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Camden News - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 18 September 2008

Philip Thompson

Lib Dems under fire as Thompson steps down

By-election triggered by councillor’s ‘foolish and naïve’ actions

THE revelation that a councillor was attempting to serve his Kentish Town constituency from Tucson, Arizona, has forced his resignation, hasty explanations from his Lib Dem bosses and an October by-election.
Ex-councillor Philip Thompson announced his resignation on Thursday, 12 hours after the New Journal reported his intention to serve Kentish Town by email during a three-year post graduate course at the University of Arizona.
Camden chief executive Moira Gibb received his letter of resignation on Tuesday, triggering a by-election before October 25 under Town Hall rules.
Opposition councillors claimed Mr Thompson and his bosses had made an abrupt U-turn.
Labour leader Councillor Anna Stewart said: “Whether he would have resigned had there not been such public outrage over the idea of a long-distance, by-email councillor is questionable.
“He has been guilty of being naïve and foolish – but questions should have been put to him by the leadership of his party. They only appeared to backtrack when it became clear what the public reaction was.”
Before the story broke both Mr Thompson and his Lib Dem whip, councillor Russel Eagling, had told the New Journal that Thompson was still representing Kentish Town voters from the US state.
The Lib Dems appeared to be enabling him to continue in his post by removing him from the licensing committee but leaving him in place on others.
The 26-year-old would have remained eligible for his councillors’ annual allowance of £9,303, provided he attended just two council meetings per year.
But this week Mr Thompson’s former boss, Lib Dem leader Keith Moffitt, said the episode had been a “coincidence in timing”, with the story breaking as then-councillor Thompson was exploring his options in the Tucson university before realising he could not stay in post.
Cllr Moffitt also denied opposition claims that his party had known of the Arizona move but had hoped to defer a by-election in the delicately balanced Kentish Town seat.
Defending his former councillor, he said: “[Philip] never had the idea that he could be a full-time councillor if his studies required him to be permanently in the US.”
Mr Thompson won Kentish Town from Labour in 2006 on the back of active campaigning to save Kentish Town baths, in Prince of Wales Road.

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