Following Wednesday night’s full council budget meeting and our earlier publication of the Independent budget amendment and council leader, David Pugh’s notes, below is the speech by Liberal Democract leader, Cllr Reg Barry. In his own words. Ed
In the past my party has put forward constructive amendments to the various Tory budgets since 2006, and sometimes our suggestions have been “borrowed” by the ruling group, although not often enough, and more often ignored.
Now, however, as we watch the slow motion train crash that is this administration, we have long passed the point where anything can be salvaged in the short term, and this group will restrict ourselves to supporting the least worst options suggested by any party.
Tory apology
We believe the whole budget process has become more of an apology for the Tory manifesto, watered down so completely from your 2005 promises, rather than a desire to see the provision of the best services possible for the people we represent, such as that is after four years of waste and raids on reserves. We all know anyway that at the end of this drawn out affair will be the adoption of the Tory budget.
Until there is an opportunity in 2013 for the electorate to get rid of this administration, so we can start rebuilding our decimated services from the current low base, there is little else realistically to do apart from watch in horror.
