Labour councillors rebel against leadership over O2

Readers may recall last week that we mentioned the Council's plan to spend nearly £100,000 of their budget on a corporate suite at the O2. At the beginning of this week you'll all be delighted to hear that it was waved through at the Cabinet Committee in a meeting that lasted less than half an hour.

But wait, what is this we hear? Are the minions of the Council leadership rebelling? Last night it seems that three Labour councillors decided to "call in" the decision of their Cabinet masters. They wanted the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to check the decision.

Councillors Mick Hayes, Janet Gillman and Danny Thorpe are the rebels, but why are they doing it you may ask? It seems they feel that the decision should not have been waved through by the Cabinet and they want to have a say on it too. What they will say will says remain unknown and will be interesting to watch.

Might it be that the sub-text will be "we'll let you have this if we can have cheap concert tickets too?" One thing we have learned is the Council is thinking of making money from the suite by selling the available tickets it has in the box - we believe this is alternatively called "diversifying into ticket touting" (isn't that illegal - Ed?)

Update: Should anyone be wondering, the "rebellion" last about 20 minutes and the rebels basically said, "we just wanted to look at the proposal too, carry on"