Tories deny Liberal Democrats their democratic rights

11.57.24pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 18th May 2006

Conservatives on Blackburn with Darwen Council refused to allow Liberal Democrat Councillors the Council places they are entitled to.

Liberal Democrats gained 2 seats at the recent Council elections and the Tories lost 2 seats, but they are refusing to recognise this shift in power and have refused to relinquish places on Committees and Outside bodies to the Lib Dems. Lib Dems have 13 seats and the Tories 15, but despite this they are happy to have twice as many Chairs and Vice Chairs as the Lib Dems. They also had twice as many seats on Outside Bodies and only gave up 2 of them to the Lib Dems.

New Lib Dem Group Leader, Cllr David Foster said," The Tories are being hypocritical. They joined with us to argue that they should have Committee places allocated proportionally and now have turned round to us and said they refuse to do the same for us. It is a sad case "do what I say, not what I do". Proportionality is OK for them but not for the Lib Dems."