Life Goes On

Yesterday was the Annual Meeting of Stockton Borough Council. Suzanne's year as mayor came to an end and I was privileged to propose the vote of thanks to her and John. Thinking back over the year made me realise just how many successes she had, through all the frustrations. I was also able to nominate John as Deputy Mayor, so double pleasure at one meeting.
On the down side the "Joint Administration" of Labour and Conservative was formally sealed, with Conservative leadership. How that's going to work out and quite what the labour group leader has in mind remains to be seen. For the present the Council has a conservative leader - Ken Lupton.
Changes to what Eaglescliffe councillors do when they're not dealing with casework for Eaglescliffe - John will be chair of Audit committee - quite a dry subject but absolutely vital to the proper running of the council. Maureen will be chair of the Environment committee, looking first of all at some difficult questions around memorials in cemeteries. Alan will sit on the Children and Young People Select committee looking into the provision of school places round the borough. In addition John is Deputy Mayor, standing in for the Mayor on occasion.

After the meeting the reporter who'd caused such a problem last week collared me to ask about some phone calls she said they'd had at the office, suggesting that the Labour group would be thrown out of the Labour party if they went into coalition with the Tories. I told her she'd have to ask the Labour group about that - our view is that we have a cabinet now and we work with what we've got. Later I was told that she'd asked someone from another group about the labour group, only this time she'd allegedly claimed that I'd told her the story!! Not what I'd call responsible journalism if it's true.

At the weekend we sent out a letter to all party members in the borough telling them what had happened and why we weren't part of the new administration. Several of them thanked us for doing that so quickly, so it was well worth while. Now we get on with working with the people who elected us to get the best possible results for Eaglescliffe.