Curly's Corner Shop, the blog!

Cllr. Ahmed Khan ready to robustly defend himself.

South Tyneside Council Meeting (Time wasting councillors)

Hold on folks this may be a long and bumpy ride, I’ve spent the most entertaining awful afternoon in South Shields Town Hall watching our elected councillors taking the levels of debate to even lower standards than even I thought possible. I was a late arrival after bringing the children home from school, and if any children in South Tyneside need to be dragged away from school by their parents (after 3:00 pm) this would have been the ideal place to take them today. Despite their screaming protestations they would have found a standard of behaviour that they are much accustomed to. Playground shenanigans were plainly on show and how they managed to get to the end of the afternoon without trading blows was a minor miracle.

On more than one occasion I have stated in this blog that we have the council that we deserve, it seems a number of people either don’t understand exactly what I mean by this or fail to see what I am calling for. As you all know I am broadly a supporter of conservative policies (small C) with an emphasis on sound money, small government, and libertarian principles, it would be almost impossible to describe me as a Labour Party supporter. So why should I state that South Tyneside has the council it deserves?

Firstly, I respect the ballot box, the Labour Party have the majority of seats (even if their tally of votes would never reach 50% of the electorate in a million years.) Secondly, at present this Labour administration in South Tyneside cannot and could not be described as “loony left” and would struggle to convince the average voter that it is “socialist”, they appear to have spurned traditional ideology in favour of pragmatism and putting distance between themselves and Brown’s pathetic excuse for a government in London. Thirdly and far more importantly we have this council as a direct result of the quality of it’s opposition, and in danger of repeating myself, the lack of good quality opposition is the reason why we have a Labour council – simple as.

In all strategic areas the main opposition group in South Tyneside, the Independent Alliance, fails miserably, their political nous is non existent, they couldn’t see a Big Issue if it were given to them for free, they are devoid of policies, and have no idea when it is good to attack and good to hold back. Always ready for an instant comment in the Shields Gazette Cllrs.  Ahmed Khan and Jane Branley appear as the spokespersons for the party that is not a party yet seem to have no clear direction or strategy. Their grouping has lost membership and they are still too closely associated with “old Labour” and the screaming banshees of the left. Quite simply, they are the reason why people prefer to vote Labour.

Devoid of policies I said, and with good reason, having already spouted about special parking schemes for South Shields shoppers, an idea first proposed here, today with recession biting hard, with job losses rising fast, with credit and loans for new schemes difficult to come by, with council budgets about to be formulated for the next year, with the council tax base being decided this week, with a council tax increase looking likely again, just what strategic and important issue do you think the Independent Alliance chose to attack the Labour Party about? Graveyards and cups of tea!  Local readers will note that the Alliance does not appear to have tripped over the headstone issue before, I wonder where they read about it? However tea and biscuits was much more up their street, even though my blog post of 5th. January was only meant to ask some questions comparing South Tyneside to other local councils, I guess Curly’s Corner Shop must be a favourite read for Alliance councillors. Please though dear reader, please be aware that I am not in any way the author of Independent Alliance policies in these parts, but they are more than willing to feed off the efforts of others.

And so to today’s main event (check the agenda here) the notice of motion proposing the ending of free tea and biscuits for coucillors. Can you believe that it came down to this? Can you believe that council time is expended discussing refreshments?

“We call upon South Tyneside Council to stop all refreshments for Councillors at such things as full Council, pre full Council meetings, Select Committee meetings, training events that do not take all day, the Catherine Cookson Parade, the Flower Show and the events that take place during the Catherine Cookson Festival”.

This, dear reader, is what the opposition thinks makes all the difference between winning and losing elections, at a time when council budgets run into the multi-million pound brackets they decide to debate something which a newspaper speculated costs around £25000 (in reality, we were told the bill for tea and biscuits came to less than £3500). They even managed to ramp up the heat and get all angry, passionate, and very confused in this rather overblown storm in a tea cup.

Proceedings had not been helped when Conservative Cllr. David Potts tried to raise a point about school children being kept from school to take part in a political protest, at which point it seemed as though Cllr. Ahmed Khan (pictured) wanted to settle the matter outside , perhaps this is what he means by robustly defending himself, or was it just “bullying and intimidation“? Not wishing to miss out on the fun, Labour’s Barry Scorer was soon on his feet to remind us all that he’s twice as big as anyone else in the chamber, so if you’re hard enough ..etc. etc. This was now becoming savage amusement, really I’m sorry that I ever suggested bringing children to watch this crowd.

What upset me most was to see the 184 year old Progressive Cllr. Jimmy Capstick trying to amend the motion to send the whole question to a committee for “review”. WHAT? Waste even more of MY time and MONEY debating the price of tea and coffee? Get real for heaven’s sake!

Councillors, you have budgets, it’s your job to scrutinise them, question them, control them and set them in the appropriate committees. If you are doing your jobs correctly you would not have any need to waste everybody’s time and patience debating whether or not an elected councillor serving his/her community deserves a cup of tea and a biscuit after spending most of the day in the Town Hall, or at work before arriving at the Town Hall.

Another thing, why was Labour’s Ernest Gibson constantly whispering things in the general direction of the Alliance’s John Hodgson and Ahmed Khan? Best of mates or something?

Oh and another thing, half of you “gentlemen” are a bunch of scruffs, why can’t you wear a shirt, a tie, and a jacket? I don’t care what people think of that either!

Five o’clock just couldn’t get here soon enough, the sound of that clock chiming in the tower above was warmly welcomed.

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