Councillor Beatrice Fraenkel defects from Liverpool Liberal Democrats to Labour Party

Here in Liverpool the Liberal-Democrats are holding their national Spring Conference.

I have blogged before about whether they would come to regret their decision, politically. (I know they wont regret coming to Liverpool in terms of the city and the facilities.)

What wont have helped their mood is the news that a long-standing LibDem councillor, with 21 years service, has this week defected to Labour.

Beatrice Fraenkel has resigned from the Liberal-Democrats calling them "damaged and dysfunctional". She is a member of the national Standards Board (or was until now, she has of course had to resign as she was there as a Liberal-Democrat)and so presumably knows what she is talking about when it comes to councillors' bad behaviour.

This is what the Liverpool Echo had to say about the defection. And this is the Liverpool Daily Post's take on it.

And this is what the woman who deselected her has had to say

Not very nice, considering she is probably a big part of what we might call the "final straw".

I dont understand the criticism about the timing, people are calling it cynical, but naturally one would want to maximise the impact of a defection. That's politics!

Anyway, I am pleased Beatrice will be joining us on the Labour benches - and that has pushed our female representation stats up a bit more too.