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New leader Terry Stacy |
Town Hall leader departs after budget humiliation
Rivals insist defeat over spending plans makes change logical
LIB Dem council leader James Kempton has announced he will quit his top job after one of the roughest rides ever experienced by a Town Hall chief in Islington.
He insists that he has not been driven out but his announcement comes on the heels of the opposition Labour ranks seizing control of the council’s budget, a huge embarrassment for the Lib Dems which many believe made his position untenable.
Presiding over a divided party which failed to carry out the most important part of the year’s council business – deciding how Town Hall cash is spent – Cllr Kempton has been said by some colleagues to have fallen on his sword, with the friendly encouragement of fellow Lib Dems.
He will be replaced by deputy council leader Terry Stacy, who has been speedily chosen to replace Cllr Kempton without even an internal vote.
The switch was announced on Friday, with senior Lib Dems energetically briefing journalists that there had been no internal coup.
Cllr Kempton was hit hard by the resignation of his finance chief, Councillor Andrew Cornwell, in December. Unpredictable in his support, Cllr Cornwell sided with Labour at a budget-setting meeting in February, upsetting the fragile balance of power in Islington.
Labour councillor Paul Convery said: “The charitable view is James looked in the mirror and asked: ‘Do I really want to carry on doing this?’ The uncharitable view is that he got the serious heave-ho from colleagues. In the same week as Islington’s administration failed to win its budget, the same thing happened with Labour in Bristol and they resigned en masse. The decent and expected thing if an administration can’t win a budget is to quit.”
Labour group leader Councillor Catherine West said: “There’s a logic in standing down or accepting an offer to stand down by your group if you can’t get a budget through. The budget is the backbone of the council. As a leader, once you lose something as significant as that, it’s only logical your team will be unhappy with you and want to change.”
Lib Dems insist the scornful words are a misinterpretation, although one source said: “If anything, James threw in the towel. Maybe he felt he had suffered one defeat too many.”
Cllr Kempton, who has served on the council for 16 years, will step down as leader in May but remain as a backbencher until next year’s boroughwide elections.
He said: “Being leader of the council has been the most brilliant and rewarding experience of my life but after nearly 10 years as the Liberal Democrat deputy leader and leader, I have decided the time is right to stand down. This hasn’t been an easy decision for me to make but it is the right one for me and my partner.”
When asked if the decision was linked to his party’s troubles, he said: “Not at all. It’s just given me pause for thought. If it was because of the last few months I would tell you. The fact that I’ve been as tough as I am shows that I can take it. You may go into politics with a thin skin but you’ll only survive with a thick skin.
“The internal difficulties within the Lib Dems began last summer. If it had bothered me I would have gone much sooner.”
The departing leader said his replacement had the confidence of the Lib Dem group.
“People don’t want a James clone. That would be the worst thing,” said Cllr Kempton. “I’m giving Terry a year to demonstrate the sort of leader he will be, what he stands for, what’s important to him. Terry will be an absolutely fantastic leader. He’s got a huge amount of respect from the group and across Islington and a really good national reputation on housing. He’s been the natural successor and people have acknowledged that.”
Cllr Kempton said he got into Islington politics because “I felt Labour was dragging the place I loved through the mud”.
He added: “I decided that I wanted to do something about it, never imagining that we’d ever take control, let alone that I’d become leader. I wish I’d managed to get a council tax freeze. That was a low point. I’m sure I’ve made mistakes but that’s for other people to judge.”
On the change at the top, Cllr Cornwell said: “I welcome his decision to go. It is long overdue.
“Cllr Kempton is a talented man who has contributed a great deal to Islington. I was proud to serve in his administration but his undoing was that he failed to understand the need for a decisive response by the council to the economic recession. This led directly to his defeat in the budget.”
New leader Cllr Stacy said: “I am honoured that the Liberal Democrat group has chosen me as their leader and James will be a hard act to follow.
“I am a no-nonsense sort of boy. Telling it ‘as it is’ and being up front with people are part of me, listening to what they have to say and acting on what they tell me. This is what my leadership will be about.” |
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