The planted question comes to Wiltshire

It's commonplace in Parliament at question time, and now it's come to Wiltshire. The agenda for the February council meeting included a total of 38 questions of which 18 came from Conservative councillors. Compare this with what happened in the equivalent meeting in February 2016 (14 questions of which none from Conservatives), February 2015 (21 questions of which 3 were from Conservative Cllr Graham Payne and 18 from opposition councillors), and February 2014 (15 questions of which none from Conservatives).

The toadies' questions all have a similar format and look as if they were prepared by the council's PR department. Here's an example:

"Would the Cabinet Member for Housing, Leisure, Libraries and Flooding explain to Council whether there has been any increase in usage of the library and leisure services in the South West Community area since the Nadder Centre for Health & Wellbeing opened in Tisbury" (sic).

Of course there's been an increase since the nice new library opened, and the cabinet member laps up the opportunity to explain so in a 330-word answer.

The other engineered questions and replies are sickeningly similar.

Why is this happening? Why is the opportunity to ask questions at council meetings, which in the past has been the almost exclusive preserve of Independent and Lib Dem councillors, suddenly being taken over by the Tories? Here's a clue. 2017 is an election year.