Can Councillor Brett Survive the banter

or his deputy Sara Rowbotham's scatter-gun?

A STRANGE recording was recently aired in a YouTube video.  It was filmed on behalf of a body called 'Survivors Matter'* and dealt with events which followed the last meeting of Rochdale Council.

The YouTube recording starts with a telephone exchange in which Councillor Sara Rowbotham, the deputy leader of Rochdale Council, is highly critical of two of her fellow Labour councillors.  Northern Voices has e-mailed Councillor Rowbotham asking her to confirm or deny that the recording referred to in the link below* is authentic.  Reply came there none! 

It seems clear that Councillor Rowbotham wasn't aware that she was being taped because, after criticising the two councillors, she then turned her scatter-gun on her Labour Party colleagues or as she called them, 'the nasty bastards behind me', of which one was her leader, Councillor Allen Brett, who was sitting right next to her in the Rochdale Town Hall Council Chamber.

In August, a draft report of an investigation into the council leader's conduct, involving his careless remarks or 'banter' about withholding funds for road improvements was leaked to the media.  It is reported that the draft report suggested that he ‘brought himself, his office and the council into disrepute’.

But if Councillor Brett may have brought Rochdale Council into disrepute, what now of his deputy leader Councillor Rowbotham, caught on tape blasting-off liberally against her colleagues?  May she too have had what the earlier draft report on Councillor Brett describes as had ‘a detrimental impact on the public’s perception’ of the council.

Both Rochdale's Leader Brett, and now his deputy Councillor Rowbotham seem to have behaved somewhat recklessly to say the least.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plcpbDLm6Pg

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