They say that turkeys would never vote for Christmas.

But the leader of a borough council has had the good grace to support a resolution that could see him being removed from office at some time in the future.

Maidstone council recently revised its constitution recently to convert from committee-led governance to an executive control model.

However, it neglected to write in any measure to allow for the leader of the council to be removed once elected for a four-year term.

The issue became apparant after the May local elections, when the balance of power in the council chamber shifted slightly away from the ruling Conservative group towards the opposition parties.

When it came to the annual council meeting, there was no provision for the opposition parties to challenge the right of Conservative council leader David Burton to continue in office.

It was not a huge problem then, because it is thought likely that even though the Tories now hold only 25 of the 55 seats they would have won a vote anyway with the help of some Independent members.

But the next election, which is only 11 months away, could be different.

Last Wednesday, members of the democracy and general purposes committee voted by 10 votes to zero,with one abstention, to change the constitution.

Now a motion signed by any two members of the council can remove a leader, if it wins a majority of votes in the council chamber.

Cllr Burton, who is not a member of the committee, nevertheless went along and said: “I really welcome this addition with the rules around removal of the leader – feel free to do it at any time!

“The lack of clarity that existed prior to this was most unhelpful. So I fully support this amendment.”

Cllr Clive English, leader of the Lib Dem opposition group, agreed. He said: “This is a clarification that was needed.

“But I hope we will not be removing leaders willy nilly despite the relative ease now of the procedure, because that is hardly a recipe for stabilty.”

The change will have to be ratified at the next meeting of the full council on July 19.