The argument is not won yet!

I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at a dinner club operated by a non Southend Conservative group. The food and company was excellent and I then had the opportunity to set out my approach to delivering future budget reductions as well as floating the need for greater cooperation between the authorities in South East Essex. The post speech questions were going well until I was told by one Conservative members "that he disagreed with almost everything I had said!". What a great response. Whilst it was funny at the time it does demonstrate the challenge which still exists to get over the message as to the size of the challenge facing local government in balancing the books over the next few years. But in the meantime it is up there in my top five of the best post speaking questions thrown at me.