Published: Tuesday, 20th May, 2008 12:00pm

Police called to council chaos

Comments (0) | Print | Email

POLICE were called to Labour's first council meeting after it quickly descended into chaos.

Three PCSOs patrolled inside the public gallery at Slough Town Hall during the Mayor Making on Thursday evening after being alerted to a disturbance.

PCSO Daniel Brown said: "We were told there was a disturbance and we are here to provide our presence and to reassure everybody."

It should have been a day of great Labour pride as Cllr Raja Zarait became mayor with Cllr Joginder Bal as his deputy.

Passions were always likely to run high after the controversies earlier in the week where Cllr Pervez Choudhry defected from Labour to the Conservatives and was almost joined by Cllrs Mohammed Rasib and Sukhjit Dhaliwal.

As politicians debated changes to the council's constitution and appointed new commissioners, the mayor struggled to control members of the public gallery who jeered loudly.

At first Cllr Zarait dismissed their heckling and said: "People are emotional, people have come to this meeting to see you and they are welcome." But it was only when he was put under pressure by other councillors to keep observers under control, that he asked them to remain quiet.

The commotion was too much for Tory Cllr Diana Coad who marched out in protest. Speaking to the new mayor, she said: "I am leaving this meeting because you are not running it properly."

She was followed by a string of councillors including Latif Khan, Sean Wright, Patrick Shine, Sonja Jenkins, Richard Stokes and David MacIsaac, who added: "Every mayor has always managed to keep the public gallery under control."

The evening escalated into further chaos when Cllr David Munkley accused the new administration for being a ‘Stalin state' after councillors passed a motion to have a Labour politician chairman overview and scrutiny meetings, a job usually given to a member of the opposition.