News / Politics
Rainbow cabinet almost certainly ruled out by Rees
Marvin Rees has now filled five cabinet positions out of a possible nine.
But despite the Green Party having as many councillors at City Hall as Labour, it looks increasingly unlikely that the mayor will be appointing a ‘rainbow cabinet’ as he did at the start of his first term of office.
Rees all but ruled out that possibility at his fortnightly press conference, saying that there is still “the need to build some trust” between his ruling administration and the opposition parties.
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“Being in cabinet is not just a functional relationship,” said Rees. “It’s a group that is very closely related to me, works very closely with me.
“It’s all part of a collection of relationships of trust. I’ve met with all the party group leaders… and what we talked about was the need to build some trust.
“Over the last five years, there’s been some very adversarial relationships, not necessarily creating an environment of trust that would facilitate that closeness of relationship of this type.
“That’s the conversation we’ve started to have and that’s the journey we expect to be going on over the coming months and years.”
When asked if it is therefore unlikely that there will be any Green Party cabinet members after those discussions, Rees said “you can draw your conclusions from that”.
He added: “Being in the cabinet is about trust. You’re right on the inside of the decisions we make.
“There are many other ways to engage in leadership of the local authority, through scrutiny, through the various panels that make decisions that I don’t control, licensing and planning and so forth. There are lots of opportunities to lead.
“But being in cabinet, as I said, is about human relationships. It takes time to build those. We haven’t had the basis of those in the past, and I hope we can build those over the coming months and years.
“But until we do get to that level of trust, then those cabinet positions aren’t necessarily ones that we’ll be throwing the doors open to.”
The latest cabinet member to be appointed is Nicola Beech as the lead for climate, ecology, waste and energy.
She joins Craig Cheney, Asher Craig, Helen Godwin and Helen Holland.
Main photo: Martin Booth
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