Peace and harmony in the council chamber?

By Lorna Hughes on Nov 3, 09 12:35 PM

ONCE upon a time, there was a council in a kingdom called Wirral.

And on one very special night, peace and harmony reigned in the council chamber long enough for the people in charge to stop shouting at each other and support what everyone agreed was a very good idea to help citizens find jobs.

A far-fetched fairytale? Not so - this is exactly what happened at last night's full council meeting at Wallasey Town Hall.

The brief show of all-party solidarity came as Councillor Jean Stapleton introduced a motion welcoming the council's new apprentice scheme.

This is the full wording of the motion:

THE WIRRAL APPRENTICE

Proposed by Councillor Jean Stapleton
Seconded by Councillor Phil Davies

(1) Council welcomes the innovative new programme launched recently to create one
hundred new apprentice positions in local companies, with Wirral Council paying
their salaries for the next 18 months and the National Apprenticeship Service paying
for their training.

(2) Council notes that this is a key element of the authority's pro-active strategy aimed at
tackling the impact of the global recession.

(3) Council congratulates all the officers who have worked hard to get this excellent
scheme off the ground.

After sitting through an hour of heated debate on the social services whistleblower row, Cllr Stapleton's plea for a bit of calm was unexpected:

"I didn't come into politics so we could spend all our time sniping at each other across the council chamber.There's a lot of brick bats flying around this council chamber and not always for good reasons. Frankly it can make this a really unpleasant authority to work for at times."

The warm glow continued as Councillor Leah Fraser (Conservative, Liscard) stood up to welcome the launch of the Wirral Apprentice and put forward an amendment to Cllr Stapleton's motion.

But rather than the usual amendment (which generally consists of "you're totally, utterly, completely wrong, it's a stupid idea and we would do EXACTLY the opposite"), her suggestion was that the council should take it further - by contacting Microsoft to look at whether Wirral could become involved in its "Britain Works" programme of apprenticeships.

Everyone nodded in agreement - but then council leader Steve Foulkes threw a giant spanner in the works by talking about investment and the "grumpy old men campaign" he says is opposing it in certain parts of Wirral.

And then he mentioned his pride in the Labour government and the Â£30m investment the Birkenhead academies plan would bring in - which really got Conservative leader Jeff Green worked up.

He said it showed the Labour leader was more interested in making announcements about investments than education.

"Absolute lies" said Cllr Foulkes.

Then it was open season. Cllr Gerry Ellis (Hoylake and Meols) was unimpressed with all this talk of grumpy old men and announced that 99% of people in Hoylake and West Kirby had voted against the controversial Sail project.

Then Cllr Bill Duffey (Conservative, New Brighton) talked about Shadow Minister for the Family Maria Miller MP, who few in the chamber had ever heard of.

Liberal Democrat leader Simon Holbrook attempted to bring it back to the subject in hand by hailing the number of young people - over 1,000 - who applied for the Wirral Apprentice and talking about the value of apprenticeships.

Cllr Dave Mitchell welcomed the Microsoft plan and said he hoped the Conservatives would carry it on if their party won power at the next election.

Cllr Fraser's idea was voted through unanimously and finally, the debate was back to where it began.

Perhaps forgetting her earlier talk of unpleasantness, Cllr Stapleton couldn't resist a swipe at the Conservatives, saying: "I'm really pleased this motion received all-party support.

"I particularly wanted to congratulate the Tories tonight for actually positively engaging with us. It must have been painful for you".

Peace and harmony? It was never going to last.