Saturday 10 May 2008

Annual Council

An interesting time was had by all but the public at last thursday's Annual Council.

Some serious political posturing, and some seriously childish rants.

End result, Council set up for the following year, public bemused by the rants of some of the Labour Group, and the image of the council seemingly tarnished by the apparant inability of certain (left of centre) councillors to understand the rules of debate.

But then I would say that being a Conservative Councillor!

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was disgusted by the behaviour of Cllr's Clive Hart & John Watkins.
The verbal abuse that they directed towards the Leader was appalling.

The lack of respect shown to the Chairman by many members of the Labour Party was outrageous. I always understood that the OFFICE was respected; the incumbent is almost an irrelevance. If anything has brought TDC into disrepute it was the performance we were subjected to that night.

As an Independent Parish Councillor, I was horrified. If I ever decided to join a mainstream political party, I now know which one it would not be.

This entire experience has made me very angry at the kind of message being sent out tarring Thanet councillors with this childish, spiteful and petty behaviour or lack of.

All elected representatives should be concerned with the issues that affect the lives of the electorate and be trying to improve them.

I believe one should attack the policies not the person.
This performance merely illustrates that the Labour Party is now so far on the back foot, because it has no policies and therefore resorts to character assassination.

Cllr John Worrow ( Independent BPC Member) Birchington
www.MinnisBay.com

Anonymous said...

And preumably, Councillor Worrow, you are content with the tarnishing of Thanet that has been accomplished so successfully by the Council Leader, Ezekiel? Aided and abetted by the boorish Councillor Wise.

It would seem both Parties have a lot to learn about public presentation and leadership. Is there an Independent out there who could fill the gap?

Anonymous said...

I won't respond to someone thats afraid to say who they are.
The word coward comes to mind.

John Worrow

Anonymous said...

I am sorry that you feel inclined to be rude, Councillor Worrow, when no rudeness was directed at you. Let us hope your "independence" does remain REAL independence.

James Maskell said...

Aided and abetted how? This is the first time Cllr Wise has been mentioned in relation to this saga.

Unknown said...

Please find below, what I tried to say at Thanet Council in proposing Cllr Richard Nicholson as Leader of the Council. In trying to do this, I was constantly interrupted and prevented from speaking by the Chair of Council, Cllr Kirby. This partisan behaviour by the supposedly neutral Chair of Council is unprecedented when a member is proposing a candidate for a Council Office.

“It won’t surprise anyone in this chamber tonight that most members on this side have a very low opinion of the recent behaviour of the outgoing leader of the Council.

When we learnt that the Conservative Group was actually going to propose that he would continue in office, our reaction was one of anger, tempered only by the thought that the group opposite diminishes themselves in the eyes of the public by appearing to condone such behaviour.

Current voting strengths in the Council mean that we have only limited means to react.

We have chosen to propose an alternative Leader. One who’s public behaviour is in sharp contrast to the alternative on offer.

It is my pleasure to propose Cllr Richard Nicholson for Leader of the Council.

In encouraging you to support my nomination, I would suggest that in Richard we would have:

• A Leader who would be able to represent the Council at Civic functions without assaulting the representative of one of our major Towns.

• A Leader who would not react to legitimate criticism by lashing out with wild unsubstantiated accusations in an attempt to damage those critical of him.

• A Leader with more than a thread of credibility amongst those with an interest in improving Thanet.

• A Leader who would command respect by being prepared to listen to councillors on all sides with something legitimate to contribute on behalf of Thanet’s electorate.

There must be some of you in the Conservative Group prepared to put support of standards in public life above tribal loyalty. I ask you to support my nomination.”

Ken Gregory said...

David,

Not entirely unprecidented, I seem to remember a labour Chairman doing the same to Cllr Hayton. Its called politics.

I would accept your contribution to the debate if it were focused around Cllr Nicholson, not written like Hillary Clinton's script writer, and focused on character asassination

The result at the end was , in my opinion, 8 out of 10 Conservative 4out of 10 Labour.

Ken Gregory said...

In addition David,

Shame you seem to have syndicated your 'comments' to most available thanet blogs, That seems to be part of a Mandelson type 'Spin'. Or may be I am just a tad cynical

Michael Child said...

Gentlemen what say you use the webcast TV system that we paid to have installed in the council chamber, so we could all judge for ourselves.

Anonymous said...

