By Julian Whittle Political editor

Last updated at 13:11, Thursday, 11 September 2008

Cumbria County Council has been plunged into crisis after efforts to get all three political parties to share power collapsed.

The authority now has a Labour leader for the first time in seven years.

Carlisle Labour councillor Stewart Young was elected yesterday once Conservative Tim Stoddard and his cabinet were ousted in a vote of no confidence.

But Mr Young faces an uphill task to get his policies through.

Although Labour is the largest party on the hung council, it is well short of a majority.

And the Conservatives are likely to ‘call in’ cabinet decisions for debate by scrutiny committees, which will mean business grinds to a halt.

Mr Young said: “Somebody has to run the council. The Labour group is prepared to take that on. If they [the Conservatives] make life difficult, we will handle it.”

The crisis unfolded over the summer when the Conservative/Liberal Democrat alliance that has run Cumbria since 2001 fell apart.

A row over mistakes in the accounts prompted the Liberal Democrats to quit the power-sharing arrangement leaving the Conservatives in sole charge. That led Labour to bring yesterday’s no-confidence motion to remove Mr Stoddard’s administration, which was carried by 49 votes to 30.

What followed was near farce.

As no party has an overall majority, council chairman Tom Clare called on all three groups to share power.

The plan was to have two deputy leaders – one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat – and a politically-proportionate so-called ‘rainbow cabinet’ of one Liberal Democrat, five Labour councillors and four Conservatives.

Liberal Democrat group leader Joan Stocker was elected as the first deputy leader.

But when the Conservatives refused to put forward names for their deputy leader or any of the cabinet posts, she resigned immediately.

She said afterwards: “I was very hurt and disappointed that the Conservatives would not put anyone forward. I hope they will reconsider.”

“Without them [in the cabinet], we could not be part of it. There is no partnership agreement between Labour and the Liberal Democrats but that is how the Conservatives would have portrayed it.”

Amid the confusion, the Conservatives tabled and lost a vote of no confidence in the newly-elected Labour leader.

Mr Stoddard denied that his group were using spoiling tactics and he defended the Conservatives’ decision not to join a Labour-led cabinet.

He said: “The council agreed by a majority that the present leader and cabinet be dismissed forthwith.

“It would have been ludicrous for those same people to present themselves for election to deputy leader or any of the cabinet posts. It would have been a nonsense.

“Our position will be one of robust scrutiny of the Labour-led administration.”

Technically, the council now has a cabinet of 10 but five of the seats are vacant.

The five Labour members are Mr Young, Barrow councillor Anne Burns who is deputy leader, and west Cumbrians Alan Clark, Tim Knowles and Barbara Cannon.

Their roles and responsibilities will be announced later.

Mr Young said: “We have spent two weeks working on proposals for a 10-man, all-party cabinet, only for the Tories to back out.

“There is an element of the Conservative group trying to wreck what’s going on. I was very disappointed. I wouldn’t mind if they had an alternative proposal but they don’t.”

First published at 11:55, Thursday, 11 September 2008
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk