Looking down the list of new and re-elected councillors on the Isle of Wight council Website, one name jumped out – Lord Graham Perks. Errrr, you’re what now?
The drinkers of Ventnor are well aware of plain old Graham Perks, as he has run pubs all over the town – the Crab and Lobster, an off licence, Boniface Arms, Winter Gardens (with controversy attached) and most recently, Perks of Ventnor.
UKIP then Conservative
In the 2013 he ran as a UKIP councillor, winning the Ventnor East ward (412 votes). At the most recent election he switched to label himself as a Conservative, declaring on his leaflet, he’d decided that “his future as a councillor would be best served if he joined the Island Conservatives”. Graham won the Ventnor East ward again this year (450 votes).
The Isle of Wight council have confirmed he was just plain old Graham James Mark Perks when he stood for election. Not a mention of a Lordship in sight.
Unsurprisingly the name you run under at an election has strict controls – it’s got to be your legal name. In fact anyone who has been at the calling out of the results will know, the detail that is gone into is almost painful – the full name of the person is read out and the name that they’re known as then follows.
Questions
Quite why Cllr Perks has now switched to claiming a Lordship isn’t clear – we’ve posed a number of questions to him, but have yet to hear back.
We’ve also contacted the Isle of Wight council, who have been helpful, but we’re still waiting to hear back to find out what due diligence they carried out before labeling Cllr Perks as a Lord on their Website. We’ll update when we hear.
Update: After a lot of pushing for a response, Isle of Wight council’s finally responded with,
“The council doesn’t carry out checks in this situation as councillors are elected to the role by the public, rather than being employed by the council.”
