Argyll First Lose Motion For Democracy Within Argyll
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 9:39 pmArgyll First lose motion but make great progress see results and comments of poll
http://forargyll.com/2011/04/argyll-fir ... rogress-2/
The Argyll First group of councillors put a motion to a full meeting of Argyll and Bute Council this morning. It was that the unrepresentative and undemocratic Executive should be removed and that decision taking authority should be returned to the full council.
While the motion was inevitably lost, with councillors belonging to the administration voting against it to a man, it was encouraging for Argyll First to see that they are making progress on this issue and on fostering collaborative working amongst opposition councillors.
Where any earlier motion put forward by the three Argyll First councillors – Donald Kelly himself, Dougie Philand and John McAlpine – would attract only their own votes, this morning their motion attracted 9, losing to the 18 strong block majority vote present.
The 9 votes were their own three, with five of the six SNP councillors present and Councillor George Freeman of the Argyll and Bute Independent Councillors group.
The sixth SNP councillor present, John Semple, abstained.
What is encouraging for Argyll as well as for Argyll First is that this vote is a sign of the opposition councillors putting egos and political position-making behind them in favour of creating a more powerful consolidated group.
In the past, the Argyll First motion would have produced a little flotilla of competing motions leaving none of them able to make their mark.
Given that the administration will simply vote en bloc, regardless of evidence and regardless of the greater interests of Argyll, no motion is going to succeed that does not suit them.
So it has always been an unintelligent waste of time to dicker around with alternative motions with other fingerprints on them rather than simply supporting a decent general motion that makes the point in question.
The Argyll and Bute electorate needs to see evidence that there is a consolidated opposition to the administration within the body of councillors if they are not to dump them all together
Argyll First are again to be congratulated for their steady pursuit of an issue they were the first to highlight.
Public support – the case for change
In making the spoken case in support of his motion, Councillor Donald Kelly used the figures from the final results of the For Argyll POll which closed this morning (28th April 2011) at 8.00am.
The three questions put and the voting results were:
Question 1: Are you happy with the current Argyll and Bute council?
Yes: 9%
No: 91%
Question 2: Are you happy with the way the Executive of Argyll and Bute Council is set up?
Yes: 7.5%
No: 92.5%
Question 3: Would you prefer to have the full council take the decisions?
Yes: 87%
No: 13%
The introductory text explained the make up of the current Executive so voters were aware, in Question 2, what they were voting on.
Neither the digital monitoring system nor the voting patterns indicated any great multiple voting and any duplications were removed from the final figures.
Since voters are self-selected in online polls rather than identified to fit a statistical model, this result cannot be said to be scientific but it does show a pronounced pattern of perspective across all three questions and across our subsstantial audience.
The expenses decoy
Some councillors have been saying sniffily that this Argyll First motion – bound to fail – was a waste of public money in the expenses for councillors travelling to the meeting.
This is the argument explored in Terence Rattigan’s play, The Winslow Boy, where a father financially ruined his family in the process of establishing the innocence of his young son, who had been wrongly accused of stealing a five shilling postal order. It was also the argument put forward by those who felt that Britain should not go to war with Germany because of its invasion of Poland – the issue Rattigan was really talking about with this play. The question is the relationship between cost and right.
There can be no question that the right position must always be put and must always be defended. Otherwise where would we be?
There is also the additional matter that expense claims are optional. The Argyll First councillors already take a voluntary 10% pay cut to show solidarity with the pain felt across Argyll in the cuts to public expenditure. Other councillors, who chose not to follow suit, do not have to claim for their travel to this – or any – meeting.
http://forargyll.com/2011/04/argyll-fir ... rogress-2/
The Argyll First group of councillors put a motion to a full meeting of Argyll and Bute Council this morning. It was that the unrepresentative and undemocratic Executive should be removed and that decision taking authority should be returned to the full council.
While the motion was inevitably lost, with councillors belonging to the administration voting against it to a man, it was encouraging for Argyll First to see that they are making progress on this issue and on fostering collaborative working amongst opposition councillors.
Where any earlier motion put forward by the three Argyll First councillors – Donald Kelly himself, Dougie Philand and John McAlpine – would attract only their own votes, this morning their motion attracted 9, losing to the 18 strong block majority vote present.
The 9 votes were their own three, with five of the six SNP councillors present and Councillor George Freeman of the Argyll and Bute Independent Councillors group.
The sixth SNP councillor present, John Semple, abstained.
What is encouraging for Argyll as well as for Argyll First is that this vote is a sign of the opposition councillors putting egos and political position-making behind them in favour of creating a more powerful consolidated group.
In the past, the Argyll First motion would have produced a little flotilla of competing motions leaving none of them able to make their mark.
Given that the administration will simply vote en bloc, regardless of evidence and regardless of the greater interests of Argyll, no motion is going to succeed that does not suit them.
So it has always been an unintelligent waste of time to dicker around with alternative motions with other fingerprints on them rather than simply supporting a decent general motion that makes the point in question.
The Argyll and Bute electorate needs to see evidence that there is a consolidated opposition to the administration within the body of councillors if they are not to dump them all together
Argyll First are again to be congratulated for their steady pursuit of an issue they were the first to highlight.
Public support – the case for change
In making the spoken case in support of his motion, Councillor Donald Kelly used the figures from the final results of the For Argyll POll which closed this morning (28th April 2011) at 8.00am.
The three questions put and the voting results were:
Question 1: Are you happy with the current Argyll and Bute council?
Yes: 9%
No: 91%
Question 2: Are you happy with the way the Executive of Argyll and Bute Council is set up?
Yes: 7.5%
No: 92.5%
Question 3: Would you prefer to have the full council take the decisions?
Yes: 87%
No: 13%
The introductory text explained the make up of the current Executive so voters were aware, in Question 2, what they were voting on.
Neither the digital monitoring system nor the voting patterns indicated any great multiple voting and any duplications were removed from the final figures.
Since voters are self-selected in online polls rather than identified to fit a statistical model, this result cannot be said to be scientific but it does show a pronounced pattern of perspective across all three questions and across our subsstantial audience.
The expenses decoy
Some councillors have been saying sniffily that this Argyll First motion – bound to fail – was a waste of public money in the expenses for councillors travelling to the meeting.
This is the argument explored in Terence Rattigan’s play, The Winslow Boy, where a father financially ruined his family in the process of establishing the innocence of his young son, who had been wrongly accused of stealing a five shilling postal order. It was also the argument put forward by those who felt that Britain should not go to war with Germany because of its invasion of Poland – the issue Rattigan was really talking about with this play. The question is the relationship between cost and right.
There can be no question that the right position must always be put and must always be defended. Otherwise where would we be?
There is also the additional matter that expense claims are optional. The Argyll First councillors already take a voluntary 10% pay cut to show solidarity with the pain felt across Argyll in the cuts to public expenditure. Other councillors, who chose not to follow suit, do not have to claim for their travel to this – or any – meeting.