Whitehaven News reports on Copeland Council Mayor row

The Whitehaven News today has weighed in with all guns blazing about the rows which kicked off at the  budget-setting meeting of Copeland Council when the Labour group tried to sabotage the election for the borough's first elected mayor before nominations have even opened.

Their front page is mostly taken up with a graphic of a hand holding out a few coins and a reference to people who voted for a mayor being "short changed." The article can be seen online at

http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/whitehaven-mayor-will-be-poorest-paid-in-uk-1.1196953

There is an "In Cumbria" report on the fact that the Labour candidate and myself are still in the race, at

http://www.in-cumbria.com/we-re-still-standing-for-mayor-despite-pay-row-1.1196961

Comments

Jim said…
Is the role a full time job? I.e. should you win would you have to resign from your current job?

Reason I ask is not just the salary, but also the pensions and things, so its quite a lot for someone in your position to "give up" for a job that is not by any means secure. Thus it really is a sure fire way to try to rig an election
5:10 pm
Jim said…
Question 2 would be why was the salary of the Mayor never really brought up, until of course the mayor became directly elected?

I would personally not call any political party "democratic" as I understand it, but Labour are certainly the least democratic of them all. They even argued about the 2% raise "cap" on council tax. of course it never was a cap, its just a raise of more than 2% requires a local referendum. Labour seem to be of the opinion "we should be allowed to raise taxes as much as we like with no referendum" or "we should by all means ratify major treaties with no referendum" and still have the nerve to say they are a "democratic" party.

"Democratic People's Republic of Korea" anyone?
5:41 pm
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