Secure in the knowledge that he’s got the Labour selection sealed for the forthcoming city elections next May, Ross Willmott is back on the warpath.

Angry that an election pledge of providing netbook access for schoolchildren looks to have been thrown further into doubt by chief whip Barbara Potter – “I thought that our whip was supposed to uphold policy not publicly dump it?” - he fired off an email to education supremo Vi Dempster. In response she claimed the Mercury report was incorrect, and urged him not to believe everything he read in the Press.

Don’t forget that the current proposed scheme has already been watered down from a bold pledge to provide netbook access to every school pupil in the city – to giving a bundle of netbooks to pupils at just ten schools. Plans are now on the table to reduce that even further to just five schools.

So next time Vi urges you not to believe everything you read in the papers, ask when you can start believing all of the headline pledges that appear in her party’s election literature.

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Update: Spotted the following comment from Labour’s Patrick Kitterick amongst the website comments on our story:

Tory Cllr Michael Johnson is being utterly hypocritical. He is currently at a Children’s Conference in Manchester staying a the Midland Hotel. The Total Cost to Leicester Citizens of this is £1000. So it’s Jollies for Tory Councillors but no internet access for some of the most deprived children in Leicester? “All in it together” not for Cllr Johnson in his cushy hotel.

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