Labour Group Disgraced over Cozenton Nursery IncidentOrdinarily an item such as this would not be reported here; but as this is certain to become something of a local issue with plenty of coverage by the local media, it is worth knowing the facts right from the start.
The incident in question revolved around a possibly-libellous motion by one of the Labour members. The first incident in the Council Chamber occurred when the new Mayor, Cllr Ted Baker, exceptionally allowed the Portfolio Holder named in the motion to make a short personal statement before the motion was put. This was to enable the Councillor who was putting the motion to realise the falsity of her claim and to withdraw the motion before any more damage was done. As it was, the motion had already been published in a public document—the Council agenda papers—but at least it would have been possible to withdraw it and the matter could have ended there, before the motion had been formally put before the Council.
In other words, the only benefit of all this would have been to the Labour member who brought the motion, and to her group. There would be no benefit to the Mayor's political group (obvious if one thinks about it for a moment).
Unfortunately both the Labour and Liberal Democrat groups decided that this admittedly-unusual (but perfectly legitimate) action by the Mayor was politically partisan and walked out of the chamber, all apart from a couple of the Liberal Democrats. With hindsight they must have realised their error, but when they returned to the chamber they immediately called a motion of censure of the Mayor, which was lost. One can tell that we are now in the run-up to the next local elections, and our perception of what is really going on needs to include an awareness of this factor, whereupon much of what will be happening will make at least some kind of sense.
So, what had triggered the original motion in the first place?
The trade union UNISON had booked a stall at the Horticultural Show running over two consecutive weekends recently. The conditions attached to this booking included a "no campaigning or petitions" rule which they ostensibly accepted. However on the first day of the event the Council staff discovered the UNISON stand was inviting signatures to a petition. Clearly they had intended all along to flount the agreement under which they were to operate their stall—they must have prepared and taken the petition forms and other materials with them. Entirely appropriately under these circumstances, the UNISON staff member was told not to continue with the petition.
The Councillor who raised the motion at Council had also been present at this point, and almost unbelievably told the UNISON person to disregard the instruction to cease the petitioning, which had been from a senior member of Medway Council with direct responsibility for this event and who had first checked with the relevant Director within the Council.
Now, the motion before Council claimed that the Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Culture and Countryside, Cllr Les Wicks, had issued this instruction, but it transpired that he hadn't (this was backed up by verbal and written evidence from the Council Director and staff concerned) nor had any other elected member—it was entirely a decision of Council Officers and the Director. Therefore the motion was invalid; but it did not stop the entire Labour group voting for it in a recorded vote. One of their number (the ex-Mayor, of all people) even made remarks that were tantamount to calling someone present at the meeting a Nazi, causing that person to threaten to leave. It took an effort by the Chief Executive to get a retraction of the remarks.
And what was this petition about?
It was opposing the "closure/privatisation" of the Cozenton Nursery. This in itself is at best misguided, and at worst yet another instance of politically-motivated scaremongering by Labour, as there are no plans to do either of those things. Indeed, the only closure of such a nursery by Medway Council was the Priestfield Nursery back in 2000 by the then Labour administration in order to save money.