One thing that any resident of Greenwich should be aware of is how the ruling Labour group love to control any form of dissention against its activities during council debates. In recent council meetings there have been two such occasions, regarding motions put to the council by the Conservatives on the Funding of the Eltham Regeneration Agency, and over scrapping Labour’s council tax funded propaganda sheet, Greenwich Time.
The way that these two motions were voted down, is exactly the same for every Conservative motion that is put to the council. With this in mind, thought I would write a useful guide to Greenwich Council debates, in which you easily be able to follow if you do decide to view a council meeting.
Basically the debate will go like this.
The debate will open with the Conservative proposing it talking about it. For the purpose of this guide I’ll use Greenwich Time as the subject matter. So the Conservative would say something on the lines of “It is a waste of tax payers money, and does not show the work of all of the councillors in their but just the select few who are Labour members”, “in these times of austerity the money spent should be used for vital services” and “as it is poor value for money, is unethical, and used for party propaganda it should be scrapped”.
The proposer will then be asked if they would accept Labour’s amendment to their motion. The answer will quite obviously be no, as the amendment will completely re-write the motion “PRAISING” Greenwich Time.
There is then the debate in which you will hear the line from the majority of speakers “I wasn’t intending to speak on this subject this evening”. You will also hear from a number of the cabinet, whose pictures regularly appear in Greenwich Time, justifying the rag.
Then it will come to the vote. The motion to “scrap Greenwich Time” will be defeated by Labour’s majority, and the amendment “to praise Greenwich Time, there is nothing to see here, move along” will then be vote through.
Therefore it will be recorded that a motion was voted by the council to praise Greenwich Time. End of.
Like I said earlier, no matter the subject this is how Labour conducts council business. Feel free to use this guide at future council meetings.
Update: Based on this news item from the Greenwich Conservatives website (HERE), accusing Labour of lying to their electorate by changing their manifesto, after the election, and confirming the £26m of cuts that they had planned anyway, I am expecting something like the following to happen.
Conservative Motion: We condemn the ruling Labour group for lying to the electorate by changing their manifesto after the elction, thus making them be elected on false promises.
The Labour amendment will read: Thanks to the Tory/Liberal coalition it is all their fault the cuts are going to happen, and nothing do to with us. In fact we praise the ruling Labour group for its hard work delivering public services.
The motion will be voted down and the amendment priasing the ruling group, of course, will be carried because of Labour’s majority.
