CAT SCRAP AT BUDGET MEETING

By Polly P.T. Kettleon

A CURIOUS little cat scrap between councillors appeared in The Crumbling News this week.

The story was buried deep within the paper’s re-telling of Crumberland Council’s budget-setting meeting which amounted to about 1,000 words of carefully-written speeches composed by Councillors for tame Churnalists to parrot back to the public and not dispute!

(Shocky horror – Labour-controlled Cumberland clapped through another 4.99% INCREASE with not a single mention of Keirnocchio’s ‘Not a penny more on your Council Tax’ pledge.)

But back to the cat scrap that caught the eye.

It concerned an apparent claws-out between Carlisle Green Party leader, Cllr Helen Davison, and Whitehaven Labour councillor, Emma Williamson, Deputy Leader of Crumberland Council.

During the meeting, Cllr Davison complained that the papers for the budget meeting ran to a balls-aching 807 PAGES with Councillors given just FIVE days to read them.

(Her point being that in-the-dark members would not be fully informed when making important financial decisions.)

For reasons best known to herself, Cllr Williamson “quipped” in reply that she had read the papers “over lunch”.

According to the Online Book of Lies, it would take the average reader 10 to 20 hours to read 807 pages.

Cllr Williamson may have many qualities but reading 20 times faster than the average living human being on earth is presumably not one of them.

And whether it’s appropriate that she, as Deputy Leader of the Labour Council, is launching a stand-up career at a budget-setting meeting is up for debate.

Especially when the new Council has plunged into the debt abyss (£244m) under Labour’s “leadership” and is firmly on the naughty step with external auditors.

And why was Cllr Davison bending Labour’s ear about only having FIVE days to read the papers?

Council agendas are published SEVEN days in advance – a fact well known to all operating in Local Government.

Yet in true investigative and exhaustive style, The Crumbling News failed to follow up on what the jiggins both Councillors were on about.

The “cat scrap” was allowed to hang there unexplained to the bemusement of all its readers.

Sub-Editors, who needs ’em? Not Scroogequest!

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