ANOTHER year, another predictable budget meeting.

At Wednesday’s council meeting Labour railroaded through their budget proposals with a hefty dose of arrogance and manufactured outrage. The welts from the chief whip’s lashings were evident as one by one Labour councillors backed their beleaguered leader.

Cllr Morris briefly played the part of the caped crusader by ‘saving’ the school crossing patrols and activities for disabled. This was of course totally engineered, there was never any intention of withdrawing these services. The extra money from the reduced landfill costs that he said will be used was known about at last November’s Scrutiny Committee meeting.

If Cllr Morris hoped this might save his battered reputation he was seriously mistaken, the baying crowd in the public gallery verbally lynched him on the spot. His future as council leader can surely now be counted in days.

Much was made, as usual, of the unprecedented cuts to the government grant, which even I agree have gone too far. Unfortunately, this did not translate into unprecedented solutions. What we heard was yet more trimming of costs across all parts of the council. There was no mention that Labour had even considered more radical solutions such as mergers, outsourcing, pension reviews, management buy outs of trading accounts or franchising. There was no mention of cuts to councillor’s allowances or to the special responsibility allowances.

In short there was no ingenuity of thought.

It was good to see that after years of ignoring Conservative proposals to use council reserves Labour have finally woken up and are digging into the £204 million of savings. Cllr Morris and others turned red with rage at the suggestion that more could be taken from the reserves. These reserves are untouchable and are for specific things and for risks according to Labour. That is of course true but it is quite wrong to simply add up all the risks on the assumption that everything will go wrong at once. In the real world accountants apply diversity to risks by pooling the money set aside.

All in all, a very contrived performance by Labour desperate to stave off the public demand for heads to roll. I forgot to mention that a petition of 3,700 signatures demanding Cllr Morris’s resignation was handed to the Mayor at the start of the proceedings. Kind of set the tone for the evening really.

Councillor Bob Allen

Heaton & Lostock Ward