Recently the Liberal Democrats have put out misleading leaflets about Portsmouth Labour’s approach to running the council. We’re putting the record straight and being as transparent as possible about the decisions Labour councillors have taken. We always act in the best interests of our city and its citizens.

Labour did incredibly well across the city at this May’s local elections. Out of every political party, we got the highest number of votes, showing how popular our vision is for the city. 

However, because no one political party won a majority on the city council, we continue to support the Liberal Democrats to lead the council. This means we have more influence over what the council does. We support the Liberal Democrats when we agree, but reserve the right to challenge them when they are not getting it right. 

While we supported the Liberal Democrats to run the council, we didn’t support their councillors to become chairs of regulatory and scrutiny committees. That’s because these committees should be impartial – especially scrutiny committees that review the council’s decisions. 

The Liberal Democrats’ actions and decisions need to be held to account and scrutinised – after all, this is the whole purpose of these committees. Otherwise, the Liberal Democrats would be marking their own homework! 

A lack of accountability leads to poor decisions, wasted resources and inaction – like we’ve seen from the Liberal Democrats with them wasting £18m of public money on the environmentally damaging proposals for the Tipner West development, the failed Elm Grove cycle lane and not staying true to their pledge to pay people working in outsourced council services, such as social care, the Real Living Wage.

To find out more, watch our short video over on our social media channels.