Tuesday 8 May 2012

The question of leadership

Further to my previous post, rumours have been rife over the bank holiday weekend concerning the leadership of the council.
Although Plaid have cornered Carmarthen, 17 out of the 23 Labour councillors now come from Llanelli, and rumour has it that they believe their group leader should come from there. After the 2008 election, the only person available and willing to take the job of leader of the small Labour group was Kevin Madge who has spent the last four years agreeing with Meryl and her independent closet Tories. Labour, I hear, are reluctant to join the independents with Meryl at the helm and a possible contender for the post of Leader of Labour and the Council, I hear, is Bill Thomas who has now regained his seat in Lliedi after losing it in 2008. An interesting prospect, as Mr Thomas has spent the last four years as being something of a thorn in the side of County Hall, and particularly the Chief Executive, by continuing to campaign over the issue of pollution of the Burry Port inlet and the development of 355 executive homes at Stradey Park. 

Of course, if Plaid are successful in coaxing enough councillors to join them, they may have the upper hand. According to sources, Plaid may be considering a more formal link up with the independents, one offer, apparently is that Meryl will be allowed to carry on as Leader for a couple of years before passing the post onto Peter Hughes Griffiths. In which case, I imagine they wouldn't be repeating their earlier attempt to boot her out.

I am sure the results of the rumours, speculation and horse trading will emerge over the next few days and it will be interesting to see who's sitting where at next week's AGM and full council meeting (Thursday 17th May) and who's acquired the more lucrative positions. I shall be back in the public gallery and I will also be interested to see whether the 'operational decision' to unlawfully obstruct our democratic rights to observe meetings has been abandoned, if not I shall be raising my objections.

Update 1pm; BBC political correspondent has just tweeted that "Plaid - Independent coalition talks appear to be progressing fastest" whilst another source reports (unconfirmed, I hasten to add) that Cllr Gravell is busy clearing her desk at Llanelli Town Hall...if she's seen at County Hall Carmarthen loading the boot of her car with lucky gonks and framed photos of senior executives, please let me know.

7 comments:

Cneifiwr said...

Interesting times indeed. The chief executive recently attacked opponents of the Stradey Park housing scheme as "a small group of people trying to stop any development taking place" and he opined that they had been wasting time and money through their actions.
A few days later he was very cross again, this time with people who pointed out that Scarlets had had their accounts rather dramatically qualified by the auditors. They were "a small group of people" trying to damage the council and the club.
The prospect of having Bill Thomas as leader won't have improved his mood.
It's all the fault of the electorate, that "small group of people", who clearly can't be trusted to get things right.

Anonymous said...

Scarlets have cost all of CARMARTHENSHIRE a lot of money, which could have been put into LLANELLI hospital A and E, hope we get it all back some day ???

Emlyn Uwch Cych said...

So, here's the latest rumour up in these hostile parts: the Independent "group" has been rent asunder into two irreconcilable (I hope) factions. A rump of 7 still supports Pam/Meryl, whereas the other 15 favour a deal with PHG.

The sensible 15, you see, can't digest the idea of another 5 years of Llanelli-centered Labour-dictated policies. They've really bought into the West is Best mantra from Parc y Scarlets!

PHG's ideal would be an executive of all the colours (although I haven't heard if there'll be room for the Siân Caiach First Party), but failing that 28+15 would do very nicely, thank you.

The groupings will be gathering at the gaol again tomorrow, and I suspect we'll see the white smoke wafting over the streets of Carmarthen very soon.

Anonymous said...

I can't imagine Plaid allowing Meryl to continue as Leader. Their whole election message was about booting her out!

The last anonymous comment sounds very interesting. If 15 genuine independent councillors are willing to sign up to Plaid's manifesto, then that would be fantastic news for the county. It would show that those independents are willing to work for the benefit of the county.

Anonymous said...

Llanelli-centred policies? What sodding county have you been living in? Look at a millions spent on Carmarthen Town Centre compared to Llanelli. Don't confuse the millions pissed up against the wall on the Scarlets as wanted my the majority of Llanelli people - that was Mark James' little project.

Anonymous said...

Word is that a good number of Independents are ready to side with Plaid. A rump will stay loyal to their Labour partners in a bit to secure their salaries. The Independent Group meeting on Thursday (room booked in Parc y Scarlets of all places!!!) will be indicative of the direction the Indy Group will go...

Anonymous said...

whatever happens will give a bad taste in the mouth. as for plaid, even the MP has decided not to get involved with some matters regarding involving wasted public money, bad jobs, pensioners and care and repair and complaints made.

in other words, plaid are not going to represent their constituents. just when it was thought labour were bad!!! and the fact that the mp walked out of a meeting because he couldn't take what the problem was