Toeing the line?

At the risk of this becoming an unedifying tit for tat, I must respond to the previous letter by Cllr Paul Andrews, who is predictably outraged at people who do not agree with him.

He seems to be trying to obfuscate the actual question in Mr. Hoggard’s letter, which was not about Cllr Conlan’s personal right to campaign for 20’s Plenty, but whether he should be able to put it forward as an agenda item, then not only vote on it, but give the casting vote.

This was a question that numerous Malton residents had asked me to put forward at a town council meeting. In fact, when I raised it, the question was not allowed to be discussed, let alone addressed. This is surely a deliberate restriction of democracy.

The code of conduct that is followed by the majority of local councils quite clearly advises that whilst you may speak about an agenda item that you have a personal interest in, vested or otherwise, you should not vote for it. For Cllr Andrews to suggest otherwise is totally disingenuous.

This code of conduct was reviewed and voted on at the January council meeting with a majority voting to accept it. Cllr Andrews admitted that he had not bothered to read and review it, but then voted against it, and now wants to put a motion forward to amend this wording, as I believe he has done previously.

He talks of people writing nonsense, as he pontificates about the rights of elected members, and about us living in a free and democratic society and not Putin’s Russia. However, it is interesting that, although he finds my disallowed question outrageous, his outrage does not extend to the failure to discuss the genuine concerns of the residents we represent.

Or, at meetings when I have been curtailed from speaking on topics by the chair Cllr Conlan, although he and other councillors are not, which I think most reasonable people would perceive as being discriminatory behaviour.

It therefore seems that Cllr Andrews’ idea of freedom of speech and democracy only extends to those who align with his own views and ‘toe the party line’ as it were. This is indeed redolent of Putin’s Russia.

Cllr Kerry Ennis, Malton