Philocon2

While all the issues debated relating to GAP properties, programmes and vouchers are important, the real issue is that the attempt to remove or recall an elected rep because someone doesn't like their voting record is serious. If every time a representative's vote upsets someone, they have to face a petition and the threat of removal or a recall election,things will become unworkable. No elected rep will want to do anything that might set it off. While some people think such petitions are democratic, they are in fact the opposite. If you are unhappy with a sitting elected member there are solutions available to either see them replaced next election or persuade them to modify their vote. It's a bad precedent.

Well 25% of them perhaps. Many people from Oscar Wilde to Winston Churchil have been credited with the saying "Democracy is a very bad system of government, but remember, all the others are so much worse!" Irrespective of whoever was first to say it, it is true. Intelligence and reason doesn't qualify you to vote - being on the roll of electors is the only qualification you need.

As usual people seem to be missing the most crucial principle in all this. The merits of the voucher scheme and the purchase of a GAP property (both of which I incidentally end up on Calverley's side on this), are not the relevant points. What is critical is the fundamental attempt to undermine further what limited rights and influence smaller owners and trainers have in the code. The petition is a misuse and abuse of the rule, totally setting out to undermine the concept of representation and democracy in the code and the Board should reject it unequivocally for just those reasons. The rules provide a process for the election of an LP rep and it is up to the full electorate of all registered LPs to decide whether that rep has represented their interests adequately and vote accordingly. That is the time to debate those issues amongst the wider electorate of registered LPs entitled to vote. If you believe that the petition should be acted on in the manner the petitioners ask, then you are stating firmly that you do not believe in the principle embodied in the current rules of giving LPs a direct say in the formation and decision-making of their governing board (albeit a small one); and secondly you are saying you want to do away with the concept of an elected rep and hand over all aspects of decisionmaking to the Board without any direct LP input. Whether Graeme's vote was right or wrong in your eyes is not the issue. That is a separate debate that you should have anyway and especially leading up to the re-election of the LP rep. But what is the issue is whether a small unrepresentative group of petitioners and a Board that may not necessarily be representative of LPs in the code have the right to remove and/or impose a representative on the membership because they don't like the way he/she voted on an issue. As I said the petition in my view is a misuse and abuse of the rule's intention. Such rules are there to deal with malpractice and inappropriate behaviour by Board members, not to make them vote in way a minority who have not been able to get elected themselves want and backdoor the democratic process (limited as it already is). There are appropriate mechanisms for calling an LP rep to account; they are called a vote, an election campaign, consultation and one that uses very complex technology - picking up a telephone. A petition to remove them because you don't like the way they vote is not one of them. The petitioners in their reasoning on the petition have already shown they either don't believe in the provision for an elected independent LP rep or don't believe in any form of LP democracy - perhaps both.

Yes I am really sorry to hear about Phil too. I wanted to log in under my original pseudonym of Philocon but I realised I could no longer use that name without the permission of the trustees of my estate. However being dead and agnostic and not believing in an afterlife prevents me from finding out who they are. So I re-registered under Philocon2. Will someone please let me know when and where my funeral or memorial service is as I'd like to attend. I also want to put my name down to deliver the main eulogy - I have so many nice things I could say about myself at my own funeral. Apparently there won't be a casket at my funeral as last week I went to see the doctor about my cold and sore throat (maybe that's what killed me). She gave me something to stop that persistent irritating coffin. I intend to bring an old friend to my funeral - Samuel Langhorne Clemens who was born in Missouri in 1835. Rumours of his death were greatly exaggerated too. ( Some of you may not recognise his birth name as he changed it when he was older and started a career as a steamboat pilot and later a newspaperman, But his career took off when he turned his hand to writing stories and novels. He wrote "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" but many of you will probably better remember his later works "Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." No Hedley "eventuation has" not "proved him wrong on all the criticism he used to refute my postings with..." because I did not say conspiracies did not exist, nor did I rule out some of the dodgy dealings and conspiracies you referred to. They did and do exist but I simply don't subscribe to conspiracy theories to explain everything that happens that I don't agree with. Criticising and recognising conspiracies when you see them is not the same as subscribing to conspiracy theories to explain life (or in my case death) as we know it. Good to see you are still imaginatively using the language though. bblunt - Properispomenon is Greek for words which have a circumflex accent over the final syllable. For example θεοῦ, theoû, - meaning of a god -, or πρᾶξις prâxis - meaning business. Handy to know if you read a lot of Greek texts. As for where he might be ask Mark Twain he might be able to help. The reason why you haven't seen me posting here for quiet a while is, like Aquaman I got tired of a lot of the backbiting etc that went on, short sighted bigotry and the tendency for not letting the facts get in the way of one's prejudices. Believe it or not there is another world outside greyhound racing and I have always and still am enjoying it - there are places and organisations in it where people don't knife you in the back as a hobby, or use prejudice and gossip as a substitute for reason. I enjoy a good fight but a lot of what I saw here fell far short of that. Next time I die could someone let me know directly instead of me having to read it third hand on an internet forum.