Leicester Mercury political correspondent
Posts tagged Peter Soulsby
Mayor pay panel member leaves the country
Nov 18th
Is there any room on the flight for the other three, Dominic?
(It’s worth pointing out that he’s off on a long-planned break – rather than fleeing the country!)
The Fall Guy?
Nov 16th
Councils across the country have these “independent pay panels” which only ever seem to send politicians’ pay one way – and that’s up.
It’s never been a problem before, of course. Yes, a grumpy story might pop-up in the Mercury when a councillor pay rise is first announced, people will be temporarily disgruntled, but then it blows over in time for full council where elected members happily accept the proposals for a pay hike.
Start mucking around on these panels by suggesting pay freezes or cuts and you’d quickly find yourself sidelined.
The shock move to almost double the mayor’s salary to £100,000, and his deputy’s pay to £75,000, has a completely different feel to rises which have gone before. Some backbench councillors are outraged and have threatened to quit the party, while city centre vox pop participants are unanimous in their opposition, a sign no doubt of the strong public opinion in general.
Peter Soulsby won’t be drawn one way or the other on the £100k proposal, but has swiftly kicked the can down the street and well into the new year.
Martin Traynor, chair of Leicester’s pay panel, is bravely standing by his recommendations just as every politician in town frantically distances themselves from them. He was due to appear on BBC Radio Leicester this morning to justify his findings.
It’s hard not to get the feeling that Martin’s going to become the fall guy for all of this.
Soulsby Salary Set To Soar
Nov 15th
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City mayor, his team, and councillors in line for big pay hike
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“There’ll be uproar,” says one politico
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See Wednesday’s Mercury for full story
“Pre-May” spin
Sep 28th
There’s an oft-repeated line from the mayor and deputy mayor these days – “this all happened pre-May”.
It’s a way of focusing reader/interviewer attention on the fact that a council decision was taken before Peter Soulsby took over at May’s local election. “This decision was taken under the previous administration,” they say.
Rory Palmer attempted to use the line at one point when I spoke to him about the Market Corner flop on Monday. It didn’t make the paper because I refuse to be a conduit for this naff spin.
The same party ran the council “pre-May”, with most of the same councillors, and with many of the same people at the top table. Many big decisions were signed off at Labour group. They were all in it together.
33 of Labour’s 52 current councillors sat on the council before May. Three of the mini-mayors sat on the cabinet, as did deputy mayor Rory before he went off to help with Soulsby’s campaign. The previous leader Veejay Patel was hardly a dictator either, and often appeared to be swayed by those around him.
The current mayor even had influence over council policy before he was even elected.
Don’t swallow the spin.
Did the Beeb get spun?
Sep 19th
On Friday, BBC Leicester followed-up my story on the city council’s budget black hole with an incredible revelation.
Following a blizzard of Tweets that the station had an exclusive, Unison boss Gary Garner took to the airwaves to claim that 2,000 jobs could be lost at the authority, almost double the original estimate given last year. I’m not too proud to follow-up someone else’s scoop, but the figures didn’t seem to ring true.
The original 1,000 job figure was based on a need to make savings of £100 million. Roughly speaking that’s £100,000 of savings made for every post axed.
Now, my story back on September 9 revealed that the council was struggling with a £5 million black hole. Working crudely you’d expect to see the number of job losses increase as a result, but by around 50 or so, rather than another 1,000.
And while plenty of time was given to both Mr Garner and Sir Peter to parrot the line that it was all Veejay Patel and co’s fault, there wasn’t much of an attempt by Ben Jackson to find out exactly what this figure of 2,000 jobs was based on. If he had, the tale may have fallen flat…
The mayor tells me today that he’s not sure where the figure came from, and still expects the total number of posts lost to be “around the 1,000 mark”.
It’s the figure we first published on July 5. Last year.
Wann in the Eye
Sep 14th
Leicester’s Lord Mayor Rob Wann appears in Private Eye this week following the parking ticket furore.
It’s always good to have some national attention focused on an issue to make sure it isn’t swept under the carpet.
As I’ve said previously, I’m now very much focused on whether any of Leicester City Council’s senior officers spent some of their very well remunerated time mucking around with parking tickets.
While we’re discussing Private Eye there’s a fantastic profile in the Guardian this week which you can read here.
It reveals that the magazine has around 150 to 200 paid contributors each issue, and their identities are a closely guarded secret.
Former Lord Mayor Colin Hall observed earlier today that this is unlikely to be the last time Leicester features on the Eye’s infamous pages.
Given the recent run of redundancies, re-hires and suspensions at New Walk these are wise words indeed…
Soulsby v Willmott
Sep 8th
This morning Leicester residents woke up to a row between the mayor and ex-leader, about scrutiny, in the Mercury.
And if they’d switched on their radio while eating their cornflakes they’d have heard the pair duelling on BBC Leicester over the city’s art gallery.
Political rows are a staple of political debate at any level, and friction between the mayor and ex-leader is to be expected. It’s all grist to the mill for local media.
But it’s how quickly the ill will has spilled out into the public arena that has surprised me.
A sift through the picture archive uncovered this snap from more than a decade ago.
Both the chinos, and public veneer of comradeliness, are now long gone.
Support for Willmott binned by Russell
Sep 7th
Assistant mayor Sarah Russell’s support for Ross Willmott’s mayoral campaign remained on his website long after the campaign ended in the spring.
Today it was removed, at her request, in response to Willmott’s blog post which I highlighted yesterday.
Sarah said: “As he has attacked me publicly for something which is false, I felt I could no longer have my support for him listed on the website.”
