Inclusive and transaparent

First of all may I congratulate Cllr Clive Jones on becoming the leader of Wokingham borough council. I wish him all the luck in the world for the future.

Clive and others, have spent a lot of time and column inches telling us all that his administration wants to be inclusive and transparent. These are admirable ambitions and he and his newly formed coalition group had a great opportunity to illustrate this during the recent Annual Full Council.

Unfortunately the coalition group, through their actions, demonstrated that their commitment were just words and sound bites.

The first opportunity to show that they meant what they said was on the composition of a committee. Although the coalition group only have a twovote majority this committee was split three coalition members and one Conservative which is blatantly unfair. When a motion was put to change that to three and two meaning the coalition still had the majority they voted it down.

The second opportunity was where there was more then one nomination for an outside body. The new Mayor, in her acceptance speech, praised my neutrality on votes in the last year and proudly announced she intended to follow my example.

So what happened? Over a dozen such appointments had equal votes for both nominees so the mayor had the casting vote.

Not a single casting vote went to a Conservative nomination. An interesting example of continuing that neutrality.

I wonder what other things they said they would do which won’t be done?

Cllr Keith Baker, Conservative councilor for Coronation Ward,

Wokingham Borough Council