[Guinness]

Sick day today…was watching twitter and noticed that LCC was having its budget meeting so popped over to the webcast…

I was instantly thrown back to the sick days of my youth watching Crown Court.

Watched the tories (Britcliffe amongst them), complaining that the chairwoman was biased (Britcliffe was actually quite amusing), anyhoo, turned out this vote was doomed to lose because the chairwoman was biased towards the majority coalition who obviously voted against.

Our other guys today were :-

a) Bernard Dawson…spoke 3 words in the 7 hours I watched this debacle..he said ‘for’..the labour budget..’against’..the tory amendment…..and ‘abstain’…the liberal amendment…. A party man through and through who keeps getting elected without having a personal opinion on anything..who says you need a personality to be a politician!

b) Claire Pritchard…complained about central government but offered nothing to the local debate in question apart from inanely pleading with the chairwoman to be protected from nasty hecklers who quite rightly wanted her to stay on topic instead of going off on a pointless political rant.

Obviously where politicians are concerned things went on a bit…so it gets dinner time and the chairwoman says lets break for ‘half an hour’ (time for a sarnie and a brew)…..labour luvvies whine a bit and it gets extended to an hour (time for a nice meal and wine….gotta love receipts and expenses)

So finally hour or so later..the budget…..

The labour guys said that we aint got money from central government so we gotta cut libraries, museums, bus services and help for the disabled.

Tories put out an amendment…it hasn’t been handed out so it’s given to a lackey to pass around…she messes up..gives it to the press but there aint enough copies to go around…lib dem muppet feigns anger and lib dem guy next but one to him shakes his head…in fact that particular guy shook his head constantly all day every time anyone but a lib dem opened his gob.
Geoff Driver (Tory patriarch) mutters ‘silly sod’ (regarding the lackey giving the amendment to the press instead of the lib dems) forgetting he still has an open mike and then gives her a big smile, saying ‘it’s ok’ as she finally gives copies to the lib dems.

Tory amendment shows how to save libraries, museums, bus services and disabled transport but is voted down…after labour guy says.. ’hmmm, I kinda agree but we spent a lot of money looking into these cuts and it would seem a waste if we didn’t follow them through’

Lib dems put through an amendment supported by nodding man, which gets roundly hammered as ill thought, uneconomic and apparently done in crayon by an 8 year old..also voted down ( but only by the tories, the labour guys ever so kindly abstained to stay friends even though they too thought it was a dumb idea)

Eventually labour budget is passed after being supported by the independents….labour guy forgetting he has an open mike says ‘one thing we realised today, we don’t even need the lib dems’

Chairwoman constantly screws up throughout the day, before being put back on track by what I can only assume is the legal eagle to her immediate left.

We pay money for this crap…could have saved a fortune on expenses and said right at the start of the day..this is the budget…suck it up