Yes, Labour and the Independents have done a deal to run Carmarthenshire, excluding the largest political party once again.
Plaid's statement is as concise and clear as it is angry with this latest piece of manipulation of the democratic system, and there is not much to add to it.
The council's own official statement can be found here. As you can see, small details such as who exactly will be council leader and deputy, leave alone who will be on the governing Executive Board, have not been disclosed. We have to assume, though, that it will be Kevin Madge, the lack-lustre Labour leader from Ammanford, one of the very few places in Wales to see Labour actually lose ground in the recent elections.
The deal between the Labour and Independent groups has been struck for a year, presumably because too many people could not face the prospect of 5 years of listening to Kevin Madge waffling on as council leader.
Bearing in mind that Kev's campaign was all about "sending a message to Westminster", Cameron and Osborne must be puzzling over what that message was, as many of the Independent councillors would not be out of place at a Tory fund-raising do in the English shires.
Given the advanced age and poor health of quite a few of the councillors returned on 3 May, a year is probably also a wise precaution. In fact one or two may not be well enough to go the the first meeting on Thursday.
One small footnote: the council's statement says that there are 21 councillors in the official Independent group, meaning that one councillor who voters may have imagined to be unaffiliated, wasted very little time in throwing his lot in with Meryl and Pam.
7 comments:
Your last comment is incorrect.
The one 'independent' has chosen to NOT back up Madge....
Remember back in February when Peter Hain warned that many indies were closet Tories.
Surely there should be some rules in place where the party with the most number of seats is the one that dictates who it forms a coalition with? And then if it can't then it passes to the next party.
If I remember correctly this is what happened after the hung parliament in the last general election.
GOOD NEWS , i wish them all th luck ,
It's us that needs the luck. At least 12 months and probably 5 years of the Mark James puppet show again.
Anon1 - 22 councillors describing themselves as independent were elected. Until a couple of days ago it was believed that 2 were truly independent, including John Jenkins, who to his credit remains what he told his electors he was. The other one took Meryl's shilling.
Plaid and the word Democracy do not go together. Chalk and cheese. One only has to look at comments on here and elsehwere about there faulsehoods that go under the title of Under Reported Crime to get candidates seats.
1. The Independents have not registered with the Electoral Commission as a party.
2. The Independents have no manifesto and no policies.
3. The basis of recent discussion was which one of their friends should get to sit on which committee - and get more of our cash.
4. This political void creates an administration that is now led by un-elected officers for another 5 years.
This is not democratic and is surely the root of the problem.
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