Another Embarrasing Shambles,,,,

Another Embarrasing Shambles,,,,

Yet again at last nights Council meeting we were treated to the experience of none of the senior Members or Officers apparently knowing what they were doing.
Casting my mind back to the last shambles, that was the meeting where we discussed the China Gateway application, when a Member called for a recorded vote none of the Officers nor the Chairman were able to say how this should be carried out. It was left to the Chairmans chauffer to supervise the process. Now I dont know why I should feel uncomfortable and a bit embarassed about this but I do, probably because it refelects badly on the Council as a whole and as a Member of the Council I am tarred with the same brush.
So back to last nights debacle, during the course of discussion on Cabinet reports to Council Dave Green wanted to move an ammendement as is his right but the Chair then took what passes for 'advice' from Officers and a five minute delay ensued while they debated among themselves whether he could move his ammendment or not, it was finally decided that he would be 'allowed' to put his proposition. When he had finished speaking further confusion reigned as it now seems that the collective senior members and Officers are unable to understand English and couldnt make out what he had proposed, despite the fact the he had informed the Cabinet Member a couple of days beforehand.
We then moved on to the next item that was to add to the list of roads in Thanet where unauthorised trading is prohibited. A simple enough exercise you would think ! The first cock up happened when the Cabinet couldnt decide whose Portfoilio it was in, I would have thought that common sense dictated that you sort out who is speaking on what BEFORE the meeting and not at the time. The net result was that Sandy Ezekiel stood up and proposed the changes, I had agreed to move an addendum on behalf of the Labour Group and duly gave notice and stood up to move it. During the course of my speech there was sage nodding of heads from the Tory benches and murmers of hear,hear, when I had finished speaking I sat down feeling quite pleased with Myself as my speech had apparently been quite well received. Sandy Ezekiel then stood up and asked Council to reject my ammendement. I was a bit miffed at this as quite clearly the Leader of the Council hadnt understood the difference between an ammendement and an addendum although I had quite clearly said that we accepted the changes and they should happen I was asking for an additional action to happen. When I pointed this out the addendum was allowed.
After this we went on to discuss training for Members of the local Standards Board, while I have no problem with training for Members the proposal actually says that unless a Member has had the training they wont be allowed to serve on that Board.
Now in a democracy that seems to be completly undemocratic and flies in the face of the basic fact that elected representatives for better or worse should reflect the community they represent and not be forced to follow the 'training' that tells you what you can and cant do. Although there are possible legal consequences of a Standards decision they should be pointed out at the time of considering a decision. This has already been introduced for the Councils Licensing Committee, there are also moves to make 'training' compulsary for the Members of the Planning Committee.
In my opinion these moves are deliberatly designed to remove Members from the decision making process and further emasculate us. When challenged, usually by Labour or Independant Members the Officers who tell us that we " have no choice" are actually unable to point us in the direction of the peice of legislation that tells us we " have no choice" but the Tory majority go weakly along with this thus further eroding our effectivness and ability to influence events and policy.
This of course is typical Conservativism, a do nothing, make no decision, play it safe way of thinking then they cant be blamed when something goes wrong.
Every decision the Council makes should be guided by the Constitution and that is why it is important that every Councillor should understand the Constitution and more importantly the Rules of Debate that we work under so if any training is needed should be aimed at those who hold office as Members and senior Officers who's job it is to advise those Members.
What we have at the moment is a shambles of a Constitution, senior Officers and Members who dont understand it and Junior Officers who havnt been trained in its implementation and most back bench Members who havnt a clue about it either.
That is one of, but not the only reason that the Council is currently seen as a complete dogs breakfast.

p.s. I have just got off the phone to TDC's Planning department who tell that although I want a planning application in my Ward to come before the Committe I have to have 'planning grounds' for that to happen. As I understand my role as a Councillor it is to represent the veiws of my constituents regardles of their race, colour, creed, voting intention, background or expertise in planning grounds, I just want to go to the Planning meeting and say my bit on their behalf but now apparently I have to be an expert in planning law as well.

In the Public Interest

I am not normally given to commenting on national issues here but the furore surrounding Damien Green MP, or Adrian Green if you read the local rag is getting very confusing.
Plod invaded his offices and home allegedly because of a 'leak' and it seems that they didnt have a warrant to enter his Westminster office although they did have for his Constituency office and house. It also seems that no-one knew the procedure for entering and searching Palace of Westminster premises or if they did they chose to ignore it. It also appears that no-one had any advance knowledge of this apart from some Tory wallah who just happened to have his video camera with him !
So there are several issues here that need looking at, firstly should the Police inform senior politicians when a high profile arrest is about to take place. Is it right that the Press should also be informed in advance as has happened on several ocassions and appears to be a deliberate attempt to cause maximum emabarrasment to the Government of the day. Should the Police have been involved at all as the information leaked is not about National Security or confidential in any way.
Was the Civil Servant merely providing information in response to a question or was there another motivation.
The Police will have access to a lot of confidential personal information about constituents on the MP's computer, what gaurantee is there that this wont be used in connection with any other investigations they may be carrying out?
These are just a few of the questions that arise and the media in their semi sexual frenzy of trying to discredit Ministers are as usual overlooking the facts.
Speaker Martin is going to set up a Committee of senior MP's to look at the whole debacle and lessons that can be learned from it, one of the things they should seriously look at is the question of the impartiality of the Civil Service, we in the Labour Party have long known that the system is loaded against us and the people we seek to represent being loaded as is it is with the old school tie brigade so representative of the Tory party, the Civil Servant who leaked this information is a Conservative Party activist having tried several times, unsuccessfully, to gain employment in some form with the Tories.
Perhaps he thrashed the wrong bottoms at school !!
Of course the usual excuse for leaking information is that 'it is in the public interest' that is the same lame excuse used by newspapers to hound politicians and other public figures, the only interest it serves is the one of self publicity in the case of low ranking politicians or the sale of newspapers.