The new Tory-boy Mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham has decided that full Council Meetings will now end with a rendition of the National Anthem. So at 10.10pm on Wednesday, 25th June he asked everyone to wait while a musical accompaniment was brought in to, hopefully, help with the singing.It didn’t. The accompaniment was a tiny portable stereo. An official inserted a CD and a noise began. It sounded like a hard-to-hear performance from the last night of the Proms.
Then the singing started... Maybe “singing” is pushing the definition of that word a little too much. Many Conservatives seemed to think this was all a big joke. Some were giggling and nudging each other throughout, some tried to do their best to sing the two verses amongst all the pandemonium and some seemed not to know the words and mouthed away John Redwood style. Key members of the Tory front bench seemed to find the whole thing hilarious.
No wonder the Conservatives had, only moments earlier, voted against having the full Council Meetings videoed and put onto H&F Council's website. I suspect they believed that they would lose a lot of public support once people could see for themselves how they actually behave.
4 comments:
What next, Greenhalgh's own fitness video?
Although I'm not convinced webcasting council meetings would have made for 'must see' viewing, it's a shame it was voted down. Everything I hear suggests the meetings are too like public school assemblies, and the webcasts may have helped tone down these childish Tory tendencies.
The quality of debate's the important thing, and joshing around with national anthems, shouting out conservative borough names and arguing about who was seen attending a football match when they should have been at a meeting is not the quality I expect for my council tax pounds.
Nice try Stephen, and your point was well made.
What a shower!!!
Many local governmental bodies are filmed around the democratic world. The view that government is there to serve the people and that we, the people, have a right to witness it and check that it is happening doesn't seem to have taken root with Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservatives. What a shame they have that attitude. I do not think I would have watched it that often but I would have liked the option.
'Patriotism is the last resort to which a scoundrel clings'
R. Zimmerman
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