Sir Ron Tries Again

A former Southport councillor who was embroiled in two massive local controversies will bid to rejoin Sefton Council in May.

Sir Ronald Watson was part of the Conservative ‘three Musketeers’ of Dukes Ward. Along with his colleagues Les Byrom and the late David Pearson, he famously fell out with the Sefton Conservative chief Paula Parry and her deputy Brenda Porter over the costly Southport Market project. This long-running battle led eventually to Sir Ron and David Pearson being forced to become independents while Les Byrom went off and joined the Labour Party and the Dukes Ward Conservatives fragmented, with several long standing members being expelled.

The Conservatives replaced Sir Ron with the controversial David Barton who is himself now an independent, having split with his former colleagues. Never known for mincing words, Sir Ron hit out publicly at the Tories attempts to suspend and deselect his ward colleague, describing:

” a council in chaos and. . . a Conservative Group I barely recognise”, following which Sefton Tories lost a large number of seats to Labour in Crosby and Formby and to Lib Dems in Southport.

Councillors Byrom and Watson also became involved in a scandal over national honours. It was alleged that both Sir Ron and Cllr Byrom, who already had an MBE, wanted greater political honours: Les Byrom sought a knighthood while Sir Ron was said to be seeking a place in the House of Lords. Emails leaked out showing the pair to be involved in lobbying for each other.

At the time, while Cllr Byrom was defiant, Sir Ron apologised for acting “in an indiscreet and inappropriate manner” for which he offered “an unreserved apology for what appears to have been an error of judgement on my part at the time.”

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/local-news/crosby-councillor-les-byrom-investigated-6958843

https://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/news/southport-news/what-sparked-honours-storm-between-6605076

This was not good enough for the Southport Conservative chairman, who publicly called for Sir Ron to be thrown out of his chairmanship of the Southport & Ormskirk NHS Hospital Trust as well as wanting him turfed out of the Tory Party. Undaunted, Sir Ron stayed on as chairman at the hospital and was chairman there during the time when the alleged misconduct by former Chief Executive officer Jonathan Parry occurred and the local hospitals ran up a multi-million pound debt.

https://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/news/southport-news/southport–ormskirk-hospital-pays-6632343

At the time Cllr Terry Jones said: “I feel that I have no choice but to seek immediate expulsion of Cllr Ron Watson as I believe his actions look bad on our association.”

Terry Jones had demanded that Watson must leave his seat.

CARES (Coalition Against Removal of kids Emergency & other Services) hospital campaign group also demanded that Watson should resign because his position as NHS chairman is now “wholly untenable”. CARES stated in a press release:

“Sir Ron’s selfish actions have no place in a modern NHS Trust and do no favours to our town’s residents. CARES propose a vote of ‘No confidence’ in this man as NHS Chairman. He should now do the most honourable thing and resign from this trusted position as Chairman forthwith. Our NHS Trust is currently looking to become a Foundation Trust. They are looking for people to join them and become members. People are required to join the Trust and act as its ambassadors. We must have 100% confidence in those who are leading such a Trust.”

Councillor Watson, who retired as Hospital Trust Chairman in November 2014, also previously served as a member of the North West Strategic Health Authority – the body which the government used to screw local hospitals down over their overspending. More recently he has been a co-optee of the Southport Area Committee. He formerly served on the national councillors’ body the Local Government Association where he was a Vice Chairman.