And so at the reconvened Colchester City Council AGM on Wednesday evening, to absolutely no one’s surprise, a Tory/Lib Dem coalition was voted in. Fancy that.
The sums were always going to suggest this would happen, even if some of the political ideology and personal grievances would have wanted otherwise.
My attention was firmly focused on my own three local Lib Dem councillors. Would they be prepared to prop up a Tory administration?
The answer came with a named vote. I’m not sure who called for a named vote, but it usually signifies someone is keen to put the voting intentions on the record for future political gain.
Two Lib Dems locally voted for the Tory coalition, one against. The one that voted against is the one that has the most to lose. He’s the golden boy around here. He also made a point of saying in his speech he could not only not support the Tory administration, but he would also step back from his cabinet position as a matter of principle. Well done you, etc.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out locally. Vote Lib Dem, get Tory?
Elsewhere, some of the speeches were full of the usual bullshit about “let’s keep politics out of this”. This is usually a thinly veiled code for “I don’t agree with you and I’m going to try and shut you down”.
It pretty much means fuck all anyway. Colchester Council is now nothing but a ghost council as it limps towards devolution.
The council has one task, and one task only: and that is to dismantle itself ahead of the larger unitary authority.
Democracy is bloody brilliant, innit.