Bedford sees the other cabinet reshuffle this week

It seems that cabinet reshuffles are the flavour of the week. Bedford’s Liberal Democrat elected Mayor Dave Hodgson has had to sack the Conservative member of his cabinet and reshuffle portfolios.

This follows an extraordinary act of cowardice by the Conservative group in Bedford.

They chose to withdraw their support from this year’s budget that had been negotiated with all political groups by the Mayor. Despite being members of Dave’s all-party cabinet and being fully involved in developing the budget proposals they chose not to vote for them at the budget Council meeting on Wednesday (1 February 2012).

Although, apparently they had only half changed their minds. They did not to have had the courage to actually vote against the budget, they merely abstained.

This looks to me like a purely party political move on the part of the Bedford Tories, putting themselves in opposition to the Mayor’s administration. There doesn’t seem to be any issue of policy or principle at stake here. The Cabinet now consist of Liberal Democrat, Labour and independent councillors.

In a statement on his website Mayor Dave said about the actions of the Conservative group;

“Sadly, they have again turned their backs on working for the good of the Borough, and clearly have separated themselves from running the Council in the interests of local residents and delivering this all-important budget which they approved at every stage until it mattered.”

This content was originally posted on my old Strange Thoughts blog.