After spending a little time with my daughters, studying for their exams, I collected Sally and, with Percy and our Labour colleagues, orchestrated a very full and long HDC Council Meeting, where we worked well together to ask cascades of awkward questions and then combined to force a number of recorded votes about the Tories cuts and deferments to the council's spending programmes.
This evening, Michael Hezeltine announced his candidature for the Tory party leadership and with it the main plank of his policy which was to undertake a fundamental review of the Poll Tax, the subject of my motion!
It was always going to be a very long day today and it certainly ended up that way. I tried to spend a little time with my daughters as Debbie was in the middle of exams this week and Della was also working hard and progressing with her schoolwork for her Kimbolton School entry exams next February. There were the normal chores to do with the conservatory needing watering (having been neglected of late). For most of the time, however, I was writing my council speeches and trying to get my papers as fully prepared as possible for the long meeting ahead. Lunch and then it was time to go and collect Sally and get to Pathfinder House.
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We all had to get together for a council photograph beforehand outside and the weather smiled on us to make a good picture. Percy, Sally and I stood on adjacent rows to show solidarity and we will look forward to the results with some interest. A few conversations with other councillors before the start who wanted to speak to me on various matters. They take us much more seriously these days. The meeting itself started off with some ruffled feathers. It was the first time that microphones were to be used and the Chairman was trying to get them into use and make up for the delays by trying to discourage some questions and I was having none of that.
By half way through the committee reports, we had settled into a reasonable pattern with a compromise closer to my wishes than his and then both the Liberal Democrat and Labour teams worked well together to ask cascades of awkward questions and then combined to force a number of recorded votes about the Tories cuts and deferments to the council's spending programmes. They had decided to take all of the motions within the meeting itself and therefore the debates went on until after 7.00pm and prevented a meeting of the Royal British Legion ladies from using the chamber and they had to go to the canteen!
The Tory administration were not at all happy with all this, but it was all down to the budgetary cuts and the Poll Tax. I gave Sally a lift home afterwards and we were both quite shattered but pleased at the way in which we had been so effective. With the cuts in services and amenities and the plight of the homeless who will be worse off under these plans; we could not let this harsh administration get away without a fight to remember.
I sat up a bit late afterwards with my hot milk drink relaxing and listening to the television news in which Michael Hezeltine had announced his candidature and with it the main plank of his policy which was to undertake a fundamental review of the Poll Tax, the subject of my motion! Quite a day. If the Tories had any sense, they would realise that parliamentary opponents would prefer to go into the next election with Thatcher as a Tory election liability and also that our local government chances against the Tories can only be enhanced if they refuse to review the unpopular Poll Tax.