London Conservatives try to explain their GLA walk-out

Yesterday I wrote about plans to debate air pollution and cycling safety in London were axed at the London Assembly after Conservative members walked out.

Since then, however, the Conservatives Assembly members have been at sixes and sevens over why they walked out. Andrew Boff claimed it was in protest at the Conservatives not being allocated any committee chairs.

There are only two problems with this.

First, his colleague Richard Tracey in fact gave a completely different explanation - saying they walked out because they didn't get their way on an earlier motion on a different topic.

And second, it's not true the Conservatives don't have any committee chairs. Meet Roger Evans and Victoria Borwick.

Nothing quite like an explanation that ignores two of your colleagues and is contradicted by a third is there?

The Concervative's behaviour here remind me of a day about two years ago in Ealing where the Labour party walked out before an important debate about large redevelopment in Acton. It had implications about a local and well-used community centre. We had the debate but Labour were no where to be seen. Shame on them.