ONCE again I feel compelled to comment on Wednesday's council meeting.

For all the effort put in by opposition groups in putting forward amendments to the budget proposals, it was always the case that the Labour budget was going to go through.

So whilst all the different ideas of what to spend the odd million on instead were laudable, they were always going to fall on deaf Labour ears.

The arguments should have been made before the decisions were, but unfortunately the system doesn’t allow for that.

Equally, the lack of right of reply to answers to questions allow the ruling group to give satisfactory answers or not depending on the degree of embarrassment caused by the question.

Most of us survived Linda Thomas’ speech on the budget but it was noticeable that the will to live amongst members was rapidly ebbing away. Cabaret was provided this time by an internecine spat in the Lib Dem camp. Should be interesting next year with the Leader being the Mayor and the other two at loggerheads.

Additional flavour was added by thinly veiled accusations being sprayed about with gay abandon. Unique to this occasion was the streaming of the proceedings on the internet, so rather than the usual couple of dozen diehards in the public gallery, several hundreds of electors (or more) were possibly viewing what was going on. I do wonder what their reaction was to how council affairs are conducted at this bi-monthly ritual. Impressed ? – I rather think not.

The video is still for the time being online, so if there’s nowt on the telly why not give it a go.

Councillor Paul Richardson

Ripon Close

Little Lever