See https://www.streetlife.com/conversation/19vmhoipdf1se/#comment-6
Daily Archives: 2 Dec 2014
We forecast the future – again!
Suddenly, for no obvious reason (!) politicians and their families are trumpeting their volunteering work. According to weekend newspapers, Sam Cam apparently does it and Andrew Mitchell’s children are paragons of international volunteering virtue.
It won’t be too long before all this spreads to East Devon. Watch for new and unusual combinations of local politicians and charities between now and May 2015 – with lots of photo- opportunities, particularly when bad news needs to be offset.
Those local politicians who have consistently worked hard for charities (Steve Gazzard of Exmouth for example springs to mind) would have good cause to feel just a little bit miffed.
Is a part-time/temporary/interim/shared Monitoring Officer going to be enough for EDDC in these rumbunctious times?
Since our Deputy Chief Ececutive/ Monitoring Officer departed earlier this year we have shared the Monitoring Officer post with South Somerset District Council (as, of course, we share our Chief Executive). Our Monitoring Officer still has his job as Legal Officer at South Somerset on what appears to be a full-time basis.
We were given no time-scale for the appointment of a permanent EDDC Monitoring Officer but it now seems to be an urgent need as we suspect that activity requiring constant Monitoring Officer monitoring will be a permanent feature of political life in the district until at least May 2015.
And, as neither of the mainstream political parties in East Devon admits to having a Party Whip, which might moderate the more outrageous comments of errant councillors, the Monitoring Officer is even more needed.
Oh, and a definition of rumbunctious in case there is any argument: uncontrollably exhuberant, boisterous, difficult to control or handle, turbulently active and noisy.
Political row hits regional news headlines
and this comment from Damien Mills on Councillor Wright’s web blog adds an interesting new perspective to this fracas:
“If I was Claire, I would be consulting a solicitor.
Dare I suggest Cllr Twiss might be well advised to forget about the Malicious Communications Act 1988 – which, plainly, he grasps about as well as he does the English language – and to concern himself instead with garnering a better understanding of the Defamation Act 2013.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/contents/enacted
Cllr Twiss has sent an email to his 58 fellow East Devon councillors in which he accuses Claire of ‘knowingly publishing a threatening and highly offensive comment’.
That’s a very serious allegation which, clearly, could do serious damage to Claire’s reputation – all the more so when you consider Cllr Twiss didn’t just voice his concerns in private to the Monitoring Officer but chose instead to share them with more than 50 others.
As far as I can see, Cllr Twiss’s only possible line of defence is that ‘the words complained of are true in substance and fact’ – that’s to say, he can demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt that Claire deliberately set out to intimidate / threaten the Tory contingent on East Devon District Council. Frankly, I reckon there’s more chance of a new Local Plan being in place by the turn of the year!
Cllr Twiss might, I think, do well to issue a public apology before this goes any further; failing that I fear he might need to get in touch with his fellow correspondent on these pages, John Richards, and seek out the contact details of his learned friend at Lincoln’s Inn! wink
And finally… I would be disappointed if the Monitoring Officer at East Devon has not already communicated their concerns with Cllr Twiss’s defamatory comments to each of the 58 other recipients and instigated an investigation as, it seems clear to me, there can be little doubt such comments represent a clear breach of the council’s code of conduct.”
East Devon Watch 