Banter, Bickering and Backslapping - Just Another Night at Full Council

I REALLY wonder why people pay the licence fee when they can get free entertainment just a few minutes from home.

I'm talking about this week's meeting of Full Council which, in the space of two-and-a-half hours, demonstrated all the qualities of a top prime-time soap.

There was banter, bickering and blackslapping in equal measure.

The banter came mostly when Cllr Paul Greenall stood up to give his speech on why the council should fly the St George Cross and Union Flag.

Beforehand, Bill Taylor, the council's chief exec, sprang from his seat to apologise profusely for the error on the agenda papers which said that Cllr Greenall was a Labour councillor (luckily, the motion was something Labour was quite happy to be associated with).

But Labour leader Terry Rice wasn't impressed with the apology, saying that the papers would be available in libraries and people would still assume that he was a Labour member (cue rolling of eyeballs all round, including his own side).

Fair point I thought, but his motion was hardly calling for the reintroduction of the death penalty - well, not in Full Council anyway... yet.

Funnily enough, nobody mentioned that later on in the agenda David Borrow, Labour MP (South Ribble) had his name mis -spelt and it became 'David Burrow'. Still, nevermind...

However, in the spirit of public service, I'm happy to help out here. So, for the record, would everyone please note that PAUL GREENALL IS A CONSERVATIVE COUNCILLOR, NOT A LABOUR COUNCILLOR.

There, that's better isn't it?

To be fair, Cllr Greenall - sporting a Stan Laurel-esque bow tie for the occasion - could see the funny side (as could most other people) and even former Labour leader Alan Bullen joked about supposedly having secret talks with Cllr Greenall about crossing the floor.

One Labour councillor (Bob Pendleton I think) then shouted out: "We wouldn't have you!"
There was also a great one-liner from Cllr Rice when the Tories refused to have the EU Flag flown as well. He told the assembled Conservatives: "You'll never get a plumber now..."

Now, bickering is almost de-rigeur when West Lancs Tories and Labour get inside the council chamber. However, there were sparks flying between wannabe Tory MP Adrian Owens and his council cabinet colleague John Baldock over what I foolishly assumed was the least controversial item on the agenda, the seemingly innocuous report entitled 'Update on Smokefree Legislation'.

According to community services boss Dave Tilleray, the council needs £8k to visit a load of businesses to teach them how to obey the law but there was some debate as to where this cash is coming from.

To be honest, as I couldn't understand the report in the first place, I didn't really understand the enusing argument. Some humour was injected into the proceedings by Cllr Alan Bullen who, typically and unhelpfully added to the Tories' woes by saying: "I didn't want to comment on this as it's clearly a family squabble..."

The backslapping part came when Cllr David Westley decided that he didn't much care for Labour Cllr Cynthia Dereli's calls for better arrangements for cardboard and business recycling and proposed his own motion which read (and I quote in full):

"That the council recognises the outstanding progress made in the rate of recycling during the past 6 years under the Conservative administration who, starting from a very modest 7% in 2001 under Labour, have pushed it up to an impressive 45%

"That the council confirms it is wholly committed to achieving further progress in both the rate of recycling and the quality of the service, through the application of the necesary time, effort and resources subject to any budgetary constraints."

Hmm... perhaps "aren't we fab?" would have been a better form of word in terms of saving ink and David Westley's (and my) index fingers.

But the pièce de résistance came when he produced a graph to illustrate just how much recycling has gone up.

It was then, ahem, 'suggested' that the local press (i.e. me, seeing as I was the only one there) might like to give this 'fantastic achievement' a wider audience. This is an old trick done at nearly ever council meeting where the press are present just to make sure you are a) still awake or b) not writing out your shopping list while your supposed to be listening to the pearls of widom emanating from across the room.

Well, I was, as any good journalist does, listening attentively so here is the said graph. Don't say I never do anything to help the council...

For more on Full Council, don't miss this Thursday's Advertiser.

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