A messy, chaotic meeting the other night. All the way through it seemed like there was no sense of control over the agenda. No criticism of May Blake, the current chair of the council, it was the usual pre-election meeting and it’s a difficult one to chair.

There were many kind words said about the councillors who will be retiring – all of whom have done a lot for the district. We were presented with a completely new set of recommendations on the staff redeployment and redundancy policy, bounced on us at the last minute by Cllr Bailey. I almost felt sorry for him. He was clearly struggling to explain his proposals as the rest of the Council – rightly – were trying to grapple with the detail and trying to understand why this had to be a last minute change.

It was probably the most animated part of the meeting (except moving standing orders… ooh, exciting!). Cllr Bailey had been trying to explain his changes, and had run out of time – at this point the chair asked if he should carry on, which led to a longer discussion about whether he should be doing it in the first place. Bailey looked like he just wanted to get it over with.

Tory Geoff Roberts had put on a motion about the Army not sending packages for free – which was blatant politicking. The motion, which had come from Conservative Campaign Headquarters, apparently, was wrong in it’s premise, wrong in fact and wrong for wasting everyone’s time. I’m guessing that the speech that was put by the Leader could well have been written by Conservative Campaign Headquarters too – lots of “boo hiss” bad Labour Government, letting down the troops, etc. etc.

I’m not happy with the situation that our troops are in. I’m not happy with the decisions that have led to the position. But to make cheap political stunts like this, just because there is an election coming, is crass.

Other daft political posturing included the green agenda. We pushed a load of green issues at budget time – we thought that it was the way that the council should move, and we tried to convince the Tories – who wouldn’t have it. So it was natural for us to follow it up with a motion about the “Nottingham declaration” on climate change. We think that the council should sign up for it, and as a natural follow-on from the budget, we placed it as a motion at council.

We were criticised for being “political” and of course it’s political – we put it forward because we believe it’s right.

Turned out that there was a report (a rather weak report) about climate change on the agenda which commits us to nothing. It was one of those reports where it would do nothing. Cllr Baldock accused us of being political in having a motion that would actually commit us to do something, and wouldn’t accept out motion as an amendment (to save a lot of hot air later).

After what seemed like an age (but was probably half an hour), the Tories voted against the Nottingham agreement, and instead backed their “do very little” strategy. This was 10pm and there was still a lot left on the agenda.

Time creeped on, and we got to 11pm, at which point someone is supposed to “move standing orders” to keep the meeting going until everything has been discussed. When it came to a vote to see if we should continue the meeting – there was a fair proportion of people who just wanted to go home. It had been that kind of meeting. Regardless of the fact that there was a vitally important (part 2, therefore non-public) item on the agenda.

Common sense prevailed, we got through the rest of the agenda in record time (10 minutes) and the meeting was over shortly afterwards.

No press or public at the meeting, and probably a good thing.

I wonder sometimes if the April meeting is worth being held at all. It always ends up as a bun-fight, and neither side comes out of it with any dignity. They could arrange for a meeting at the beginning of March and that could be the end of it. It was only because some decisions had been left until the statutory “last minute” that we had to meet and decide some points.

The “budget book” for the council has been published on their website. It can be found here. As the foreward says:

This Budget Book explains how the Council will raise and use the resources needed to achieve this vision. It provides details about the scale and scope of the Council’s activities and the sources of its funding. It also sets out the financial implications of the Council’s policies and plans for the coming years.

Basically, it’s the full detail of the budget as proposed by Adrian Owens in February. No comment from me at the moment (because I’ve not had a chance to read it!)

The council has published the list of candidates for this year’s elections. I’ve attached a copy of the file here in case the council’s copy disappears off their site in the future.

For me, the interesting things to note are:

• Margaret Edwards standing as an independent in Tarleton after many years service as a Conservative councillor. Something bad must be happening up there – the last time a councillor stood against their party was six years ago after the Labour split.
• Greens standing in Derby, Knowsley, Scarisbrick, Scott and Tanhouse – I think the only addition is Scarisbrick. The first seat that they’ve stood in where Labour doesn’t traditionally put up much of a fight. I guess this means that they’re expanding from their original campaign of spiting Labour in Ormskirk. Not that that campaign has stopped… Maurice George, their leader, left Labour a couple of years ago in a huff to stand against the party.
• English Democrats in Newburgh! This is the election that really shouldn’t have happened because of the small change in the boundaries, but given that an election was called, Jacky Citarella – who is a great, hard working, Newburgh resident is standing for us. However, had we not put anyone up there would still have been an election between the “English Democrats” of all people and the Tories. Steve Garrett lives in Burscough on Liverpool Road, so it will be interesting to see how many in Newburgh turn out to vote for him.
• Less surprising is Ken Walters standing as an English Democrat in Scott Ward. Although, like in Newburgh, it’ll be interesting to see how many votes they take from both Labour and Conservative.
• UKIP standing in Up Holland. I haven’t heard of the chap who is standing – Alan Freeman – and I notice that he comes from Newtown in Wigan, which isn’t even in the District. I can’t see how he is able to stand, unless he works in the district somewhere. Still, I think he’ll split both Labour and Conservative votes, but will split Tories more – making it much easier for Terry Rice.
• Oh, and Lib Dems standing in North Meols and Tarleton. I don’t rate their chances, but I’m guessing it’s the South Ribble party building up their support in the run-up to the general election in 2009. I expect we’ll see more of them up there in the next couple of years.

Despite all these other parties and independents running, I expect that it will still be a Labour / Conservative council after all the votes have been counted on May 4th.

David Sudworth, news editor from the Advertiser, is heading up a blog about the elections in West Lancashire. Looks like it could be fun. I hope it generates some debate locally about the election.

A morning canvassing with activists in Speke. Great to see a well-organised campaign team, working together and taking on the Fib Dems in Liverpool. Great bunch of people too!