After last week's Full Council I cleared off to Cornwall for the last 6 days, so did not have time to post my usual report here. Sadly even after 6 days the events of last week have left a very, very bad taste.
The details of the meeting are now well known - the last minute tabling of an Option 5 by the 'leadership' as I suggested on the afternoon of the meeting (a sort of lighter touch Option 3 - 2 tiers with less school closures), the loss of the referendum amendment, and the final agreement to Option 5.
The voting was as follows:
Referendum Motion LOST by 17 - 28 - the 17 being Gardiner, Lumley (both Labour), Swan, Mosdell, Joyce, McRobert, Churchman, Bishop (unwhipped Tories), Foster, Humby, Stephens (independents), Chapman, Bowker (ex LibDems), Adams (LibDem), Arnold, Ward, Peacey-Wilcox (Tory rebels) - the 26 of the 28 against being Tories (including Whittaker now back in their fold), plus Hancock (independent) and Knowles (LibDem). The other LibDem - Price - was missing again, as was Miller (independent) for personal reasons.
LibDem amendment to Option 5 LOST by 2 - 42 - mainly because it was entirely pointless - much like LibDemmery as a political philosophy. Interesting that their new parliamentary candidate appeared to have given this meeting a wide berth.......
Vote on Option 5 was AGREED by 27 -17 - the same line-ups as the Referendum vote, but with Foster having left and Knowles (LibDem) now swapping sides.
So the only remaining executive LibDem from the last Council - Knowles - finally won on 2-tier schools as the Tories decided to throw away all the goodwill they secured at the 2005 elections from their opposition to 2-tier. And this despite the behaviour of the LibDem rump on this night being manifestly shambolic......
Best contribution of the night was from Melanie Swan in moving the referendum motion. The bad taste I still feel was partly to do with the ignorant and ill-judged attack on me by the so-called Council Chairman right at the end of the education debate as he hasn't the intelligence to recognise humour when it is used.
And after all the disruption this has caused ? The Chief Executive - who seemed to find the entire Full Council proceedings hysterically funny - announced he had got a new job even though he has always denied previously he was looking elsewhere. So its 2 years rather than 4 years.......
.........as ever - you couldn't make it up.........
12 comments:
Well Geoff,
It's come to something when the Leader of the Council is openly parodied in the County Press (not the most adventurous of publications) as a stupid, vain string puppet who can't tell the truth - I bet they ran that one carefully by the lawyers before printing it.
How long can he last? The Conservative Group must surely now see him for what he is - how blind can they be? No wonder the Chief Executive was laughing so much - it was at Pugh! I say that with no joy at all - I voted for him, more fool me!
David
I thought your joke about Martin Luther King and Pugh getting shot from the gallery a little off but it's a free country. The Chairman's rebuke was way off target.
Most amusing incident of the night was lovely Blair babe Deb G blasting the Tories for reading prepared speeches.. and then promptly losing her place in her own er, prepared speech! Politicians, doncha love em all?
Wasn't Deborah Gardiner making the point that the Tory "faithful" who spoke appeared to have had their speeches written for them, not just that they were "prepared"?
As for the sniper in the gallery joke, I was just glad (as one sitting in the gallery!) that someone in the council chamber had a sense of humour - and I thought in context it was very funny, following on from the earlier councillor's comments about the Tory group being like Martin Luther King (ie they have a dream but won't be around to see it come to fruition).
Given the number of police in attendance (again) maybe our council leaders really were expecting some kind of a riot. When in fact us Isle of Wight residents are a polite, law-abiding bunch.
I confess I heckled once. Lucky not to be arrested, really!
Yes, I do agree, sad to see significant police numbers at County Hall. What on earth did our masters expect?
It's easy sometimes to see not democracy in action (as the leadership may claim) but the might of the law being highly visible as a warning to the hoi poloi not to overstep the mark.
Remembering of course whatever you do is all on CCTV these days!
In fairness to the senior elected members some people have clearly got a bit carried away during the consultation period.
The Duckworth/Sutton/Pugh/Brown era has been an unmitigated disaster for the island - and now the Police have found insufficient evidence for criminal wrongdoing on the Undercliff contracts certainly Duckworth and Brown(chair of the so called investigation committee) should be called to account on how they allowed £2 million to be wasted on a vindictive witch hunt and before they flee.
I am very, very sad that our Island seems incapable of finding proper leadership - either elected or executive.
What is the place coming to?
They're all failures. How many Chief Execs have we had since Felix Heatherington? The Libs had five that I recall, how many since? £millions wasted on salaries and pensions, for what real achievement?
Very depressing eh.
Sticking up for myself a bit here! My point indeed was that the Tories appeared to be reading speeches that had all the hallmarks of being written for them by someone else - which is not great but at least they could have injected a bit of heart into it. The speeches were read out with all the passion of the speaking clock - or the woman on the underground who announces "the next station is... Bayswater" and "mind the gap".
I did lose my place (and felt like an idiot...) but it was my place in my notes scribbled whilst listening to the other speeches. It would have been impossible for me to write a speech as I didn't actually see the "Option 5" until I arrived for Full Council.
Chief Execs come and go with alarming regularity - each one hailed as the one to finally sort things out. Each one goes leaving things much the same...
Deborah Gardiner
I have to agree, some Tories were very dull speakers / readers, you and Geoff were at least interesting!
And I did feel for you!
Thanks - it's awful when you lose your thread. I bet Martin Luther King never did!
Deborah
Happens to me all the time, mind you, you're far too young for a senior moment.
I thought the best comment of the night was from Deborah Gardiner, referring to the leader saying that he would give consideration to the legal presumption against the closure of rural schools:
"That's very big of you. That's like me going to Tesco's and saying I'll give consideration to not shoplifting."
Too true!
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