On 1 May 2025
VOTE for
SIOBHAN DILLON

An independent voice for the people of Valley Ward, Leicestershire, upholding democratic principles

Why am I a Candidate for the Elections?

It is about representation, allegiance and democracy.

• County Council Elections are about voting for your representative in the County Council.
  Valley consists of 10,176 voters, which are in 5 District Council Wards and 12 Parishes. Most of these are rural in character and right now that character is under threat by building for houses and warehouse developments or solar panels. The Local Nature Recovery Strategy, recently published by the County said that: ‘the production of food materials is an increasingly devalued practice, from which it is ever harder to draw profit’. This is not a good position for our communities, especially as the number of people in the County and Country is higher than before – we all need feeding.
  
• Each vote in Council I make will be on the merits of the motion put and how it will affect people in the Valley Division.
  My allegiance is to the people of the Valley division, not a Party. The Party System is very active in local government, above Parish Councils. This includes the ‘Whipping System’ of the kind deployed in Parliament. Freedom of thought and speech is essential for any society claiming to be democratic, and for living in truth rather than a narrative. Competence, Fairness and Justice are criteria that are support democracy.
  Whilst for many the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion criteria sound good at first, when you see the operation and inconsistencies from these criteria they do need to be questioned – where is the equality in having ‘protected characteristics’? The diversity, equity and inclusion strategy published by the County last year showed that they subscribe to several organisations to validate the county council – how much of your tax money does this cost? The electorate should validate the work of the Council.
  Which brings us to ‘Stakeholders’.
  
• I will be a voice for people
  Reading many Council documents, it seems that primary consultation and consideration is given to Stakeholders, rather than people. Stakeholders can be corporate businesses, NGOs, charities, not-for-profit organisations, philanthropic organisations, think-tanks and voluntary organisations; international as well as national or local.
  People are not considered stakeholders, yet we are the investors via our taxes. Smaller businesses are often treated as people rather than stakeholders, so they too have a heavier tax burden without much say in how it is spent.
  The larger developments on our land is providing resource and benefit for the large international corporate ‘partners’ of government and these corporates are getting reduced business rates and even National Insurance holidays – this is patently unfair to the indigenous communities that are being driven out of business and off the land. Public – private partnerships which place liabilities on the public and profit to the private entity are unhealthy, exploitative arrangements at best, fascism at worst.
• I will engage in debate for ideas – not behaviour control
  Behaviour control techniques are openly being advocated to councillors make sure the electorate ‘do the right thing’. For example, MINDSPACE. This is utterly undemocratic, and it is the behaviour of dictatorships, large and small. Such techniques must not be used by our Councils and Government.

I will represent the people of Valley Division.

Siobhan Dillon - a non-party candidate for Valley Ward

My inspirations are:

• Nature
• Democracy
• Seeing People And Communities Empowered

Vote Siobhan Dillon on 1 May for a Principled Democratic Future