Inside Salisbury: Interview with Councillor Tom Corbin, attempted murder and the preservation of the Magna Carta

Salisbury Councillor reveals what he really thinks about the Labour Government, Salisbury and nature

Welcome to another issue of Inside Salisbury. We continue to shine a spotlight on Salisbury’s councillors and this time, we grill Councillor Tom Corbin taking him back to his childhood to find out what makes him tick. He also told us what he really thinks about the Labour Government.

As part of Inside Salisbury, we like to reveal interesting snippets from the past, so we also have a story about an attempted murder and details as to how the Magna Carta has been preserved for so many centuries.

If you have any news or think a story may be of interest to us, please email us: contact@insidesalisbury.uk

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Annette J Beveridge

Interview with Councillor Tom Corbin

by Annette J Beveridge

A self-declared Salisbury enthusiast and nature lover, Tom Corbin has been a Labour Councillor since 2013.

Bought up by his Grandparents at Dennison Rise while his mother went to work, we asked Tom what those early years of life were like.

Tom said: “We had many trees - two apple trees, loganberries, gooseberries, hedges, and fir trees at the bottom. Then there was all the wildlife. We used to have birds fly across from the crematorium side too.”

Tom admitted he had always enjoyed being outside but one event had been vividly etched into his memory.

He said: “My Granddad with all his years of growing fruit and vegetables would remove slugs by bashing them over the head with a brick. So that was his slug management.

“One day, in a lean-to shack where he kept things, I saw a slug. It was a black slug and it was huge. I imagine it was about eight inches.”

Tom was so impressed by the size of the slug, he told his nan and then, wished he hadn’t.

“She told my Granddad and he said to put it on the block.”

The block was a tree stump where slugs met their end.

He said: “I wasn’t going to of course. But I remember one autumn day going out into the garden and there were these flecks of something all over the grass and on the rose bushes. I walked around and realised that it was in a big circular pattern.”

It dawned on Tom what had happened. The slug had met its end.

Tom admitted he had felt sad.

He said: “Apparently, my Nan was quite angry at him for doing this and he’d had to have several goes at it before it exploded and went all over him. Yes, I was sad by that, it was a beast of slug, and it felt like it should have a right to live.”

But not all memories were bad.

He said: “My Nan had a clique of friends. She used to have some of her friends come round for tea or coffee or they did a bus run into town. It was a little neighbourhood.

“One of her friends was a campaigner against Porton Down as she’d lost her husband to testing. She had tried to get the MOD to admit they killed her husband. I think eventually, just before she died, she accepted a payment but what she had really wanted was an admission of guilt.”

Read more: Sad news as long-established shop to close

When Tom was talking about his childhood, it felt as if he had listened a lot, and had been an observer of those times. Certainly, his interest in Salisbury had been in place since those early years.

He said: “I would read the Salisbury Journal and the political articles and the letters pages. I learned to take a view as a child as to what people were doing. Maybe I wasn’t right in how I interpreted it, I don’t know.”

“Growing up was hard, but I wouldn’t have called it living in poverty. I probably didn’t get the same number of gifts as some of my friends at school.”

Tom’s family were not political but he recalled seeing Margaret Thatcher on the television and recalled details of the Falklands war.

He said: “I thought she was all-powerful.”

Tom assumed that everyone voted for Conservative in Salisbury.

He said: “Maybe I got that partly from what I read but also how Salisbury MPs were re-elected. It’s fascinating really, growing up and thinking that the Conservatives were the only party people voted for.”

Politics

Having been a Labour councillor for many years, Tom is realistic about the new government and believes there is currently a communication problem.

He said: “The Government are working very hard and a lot of work is going on in the background, and you can’t come to this point without a lot of work. Yet the first news communication we have is about the change to local elections. So you think…where is the dialogue?

“I share the frustrations of many Labour supporters, members, or those up and down the country, that nothing is going on. Keir’s [Starmer’s] character is not going to change but you do need people to be able to warm to someone. When he delivers his speeches, people fall asleep.”

After the election, there had been great euphoria. Over the weekend, there were positive headlines and for many, it had seemed more positive.

Tom said: “If anyone in the country had any doubts about his intent [Keir Starmer’s] it was wiped away, but from Monday onwards…..it was just like a cliff edge. It dropped. You just think give us something.”

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Expenses

Tom said: “There were some silly things with his wife’s clothes and the football matches. He declared everything. People don’t seem to understand that. He has done nothing wrong and been totally upfront about [the expenses] but he should have seen that coming.”

Tom is hopeful that in a few years this blip may be forgotten.

He said: “If we all feel in a bit of a better place in the run up to the next election, people might warm to him but he’s at risk of himself and at risk of an opposition leader that people could look forward to.

“If you look at Farage, he, in the same way that Boris Johnson got votes for nothing in his ‘Get Brexit Done,’ Reform doesn’t have to have any policies. I looked up Reform UK during the election and there was hardly anything. It was just immigration.”

Although Labour won the General Election, Tom had not been overly impressed.

He said: “It has taken a long time to get to this point where the Conservatives are out of office. I do cringe at the last election results in that it wasn’t much of a swing in terms of a Labour majority vote. It was a collapse of the Conservative’s vote. They could bounce back at any point.

“It just depends what Reform do. If the Conservatives are still in disarray in three years, then they have no hope. If Reform just carries on with immigration and saying they will make the country better, who knows.”

Social Media

Recently, Elon Musk who now owns X (formerly, Twitter) has been continuously sending out negative posts many of which are directed at the UK Government.

Tom believes that social media is partially responsible for the anger people feel.

Tom said: “It is extremely damaging and harmful. We saw that with the riots in the summer. I mean, the spur to those riots was shocking and horrible and at some point, we will learn more about that. But the excuse for rioting was definitively quashed quite quickly. I am fascinated to know how long before these sentences are revisited. Some had very long sentences.”

Nature Crisis

The nature crisis is something that concerns Tom both personally and in his role as a councillor.

Tom said: “There has definitely been a growing awareness [of the nature crisis] but it is not that clear to me that there is an awareness of the impact we actually have. Look at all the nice paved driveways. I just look and then ‘think that the grass and the bushes have gone.’

“I curse when I see plastic grass and I do the same really about the paved front gardens. ‘I think where is your nature?’”

Considerable environmental changes and housing efficiencies had been due to come into place in 2015 had Labour remained in power and he admitted that solar panels and better housing could have been the norm now.

He said: “Labour has set itself a rather ambitious target now, one in which every government in recent years has done, but the trouble is that the developers just build to demand. But the demand is set by high prices. They are not building houses other than meeting their profit margins.”

Tom is on the planning committee as part of Salisbury Council.

He said: “There is definitely an effort by Wiltshire Council as the planning authority to take planning and nature seriously. The question mark though remains how it plays out over time as to whether it is just a hurdle which developers work around or is it just tick boxes at the end of the day?”

Read more: King Softsword and the Charter

Attempted murder at Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury Cathedral has stood in its place for more than 800 years and in that time has witnessed war, the plague and attempted murder.

Towards the end of the 1500s, cathedral choirmaster and the chief organist - John Farrant left a service midway with the intent of committing murder….