North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called on the Welsh Government to take action to address misogynistic bullying in County Councils after his wife's experience during 13 years as a Flintshire County Councillor.
Mr Isherwood raised the issue in a question to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government in the Assembly Chamber this week, during which he highlighted his wife Hilary’s experience.
He said:
“My wife’s 13-year career as a Flintshire Councillor was too often characterised by misogynistic bullying. In her first week there, she had a private meeting with the Monitoring Officer, asking him to ask officers to stop referring to women councillors as ‘Mrs’, when they referred to all male councillors as ‘Councillor’. The next day, she was on the front page of the local paper, under the heading ‘Don’t call me “Mrs”.’
“More recently, the Labour Deputy Leader of the Council resorted to social media to make misogynist, bullying comments against her, and then reneged on the remedies agreed under the Ombudsman’s Local Resolution procedure.
“In the recent local government elections, the supposedly independent Chief Executive and Returning Officer e-mailed her with a threatening e-mail, stating if she didn’t remove evidence-based, party-political content from her leaflet, he, quote, “would not want to be in the position of having to place a corrective piece in the press and on social media.”
“This, and much more, made her ill, subject to anxiety attacks and no longer able to fight back. Will you agree that this sort of political culture must end if we’re going to bring more women forward into local government, and if you do agree that, what action - what party-blind action - are you going to take?”
The Cabinet Secretary, Mark Drakeford, replied: “I think there is an obligation on all local authorities, political leadership and professional leadership, to make sure that a context is created in which people from all sorts of backgrounds feel comfortable in taking on the responsibilities of elected office, and that the contributions that they make are properly recognised and respected.
“In the White Paper that I have published on the reform of local government, we propose new obligations to be placed on Leaders of political groups within Local Authorities to uphold the standards of conduct that we would expect to see, and to make sure that respectful relationships between elected members that recognise diversity and celebrate it rather than attempt to eliminate it are put at the heart of the way that we conduct local government here in Wales.”