This meeting was a train crash.1 The Mayor can’t chair a meeting, which was then cynically manipulated by the Leader, Damian White. The Mayor finally noticed the manipulation by Damian’s cabinet and was irritated (at 2 hours 10 minutes). Fortunately for Damian the Mayor doesn’t understand procedure and so he didn’t follow through with an extension of the Council meeting to close of business. Detention, as it were, for bad behaviour.
Damian is adroit and is having a ‘good’ pandemic. Numerous media appearances have brushed up his profile. His 16 minutes of repetitious contributions helped destroy the agenda.
The discussion of Covid-19 was based on a report and an amendment (Addenda 1 and 2). This report was for ‘Noting’. The unscientific and hysterical amendment should obviously have been brushed aside. No! There was a 63 minute ‘debate’ dominated by every single one of of Damian’s cabinet. What did they say in their 18 minutes of allocated time? Banalities. Viddy Persaud’s three minute anecdote about her dad was a spectacular example (2:06)
After 63 minutes Jeff Tucker (2:11) said he was voting with Damian. It was his amendment! The Simpsons have more credible storylines.
So what was really happening? Damian avoided embarrassing agenda items. None of the councillors asked for the motion to be ‘Put’ to end the fiasco. This procedural device halts debates when there’s virtual unanimity and further discussion is pointless.
The meeting ended with the National Anthem being unpatriotically murdered by Joshua Chapman (2:41). The Council should invest in a Karaoke machine.
Addendum one: Item 10
REPORT OF THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE SUBJECT: The importance of COVID-19 vaccination SUMMARY The emergence of a new, more transmissible variant has contributed to very high rates of coronavirus infection that threaten to overwhelm the NHS. In response, the Government has enforced a third lockdown to bring infection rates down and thereby relieve pressure on the NHS. A number of effective vaccines are now available, adding a powerful new tool to complement such non-pharmaceutical interventions. The immediate priority is to vaccinate the most vulnerable and those that care for them so that the pressure on the NHS can be relieved, enabling the current lockdown to be relaxed sooner than might otherwise be the case. Vaccination on this scale represents a massive operational challenge to the NHS. Inequitable resourcing and vaccine hesitancy may impede progress locally and leave residents and the NHS unnecessarily vulnerable. Information regarding progress will be needed to ensure the efficiency, equity and effectiveness of the programme for local residents In the short term at least i.e. this side of summer, vaccination must be seen as a complement to, not replacement for non-pharmaceutical interventions. RECOMMENDATIONS Note the contents of the report.
Addendum two: The Independent Residents’ Group amendment
The recommendation of the report be amended to read as follows: Council remits the report for redrafting as it is unduly alarmist, vastly disproportionate and unethical, as no details are provided about the experimental vaccines with possible side-effects it wants the council to promote.
Note
1 All quotes are from this and all times relate to the webcast Annotator Player (sonicfoundry.com)
Politics in Havering 
So the independent Residents Group amendment states that the COVID situation quoted is alarmist, what planet are these IRGs on, COVID deniers at best, or just plain stupid, perhaps that have been following the lead of Tory Mp Andrew Rosindell, who Choses not to wear a mask on Public Transport, but is a surprise, no not really as they say vote RA /IRG get a Tory.
LikeLike
Thank you for you comment
To be fair Tucker did distance himself from Durant at the end. But the amendment should never have been tabled. I don’t think that the RAs are Tory they are just hopelessly confused about their principal policies. If they’d understood procedures they could have at least tried to limit the ‘debate’ to an extent. 63 minutes was just appalling.
LikeLike