Council suspends Blair's former agent for breaching code

John Burton, Tony Blair's long-time ally and former constituency agent, has defended himself after being suspended by his local council over a row in which he forcefully urged colleagues to vote for an investment project.

Mr Burton, who is widely respected, was removed from Sedgefield council for a month after a panel ruled he had breached codes of conduct. The decision was in response to an incident at a meeting last October at which councillors were due to vote on a £20m investment application in Trimdon, which was linked to a promise of a new school and all-weather football pitch for the village.

Mr Burton, who helped arrange for Mr Blair to secure the safe seat of Sedgefield in 1983 and served as his parliamentary agent since then, allegedly threatened another councillor, Kester Noble, with deselection if he opposed the plan.

However, the hearing heard that the outburst was a "one-off event in an otherwise exemplary political career", and Labour politicians last night expressed bemusement that the party stalwart had been acted against in such a way.

Mr Burton refused to answer media requests yesterday but, speaking exclusively to The Independent last night, he said: "All my working life I have worked for the village – wanted inward investment in the village – and if I've been kicked off the council for that, then so be it."

A tribunal heard that Mr Burton said to Mr Noble, the then (Labour) deputy leader of Sedgefield County Council: "I'm putting fucking pressure on you. [The application] is good for the village. It's what the people want and there's an election coming."

The exchange was overheard by another councillor and reported to the council leader. The Standards Board for England was subsequently called in and ruled that Mr Burton had breached the council's code of conduct, before the case was then referred to the Adjudication Panel for England, which met in Darlington on Tuesday.

Its three panel members confirmed their belief that a code of conduct had been breached. But, also at the meeting, Mr Burton declared a personal and prejudicial interest in the application as a member of Trimdon parish council and Trimdon 2000, a community health project, before leaving the meeting. He was cleared of any conflict of interest in the case.

Mr Noble, who claimed to have been upset by the threat, then voted against the application, which was rejected by 23 votes to four.

In March this year, Mr Noble was deselected as Labour candidate for the Old Trimdon and Fishburn ward. The panel ruled Mr Burton had no involvement.

Mr Blair frequently singled out Mr Burton for thanks in his speeches. Last year, days before the controversial council meeting, the prime minister told the Labour conference: "When I went to Sedgefield to seek the nomination, just before the 1983 election, I was a refugee from the London-based politics of that time.

"I knocked on John Burton's door. He said 'Come in; but shut up for half an hour, we're watching the Cup Winners Cup final'. I sat in the company of the most normal people I had met in the Labour Party.

"They taught me that most of politics isn't about politics, in the sense of meetings. It starts with people."