Enough is enough.

Surely the time has finally come for Cheshire East Council to be put in special measures.

If the truth be told, Cheshire East – the council equivalent of a failed state – should have been put on the government’s naughty step a long time ago.

In my opinion, as Winston Churchill so eloquently put it, they’re not fit to manage a whelk stall.

The catalogue of disasters, miss-steps, failings and PR blunders is now so long it reads like a cautionary tale of how not to run a successful council.

There can’t be many councils in the country that are under investigation by police, have two senior officers suspended on full pay while they are subject to a council investigation (it was three but one had the good grace to resign), were publicly criticised over a culture of bullying, falsified air quality monitoring results, have the former leader of the council under police investigation over council contracts awarded to a friend, failed to pay overnight care workers the correct salary and announced potential job cuts in its children’s service while simultaneously announcing it was spending £150,000 on consultants to improve ‘workplace culture’.

And let’s not forget the Lyme Green waste transfer station fiasco that cost the taxpayers of Cheshire East either £100,000 or £1million depending on who you chose to believe.

(This is not a complete list of Cheshire East’s faux pas but space restrictions mean I can’t itemise them all.) But it is the latest quite shocking news emanating from Westfields that I believe is the final nail in the coffin.

Howard Murray, the councillor tasked with investigating two of his own senior officers over concerns about the way contracts were awarded has now been asked to ‘step down’.

Cheshire East said it has received information which ‘raises concerns’ about the actions taken by Cllr Murray, the Conservative councillor for Poynton East and Pott Shrigley, while serving on the authority’s Investigation and Disciplinary Committee (IDC).

The council has not deigned to provide any information over what the concerns are but in a statement last week said ‘further investigations will need to be undertaken’.

A council spokesperson added: “This is a neutral act, intended to protect Cllr Murray and the council from concerns of a similar nature arising while the matter is considered further.

“The council is considering very carefully whether this matter is capable of having any adverse impact on the work undertaken by the committees to date.

“Early indications are that the work of the committees to date is not affected by the concerns raised.”

The disciplinary committee chaired by Cllr Murray has been investigating alleged misconduct by the former chief executive Mike Suarez and chief operating officer Peter Bates. Both have been suspended.

The former chief legal officer Bill Norman has also been suspended but resigned last December.

I make no judgement about Cllr Murray and I am more than happy for the investigation to run its course (hopefully a little quicker than the investigation into Mike Suarez which has been going on for a year) but surely this is the last straw.

How much longer must the people of Cheshire East put up with having its good name dragged through the mud?

Don’t forget, this is your money the council is spending.

I can’t help but think that if Cheshire East was a Labour controlled council and not Tory, the government would have stepped in long before now.

One little vignette that does seem to have slipped under the radar is the fact Cllr Murray has also been asked to step down from his role as chairman of the Cheshire Police and Crime Panel, the group that scrutinises the actions of Police and Crime Commissioner David Keane.

Regular readers of this column will be well aware of the apparent friction and sparring between Mr Keane in the red corner (literally, he’s a Labour councillor in Warrington) and Cllr Murray in the blue corner (he’s a Tory).

He was heavily critical of the appointment of Mr Keane’s family friend Sareda Dirir to the £50,000 a year post of deputy PCC – but then again, so was just about every other observer.

But it was the appointment of Peter Astley MBE to the £75,000 a year post of chief of staff to the PCC when Cllr Murray really let rip, telling Commissioner Keane the panel could not support the appointment, despite the fact there had been a ‘rigorous’ interview and selection process.

One can’t help but wonder if Commissioner Keane will be sleeping a little easier at night now Cllr Murray is out of the picture, at least temporarily.

By our columnist The Fly In The Ointment