New Labour - old habits
At the meeting of Durham County Council today the Labour Party showed that it had learnt nothing from its mauling at the ballot box.
In this blog a week or so ago, I said we would learn a lot today, and we did. Rather than hold out an olive branch to the opposition, the Labour group offered Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Independents nothing by way of a cabinet post.
When it came to the positions of Chair and Vice-Chair of the prestigious scrutiny committees they again offered nothing to Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and the larger Independent Group, but did offer two vice chairmanships to the tiny rump of independents (6 in all) who have lined up behind John Shuttleworth from Weardale.
Call me an old cynic if you like, but doesn’t that smack just a tiny bit of using the power of patronage to bring on board just enough extra votes to make sure that they have protection from any minor rebellions in the ranks?
Ironically, round the fringes, our Group Leader, Nigel Martin, and I were both appointed vice-chairs of a non-executive committee but I would gladly have swapped mine for one of our group getting a place in cabinet. That would have offered real hope that the County Council was going to adopt a positive and constructive approach to building the new unitary council. What we saw today offers no such hope.
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