The vultures are circling...

the beast rears its ugly heads...

As Matt Smith memorably wrote, a 'two-headed beast' is running the city now we have a Lib-Lab pact in Southampton.

Yet all is not well, my spies tell me. Opinion is divided on wheather the current Labour and indeed the Council's leader will keep her seat in the forthcoming local elections. Regardless of if she holds her seat or not, I am told she will face a leadership challenge in May.

A combination of the dispossed and the never possessed will, I am told, combine to force her out from within her own group.

Apparently there is an unholy alliance made up of those Labour members who opposed the coalition in the first place, those who oppose Cllr Bridle for long-forgotten political reasons, often dating back to when she last ran the council and those who are ambitious and feel that they are unlikely to secure a seat in cabinet while it remains in her gift. The last group are perhaps the most dangerous for they have their noses rubbed in it every time they attend a scrutiny meeting and see the likes of Lib-Dems like Cllr David Beckett enjoying the fruits of office. Apparently there is real anger that she did not have the foresight to resist Lib-Dem demands that not only should they proportionally have a certain number of seats but also that they should decide what those position in the cabinet those seats should occupy.

As Robert Harris once said, the only leaders Labour loves is dead ones...