I think that they have been the main agents of this partial victory.
Other people who deserve congratulations include the Higgs Charity, which has an interest in the stadium and has been steadfast in the face of intimidation and attempts to distress and bully it. I have got evidence that the Football League effectively joined in that bullying. This local children’s charity has stood fast and refused to get out of the way of Ms Joy Seppala’s ambition to get the Ricoh arena on the cheap. That was its only crime—it stood in the way of that ambition to gain control of the stadium on the cheap, for next to nothing. We have seen a well-funded Cayman Islands hedge fund seek to take on, intimidate and distress both the trustees and a well-thought-of local children’s charity to achieve its ends, and it has failed to do so. All strength to their elbow for the tenacity shown in resisting that pressure!
Coventry city council, too, should be congratulated. Labour and Conservative councillors have stood together, and I have been able to detect no politicking. Nobody has been point scoring. The entire council—the Labour majority and the Conservative minority—has stood shoulder to shoulder to resist this attempt to gain control of the city’s asset provided for by the taxpayer at great expense. Officers of the council, some of whom have been traduced by this appalling organisation, were congratulated on their work by the High Court judges in their judgments in complete condemnation of what the football club had done. The councillors have done a tremendous job and the council deserves to be congratulated.
Local journalists should be congratulated, too. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) talked about the Coventry Telegraph. It has a first-class local journalist, Simon Gilbert, who has brought straight, unbiased reporting to this issue, which has done great credit to him personally, to his newspaper and to journalism in general. He should be congratulated on his in-depth reporting over a long period.