In a shock turn of events, the new leader of the Conservative party on the Isle of Wight Council missed out on a critical, scrutinising role at a top council meeting on Wednesday.
Heading into the first full council meeting of 2022, it was thought the Conservative nominee for the corporate scrutiny committee chair, Councillor Joe Robertson, would take over from the former group leader Councillor Steve Hastings, who stood down due to ill health.
That was not the case, however, as Alliance member Councillor Karl Love successfully nominated Councillor Richard Quigley, a Labour councillor, to the position.
Cllr Quigley won the key role with 19 votes against Cllr Robertson’s 14.
A Conservative spokesperson has criticised the move saying the Alliance has ‘gone back on their word’ by replacing the outgoing Cllr Hastings with their own nomination.
In May last year, the Alliance administration re-introduced reverse proportionality, meaning the Conservatives, as the main opposition party, would hold a majority on that committee. It was also agreed, as in the minutes, that the chair of the scrutiny committee would be a member of the main opposition group.
At the time, deputy leader of the council, Councillor Ian Stephens, said the decision marked the dawn of a new era of openness and transparency for the authority.
The Conservative spokesperson said:
“All of the council’s committees are now chaired by Alliance nominations, despite them only having 17 out of 39 councillors.
“Two senior Cabinet members sit on Audit Committee, marking their own homework. The public will judge how “open and transparent” the Alliance Group are by their actions, not empty words or slogans.”
The Conservative members of the committee, however, have said they looked forward to working with Cllr Quigley and all members to ensure better scrutiny of cabinet decisions.
Defending the decision, Councillor Lora Peacey-Wilcox, leader of the Alliance and council, said Cllr Quigley was an opposition member who would no doubt hold them to account. She said he had proven himself in the chair of another of the council’s scrutiny committees as being very knowledgeable, fair and did his research.
Speaking of his new role, Cllr Quigley said his new position was a way of being independent of both the main parties. He said:
“We have really got an opportunity to take this outside of party politics and make it about working across the floor to make sure what happens in the future is scrutinised.
“As far am I am concerned, it should be robust questioning and robust answering, otherwise the whole point of scrutiny is toothless.”
Councillor Ian Stephens, said the decision marked the dawn of a new era of openness and transparency for the authority
really – that openly socialist quigley is no good at all. Just another example of double standards by the new or shall we say, rehash of the old administration.
Rewind.
Quigley is NOT a member of the Alliance and is therefore the ‘opposition’ along with garratt, pitcher, lumley and the tories.
The scrutiny committee remains reverse proportionality ( meaning more members on it from non Alluance Councillors) with an opposition chair.
Now juxtapose that with the tories up until May last year.
More tories on scrutiny committee ( proportionality not reversed) AND they put a tory chair in the post ( Hollis).
Who honestly thinks the current lot of tories ( a refresh of the old administration?) have any room for comment on this matter in light of their past policy and actions on scrutiny?
Rember this, the tories are a political party who crave power above all else. The warnings continue for them. They are unable to put aside politics at local level and will continue to play political games for the next three years.. to the detriment of the Island and community we live in.
You might remember Robertson at a recent meeting trying to get political capital from the Leader who received a private letter from a Minister but hadn’t shared it previously.
There is an underlying ethos in tories. They believe they are entitled to govern and find it disconcerting when they are not.
Expect more of this political stagemanship in the future.
On this issue, they are simply wrong.
Quigley is still a socialist and like all socialists is keen on spending other peoples money faster than the rest do. He is a do gooder, that loves nothing more than hosing down the island in taxpayers money, whilst aiming to take as much from the hard workers as possible to keep it all going.
I despise anyone that tries to take money from those that work hard to accumulate wealth for themselves on the premise of handing it to those that are too lazy to work for it.
So they’re complaining because the rigged vote they got was different to the rigged vote they were expecting?
Um…
Pretty rich for the Tories to be criticising others for the very sins they committed continuously throughout their tenure. But, hey, if it’s good enough for the Prime Minister …
Who’s gonna scrutinise the Scrutiny Committee?
I trust they won’t be bringing their own booze and chewing Midget Gems in Council time!
Like all and i mean all public or private bodies NHS police criminal”justice” system government if they commit or make major blunders they will try to cover it especially if money and pensions or promotions are concerned
Why the surprise- they are all as bad as one another.