I decided to go to a Borough Council meeting last night. Walking back afterwards with a member of Hastings Jews for Justice, who’d come along to find out what happened to the latest attempt at a ceasefire motion for Gaza, I said I’d be writing about what happened that evening and she asked me if I ever wrote about happy things. She told me about a happy thing, and it was nice. I’ll write about that later.
Meanwhile, a bit of history: some years ago when I was in the Labour Party, I was a Group Liaison Officer for a short while. GLOs are go-betweens between the local party and its councillors. When I was voted in, I went along to see a full council meeting. I sat with our Disability Officer. We discussed the fact that from quite a few of the ‘public gallery’ seats, it’s pretty much impossible to see or hear what’s going on in council. It was made much worse by the convention at Hastings Borough Council that councillors have desk-mounted mics, but are required to stand when they speak, thus putting themselves out of range of the mics.
The DO and I both spoke to councillors and council officers at the time to see if they could make some changes. I was told not to worry, the whole thing’s recorded so you can listen online. I tried that. The recording’s pretty rubbish. It’d be a whole lot better if councillors were allowed to speak into their mics, to get a more direct sound pick-up for the recording.
The meeting
Last night, I went along to see what had happened to the latest attempt at a Ceasefire motion – presumably, that has now been up-dated to a ‘stop arming Israel’ motion – I don’t know. I’d forgotten all about the hearing issue. But the motion didn’t happen, anyway. As to the meeting, two councillors were using full throated, outdoor public speaking voices so I heard what they said. One had a special dispensation due to illness, so was allowed to stay seated and speak into his mic, and a couple had attempted to solve the being heard problem by standing up but then knuckling the desk and speaking down into the mic so all in all, five out of thirty-something councillors were audible from where I sat, partly behind a pillar.
The last attempt at a Ceasefire motion, back in March, was nice and audible because what action there was in the public gallery, and the members of the public who were present recorded it effectively. You can read about it here…
… anyway, as far as I can tell, last night’s meeting consisted mainly of councillors asking each other for updates on things they’d hoped would have happened by now, and telling each other they’d emailed various people to try and find out what was happening.
After the meeting
I did manage to hear the group of annoyed Jews for Justice people, housing people and PSC people saying what they thought of it all afterwards. Some people were angry because it could all have gone better if various people had consulted with various other people before doing various things, so I went for a coffee with someone with better hearing than mine, and she told me what had happened to the Ceasefire motion. It was this:
Attempts had been made by Greens and Independents last December, this March, and last week (July), to put through motions about Gaza, due to the concerns of local people, and the unrest caused by people who believe what they read in the newspapers getting shirty with people who are trying to get our government to stand by international law. Each time, the Labour Mayor and the Council Officers had decided together that the council wasn’t allowed to talk about it.
I seem to remember that at that March meeting, an Independent councillor had put forward a motion proposing a rule change on who decided what the council were allowed to talk about, but that meeting was abandoned. At the time, we thought it was because the Mayor was scared of the activists in the public gallery but the Mayor told me afterwards it was because councillors behind the scenes were frightening each other.
So last night, one of the Independents asked the Council Leader what was to be done, and she said it would be addressed at the next Working Arrangements meeting. That means, if the Working Arrangements people decide the councillors can decide what they want to talk about, that proposal will be put to the next full council meeting (that’s in September) and if they’re all okay with the idea, they will then be able to put a Ceasefire motion to the next one, that will be in November or December – so don’t worry folks, if Armageddon happens to us, our council should be able to produce a view on it in just over a year.
Nothing works
I’m part way through reading How Westminster Works, and why it doesn’t by Ian Dunt. I know not everything in it is true because he repeats quite a lot of baseless slanders about the left in general and Corbyn in particular so maybe the rest of it is rumour and rubbish too, but if our council is a reflection of Westminster, I’m afraid quite a lot of it might be true. Who’d want to be a politician in this country, national or local?
We really need to do something different. Actually, we are doing something different. The latest episode was last Sunday.
You can read about that here…
There was some stuff about those housing issues in council last night as well. I’ll write about that too, soon, when I find someone who can tell me what happened.
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Dear Reader,
Times are hard, and so the articles on this site are freely available but if you are able to support my work by making a donation, I am very grateful.
Cheers,
Kay
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Kay Green 
2 responses to “Why would anyone want to be a councillor?”
I remember being a Group Liaison Officer about the same time. I thought that as a mere Party member I was gaining some rare insight into how the Labour Group made decisions including observing one leadership contest but everything I’ve heard since about the way they treat their colleagues only confirmed my growing suspicion that the performance they put on for the general public in Council meetings is only one of a series of facades our elected representatives put on for the benefit of whichever audience they are seeking to impress at time and that includes the membership, branch and CLP officials, their fellow Councillors , their County colleagues, the Party’s national (or is it notional?) leadership.
You never know and will never know what they truly think about anything. I knew that I liked some of them and mistrusted others and that trust and suspicion were equally misallocated. I wanted (like so many of us) to feel that my opinions mattered even to those in the Party that held very different worldviews, that we were all part of the same movement, sharing the same greater purpose and that somehow, we could change the world (or at least Hastings, Rye and the villages).
I wasn’t a good GLO if the aim of the post was to serve as an intermediary between party and LG members because the latter had their own little bubble of received wisdom and just wanted us to keep delivering leaflets and knocking on doors as and when required because in our cynical times the sincerity of the rank and file better serves to gull the public than actually meeting the Councillors proper, as the latter struggle to hide their contempt of us all (As their total misreading of the room on Gaza shows).
The British establishment and its local lackeys want us to play our part in the grand performance by legitimising their rule with our votes, whilst ignoring us at every turn. “They” will decide what is best for us, “they” will decide what they can deliberate in the Council chamber in Muriel Matters House (and smear us as a mob if we object), “they” control the media, locally and nationwide, setting out the boundaries of public discourse so we get a rigorous debate but only within tight limits. We need to stop playing their game by going along with the preposterous notions that there is a distinction between politics and ‘real life’ and that there is a chasm of knowledge and experience that sets our politicians apart from those they purport to represent.
As a former candidate I took part in three hustings during the General Election, and it was a revealing experience to find I could stand up there alongside the likes of Sally Ann Hart and Helena Dollimore and give as good as any of them. I found my voice in that election. Subject to the same time limit I could respond as well as those who’ve been professionally coached to give the ‘right’ answers if not better because I was free to articulate my views without fear of the Southbank Stasi or their fading Tory equivalent. The Communist Party of Britain were chuffed to have a candidate in Hastings and Rye and had no need to shackle me as poor Helena evidently was, having to measure every word to appease the control freaks that now run our country. This is not something that I as an ordinary working person believed I could do, yet I did it, and whilst my vote was small, it is from tiny acorns that mighty oaks grow.
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You certainly impressed me. That was a smashing hustings, it really was – and your efforts in council elections have been impressive, too. I don’t know about council, I really don’t. No-one can be a good liaison officer for people who don’t really want to communicate. I do think a lot of people become councillors with the intention of doing good things and making a difference but they get sort of subsumed. I used to find procedures in the LP frustrating but movement in council is outrageously slow. The fact that many of them don’t seem to see it is a sign that they’re not connecting outside any more. Do you notice how our current council leader quite happily announces that things will take X months, when she slagged off anyone who delayed what she wanted before she was leader.
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