Vote purple, go red: UKIP put in Labour council leader in Norfolk

Norfolk County Council is now a Lab/UKIP/Lib Dem coalition.

After the local elections earlier this month there were 40 Conservative councillors returned, 15 for UKIP, 14 for Labour, 10 for the Lib Dems, four Green Party councillors and one independent. A Labour councillor Cllr George Nobbs has become the council leader.

The Conservative opposition leader Cllr Bill Borrett says:

"The Conservatives will aim to be the best possible opposition and act in the interests of the people of Norfolk.

"But I am concerned that they appear to have no policies and the Greens are not going to join them formally.

"The county council needs a formal strategy to deal with the government's funding cuts ahead and we have heard nothing of that.

"I am sure the people of Norfolk will want to hear their policies but they've spent their first day arguing about seats."

UKIP councillor Cllr Toby Cook says his colleagues "will be taking a back seat."

To paraphrase Baroness Thatcher:

“Taking a back seat: The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for taking a back seat?' ”

It isn't enough. UKIP are responsible for the new administration. They will be held to account for what it does. "Don't blame us, we decided to take a back seat," is not a convincing message.