Well the Greens have now thrown in their lot with the Labour Party in Reading and although they have stopped short of a full coalition, they have now said that they will allow Labour to form a minority administration and run the council. In order to do this they will have to sit on their hands and abstain at Wednesday’s council meeting when the mayor is elected. With Labour on 22 councillors and the Lib Dems and Tories also mustering 22 councillors, the new mayor will be elected on the casting vote of the outgoing mayor, Labour’s Gul Khan, who will break convention and instead of voting in Tory Jenny Rynn (this year’s Deputy Mayor) will vote for a Labour nominee.

From that moment the council will be run by Labour who will continue to use the casting vote of their mayor whilst the Greens sit on their hands and abstain.

The Greens are about to find out that you do not have to vote with Labour in order to support them and that whatever the new council does from now on it will do with the tacit support of the Greens. I confidently expect the new administration to make very little impression on the £200m the council owes and that they will fail to meet the current budget which needs to find £19m of savings this current year in order to meet government targets.

It will be interesting to see if the Greens manage to gain any advantage for Park Ward residents out of their deal with Labour and if so what does that mean for Labour’s Cllr John Hartley, the last Labour councillor left in Park Ward.

For the Lib Dems it will be back to opposition on the council and campaigning on the streets again.