Another battle over council secrecy has erupted in the north-west.

The Lancashire Evening Telegraph has blasted the county council for rejecting a move to force its new, single-party cabinet to meet in public.

The paper's Opinion column accused the ruling Labour group at County Hall of putting on blinkers to "ignore the public's rejection of secret rule by a favoured few".

"Either that," it said, "or they have an arrogant disdain for democracy."

Labour initially threw out a Liberal Democrat call for public meetings of the new cabinet and then rejected a Tory call for a decision to be deferred.

"Why the obsessions with secrecy?" the paper asked.

"Don't they feel accountable to the people - the users of their services and their paymasters?"

It addded: "The response that this autocratic attitude begs is the kind of ballot-box backlash that knocked the party off its high horse in Blackburn with Darwen and brought about a pledge of cabinet meetings held in public."

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