Friday, March 13, 2009

4 Comments

1. John Ward says:

   Sunday 15th March 2009 at 04:15

   There is a small but significant error in this letter. Only members of formally constituted political groups were ever part of the former “points system” ? see Rule 19.1 of the Council’s Constitution.

   Thus Councillor Burt was not eligible, and the same would have applied to any other Independent councillor unless they teamed up to form a pseudo-group.

   I mention this in a genuine spirit of trying to be helpful, and in the interests of accuracy.

   Interestingly, there was already provision for Council to decide on the mayoralty anyway, under certain circumstances (Rule 19.4), by the way.
2. John Ward says:

   Sunday 15th March 2009 at 04:29

   Oh, another myth needs to be busted ? from your heading.

   There is no power in the mayoralty unless it is being abused. The Mayor has to give up any position in the Cabinet or on Scrutiny Committee(s) and is not allowed to take part in debates in the Council Chamber (which is one reason why I never want to be Mayor). It is in reality a _loss_ of power for a year.

   The only possible counter-balance is that, in a balanced Council, the mayor’s casting vote might become useful, but not with a comfortable overall majority. There are nowadays an odd number of members anyway, unlike pre-May 2003 when there were eighty.

   I do hope that perhaps a little more understanding of the realities might now start to emerge, rather than falling into the trap prepared by the opposition parties and their mouthpieces.

   Some of us have seen it all before, and the public-at-large eventually learned the truth (which is largely why Labour’s representation on Medway Council has dropped consistently, and why the LibDems never get very far) and the same will happen with this topic.

   It is better to be ahead of that curve, which is where I am. Fortunately ? I was able to find out at an Association meeting on Friday evening ? my (former) council colleagues are also well aware of the truth on all of this, especially the unintended revelation by Cllr Mrs Murray that I have mentioned previously?
3. Alan W Collins says:

   Sunday 15th March 2009 at 09:29

   John – I think my letter was condensed a little in order to make room for the Labour Councillors’. As I wrote in my other post, it was only Political Groups who were entitled to in the first place, although as you stated only Councillor Burt would ever miss out.

   Also, that was not my heading, it was the Messenger‘s. That is why, in my other post, it is in quotation marks (as it is in the Messenger‘s heading, implying they selected it from another of the letters published on the subject).
4. John Ward says:

   Sunday 15th March 2009 at 10:37

   That’s all quite okay: it was just worth getting the record straight here, as these things are archived elsewhere and one has no control over that. I feel a sort of proprietary interest in ensuring this place is "squeaky clean" and can’t be misused by the bad guys(!)

   Overall, this whole exercise has turned out to be a crucible in which some truths were effectively forced out, though that wasn’t the intent.

   I saw it coming, though, knowing some "stuff" about how some opposition Mayors behaved during their years, and sure enough: they tipped their hands, as the joint letter shows (if you read it carefully) and my quote of Councillor Mrs Murray showed in abundance.

   We now all know enough about their attitudes to the purpose of the mayoralty to realise why they are, for the most part, so despised by Medway residents ? not all of them, but the majority. There are lessons in all of this, and it is my hope that a lot of people will ? after an initial period of thinking one way ? come to realise some things they hadn’t known before, and finally understand the wisdom behind what has been done here.

   After all, was it not Thomas Jefferson who declared: "The common men are usually sensible, but they are rarely wise" ?

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