Gateshead's annual council meeting was held this afternoon. I had previously reported on the diminished fortunes of Paul Foy-The-Flop and Gary Haley, both responsible for the car crash style Labour campaigns in the local elections in Whickham. We had been reliably informed by sources within Labour's ranks that both had met with a big thumbs down when internal elections were held for positions on the Council. What I didn't know was the position each had stood for. Well, today we were able to fill in more of the picture. It turns out that Mr Haley stood for 4 or 5 senior positions and was knocked back on every single one of them. It seems he is as popular in his own group as he was with the voters in Whickham when he was rejected 5 times by them. He certainly has a knack of keeping up the losing streak.
Annual Council appoints the mayor for the year and this year it is to be Neil Weatherley, a tax collector. That shouldn't be held against him! We also discovered who the deputy mayor is - Alex Geddes who easily beat Allison Chatto and Lee Holmes for the post when Labour cast their votes at their annual meeting recently. I couldn't quite pin down the actual voting figures but sources suggest Alex got over 30 votes, Cllr Allison Former-Debt-Collector-Chatto got about 10 and Lee Holmes got about 7.
Prize for the worst speech today goes to Foy-The-Flop. He nominated Cllr Weatherley for the post of Mayor but he stumbled through his speech, misread words, hesitated constantly and shook constantly. He did not exactly inspire his colleagues as someone able to fill a future leadership role within the Labour group.
One of the oddest things today was the inability of Labour to complete their nominations for their committee places. They have had three weeks to do this but Labour Leader Mick Henry announced that the final nominations were not yet settled. Just what Labour have been up to over the past three weeks is not clear.
No comments:
Post a Comment