West Area Tories undermine their leader

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 2nd Jun 2006

The Liberal Democrats were last night disappointed to discover that the Tories' Deputy Leader, Mark Bowen, was prepared to challenge the authority of his leader, Peter Thompson, by failing to uphold the promise made just a few days earlier with the Liberal Democrats to elect Cllr Andrew Morgan-Watts as chair of the West Area Committee.

Andrew Dakers, Liberal Democrat Leader, said:

"With the council as finely balanced as it is, unreliable executive leadership is clearly not in the interests of the people of Hounslow.

"We have generally found Peter Thompson to be a man of his word and were confident that, as he confirmed with us on behalf of his party, Cllr Andrew Morgan-Watts would be backed by the Tories for Chair of the West Area committee. This agreement was to ensure party political balance across area committees - reflecting the borough-wide local election results.

"We are extremely disappointed that Tory Deputy Leader Mark Bowen has undermined this agreement. I hope this is a blip and that we will see more reliable behaviour from the Tory group in future."