Cllr Chris Bartrum's Dirty Protest?

26th FEB 2025

In today’s Ross Gazette, 26th Feb 2025, did we see Ross Town Councillor (and County Councillor) Chris Bartrum resort to dirty tactics, in protest over a two-word phrase used by another councillor?
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What’s all the stink about?
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Cllr Chris Bartrum wrote a column for the gazette, attacking another councillor. He blew off saying this other councillor had insulted visitors to the town and it was “totally unacceptable”, and that their words were “of course an insult to the many people who work in our charity shops, again totally unacceptable”. Strong stuff, from the Edward Woodward lookalike (okay, in the latter half of his acting career).
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What had this other councillor done to deserve what seemed to read a bit like a dressing down and character assassination, smeared over the pages of the local paper?
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Well, it appears they’d used the phrase ‘tat tourism’ in a meeting. Is that it? Well, yes. What Cllr Bartrum didn’t provide the readers of the Gazette was any context of the discussion, but it didn't hold him back on communicating his curdled disdain of this councillor using the phrase. He even went so far as to finish off his two-column rant sort of suggesting that a resignation was in order.
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Chris said “councillors who are elected to represent our community and should be supporting everyone in our town. If they can’t do that, they should resign and make way for someone who will”.
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Now, previously on this website, an article took a look at what is known as a Strawman Argument. For those unfamiliar with the term, it’s distorting or amplifying what someone has said so that you can then attack that exaggerated position instead.

Omitting any real detail didn't seem to stop Cllr Bartrum from reading stacks into it instead, for you, the Gazette readers! Oh how grateful you might be? You do read it don't you?  With Chris listing off how insulting this person had been to visitors and people of Ross-on-Wye you might be thinking oh my, what an evil person they must be, horrific, but maybe don't jump in the car to go find out if Baileys or J-Mart sell the cheapest pitchforks yet...
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You might be wondering if Chris Bartrum engaged with the councillor to gain a further understanding of what they were talking about? He must have, right? Well, no. Cllr Bartrum has not approached that councillor at all. Not in person. Not in writing. He was in a room where they had given all sorts of detail and nuance, but telling readers that might not make for a snappy way of going after them - you need to distill it down right? Perhaps he didn't have the column inches available for a more balanced piece? If that's the case, why write it at all?

So, without approaching the councillor, we see that Cllr Bartrum instead took to protesting about them in the pages of the Ross Gazette. Could this be seen as dirty tactics? Okay that might be a jump too far, but it’s difficult to understand what he thought he was doing.
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The moral high ground...

In his 'article' did Mr Bartrum appear to position himself as holding some kind of moral high ground? Well, what he did say was “I will continue to ‘talk up’ Ross and I will continue to challenge and call out those who decry and and try to drag us down”. Could that sound like trying to paint yourself as a true hero and others as villains?
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Wiping the muck off the windscreen for a moment, let’s look for a little more clarity and context here ourselves.
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Interestingly, in a council meeting only weeks before, when Cllr Ed O’Driscoll bailed from chairing the Ross Recovery Working Group, (having been the driving force of spending approximately £22,000 of the £30,000 available, in largest part on a pop-up beach and some social media posts) councillors were all asked who would like to step into that role instead, a role that was supposed to be helping businesses - so who did? Cllr Bartrum? No. In fact, the very person that stepped/stood/(standed?) up, the ONLY one keen to help businesses with that programme was the exact same councillor that Bartrum was attacking for not supporting the town.
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What about politics?  He did make sure he stated that it was “one independent councillor”. He didn’t offer up of course that he is a Liberal Democrat - L.D. councillors have previously referred to the council as your “liberal democrat controlled” council. It’s assumed he wanted YOU to know the word “independent” though when he typed it crouched over his typewriter to pen the article. "Jane... how do you spell independent?" he might have been heard saying. "Urrghh" she might have said, "sorry, what Chris, I can't hear you".

Cllr Bartrum also didn't happen to mention, but we can here, that HE asked that same councillor before they were elected to be a Liberal Democrat councillor and they politely declined. Hmmmm.... and the councillor in question has said he's barely acknowledged them since.
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So what could Cllr Bartrum be hoping YOU would gather from his article? A mutual anger at this other councillor? For you to assume they don’t support the town? For you to sniff about to discover who they are so that you can vent at them too or want their head on a spike? Based on what? Come on.

Cllr Chris Bartrum is a paid public servant, there are standards about how public officials are supposed to behave. Good honest leadership is part of that. On leadership, would his column have 'lead' undiscerning readers to join in with what appeared to be very judgemental conclusions indeed? Seemingly unfair ones?
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Interestingly, on the subject of charity shops it is said that in neighbouring Monmouth there is a cap on the number of them, this if true is interesting!

Right, let's open a couple of windows and wrap this up....
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Cllr Bartrum says in his column that he has one question for you “would you prefer a charity shop, or an empty shop”? - I'm sure readers would like to thank Chris for his vision and aspirations for Ross-on-Wye retail.
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Perhaps Cllr Bartrum would be keen to metaphorically wipe up after himself after his colon (sorry, column) in the Gazette?

How could he do that? Issue an apology to the councillor concerned? Well, bridges are better than divides aren't they?
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Maybe he could offer out an olive branch? …but not one of those Roman ones with a sponge on the end!
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*The Ross Gazette is out now, if Cllr Bartrum’s column is published on the paper’s website, come back soon and we’ll make sure there’s a link right here!