Reading Tory Budget Shambles 1

The proposed budget from the Labour Administration went through tonight without any serious amendments and without any alternatives whatsoever. The Council meeting went on for nearly 6 hours, with at least five adjournments when the Tories and Lib Dems unsuccessfully combined together to try and vote against the budget and council tax.They couldn't even get this right and failed spectacularly when they were late back to the council and missed the vital vote.

Whilst Labour Leads described a positive for universal services in Education, Children's Services, improved road and rail links, green policies to combat climate change and continue to commit environmental friendly transport and Care for the elderly the Tories and their Lib Dem partners offered no alternative but just to scrutinize the comprehensive Labour budget put to the council.

The Tories attempted to hoodwink council with proposing a 0% increase with no major cuts in services but when pressed they could not provide any details whatsoever of how they were going to do this. Councillor Swaine let the cat out of the bag when he admitted that the Lib Dems were "not big enough" nor had the time to produce a budget on their own. However, The Lib Dems called the Tory bluff and stated that they wanted to work with the Tories in putting together a budget with no council tax increase.Both voted against our budget and we had several adjournments to wait for the Tory Lib Dem budget to surface.

Now correct me if I am wrong but I would have thought if the Tories and Lib Dems were going to propose this together then they would have pre-planned their budget, discussed their proposals together and then worked out their tactics. We detected that the Tories and Lib Dems had no plans of providing a budget together and I noticed by the number of Tory and Lib Dem councillors walking around the Civic Centre that the adjournments were not about finalising budget plans but to delay setting a budget to make the Labour Administration look weak and make empty political statements about council tax rises.

The Tory Mayor, Fred Pugh called the parties together. We all waited for the Tories to file into the chamber, alas they did not arrive. Councillor Swaine jokingly stated that if we wanted to get the budget passed then now was the time. The Mayor then stated that the Council were quorate, therefore Council Leader Jo Lovelock summed up and we voted for the budget, without the Tories present. Councillor Epps tried to assist the Tories by delaying the vote but he was ruled out of order by the Mayor and the budget was passed by 19 votes to 8.

The Tories and Lib Dems attempted to delay further the council tax increase, but offered no alternative and had to abstain from the vote. 19 for 0 against.

This whole episode totally exposes the Tories as a sham. They can only gain support by trying to make the next election a referendum on our administration. They are bankrupt of ideas, offer no alternative or change and they are not fit to run Reading.