[Brighton] Two Brighton & Hove Labour Cllrs Expelled!

[Albion my Albion]

My thoughts & prayers are with the cllrs.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

My thoughts & prayers are with the cllrs.

Especially those who work with @Steve Foster

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Appreciate I'm a day late with this response but I do have a (reasonably) well thought out idea on this.

It's education, I think. Not in a "the stupid people vote for the wrong people" kind of way.

When I was in school in the mid-late 90s there was ZERO political education on offer. Not a jot. It was only when we got to college that we could take politics & economics as an option. Which means our entire political education falls on what we find out ourselves or comes from our parents.

We're taught nothing about the political process, about how important it is that we have the right to a vote and how important it is to use it, about how to apply some critical thinking to what the men in suits on the telly are shouting at each other, about how politicians will have their own aspirations and how those aspirations might mean them taking courses of action that will categorically make your own life worse. Taught nothing about the difference between local and national politics or how they affect one another. Literally f*** all.

We used to have Personal and Social Education lessons which sound like a space where politics would be on the agenda but instead ended up just being a doss hour to catch up on homework.

Then two years after leaving school with none of this information in our heads we're given a polling card and told to make that choice.

How on earth can we choose between one person in a suit wearing a red bow or another wearing a blue bow? We can't, we don't know anything except what our parents tell us. So we vote that way. With no thought to what that means, who the person is we're voting for and what they really want from their political career.

It's a bit of a shambles, to be honest.

And, putting my tinfoil hat on, I think it's designed this way to keep us politically uninformed, to foster apathy from an early age and ensure we'll vote whichever way we're told to by our parents or the red tops.

That's how chancers and charlatans and downright cruel people can get into office.

You expect me to read all of that ?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

It's education, I think. Not in a "the stupid people vote for the wrong people" kind of way.

When I was in school in the mid-late 90s there was ZERO political education on offer. Not a jot. It was only when we got to college that we could take politics & economics as an option. Which means our entire political education falls on what we find out ourselves or comes from our parents.

We're taught nothing about the political process, about how important it is that we have the right to a vote and how important it is to use it, about how to apply some critical thinking to what the men in suits on the telly are shouting at each other, about how politicians will have their own aspirations and how those aspirations might mean them taking courses of action that will categorically make your own life worse. Taught nothing about the difference between local and national politics or how they affect one another. Literally f*** all.

And if politics was taught in school the teachers would be accused of being loony left, woke and pushing their communist agenda.

 

[BBassic]

And if politics was taught in school the teachers would be accused of being loony left, woke and pushing their communist agenda.

Funnily enough one of my teachers looked like a pudgy Jeremy Corbyn.

 

[Brovion]

How much changes in just 30 years. I took Political History as an O level, and can remember the school having mock elections in 64. Despite it being a grammar school, Labour won (following the 13 years of Tory misrule - nothing changes: and the slease of the Profumo affair) followed by the real election which returned Harold Wilson.

Indeed. In the 1970s politics was a big discussion point at school, not quite as big as football or music but we always discussed the issues of the day amongst ourselves and with our teachers. (I studied it in the Sixth Form in General Studies). Like you we had mock elections at GE time (1970 and two in 74). I took an active interest, I'd been on five or six demos (organised by the Young Liberals or Young Socialists) and even stood on a picket line (Chrysler, Coventry) before I'd left school.

Re the demos, we never did them in school time though! (See last weeks thread about schoolkids bunking off school for Palestine)

Sad that others didn't have that level of engagement in later years.

EDIT: We also had a debating society as well.

 

[Albion my Albion]

You expect me to read all of that ?

I read it for you.

He didn't get a lot of education in school on politics.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

And if politics was taught in school the teachers would be accused of being loony left, woke and pushing their communist agenda.

You think we’re not accused of this already?

(I know the answer to that question).

@Steve Foster, you seem to have disappeared again, after your scurrilous comments about Les Hamilton. What a thoroughly unpleasant individual you are.

 

[WATFORD zero]

You think we’re not accused of this already?

(I know the answer to that question).

@Steve Foster, you seem to have disappeared again, after your scurrilous comments about Les Hamilton. What a thoroughly unpleasant individual you are.

