Luton lockdown breach mayor fails to chair meeting

A mayor who broke Covid-19 lockdown rules to attend a party in a borough where there has been a spike in cases has failed to attend a meeting of the full council that he was due to chair.

Three Luton Labour councillors, including mayor Tahir Malik, have apologised for their behaviour.

Liberal Democrat leader, David Franks called for the trio to resign or be "kicked out" of the Labour party.

Labour council leader Hazel Simmons said there was an ongoing inquiry.

Luton was designated as an "area of intervention" last week by Public Health England (PHE) following a rise in cases.

Shortly afterwards, pictures emerged on social media showing Mr Malik, and councillors Asif Masood and Waheed Akbar attending a gathering in a garden.

The councillors have said they were "sorry that we did not live up to the standards that are rightly expected of us".

Mr Malik was due to chair the full meeting of the council on Tuesday but sent his apologies for his absence, as did Mr Akhbar. Mr Masood appeared at the meeting via a Skype call.

At the meeting, Mr Franks asked Ms Simmons if she thought it was "outrageous that councillors put thousands in danger of getting Covid-19" by attending the party and that "most reasonable people see the councillors as arrogant, ignoring their own rules when it suits them".

Ms Simmons said she had previously released a statement saying: "Three councillors have apologised and there is an ongoing investigation into this."

Mr Franks told the BBC the Labour Party needed to investigate the matter.

"What we've seen is a corporate apology, manufactured and delivered by the Labour Party press office. To count for anything an apology needs to sound and look as though they mean it," he said.

"If they've got any honour at all they'd resign and if they don't have that honour then the Labour Party should kick them out."

Ms Simmons also told the council that the authority has "had complaints so will be investigating this via The Standards Board, which is the normal process".

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