Cllr Carole Shaw rejoins the Tories ten years after crossing the floor

A Liberal Democrat councillor has defected back to the Conservative Party a decade after she crossed the floor from the Tories.

Cllr Carol Shaw, who represents the Brondesbury Park ward, told the Times she had abandoned the Lib Dems because they ‘made promises they failed to deliver’.

Speaking to the Times, the 62-year-old said: “The Lib Dems promised a lot and I felt their promises would carry weight but they broke them.

“There were a lot of promises that didn’t materialise such as the tuition fees and the boundary changes the list goes on an on. They just didn’t deliver.

“I am very straight with residents and if I say I am going to do something I do it.

“It’s a matter of principle.”

In 2003, Cllr Shaw, who has been in local politics for 23 years, made a shock defection to the Lib Dems.

She said at the time the Conservatives were ‘doing things wrong but they didn’t make promises they didn’t deliver’.

She added: “The Conservatives are now doing a lot of things that are right and I have always felt more at home with local Tories than with the Lib Dems.”

Unlike other defecting councillors in the borough, Cllr Shaw has managed to hold on to her seat in subsequent local elections.

She said: “I got the local vote on my reputation not on my political stance.

“If the good people of Brondesbury Park want me to serve them then I am happy to come back again for a next term.

“I don’t take residents for granted so I am going to work jolly hard for them.”