Scrutiny process "ripped up" on Leicestershire's fire authority

Mike Charlesworth, the leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Leicestershire's fire authority, has written a letter of complaint about the way the authority is being run to its monitoring officer.

The complaint, reports the Leicester Mercury, follows the departure of the county's chief fire officer after just over a year in the job with an £84,000 pay off.

This move was not discussed with the Lib Dem group, which holds the balance of power with the authority. It would probably have remained secret if the Mercury had not revealed it.

There is a widespread perception that the fire authority has been carved up between Sir Peter Soulsby, the Labour mayor of Leicester, and Nick Rushton, the Conservative leader of the county council.

As Mike Charlesworth told the Mercury:

Rushton and Soulsby are running what ought to be a democratic body as a two man show. 

"We appreciate there will be employment issues involved with Richard Chandler leaving, but as a courtesy at the very least we should have been told about this so we could raise any concerns. 

"There are so many questions about this that need answering. 

"We don't know what settlement package has been agreed with the chief fire officer, whether it is justified. 

"They've just ripped up the scrutiny process. 

"They are making major decisions effecting public services as if it was some private club."

The paper also quotes Rushton's reply, which does not seem overconcerned with democratic oversight of the authority's decisions..

Meanwhile the people of Leicestershire wait avidly for news of the police investigation into the hacking of Nick Rushton's Twitter account.

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Leicester's Mayor sacks the man supposed to scrutinise him - again

The Leicester Mercury reports:

A number of Labour councillors who have clashed with Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby have lost key posts within the city council's ruling Labour group. 

The party has held its annual general meeting and elections for a series of positions this week including those heading committees that scrutinise the policies of Sir Peter and his team of assistant mayors. 

Former city council leader Ross Willmott is one of the casualties.

This story has a familiar ring. Sure enough, when searching the archives of this blog I find that much the same thing happened in 2012.

So let me repeat what I wrote then:

And who did the ousting? Step forward the dominant figure in the Leicester Labour Party, Sir Peter Soulsby. 

If an elected mayor can remove the chair of the committee meant to keep an eye on him, then the mayoral system become farcical. 

The enjoyable personal animosity between Willmott and Soulsby has been just about the only thing keeping democracy alive in a city with a Labour elected Mayor and 52 out of 54 Labour councillors. As a Labour insider quoted by the Mercury says: 

"Ross has been a thorn in the side of the city's leadership for the past year. His efforts were partly fuelled by their mutual dislike and the fact that Ross really wanted the mayor's job. Nonetheless, his efforts were good for democracy." 

Quite. And his removal is bad for democracy. 

As I have long argued, the situation in Leicester shows that if we are to have elected city mayors then the councils must be elected by a proportional system to prevented their being dominated by the mayor's own party. 

At the very least councils must be barred from holding the mayoral and all-out elections at the same time, as happened in Leicester last May.

The last time I made this argument, Sir Peter Soulsby's deputy told me on Twitter that is was absurd even to think of changing the electoral system.

But I stand by what I wrote in 2012.

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Sir Peter Soulsby on Keith Vaz

Leicester Labour's internal politics can be hard for outsiders to fathom, but one thing at least is clear. Keith Vaz (MP for Leicester East) and Sir Peter Soulsby (the city's elected mayor) do not get on.

In 2011 I quoted a Leicester Mercury article on the funding of Soulsby's first mayoral campaign:

Sir Peter's was funded by the three city constituency Labour parties. Leicester South and West branches gave £3,100 and £2,100 respectively. Leicester East's branch gave just £80.

What I didn't know then is that the Vaz/Soulsby enmity had reached Westminster.

In February 2001 the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee investigated a number of allegations against Vaz. Some were upheld and some were not - you can find the committee's report on the investigation on the Parliament website.

One of the witnesses who gave evidence to the inquiry was Sir Peter Soulsby. Here are a few extracts from his evidence:

397 ... There have been a number of occasions when members of the community in Leicester, particularly members of the Asian community, have been critical of Keith and have made statements criticising Keith and subsequently changed the position they have taken in public. Indeed, there were a number of occasions around this time I am talking about when people changed their positions. How the trick is achieved, I do not know, but it has happened on a number of occasions.

And:

406 ... I think there have been a number of occasions in the past when I have felt Keith's attitude to the truth is different from the attitude I feel appropriate for a person in public life. It ranges from a whole range of issues: from telling one group in the community that he is in support of a road scheme, while telling another that he is opposed to it; through to rather more national or even international issues, such us his message of support to Salman Rushdie followed by taking part in a march with a group of Muslims wanting to burn the Satanic Verses; through to the difficulties he is having with his attitude towards Kashmir, telling different communities different attitudes, which has caused a number of problems, not just in Leicester but at a national level.

And:

449 ... I am sure he would suggest to you I have a vendetta against him. I think the reality is, as I described earlier, we have a very different view about what is proper in public life, and how one ought to behave, and a different attitude as to what is true and what is not. That has inevitably led to us falling out a number of times over the years. That is not a vendetta; that is a difference in personality and attitude.

I cannot vouch for the truth of what Sir Peter said, but it  is the evidence he gave to the committee.

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