Jim Currie's resignation

Jim Currie’s sensational resignation last night proves, among other things, that Alec Robertson’s problems are not – as he may have tried to portray them – the result of party political manoeuvring by those outside his Tory/Indie coalition. Quite the reverse – they demonstrate the rot that has taken over the heart of his administration.

Cllr Currie is a former Leader of the Conservative Group at County Hall and was, until yesterday, the Deputy Leader of the Council and the Cabinet Member in charge of the Council’s finances. Yet his resignation letter (reproduced below) points to the fundamental lack of trust that has gripped the administration for the bulk of their time in office.

In a damning paragraph (referring to the Leader’s apparent softening of his position on privatisation) Jim writes: “I welcome your somewhat ambiguous offer to respect Full Council decisions on the 23rd October but I know you will never let go”.

When your own hand-picked Deputy smells a rat you know something’s up.

The importance of the No Confidence motion on the 16th grows greater by the day. As Jude Robinson writes, Lib Dem, Indie, MK, Labour and even Tory Councillors are working together on Shared Services and the No Confidence motion, not for any narrow political advantage, but because there is now a clear understanding that all of this chaos has to stop.

The personality clashes in this saga point to a Leadership which has lost control and is now completely out of touch, but let’s not forget that this is also the administration that tried to dismantle Localism, demonstrated a wilfully casual attitude to democracy and presided over the chaos of the new waste collection contract, to name just a few failures.

The growing view among Councillors of all flavours is that Tuesday 16th October represents the best and only opportunity to stop the rot.

Here is the full text of Jim Currie’s resignation letter:

Alec

I am resigning from the Cabinet today as I feel that I have pushed the cause of retaining Council control over Joint Ventures as far as I can with the Cabinet.

The financial risks involved with the rush into the new Joint Venture proposals are unacceptable. The JV is basically too large to control. We have wasted £42m+ on the Unitary, £42m+ on the Incinerator and we are now proposing to risk a great deal more on the Joint Venture.

I welcome your somewhat ambiguous offer to respect Full Council decisions on the 23^rd October but I know you will never let go.

I could not leave local government with billions of pounds of Cornish Taxpayers money at risk and on my conscience.

Alec, this matter has never been personal.

Yours aye

Jim