Democracy? What Democracy?

Written by Cllr Lesley Legge on Fri 23rd Jan 2009

We hope we live in a democracy. Part of democracy is being able to hold decision makers to account. Which means having the opportunity to do so.

The County Council normally has six meetings of the Full Council every year, when the public and the members can ask questions of the administration.

This year the county elections will be a month later than usual, on June 4th instead of May 7th. There was to be a meeting of the Full Council on June 23rd and another on September 8th. The Conservative administration proposed to cancel the June meeting, leaving three months after the elections before public or members could challenge the administration.

The Liberal Democrats proposed that Council meet on July 21st instead of June 23rd, but the Conservatives rejected this eminently reasonable amendment to the dates - on the grounds, among others, that 'new members would need time to get to know their divisions'! How could they get elected to represent a division if they did not know it? Might they not, on the contrary, have discovered issues that needed to be followed up, best done in a Full Council meeting?

I fear we may not live in a democracy after all.