Apologies to all of you who keep an eye on this blog, but as you can probably guess I took a break from blogging over the summer. However, I have decided to take up the reins again as I know a lot of you like things like the following..........a Full Council report:
Last night was Full Council and it was a meeting that saw the firming up of the opposition to all that this Tory Council is willingly doing at the behest of the Coalition Government. We have had leading local LibDems (Barry, Wareham, Smart) expressing the view in recent weeks that this is not their coalition and that they are not happy with what the national LibDem leadership are doing in the coalition. And that unhappiness is leading to a more united opposition at County Hall. Last night on just about every major vote myself, the independent group and the four LibDems voted together against Tory cuts. Long may it continue........
After a consensus on a Leadership motion regarding 'place-based budgets' for local communities - basically all public money for local government, NHS, Police, etc in one pot - it was time for a motion from me seeking to defer the latest round of proposed Council cuts to services for one month, whilst real and strenuous efforts were made to lobby government for more favourable treatment for the IW. Despite my pleas about the special nature of the Island's economy and population, my motion was lost as usual with the 22 Tories present all against and all 13 opposition members in favour. Groundhog day...........
We then moved onto a debate about the latest round of proposed Council cuts to services. The Leader accused my of lying when I blamed the national deficit largely on the incompetence of the banks rather than any profligacy of the last government, to which I asked the Chairman to ensure that debate will not be degenerating to the level of personal insult when there are clear and well-founded disagreements over how we got a deficit and how it should be dealt with. Personally I do not consider that the deficit needs to be cleared in just 4 years, and neither do many other economic experts. Others disagree. That's polemic - not truth and lies.
Each aspect of the proposed cuts was then voted on individually with the votes on further rationing and charging for services to vulnerable people, accepting the closure of Westminster House (subject to consultation), and transfer of fire control services to a mainland authority, all being voted through with all the Tories present in favour, and the opposition all against (bar fire control where there were 4 abstentions).
We then went into the questions to Cabinet members section, the 'holding to account' part of the agenda, but this was curtailed at 9pm when all Tories voted to end the meeting then, and all opposition councillors voted to extend the meeting to conclude the business. No surprise there then.
So the political dividing lines are being quite clearly marked now as local Tories gleefully pursue a coalition cuts agenda, but local LibDems show recognition of how damaging those cuts will be.