You need to levy the same charge at your friend Councillor Worrow, Ken - in the interests of fairness and consistency. He has syndicated his comments too.

Ken Gregory said...

Whilst I know of Cllr Worrow (anon 1837hrs) I do not know him personally, therefore I cannot tell you if he my friend or not, but your point is well made. Me, I have not yet got the skills to copy my comments everywhere, and I am far too lazy to keep writing the same thing.

Anonymous said...

The Tories and their fellow travellers, have a history in Thanet, of standing for election under various so called “independent” banners. It seems some things never change.

amonymous labour councillor Ramsgate

Anonymous said...

To be honest I despair of the lot of you - collectively you are a PR disaster that makes the BNP look like librarians. Not one party has come even close to not making themselves look like utterly self-serving, morally bankrupt and ultimately childish idiots of the worst order.

Every last one of you that makes the local news with anything other than a somewhat reasonably crafted press release appears to do so whilst being stonier than a biblical execution wherein you all seem to pick your friends and enemies alike to pieces.

In short I would have to say that in every case (bar one) in all my dealings with you lot (the elected monkeys) in all the years I have lived here (my entire life) that I would have gotten considerably more sense and help from a dead parrot salesman - even snake-oil sellers look down on you lot. Although they say that two heads are better than one - in your collective cases, one would have been a significant improvement - even if you had to share it.

It's no wonder that, according to icerocket, "poo" is some 66 times more interesting than "thanet" - you lot can't even do controversial right. I'm lost as to who the hell to vote for because it seems almost all the candidates are utterly useless beyond my ability to think of a clean euphemisms for brain-achingly worthless. I'd run myself, crap though I would be at the job I would still be infinitely better then the rest of you put together but after I have gone so far as to speak my mind I doubt any party would have me which is no great loss as I'm not sure I'd want to sully my name by associating with any of you.

Thus spoke a voter.

Ken Gregory said...

Matt,
I cvonsidered removing your post as it is basically rude, however, on reflection, I think it fairer to leave it for others to read and make their own minds up.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I probably was a bit harsh. I just get so upset over the way the council as a body treats us the voters, each other and the area that emotion takes over the role commonsense and tack normally occupy.

My intention was fully to shock in order to communicate a need for some fresh air. I apologise if I caused undue offense but I'll not apologise for saying that I feel utterly let down by all councilors. All I see, as a remote observer, are Torys slagging off the Labour crew for their mistakes and the Labour gang slagging off the Tory crew for pretty much the same mistakes.

It looks like the verbal equivalent of the Ramsgate and Margate gangs beating each other up but with less respect. Honestly I have lost all respect for you guys. The shouting match over the "leadership" election was simply the last straw that left all concerned less for it.

Two mud wrestlers saying how the other is "more dirty" are just as muddy.

Over the past six months both Labour and Conservatives have lost my vote forever at a local level. The behaviour of both parties is unforgivable. It lacks honour, respect or humanity.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm blunt to the point of rudeness, tend to speak up when I should shut up and tend to act on early information before the fine details are all available. So as a result I can make mistakes but I can also be spot on and in the lead. I'll also freely admit that I can come across as condescending and somewhat brash.

So while I'm calling the pot black I should underline the fact that the entire council utterly disgusts me save one or two specific individuals (of both parties). If I ever decided to join a mainstream political party I'd be too ashamed to admit to Labour or Conservative right now which only leaves a party with no members and possibly no specific direction.

So please try and see things from my point of view - there is no real difference between parties that sets one as better than the other. In all my time only the more outspoken councilors have ever replied to my communications and even then 50% of the answers were utterly useless as they did not answer my questions in a way I was able to make head or tail of. The only exception in all that time of a councilor that was supposed to "represent" me was a visit from one Conservative after I wrote for help.

For a while this won me to the side of the Tory gang but this behavior of late has offended me. If you were my employees I would have had you all summarily dismissed en mass.

It makes matters worse that whenever I have seen Sandy quoted in the paper he seems to be talking about a topic that is unrelated tot he one being reported on and comes across as just silly. It's not that I dislike him it is more that he seems so daft that I want to vote him out but I could now no more bring myself to vote for Labour as I could for Tory.

What makes matters worse is that there are no other alternatives so that who ever I vote for I will be getting someone who I do not feel is fit for the job.

For this reason I am blisteringly angry at both parties.