Labour Councillors vote with the Tories...oops!

The senior Labour councillors made a mistake and pressed the wrong button was the claim. Let us hope and pray that Sunderland never has its own nuclear deterrent with these two in charge.

Councillors apologise after voting with Tories over budget plans
Sunderland Echo
Thursday March 23, 2006
by Jeremy Wicking

Sunderland's Mayor has been given a warning by party political bosses after "accidently" voting for the wrong side.
The Mayor Bill Stephenson and Councillor Peter Gibson, who held the ceremonial post a year ago, both plumped for Tory spending plans instead of Labour's at the recent big budget vote.
They've now been disciplined by the party's chief whip Coun. Les Scott, who manages 60 Labour politicians on the 75-strong city council.
Coun Scott said: "We realises that the opposition had more votes than they should have had, so checked the voting record print-out and two Labour councillors, Coun Stephenson and Coun Gibson, had inadvertently pressed the wrong button."
The final voting came in at 43 in favour of the budget and 11 against.
Coun Scott said: "They have both apologised, been told to be more careful and, after determining that there was no intent, that's the end of the matter."
Coun Stephenson, who has said it was his opposition to Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that had inspired him to enter politics, said the pro-Tory vote was totally unintentional.
He said: I thought I was doing quite well as chairman of the meeting up until that last and final vote when my concentration slipped.
"It's the first time that I've ever had to be spoken to by the whips, who were very understanding, and I can advise the Tories that it will never, ever happen again."
It is not the forst time that there has been confusion among councillors on who and what to vote for as last year's budget saw cries of "shambles" as councillors trooped in and out of the chamber. A re-organisation of the system saw the number of votes cut this year.
Coun Scott added that he had now laid down the law to the Labour group after questions were raised on whether the smoking ban applied to the council's underground civic car park.
Labour and Conservative groups had allowed smoking in their group rooms up until last year. A ban in council committee rooms and offices has been in place since the mid 1990s and anyone wanting to feed their nicotine habit must leave council property.
Coun Scott said: "Any smokers need to step completely off council premises. A number of councillors had raised the issue of whether the ban applied to the underground car park and it does."