A HOST of Thurrock Tories have continued to return 5% of their councillors’ allowances in order to help the council’s beleaguered budget.
As YT reported, Cllr Rob Gledhill took the lead on wednesday night at full council.
Since then: councillors Lynn Carr, Garry Hague, Ben Maney, Amanda Wilton, Neil Rockcliffe, Barry Johnson, Amanda Arnold, Pauline Tolson have all pledged to return over £500 to the council coffers.
Concerned Conservative, cllr Stuart St-Haslam also made the pledge.
Most Labour councillors would not be drawn on whether they would match their Tory colleagues however one councillor said:
“Some of us had already made this pledge but didn’t feel the need to make this public. The parable of the widow’s mite comes to mind.”
Of course Labour councillors had made this pledge, thats why it appeared in Labour’s budget – oh hold on it didn’t!
There’s only one councillor I know who could even quote the widow’s mite!
The Widow’s Mite:
Praise or Lament?—A Matter of Context?
Parable- widow’s gift to the Temple of her last two coins (mites), a passage appearing in the same context in Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4,
Councillors need to talk about this – cuts / job losses and increased payments to Pensions or no pensions beg a review of outgoings in the Council across the board – no one is exempt!