Nick Forbes admits he came close to quitting as Newcastle’s council leader almost a decade ago, when he was embroiled in a cuts row that saw him battling the likes of Sting, Bryan Ferry, and Mark Knopfler.
The Labour chief’s 11 years in charge at the city council will come to an end in May, bowing out from the top job amid a party split that saw him deselected in his Arthur’s Hill ward.
But the 48-year-old has revealed that his political career was almost cut short years earlier, amid an arts funding clash in which some of the North East's most revered cultural icons lined up against him.
