Last night annual Council Meeting saw vociferous demands by Labour councillors for more meetings. They wanted more Scrutiny Meetings and more Full Council meetings. They even voted against the Council Calendar.
Cllr Andrew Jones said there needed to be more meetings of the Overview and Scrutiny Board. Cllr Stephen Cowan was also keen on more meetings - adding that they were a "ridiculous farce." (The food in this restaurant is disgusting - and such small portions.)
Cllr Cowan also said their manifesto last year had "radical plans" to improve scrutiny arrangements. But where is their manifesto? The Conservative Manifesto can be seen here. Labour prudently made sure that you Google in vain for their manifesto.
Anyway then it was time for next business. It was to note attendance of councillors at meetings over the past year. Cllr Cowan had only turned up to five of the seven Full Council meetings in the last year.
Cllr Jones who felt so strongly that five meetings of his committee were insufficient turned out to have only been to four of them. On December 1st as the committee got stuck in to monitoring the Council's performance, where was Cllr Jones? But, last night, he was complaining we need more meetings.
In the previous year Cllr Cowan had only been to four out of six meetings of the Value for Money Scrutiny Committee. The year before he has only been to one out of five meetings of that committee. It was the only Scrutiny Committee he was on.
Yet on and on he went, last night, demanding more meetings. Which he expects others to attend.
If Labour were serious about policy, rather just turning up for political point scoring (especially when there was a demo), they would produce an alternative budget.
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