|
Full Council meeting - Thursday 13th December |
|
Monday, 17 December 2007 |
- New Standing Orders
- Labour get Cold Feet
- Labour have nothing to say
- Lottery Funding Sucked away from Voluntary Sector
- Youth Success for SNP Government
- New Standing Orders
After the SNP demand that more motions should be considered at Council meetings, this was the first meeting operating under the new system. Speeches were shorter and the meeting could have gone on to 4.30pm. However, the Labour councillors said so little that we were finished by 3.30!
- Labour get Cold Feet
The first motion was due to be a Labour one saying how much they have appreciated ring-fenced funding from the Government. John Mason and Grant Thoms were all geared up to speak on the improvement the new SNP Government had brought by allowing local government to set its own priorities. Presumably the Labour councillors realised they were on weak ground so they called off this particular debate.
- Labour have nothing to say
Second motion of the day was an SNP one congratulating Positive Action in Housing for their work with asylum seekers and refugees. Colin Deans and Khalil Malik also took the opportunity of criticising the Westminster policies which lead to even more hardship for people fleeing to Scotland. However, Labour councillors refused to speak in this debate! Presumably they were split on whether to criticise Gordon Brown’s policies or not.
- Lottery Funding Sucked away from Voluntary Sector
Jennifer Dunn and James Dornan spoke of their concerns about how much lottery funding was being diverted away from local voluntary organisations in favour of the 2012 London Olympics. Labour appear to have agreed with our motion but couldn’t bring themselves to vote for it! So they reworded it, called it an amendment, and voted for that instead.
- Youth Success for SNP Government
In a refreshing change after years of suffering under Tory and Labour governments the SNP Group was able to congratulate its own Government on a few of their many successes to date. The topic here was youth issues and was spoken to by Alison Thewliss and David McDonald, two of the SNP’s exciting new young councillors. In fact there were so many benefits for young people to list since May, that Alison was going to speak for hours and hours but sadly the Lord Provost insisted she stop. |
