25/07/2026
UPDATE ON FULL COUNCIL
A masterclass in wasting the public's time. The Greens, Conservatives and Lib Dems turned a simple request into 30 to 40 minutes of showboating. It’s not the first time and won’t be the last.
The motion or proposal in plain English, was straightforward. It asked the Strategic and Corporate Select Committee, where I serve as Vice-Chair, to review whether established legal principles under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights should feature in our review of the NCC Constitution. That's it. A review. Nothing more.
Instead we got the chamber used for theatre. Councillors grandstanding for the cameras rather than doing the job they were elected to do. It set the tone for the day, quite literally, with alphabet soup flags sat on the Greens and Lib Dem tables. Symbolism over substance seems to be the order of the day.
I've included footage from the meeting, cut to the point where the Chair had finally had enough of the political theatre and called for a vote.
I’ll let you decide if Cllr Webb was right.
However, this is exactly why our Constitution needs sorting out. It's been amended and re-amended over many years into a document riddled with grey areas, open to whatever interpretation suits the reader on the day. A constitution should be black and white. Councillors should be able to open it, read a rule, and know exactly where they stand, not have to guess which way the wind is blowing as they conduct their duty. Grounding it in actual law and established legal principle, rather than vague phrases anyone can bend, is how you fix a council that's lost the public's trust.
The hypocrisy from Cllr Webb didn't help her case either. She told the chamber that offence and insults aren't part of life and that we should debate with civility and respect. Not something that Reform candidates experienced during campaigning. This from someone whose own Green colleague, Cllr Amber Smith, had, shortly before, made obscene gestures and hurled abuse at a Reform councillor mid-speech. She apologised privately afterwards, credit to her for that, but the irony of Cllr Webb's lecture was hard to miss.
The reason so many Reform UK candidates won their seats, many of whom had never been in politics before, is to fix a broken system. Elected by our residents, we won't be grandstanding or trying to take cheap shots. We'll be working hard to fix the issues we were elected to resolve.
We'll no doubt get more of the same when the Committee's recommendations come back to Full Council. Watch the footage. Read the actual wording below. Then decide for yourself whether that's a good use of taxpayer-funded council time.
Thanks to Cllr Barry Gravenell for the copy and video.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/14bQXsFdr5E/?mibextid=wwXIfr
