Reading Borough Council Bill

has finally received its Second Reading. You can see the relevant part of the Hansard here. Notice that Mr Salter says that the Reading East MP pulled out of liaison meetings with Reading Borough Council involving the two MPs, and that the Reading East MP does not deny it. I did exactly the same thing, and for what I imagine are similar reasons, in 2002. I found it a poor use of my time, and that of councillors and officers, to wait 20 minutes for Mr Salter to arrive (he is rarely on time for anything) as the then council leader would not start the meeting until Mr Salter was present, then I felt personally compromised by having to witness Mr Salter bullying council officers and, in the words of a member of my staff who was present, "twisting the planning process". The then council leader, local librarian Dictatorship Dave Sutton, told me that there could be no liaison meetings without the presence of Mr Salter, so I had no further such meetings, but simply got briefings from council officers as I needed them. It appears that the Reading East MP of today does the same. A pattern emerging here? What is the common factor?

Notice too that Mr Salter talks only about Reading East. Either there is no issue with pedlars in his constituency, in which case he should have talked in general terms about the issue and about Reading Borough Council's position, or he has chosen to ignore the issue in his own constituency. But twas ever thus.