Another Wednesday, more letters...

Three pertinent letters this week.

The first is from an observer at the March Town Council meeting. The title was the width of the Postbag.


I don't know who he is but I am pleased that my thoughts on what observers might have thought of us are on the mark as far as he is concerned.

The second is from Amy Teale, leader of the Labour Group.


To save you looking it up, here are two definitions of petulant

pet·u·lant (pĕch'ə-lənt) pronunciation
adj.

1. Unreasonably irritable or ill-tempered; peevish.
2. Contemptuous in speech or behavior.

[Latin petulāns, petulant-, insolent, from petere, to assail.]
petulance pet'u·lance or pet'u·lan·cy n.
petulantly pet'u·lant·ly adv.

I have to say that Amy's letter betrays a huge level of ignorance of debating matters. When proposing an amendment,it is not permitted to actually discuss the motion first as the amendment will be refused by the Chairman in those circumstances. (You can't speak for or against a motion and then subsequently amend it- it would give you two bites of the cherry.) My proposition was democratically rejected but there was no effort to explore it first. At that point, the amendment having been lost, I was then entitled to speak on the original motion and would have done so had I not lost the opportunity to do so shortly afterwards. (I was happy to let a couple of others speak first (keeping your powder dry!) and that was my downfall
Her points about Derek Bradley being wrong in blaming just the Labour party have merit, but she spoils it with a personal attack about having "lost the plot".

having the opportunity to raise concerns in the proper place (the Chamber) is exactly the point I am making and has obviously sailed straight over her head.

her suggesting that I would rather remain silent in the Chamber and then go to the press is at best disingenious- did she not hear me stress that I wished to speak at the meeting?

As for blatant electioneering, it seems somewhat of a ridiculous comment seeing as how I'm not standing again! I have no idea what Derek Bradley's intentions are though.

Amy, I'm waving goodbye to you from the window of the Cluetrain that you missed...

Finally, one fromDerek Bradley.

I'm a bit puzzled by this and wonder if he has got confused.One Motion on whether to give funding to a charity was indeed deferred after I picked several holes in the proposal. However, the Morley Together Motion was accepted by a majority- but at breakneck speed and with abuse of procedure-it must be that he blinked and missed it!