He hasn't disappeared. As far as I can see, he's still visiting this thread a few times a day, most recently a couple of hours ago.

He just doesn't have the balls to actually explain his Les Hamilton remarks

 

[stewart12]

And if politics was taught in school the teachers would be accused of being loony left, woke and pushing their communist agenda.

My Politics A-Level teacher was one of the prominent Lib Dem councillors who was spearheading the Lewes District Council assault on the Falmer Campaign

 

[The Clamp]

He hasn't disappeared. As far as I can see, he's still visiting this thread a few times a day, most recently a couple of hours ago.

He just doesn't have the balls to actually explain his Les Hamilton remarks

Never far from trouble is he.

 

[afters]

You think we’re not accused of this already?

(I know the answer to that question).

@Steve Foster, you seem to have disappeared again, after your scurrilous comments about Les Hamilton. What a thoroughly unpleasant individual you are.

I don't know and haven't heard of Les Hamilton, but it does seem that he's led a long life of service to the community in Brighton. Why he should be besmirched in the way he has simply adds to my view expressed earlier that Lyons is a particularly unsavoury character

 

[dazzer6666]

Funnily enough one of my teachers looked like a pudgy Jeremy Corbyn.

So did one of mine. She taught English

 

[Coalburner]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if local councils and councillors returned to the 1950/60's when most stood as Ratepayers and long before national politics entered everyday services that ratepayers deserve. Divisive politics should have no place in local government services.

With you all the way on this one. Well said

 

[Bry Nylon]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if local councils and councillors returned to the 1950/60's...

For some of them, it would appear their 'jokes' already have.

 

[medwayseagull reborn]

I probably know Les Hamilton as well as anyone on here, although less so in recent times. He is one of the most diligent, conscientous and moral local politicians you would find anywhere. The scurrilous implication posted by the individual on here is beyond contempt and should be universally condemned. The late former Tory councillor Gary Petzer-Dunn would be horrified if he thought a member of his own party was behaving in this way.

 

[Nobby]

What else can we expect from a Conservative Party politician.
It's a real shame that there isn't a mechanism (outside of the normal election process), where an electorate can force a councillor out.
It's happening to Peter Bone in Wellingborough currently. My kids have voted - 10% needed to get a recall. ALthough there are only two places where you can cast your vote around there so it probably won't happen.
Shame if there isn't a process where Ivan \ Steve \ lesser human can be challenged?

 

[afters]

I probably know Les Hamilton as well as anyone on here, although less so in recent times. He is one of the most diligent, conscientous and moral local politicians you would find anywhere. The scurrilous implication posted by the individual on here is beyond contempt and should be universally condemned. The late former Tory councillor Gary Petzer-Dunn would be horrified if he thought a member of his own party was behaving in this way.

I'm sad to hear that Gary P-D is no longer with us, he was a neighbour when I lived in Hove. Your sentiments are shared

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

What else can we expect from a Conservative Party politician.
It's a real shame that there isn't a mechanism (outside of the normal election process), where an electorate can force a councillor out.
It's happening to Peter Bone in Wellingborough currently. My kids have voted - 10% needed to get a recall. ALthough there are only two places where you can cast your vote around there so it probably won't happen.
Shame if there isn't a process where Ivan \ Steve \ lesser human can be challenged?

There is a process for complaints, you can challenge the behavior of any councilor against the code of conduct:

Please find a link to the code of conduct for members:

https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/content/council-and-democracy/code-conduct-members
Please also see below a link to the complaints process for members should you wish to pursue this matter further:

https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/feedback-about-council-services/complaints-about-councillors

For more info email thomas.bald@brighton-hove.gov.uk

 

[The Clamp]

There is a process for complaints, you can challenge the behavior of any councilor against the code of conduct:

Please find a link to the code of conduct for members:

https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/content/council-and-democracy/code-conduct-members
Please also see below a link to the complaints process for members should you wish to pursue this matter further:

https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/feedback-about-council-services/complaints-about-councillors

For more info email thomas.bald@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Is this the same guy that flounced off and demanded his post history be wiped?