Steve Comer

Steve Comer is a former leader of the Liberal Democrats on Bristol City Council in Bristol, England. He was Councillor for Eastville ward from 2005 to 2013, having previously served as Councillor for the adjacent Easton ward (1983-7). He lost by a single vote to a Labour candidate in 2013.

Background
Comer was born in Bristol, but has lived in a number of places, mostly in the south west of the UK. He is employed as a civil servant, and first became active in politics as a teenager, joining the Liberal Party at 18.

Comer is an active trade unionist, and is a member of the PCS Democrats group, formerly on the national executive of the PCS Union, to which he was first elected in 2000. He has been a union representative at local, regional and national level since 1989 in a variety of negotiating posts.

Politics
At the 2005 elections, the Liberal Democrat party became the largest party and took minority control of the Council. Comer joined the new cabinet team on the council, and was elected deputy leader in 2006. In May 2007 he replaced Barbara Janke as leader of the party, and was expected to become leader of the Council but was blocked by a combined Conservative and Labour vote, who installed a Labour leader instead.

At a Council meeting in May 2007 Comer proposed the establishment of a select committee on prostitution. Labour and the Conservatives blocked the proposal, saying the council lacked the funding or the staff who could be dedicated solely to such a specific problem.

In 2013 Comer lost by a single vote in a very close election that saw the Labour Party complain that he was being racist in pointing out that the Labour candidate was from Scotland and had no connection with Eastville.