Leader of Warwick District Council accuses opposition councillors of "stooping to petty party politics" following calls for action to be taken over Tweet posted last April

At the start of last night’s full council meeting, Cllr Moira-Ann Grainger (Con, Warwick All Saints & Woodloes) issued a statement concerning the message.

She said: “I am aware that a tweet posted on my Twitter account last April has caused concern. When I was made aware of this fact in the summer, the matter was referred to the monitoring officer and the independent person.

"This tweet was not posted by me but by my husband and therefore on the balance, the monitoring officer felt that I was not responsible and therefore no further action was required at that time.

“However, as it appears that I have breached the council’s code of conduct on social media I have once again asked the monitoring officer to review what actions should be taken.”

But Cllr Jerry Weber (Lab, Leamington Clarendon) noted that the statement did not include an apology and asked the leader if the Tory whip would be removed from Cllr Grainger and that she be replaced as deputy leader and portfolio holder for culture and neighbourhood.

In response, leader Cllr Andrew Day (Con, Bishop’s Tachbrook) said: “It does strike me as somewhat surprising given that this issue was raised back in the spring and again in the late summer that we should be bringing this up now when we are in the midst of our third lockdown and dealing with a major challenge to the fabric of our local government.

“I suspect the motives behind these questions have very little to do with this council's diversity, its leadership’s support for policies of diversity or for our support of the working party. I suspect they have far more to do with the fact that there is a county council election in May and an attempt to try and undermine the good standing of this leadership and work that we have done cross-party. For that I am incredibly disappointed.

“We have achieved a lot together and it really is not necessary. It is distracting us from what our residents expect us to do. In my view we are not serving them well if we stoop to petty party politics like this. This will not be swept under the carpet.”