One of my contacts tipped me off yesterday about a development in the pants-down controversy of Lord Mayor Colin Hall.

A brief text said simply: “The Lord Mayor ignored advice from civic staff to wear belt. They had even bought him one.”

I approached the city council’s press office with the claim at 3pm yesterday. They responded just before 3pm today with the following response:

“We have no further comment to make on this matter.”

That’s a ten word statement which took 24 hours to prepare.

In other news, the council’s desperate hunt for inefficient non-frontline services to cut continues…