Political salvos were fired by members of Bradford Council within half-an-hour of the mayor-making ceremony.

Leader of the Tory group Councillor Margaret Eaton was elected Council leader by 46 to 38 when the Liberal Democrats voted with the Tories. She is now the first woman leader of Britain's fourth biggest metropolitan council.

The new Lord Mayor Stanley King announced he would abstain to show he was an unbiased member of the Council, hung for the first time since 1990. The Council begins its new year with the ousting of the former Labour Council leader Ian Greenwood through the joint vote of the other parties.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats kept the offer of power sharing open to Labour, as well as key jobs on the powerful Executive Committee until the eleventh hour yesterday.

But Labour only accepted membership of the Executive saying it would act thoughtfully and constructively.

The row centres around leadership, with Labour saying it should retain the top job because it has four more seats than the Tories. But the other parties say the public showed they did not want Labour when they lost 13 seats in the elections.

A new Council structure, which includes setting up an education scrutiny committee and reducing the membership of the executive committee was passed by the votes of the two groups, with opposition by Labour. None of the issues were debated in the meeting because of a technicality in standing orders.

But Coun Greenwood described the new Council model as secretive after the meeting. He said his group would do everything it could to make Council business open.

He criticised the establishment of new small select committees made up of all parties as secretive and said their meetings should be in public.

But Coun Eaton said the groups were solely to delegate decisions to officers in emergency situations.

Liberal Democrat leader Councillor Jeanette Sunderland said: "Power sharing was available, but Coun Greenwood rejected this. He is only interested in working together to solve the district's troubles, created by his party over the last ten years, if he can be leader. He has shown no grace in defeat."

Coun Eaton said she was delighted about the leadership but realised it would be difficult in a hung council.

An appeal for unity was also made at the meeting by the Lord Mayor. He said: "I appreciate it might not be an easy year and could be contentious."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.