Post by Joe K on Jan 16, 2013 23:30:57 GMT
I hate to use hyperbole, or sound like some professional complainer, but I was disgusted by what I had to listen to at a committee meeting this evening. I already knew that the chairman of the Barton & Tredworth Neighbourhood Partnership had plans to invite GlosVain, a group led by a Labour parish councillor, Susan Oppenheimer and protesting against the county council's waste policy, to give a 'presentation' at the partnership's open meeting in February. I certainly knew this was a bad idea because we will have more than enough to talk about with local issues, and there is nothing GlosVain could tell us that they haven't already done so, exhaustively, elsewhere, and could explain again, if they so wished, at a meeting at the Barton Community entirely funded by them, strictly for the purpose. I would happily attend such an event.
What I didn't expect was for Philip Lowery to quote verbatim from a GlosVain pamphlet, then state truculently that he didn't expect the council to send a representative to the meeting. Not the slightest pretence of balance from someone in charge of a group whose funding depends on being non-political.
And the one person who could have explained that this was a bad idea (and, unlike me, was allowed to speak), county councillor Sonia Friend, was evidently happy to let Lowery be an eejit, because as a Labour councillor, she supports the opposition agenda. She doesn't have the excuse of being a eejit, though, so there may be consequences to this particular act of neglect...
PS, re the title, one wag at the meeting even thought it would be a good idea if all the local partnerships got together to oppose the incinerator. Again, people should be free to voice their feelings as individuals, and partnerships can encourage people to share their views (and I wish they would, a lot more), but that's not the same as encouraging people to have just one view, on a politically charged issue.
What I didn't expect was for Philip Lowery to quote verbatim from a GlosVain pamphlet, then state truculently that he didn't expect the council to send a representative to the meeting. Not the slightest pretence of balance from someone in charge of a group whose funding depends on being non-political.
And the one person who could have explained that this was a bad idea (and, unlike me, was allowed to speak), county councillor Sonia Friend, was evidently happy to let Lowery be an eejit, because as a Labour councillor, she supports the opposition agenda. She doesn't have the excuse of being a eejit, though, so there may be consequences to this particular act of neglect...
PS, re the title, one wag at the meeting even thought it would be a good idea if all the local partnerships got together to oppose the incinerator. Again, people should be free to voice their feelings as individuals, and partnerships can encourage people to share their views (and I wish they would, a lot more), but that's not the same as encouraging people to have just one view, on a politically charged issue.