It's not always a sure win

You don’t need to have special psychic powers to predict the votes in committee and full council meetings without listening to the discussion – indeed, without even being present –because they almost always follow strict party lines. Now that the Conservatives have only a one-seat majority over the combined opposition it is vital for all Tory councillors to attend every council meeting to avoid losing a vote. It was to ensure they would maintain their majority that the Tories moved the September council meeting from a date when some of their members would be on holiday to a date that coincided with the Labour Party conference. Democracy is on its knees when winning the vote by any means is more important than winning the argument by sound reasoning and real support.

But notice that ‘almost always’, for, amazingly in Barnet, there has been an exception. It has now been widely reported that at the last full council meeting Cllr Brian Salinger voted with the opposition to pass Cllr Rebecca Challice’s amendment to the Early Years report, saving funding for Moss Hall and therefore that outstanding nursery’s existence, and instructing officers to work with three other nurseries to ‘resolve budgetary issues and ensure a mutually agreed and sustainable future’. And while it has been said that the standing ovation in the council chamber was for Cllr Challice, I think that it was also for Cllr Salinger, and not just from the Moss Hall Nursery supporters.

In my preceding blog, I said that for Cllr Salinger to vote against the report would be the courageous option, and so it was. But why should it take an act of courage to vote the way your constituents and your conscience demand? Cllr Brian Salinger has been passionate about Moss Hall, where he is chair of governors; he has denigrated the report on it and had put forward his own amendment, which would have had much the same effect as Cllr Challice’s. Shouldn’t it, therefore, have been expected that he would vote as he did? In a healthy democracy, yes, but in Barnet we all remember the vicious way Kate Salinger was treated when she was a councillor and merely abstained from voting for her party’s policy.

Of course political parties promote their policies but when the flaws in the application of those policies become clear, it is repellent to see councillors vote for a plan only because it is their party’s proposal. Cllr Dan Thomas accused Labour of playing party politics in their opposition to the proposed savage cuts to libraries. That’s nonsense: it’s not a political manoeuvre to oppose cuts to libraries; it’s a principle. No, playing party politics is when Cllr Tom Davey leads a vote to defeat Cllr Reema Patel’s amendment to the housing report to protect the priority status of victims of domestic violence who have to leave their home, so that he can claim the credit for later implementing the terms of that amendment. He might claim it, but it’s not his.

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here