Guest blog by Philip Grant
Although Martin has shared his experience of Monday evening’s Brent
Council meeting with you in his blog on “The death of Brent Council”, I am
writing to share some personal thoughts, and images, of following part of the
same meeting on-line.
At 6.50pm that evening I went onto Brent
Council's website to watch the Full Council meeting, so that I could see and
hear what (if anything) Cllr. Butt had to say about the Employment Appeal
Tribunal's decision to reject the Council's appeal in the Rosemarie Clarke case,
and hoping that he would finally make a public apology to Rosemarie, on behalf
of Brent, for the harm she had suffered at the hands of Cara Davani and other senior Council officers. I was in
for a disappointment, as the “Live Streaming” web page showed:
I have never followed social media before, but it seemed that #BrentLive
was my only option, so I spent the next half-hour or more watching a column at
the right hand side of the screen. The first tweet to appear was from Cllr.
Matthew Kelcher (one of the new Labour intake in May 2014), just before the
meeting began, to say that he might be making his maiden speech. Thereafter a
slow succession of #BrentLive tweets, all apparently from people at the
meeting, began to scroll down the column.
The on screen details said that councillors would ‘be able to reply to
tweets’, but it appeared that Cllr. Kelcher had a whole list of tweets ready to
issue, each one praising a positive story announced by the successive Cabinet Lead
Members who presented their reports to Council. Cllr. Roxanne Mashari even
re-tweeted his comment on her positive story!
One “tweeter” at the meeting commented that although many councillors
appeared to be busy on their tablet ‘phones, very few of them seemed to be
involved in posting tweets on #BrentLive. An exchange of tweets with another
“tweeter” wondered whether they were sending DM’s to each other (perhaps
someone will add a comment to let me know what a DM is!). The other replied
that they might be playing Candy Crush, which I think is probably a reference
to the actions of a Westminster MP, but again I am ignorant of such social
media or on-line games terms.
Not all “tweeters” were convinced by the views put out on social media
by Cllr. Kelcher, especially when it came to the report by the Leader, Cllr. Muhammed
Butt. With all of the # and @ references in Matthew Kelcher’s tweets, I got the
impression that he must have prepared them in advance, but perhaps he really is
a social media whizz-kid (as opposed to my social media dinosaur), and can
compose them far more quickly than I can write emails.
Pukkah Punjabi showed that she is not just an anti-Labour “tweeter”,
with her comments about the response from the opposition Conservatives. I seem
to remember something about a cure for insomnia.
By this time I was finding #BrentLive a bit slow, without the live pictures and
sound from the Council Chamber to let me hear exactly what my elected
representatives were saying about important issues. Perhaps it would have been
better if I had made the effort to be there in person. But then again, perhaps
not, if the final tweet I read was a fair reflection of proceedings.
And I never did find out if Cllr. Kelcher made his maiden speech.
Philip Grant
DM equals Direct Message. Tweeters who follow each other can send each other private direct messages.
