IMPETUOUS TORIES WERE SHAMEFUL

At item 12 of Thursday's AGM the council was asked to appoint councillors to represent TDC on various outside organisations and bodies, these are very privileged positions.

The Labour group did not feel in any way obliged to support the nomination of councillors who, over the past year, had seriously damaged the reputation of the council.

Therefore, following proper procedure, the Labour group nominated alternative councillors, as is our right.

Strangely, it is apparently legally in order for the Conservative Leader to appoint one of his councillors who has a drink-driving conviction to the council's own licensing committee and it is also clearly his prerogative to completely ignore calls for another of his councillors to apologise for making a nasty hate phone call. 

However, it is certainly not the duty of our Labour group to blindly support the nomination of any councillors in such circumstances.

It beggars belief that the Conservative group thought it was somehow the duty of all councillors to support their nominations, whatever behaviour those nominated may have exhibited during the past year. They clearly appear to believe these privileged positions are theirs of right, no matter what they do. 

So why then did the Conservative group, bar two, leave the Council Chamber on Thursday evening, half-way through the meeting?

The answer in short is: they threw a tantrum! In protest at two of their members having to cede their places on outside bodies to Labour members who had expressed an interest in them. 

The result of their walking out was that they were not present to debate the very important issue of community safety and action plan in partnership with the Police. 

It certainly is their duty to attend meetings to discuss and make decisions. Do the Conservatives not consider community safety to be a key issue?

Instead, prior to their departure, there was an unpleasant lecture from one of the offending councillors about their drink driving offence who shouted that 'it could happen to anyone of you'. 

This was offensive! Not only to the Labour councillors it was directed at, but also to the general public: drink and drive can kill! And it must not be trivialised.

Do the Conservative councillors not consider that the residents they represent would expect them to, at least, be present in the meeting when matters relating to anti-social behaviour, domestic violence, alcohol abuse, to name just a few, are being debated?

The truth of the matter is that they behaved like impetuous children.

THANET LABOUR GROUP