......THE MICE DO PLAY

Full Council last night and the four LibDems were suddenly all bright and bushy-tailed ! Is it because the Council Leader wasn't there to give them their deserved monthly reprimand for a decade plus of political incompetence, or has at last establishing a proper Group under Henry Adams' benign leadership re-enthused them ? Time will tell.

Excellent question from the public gallery about the new £40k communications improvement contract with Westminster City Council, after they spent £14k on another communications consultant earlier this year and improved not one dot. Of course the gentleman did not get an answer, but later on I got an assurance that this is a fixed term contract and that communications will not be handled permanently by Westminster staff. Personally I take a view that the Council's communications are deperately poor and have ignored them since I became Scrutiny Chair and they failed with my early request for a media release.

This Council was the first with the new LibDem Chairman - may be that's another reason why his colleagues were so bullish - and the new Chief Executive. Suddenly all Directors are now in attendance for the first time in years......

A motion urging the government to do all it could to ensure the Royal Mail keeps existing sub-Post Offices was approved unanimously.

A change in the format of the Best Value Performance Plan was approved, with opposition councillors abstaning and one Cabinet Member mysteriously joining them. Just wait till the Leader gets up from his sick bed !

I asked a question about a scheduled high-level meeting to discuss the loss of Government funding for failing to tackle anti-social behavious, but was assured this was an error in the title of the meeting !

I also asked, on Deborah's behalf, a question about the claimed sudden loss of government housing grant (reported at Cabinet on May 23) and the contrary information we had received from Govt Office of South East. Lots of bluster - seemingly the main tactic now when we catch them out on dealings with government - but we will pursue this. Perhaps they will learn not to blame the government for things unless they have all their facts right ?