For once, we weren’t at the Full Council meeting this month due to a mixture of a heavy cold and snow-reporting exhaustion – that’ll teach us, as the County Press picked up a story during discussions in the chamber that night.
They say that it emerged the previous leader of the Isle of Wight council, Andy Sutton, was forced to quit, rather than step down as the council said at the time.
It was this action that enabled the fresh-faced Cllr Pugh to take the position as The Leader of Isle of Wight Council.
This all links to a number of councillors who were referred to the Standards Board over the passing of a planning application by Cllr Anne Bishop back in September 2007.
The CP reports (strangely at the bottom of page four, given the importance of the story) that at this week’s meeting “heard from (the) current deputy leader Cllr George Brown the then leader was told to stand down because a majority of his cabinet refused to serve under him and his deputy, Cllr Patrick Joyce.”
The bit left out
The bit that the CP has missed out is what we’ve been told by a trustworthy source who was at the meeting …
“Cllr George Brown had a ‘go’ at Cllr Patrick Joyce and attacked part of the record of decision which reported that Cllr Joyce had said in evidence to the Standards Boards that a majority of the Cabinet at the time had no confidence in the Planning Department.
“Cllr Brown said it was not true that a majority of the Cabinet had no confidence in the department. He was rather stuck for an answer however when Cllr Reg Barry asked him if that meant it was just a minority of the Cabinet that held such views.”
Public dispute – Very unusual
It’s most unusual for the Conservative party on the Island to have disputes (certainly publicly at least) – heck they even vote as a single block most of the time – so it’s even more unusual for them to make it clear that such a large falling out at a senior level took place.
Perhaps the timing of this unusual act – over two years after the actual event – is also of interest?
As we recently Tweeted, the outcome of the Standards Board inquiry into Cllr Sutton and Cllr Bishop is due any day soon (Monday / Tuesday is the latest estimate).
Do some people know something that we (the public) don’t?
Image: emdot under CC BY-SA 2.0
