WIRRAL Council's Labour leader last night survived a vote of no confidence forced on him by the Tory opposition.

Liberal Democrats chose to vote against the Conservative call for Steve Foulkes to step down in the wake of a damning report into the council.

This was despite the smallest party's earlier call for radical changes to the council’s leadership structures, but Lib-Dem leader Tom Harney said this was time for "building relationships not destroying them".

Tories and Lib-Dems had both previously called for the introduction of an all-party cabinet to deal with the Klonowski report into the council’s corporate governance, which found the authority was failing to be run and managed adequately.

Tory leader Jeff Green told the council meeting in Wallasey town hall the Labour leader had "slumbered", allowing corporate governance failures identified by the external consultant Anna Klonowski to occur.

Calling for an all-party cabinet, he said "more of the same will not do – the council needs to change".

Cllr Harney said the issues raised by the Tory leader Jeff Green were "serious ones" and he had “considered long and hard” the Conservative proposal, but told Steve Foulkes this was a "golden opportunity" to involve councillors, staff and the public to deal with the authority's problems.

Council leader Steve Foulkes said he had been humbled, and admitted he had considered his position as leader of the authority.

He said: "I did some inner reflection and thought about my position – but Cllr Green made it easy for me to stick around."

Accusing his opponent of attempting to make political capital out of the situation the authority found itself in, he went on to say he would work with the other parties, but not in an all-party cabinet.

He told the council he had looked back at “what could I have done and what should I have done” and “these are questions that repeatedly go through my mind”.