Leeds united?

Generally political coverage gets preoccupied with Westminster - with even the most trivial and speculative gaining attention so it is welcome that Total Politics magazine seeks to help fill this gap in their content (also their distribution list where they send councillors free copies.)

The new issue arrived today with a piece about the Lib Dem/Conservative coalition in Leeds. As the Lib Dems have 24 councillors and the Conservatives 22 facing an opposition Labour Group of 43 the relationship in the coalition must be intriguing. The Conservatives and Lib Dems take it in turns to be Council leader on a six monthly cycle but effectively operate as joint leaders.

The Conservative leader Cllr Andrew Carter (who I think has his stint as Council leader again from next week) makes a good point about the length of time everything takes:

"When decisions are made by politicians to fund something, it should actually happen in a period of reasonable time - not 10-15 years. If we're going to move at that pace through this recession we're going to fail miserably. The lesson the government must take on board is that the systems of government are simply not fit for purpose anymore."