Coalition blues

May I respond to both your Viewpoint and From The Leader

(May 26), which both appear to be an unpaid contribution from Kaiser Jones.

In your viewpoint to repeat the LibDems mantra that “it is not a coalition” is totally incorrect and as a good journalist you should be a bit more probing.

So let me do that probing for you (and not get paid for it). A coalition is where different groups get together and FORMALLY become a single group.

That is exactly what has happened. There are only two political groups in the council: 1) the Conservatives and 2) Wokingham partnership. As the coalition had the majority they controlled everything – the executive, all the committee positions and all the chair and vice chair of all committees.

There are no Labour, independent and Liberal Democrats groups at the council. I know Cllr Jones will continue to refer to these groups as if they still exist but they do not. The LibDems, as the biggest members of the coalition will control who is given what.

If a councillor who was elected as a Labour councillor wants something then he will need an agreement of the Lib Dems to do so. Before, as they were a group in their own right, they had no such block.

Finally, let me comment on

Cllr Jones statement about “we have agreed to the appointment of Conservative, Labour and independents …” The only Conservative appointments were those allocated as a right to a group who had 26 councillors, so Cllr Jones had no influence over them.

Furthermore, with every single appointment that was contested the Conservative nomination (who was actually local to the appointment) was voted down.

According to the evidence, Cllr Jones statement about agreeing to appointments is totally false and demonstrated an arrogance that

I have not seen for a very long time.

Cllr Keith Baker, Conservative councillor for Coronation Ward, Wokingham Borough Council