After the Labour Party showed its contempt for collaborative politics and accountability at the full council meeting this week the Post reports on the an example of opposition councillors showing how it should be done.
As well as Cllr Sutton's motion asking that NCC calls on the IPCC to investigate Notts Police's failure to do its job by not taking any action over the housing allocations scandal, Cllr Chapman also submitted a motion condemning the cuts to funding as 'unfair'.
With the Lib Dems currently on secondment to the Tory government you'd expect them to vote against but in fact they backed it. Admittedly it may well have been electoral suicide for them not to but at least they have set an example that not all votes need to be along party lines. Maybe Labour might learn something. Unlikely I know but we can live in hope.
Talking of Cllr Chapman, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has tried to humiliate him by 'hilariously' calling him 'a very naughty boy' because he shares his name with the Monty Python member who, as I'm sure you know, played Brian in 'The Life of...'.
I mean for fuck's sake. JoCo is right about one thing, that man is a buffoon and that's being polite.
Eric Pickles is an idiot who as let down the whole of local government. A lot of councillors have no time for him, including a large number of Tory councillors too.
ReplyDeleteSee for example what Cllr Richard Kemp has to say (he's like the most senior Lib Dem councillor): http://richardkemp.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/pickles-and-shapps-%E2%80%93-the-laurel-and-hardy-of-dclg/
See also the letters to the Times yesterday. I'm sure Gary Long would have signed it but the request to sign got stuck in the tubes somewhere before the letter had to go in.
The bizarre thing though was talking about full council as if the parties there never agree. It's not at all unusual for us all to vote in favour of everything on the agenda.
Bah.