Some say conferences are an expensive luxury, other say they’re a value-for-money necessity. Either way, the city council could surely do a better job of saving some cash.

Labour’s Vi Dempster, Tory Michael Johnson and Lib Dem Hussein Suleman joined Rachel Dickinson for the trip over to Manchester between Tuesday and Friday last week.

According to an email response, travel cost £58.50 each for a return ticket – yet a quick scan of thetrainline.com shows an open return available for just £38.

The Midland Hotel on Peter Street, Manchester cost £417 per stay for each of the four. The Lansdowne Hotel in the city may only be two star, but they could have got the same length stay for just £140 each.

Nothing, unfortunately, can be done to reduce the cost of the conference at nearly £500 each.

Despite this, the total cost of this trip – £3,823 – could have been reduced to £2,654. That’s a saving of £1,169. Every little helps, as they say.

At this time of cuts, it’s always worth bearing in mind the amount of fat that still hangs from parts of the public sector.

For a leadership contender, Manish Sood is awfully quiet. He didn’t say a word at full council on Wednesday. Another contender, Mary Draycott, didn’t say anything on the budget and instead got into a fair old flap with the opposition over the Walkers Stadium Market. I don’t know who came off worse, to be honest.

Veejay Patel, as expected, spoke quite a lot. He’s the finance lead, after all, so he had to deliver the budget. Plenty of little jibes at the opposition, gearing up for the possibility of becoming leader. Give the troops what they want.

But did anyone step forward to rally the troops? Perhaps with a little bit of opposition-bashing to throw some meat to party faithful? Yes indeed. Step forward, Stephen Corrall. “It’s getting like a leadership beauty contest, this,” announced Lib Dem leader Pete Coley with a smile after Stephen had a right old pop at the Tory and Lib Dem benches.

But a partisan tubthumper until the last, Ross Willmott delivered some of the most withering put-downs of the night.

He scolded Hussein Suleman for an “empty-headed rant”, said he never expected to see the day the Conservative group put forward a council tax rise which was higher than Labour, and even corrected a claim that he had “four minutes left” in his post as the meeting drew to a close.

Wagging a finger he said: “I’m council Labour leader until the 15th, actually.” He’s a stickler for the details, that Ross.

11am UPDATE: The comment by Ross in the comments section is, of course, correct. The positions of leader of the Labour group and leader of the council are two separate things. Happy to clarify that he will be leader of the group until March 15, but leader of the council until March 25. Complicated this, isn’t it readers?