A delayed round up of last weeks full Council starts here, (due to the festive holidays it may take a while)
The Leader Andrew Finney (Conservative) resigned. Due to the Basingstoke Town football club consultation I missed his speech, but understand that his decision had been heavily influenced by the way debate in the chamber had become increasingly political and all too often polite discussion had been replaced by personal attacks.
Given the current Tory majority, we were always going to have a Conservative leader. If I had to pick a Tory to lead it would probably be Cllr Finney. Having met him in meetings away from the chamber, he is friendly approachable and would prefer to build consensus on many issues where possible.
Although I disagree with many of the decisions he has made, I would not question his integrity or passion for public service.
It seems he didn't enjoy the most political point scoring that has appeared, mostly from Labour since they became opposition at a national level, but his own side didn't exactly keep to local issues when the last government were being pelted and certainly not innocent to the charge of dragging down debate to a lower level.
There are difficult budget decisions coming up and the tory group he was leading have, in my view, made some errors in judgement over the LDF process and Manydown in particular, which could lead to legal action from campaigners. I don't believe for one moment that Andrew has anything to hide, but when you stake much of your time, energy and reputation on a a role of public service for little reward and face a barrage of criticism for doing so, there is a strong chance you'll wake up one morning and wonder 'why do I bother?' I guess this is what has happened.
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