Daniel Hamilton has resigned as Wandsworth’s cabinet member for transport, the second cabinet departure in a week under new leader Robert Morritt.
“I wanted to let you all know directly that I have made the decision to resign from the cabinet,” Hamilton told colleagues on Saturday evening, noting that Cllr Morritt “will wish to create a team in his own image and more in line with his personal approach.”
Morritt beat Hamilton in last week’s leadership contest after Aled Richards-Jones unexpectedly resigned as leader. Cabinet member Tom Pridham quit in protest the day after the vote citing “profound ethical and professional concerns about our new leadership”.
New leader Morritt noted that Hamilton had done “a superb job on Putney traffic issues”: an observation that perfectly sums up the state of local politics at the moment.
Hamilton’s resignation means cabinet loses one of their most effective communicators at a time when voters are starting to notice that all is not well at Town Hall and a crucial by-election is just weeks away.
Numbers built for a “close balance”
The Conservative administration governs only because of a confidence-and-supply agreement with independent councillor Malcolm Grimston, signed on 26 May because, in the agreement’s own words, “the close balance of the council will put strain on some members.” Two resignations in a week raise a direct question: does that stability still hold, and does Morritt have the votes left to govern?
We asked the new would-be leader of Wandsworth Council exactly that question. He has yet to respond.
Ten weeks after May’s election, Wandsworth has yet to settle its committee structure, and the process meant to fix that is itself now in disarray. The General Purposes Committee meeting due to approve the constitutional changes has already been rescheduled once, and will now run this evening, butting up against the council meeting on Wednesday.
What was supposed to be a full meeting of the council is now listed as a Special Council meeting, where Morritt is due to be confirmed as leader at the same time that new constitutional arrangements are put in place, and committees established.
A planned spending review has instead become a “statement on the spending review”, and the only papers that have arrived just two days before the meeting covers the appointment of a new CEO, which has itself proven to be an exercise in anti-democratic power, and a paper naming members of external committees.
Wandsworth Council remains in political limbo with the latest resignation only deepening the problems, and Conservative Central Office is said to be watching events with alarm. On top of that, control of the council is potentially up-for-grabs next month at the Trinity ward by-election.
Just as Putney’s garish rail bridges have caught the national press’ attention this week, it’s only a matter of time before the car-crash that is Wandsworth politics starts to gain wider attention.
