The big Vote Day

The sound of the crumpled order papers being swept up from the chamber of despair at County Hall was heartbreaking.

It all started with a field of promises – promises that the Government told them ‘they had it in the bag’, that’s if they ignored what the public wanted of course.
It continued with promises of support from politicians, that’s if they ignored what the MP’s wanted.

The final promise was that the County council itself would support the notion of a massive single unitary authority.

And of course it didn’t.

Monday morning was just a continuation of the previous few days that were solid with the machinations of the leadership trying to muster votes.

At the Labour Group meeting, realisation dawned on Bill and Peter when Paul ‘shotgun’ Kelly told them they did not have the support of the County Council for a single authority, no matter how he had tried to coerce and blackmail people into what the leader wanted them to do.

After that came a flurry of compromise motions that resulted in Billy ‘the bullet’ actually backing the bid for the two unitary councils option for Northumberland – ALTHOUGH HE DIDN’T REALISE THAT until it was too late.

We now have a situation where the option of two unitaries has the backing ALL seven councils in Northumberland, ALL the MPs, all the people and even their budgies!

The single option has the personal backing of Billy – we hear that Peter Hillman might jump ship soon.

We now look forward to persuading the DCLG that two is good for Northumberland.



By the way, we hear that Cllr Luke has been given the vacant seat on the executive – well done Dorothy.

BUT who gets the Assistants role on the portfolio.

With all the loyalists given ‘jobs for the boys’ that only leaves those ‘others’.

Result – no assistant for Dorothy!

The pettiness is creeping back in already!