Re: Conservatives take control of South Ayrshire

David Freeland wrote:

"Colin Rosenstiel" <rosenstiel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
ColinJGSG@xxxxxxx () wrote: 

The Labour Party bid to stop the Tory actions appear to have been
unsuccessful:
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=20762006

I'm amazed at this because, as I understand the law, it couldn't happen in England.
Mayors, the English equivalent of Provosts, are elected for the year and there is no legal provision to unseat them.
In addition, the mayor controls when a special council meeting is held. While it is true that five councillors can call a meeting in their own name, that is only if the mayor refuses to do so.
A mayor could have called the special meeting to be held after the byelection. In that case control would have rested with the decision of the electorate. I'm amazed that a provost's powers are not similar.
This seems to me like a grubby attempt to bypass the democratic process.

Both parties were returned to the council with fifteen members each. It was only due to the cut of cards that Labour won control. If we are talking about representative democracy, then the Tories should have been in charge since 1999 anyway. After all, they took 41.46% of the vote across South Ayrshire whilst the Labour Party lagged behind on 36.75%. Shouldn't votes matter in a democracy instead of chance? 

Absolutely correct.

You don't need to be "let the losers win and hold the reins of power every time" PR supporter to appreciate that looking at the number of votes won by the parties is a much better way of allocating control of an evenly-split council than tossing a coin or cutting a deck of cards.
.

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