I thought I wouldn’t be at Council today – I’d made my apologies to my Group, and was planning on sitting home waiting for shiny kitchen appliances to be delivered.  They duly turned up mid-morning, leaving me with no excuse for Council at 2pm.

There was a very short agenda this month, and a similarly short one last month. The Lord Mayor proposed to cancel the November, roll the business together to form a more substantial meeting in December which could be rounded off with festive cheer and a Christmas dinner.

Unfortunately, the  Lord Mayor doesn’t have the constitutional right to cancel a meeting, so members were sent a letter saying that the two meetings would be combined unless an objection was received from one or more Members of Council.

A Conservative member objected, I understand.  They had a motion they wanted to table in December, but worried that in the planned fuller December meeting, there was scope for the motion to be filibustered out and not discussed.  We had no feelings either way – we felt there was no advantage in turning up twice if we could fit it into one meeting.  But if the Tories actually had business that would warrant everyone turning up, then that was reason enough to continue with two meetings.

Two meetings we duly had.  Last month, we made sure we tabled our maximum number of questions, as did the Conservatives, to give us at least some reason for being there.  The meeting lasted just over an hour, if I recall correctly.

This month, we turned up again.  The Tories, who had pretty much insisted on us having this meeting so they could table a motion, didn’t do so.  They also didn’t ask any questions, and they refused to vote on the only other substantial item of business, concerning super-casinos in Nottingham.  They frequently refuse to vote on most things going through Council.  Presumably this is so that no-one can print in leaflets that the Tories voted for X, although what they say is usually enough for us to go after them when we need to.

So today’s meeting finished in under forty minutes, with the Conservatives, who insisted on having the meeting, not saying anything and not voting on anything.

It wasn’t an entirely fruitless meeting.  We got our full quota of questions in. We engaged in full and frank debate about council housing in the city, with a series of questions relating to news stories about Decent Homes.  We got to play off Labour MP Alan Simpson’s forthright, and probably incorrect views about sustainable building in city schools against the views of the portfolio holder.  Cllr Chapman gave an entertaining, Christmassy response, criticised the MP in veiled terms, and eventually undertook not only to include substantial sustainable elements in the new school developments, but also to take the designs to two Scrutiny Panels.  Which is a Good Thing.  And a series of questions to the Leader got him a bit hot under the collar.

But because there were two short meetings finishing before 3pm instead of one longer meeting, we don’t get our festive Council Christmas dinner.  Well done, Tories!

(Actually, I don’t mind at all. We have loads of stuff in the freezer that needs eating.The food at Council is really very good, but tonight I’d rather have home-cooked chicken korma than Christmas dinner.)

I’m currently selling a Riso on ebay if anyone wants one cheaply.

EDIT: or not so cheaply – now sold!

I’ve spent the last two days promoting the new Lib Dem Green Tax Switch policy on Chesterfield’s markets and in Nottingham city centre.

A few months ago, the central party offered us goodies like pre-printed leaflets and correx boards and stickers if we’d sign up to standing in the middle of town and talking to people.

We hired a market stall yesterday in Chesterfield, and talked to hundreds of people.  Being a contact point was a real plus; standing there with our council leader, our MP and our MEP meant we almost always had the right person to field questions if we were short of knowledge ourselves.  And being so prominent in Chesterfield meant lots of people wanted to talk to us.  We actually didn’t get on to talking about the environment all that often.
In Nottingham today we stationed ourselves in a very busy part of town and handed out our flyers, but most people were too busy to stop and talk to us. We distributed a lot of flyers – fewer than I thought, but still hundreds.  It will be interesting to see how many get returned.

And the differences between the two sets of people?  In Chesterfield, there was a trend for woolen scarves that look like tinsel, and I didn’t see that in Nottingham.  In Nottingham the most striking thing was the eye make-up!  So much of it!