Coventry Council Trip to India and Ken Taylor

John McGuigan, Coventry's City Development Director, flew to New Delhi and Mumbai last week to join Britain's biggest-ever trade mission to India ... to chase Gordon Brown around without catching up with him ... but also, to be fair, to drum up interest in plans for a medical technology park at Ansty.

The problems are:

a) all trips using public money have to be ratified by the council's cabinet, but the cabinet endorsed the India trip four days after it happened.
b) Cllr Taylor's arrogant attitude

Should the council, and by extension, the council leader, be responsible for explaining how a trip to India led to £4000 in overseas travel expenses by the City Development director?

Coventry Evening Telegraph

Socialist leader Dave Nellist asked for a breakdown of the £4,000 costs, saying: "Presumably the flights to India were less than £1,000 and the internal flights a minimum?"

Labour leader John Mutton demanded to know when the Tory-controlled council was notified, when the flights were booked and when an application for a visa was made to the Indian High Commission.

Cllr Taylor said: "I don't really think you need all that data. What difference does it make?"