Tory Trafford Meanies: Bumbled and Humbled

Fair Deal Phil has the news we've been waiting for. Better than the BBC, bloggers these days. Dr Pauleen Lane CBE, former Labour leader of Trafford Council and a Mayor - made to drive herself and her baby around while the official car carried the mayoral chain - has won £7,000 for her charity and cost stubborn and stupid Tory Leader Cllr Susan Williams some £200,000 from her budget in an arrogant insistence on dragging a mother and child through the courts.

Mrs Williams, herself famously mother of a young child when she stood elsewhere in 2001 and when the Tories took control through boundary changes in 2004, has surely lost any chance she had of unseating supermum the Rt Hon Ruth Kelly in Bolton.

Her travails also including a thankfully failed attempt to have the much-loved Town Hall demolished, slashes to the budget for the Mersey Valley Wardens Service, and - can this be right? - opposition to more Trams to Oldham and Rochdale, and towards Stockport and Tameside as well as being extended in Manchester. Lib Dem Stockport also voted against. Trafford look meaner. THEY ALREADY HAVE THEIR TRAM.

Rather Laugh Out Loud hilariously Susan is an Associate at Millar Consulting, Transforming Local Government. Apparently:

She brings unparalleled, up-to-date knowledge of Metropolitan Councils to the team, and managing the issues they face.

So that's alright then. These multiple cases of disgracing rather than transforming local government must just be a chance pattern of completely isolated incidents.


Cllr Salmon (Salford, Labour) biked, Cllr Fildes (Williams, Trafford, Tory) walked ran and Cllr Hackett (Manchester, Labour) swam in the triathlon relay. Presumably Salmon was fed up of the water?

CORRECTION: Pauleen was Group Leader but not Council Leader I think. This was probably all about a top dog battle between two women and pollies and nothing to do with good sense. Pauleen offered to take £5,000 for her charity at the outset. Susan is blaming Pauleen for the expense. You couldn't make it up.