BROMLEY councillors staged a walkout from a meeting in protest at a motion put before the council.

Conservative councillors had put forward a motion before the full council proposing that Bromley Council backs Boris Johnson's bid to become London mayor.

The council's seven Liberal Democrat councillors and one of the four Labour councillors walked out of the meeting in protest.

Councillor David McBride, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the council, said: "I asked the mayor to rule it out of order. It is electioneering at the ratepayer's expense."

Conservative councillor Nicholas Bennett said: "With the elections coming up we wanted to express the view that we feel for the interests of the Bromley residents we need a change of mayor."

He added: "I used to be a councillor in Lewisham, and we would debate with the Labour party and lose, but we fought our corner."

The councillors did not return to discuss a confidential item for debate at the end of the meeting.