This ^^^ A lot of my cases involve disputes with local authorities - usually but not exclusively related to housing possession or disrepair/statutory nuisance. From the lowliest admin officer to the heads of legal departments, their personnel tend to be mediocrities who would not survive in the private sector, and as ever, when you grant extraordinary powers to very ordinary individuals, it goes to their heads. They frequently act as if the law does not apply to them/their employer, they will rarely admit to any mistakes, they take any challenge to their employer's actions as a personal affront and the cynical chicanery and dishonesty of their conduct is often quite shocking. What's more - they think nothing of throwing tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money at defending indefensible cases because they are not bright enough to understand why they are going to lose and/or are too proud to seek external advice and/or are too stubborn to concede defeat. A couple of years ago I was instructed as prosecution counsel in a private prosecution of a London local authority for allowing a flat to become so riddled with leaks, damp and black mould that it constituted a statutory nuisance by being prejudicial to health. It was truly appalling - so bad that even their own surveyor agreed that they were at fault, yet rather than doing the work and cutting a deal to avoid prosecution, they fought it all the way to trial, which they lost, heavily. The judge was so disgusted with their conduct that at one point she was thinking about fining them £240k - £270k, but she reduced it to £9k. Case law suggested a fine of between £500 and £4,000, so when the judge started bandying around those sort of figures, I thought the council's in-house solicitor, who had clearly come to court expecting to win, was going to throw up. However, they haven't learned their lesson, because they are fighting the linked civil claim with equal vigour, not to mention equal incompetence, which recently resulted in them losing the right to claim any costs in the unlikely event of them successfully defending the claim because they filed a document over 3 weeks late without any explanation and without asking the court not to impose the sanction. TLDR: local authorities tend to attract bullies and busybodies with limited intellect and little compassion or sense of public duty.
Councils -just like the Police- don't care about going to court. They never lose any money, they just lose ours. Here's a great example of an overbearing mouthy ex councilor gone mad, totally convinced of his own self importance -largely by listening to his own rhetoric
Has he gone back to Labour now, it’s difficult to keep tabs on who is representing what party let alone who’s interest?
He's a Reform MP now. IIRC, he resigned as Chairman of the Tory Party after failing to vote in favour of or against something to do with the mad Rwanda Scheme because (checks notes), “I were in the voting lobbeh and all the Labour lot wor laffin at meh”, then at some point not long after that but prior to the GE he defected to Reform.
No he is still with Flange's privately owned party currently called "Reform" but thats subject to change. I expect you could get reasonable odds on him joining the Lubs or the SNP though, given his record to date!
"Councils -just like the Police- don't care about going to court. They never lose any money, they just lose ours." I think you nailed it.
