t receive one, I can’t say any more.

“He didn’t want to work with the parliamentary candidate which is essential, and in a newspaper he made derogatory comments. He isn’t a candidate.”

Waterhead will now be fought by Edna Wolstenhulme, of Greenfield, a retired business woman formerly involved with the Oldham Victims’ Support Group.