The council’s Cabinet debated (or rather rubber stamped) a report today on the Financial Plan for the coming year. I wanted to ask a questions on the report. The labour leader refused to allow me to but did speak for ages attacking the government and at one point one of the Comrades said that Durham has been poor for 100 years. Interestingly Labour has been running Durham for a 100 years!

Normally they begrudgingly let us ask a question now and then even if the answer is never to the question we ask. But clearly I have hit a raw nerve this time. Labour are hiding millions from the budget in future years to make the savings look even worse than they are.

Other councils include an amount in future years for increases in business rates, including for inflation, and increases in the number of properties paying council tax. Labour in Durham is hiding millions of pounds from the budget by simply putting zeros in the document in these areas and others.

This means that this year coming they will cut further and deeper than necessary. Yes the cuts are significant and yes there are questions to be asked about why the North East is seeing perhaps higher cuts than it should be proportionately, but this deception by Simon Henig and his colleagues is disgraceful.