After the Frankley walkabout on Tuesday it was off to the Council.
Ken asked his first question, it is a good way of breaking the ice. It can be a bit nerve-wracking speaking in public but Ken has done it before. The main thing to remember is to breath, a lot of new Councillors see the light flashing to say they are about to be called and immediatley stop breathing, pure nerves. If you stand up to speak like that you find you run out of breath halfway through a sentence and the voice sounds very strained. We advise anyone to make sure they try to breath deeply before they even open their mouth and then speak normally.
Keith spoke during a particularly poor debate on wheelie bins. The Labour Group put forward a motion calling for a wheelie bin trial period to be extended. This was a compromise worked out some months ago when it was decided any Councillors could ask for a pilot in their area, since then none of us, including the Labour Group have asked for a trial. Strangely none of the Labour candidates called for a trial during the election or asked the electorate if they would like one. They know that wheelie bins mean fortnightly collections and know this would have been electoral suicide. There was a sting in the last paragraph where they performed an about face and called for the continuation of weekly collections. Cake and eat it comes to mind.
Keith was rather acerbic about them during the debate and questioned their intellectual capacity. This did not go down too well with Cllr Grundy who complained to him later. The problem with this particular Councillor is that she spends most of her time sitting there denying everything that we say but very rarely presses her button to speak. If her supposed ambition to lead the Labour Group is to be realised she must make more of an effort and show her colleaques that she can outdo Sir Albert in the debating chamber and is capable of leading the group.
