On Sat, 14 Feb 2009, Ian Jelf wrote:

In message , Andrew Heenan
writes
Councillors, on the other hand, seem to be held to account
by this Orwellian-sounding "Council's Code of Conduct for Councillors".
That "code of conduct" sounds a bit like an employer's disciplinary
procedure to me.

What's wrong with disciplining a power-hungry ******* who has betrayed
those who bothered to vote -

That is the job of the electorate; not a non-elected body of officials.

The gaping hole in this i dea is that the electorate only get a chance to
do this every few years. Are you really saying that if an elected official
does something dreadful, then there should be no way of getting rid of
them, we should just have to wait until the next election? I think that
sounds like a really bad idea.

In some places, they have such things as recall elections, whereby if the
public are unhappy with an elected official, they can depose him before
his term expires. If we had a mechanism like that, which worked
effectively, then i'd be fairly happy with not having a bureaucratic
disciplinary procedure, since the employers (the public) could hire and
fire directly. But in the absence of such a mechanism, we need a procedure
to keep elected officials in line on our behalf.

Note that i'm not saying here that i think the process that was in action
in the case we've been discussing is a good example of this - it might or
might not be, i really don't know. And obviously i'm also not passing
comment on Colin's case either.

tom

--
never mind your fingers, i've got blisters on my brain

MIG wrote:
On Feb 14, 11:53 am, "Brian Watson" wrote:
wrote in message

...

Can I make it clear that this was no power-hungry grab. It was a (totally
screwed up admittedly) attempt to deal with a problem that constituents
have complained about vehemently and repeatedly for many years.
I would never have met the ambulance driver if a constituent hadn't rung
me up and told me that the gate had been broken open. If he had correctly
reported that the gate had been left open by someone entitled to open it I
wouldn't even have gone to look. I'd just have called the council officers
and left them to it. That was where things went wrong and I lost it in
frustration for the failure of people to do their jobs as promised.
I'd say (as someone who doesn't actually live in the city and has no
political or personal beef with Colin) that that looks like a perfectly
reasonable statement about why he was there and why he did what he did.

He got it wrong, but was not fully-acquainted with the facts. It doesn't
excuse it but it explains it.

I spot a parallel with the way in which people posting to this group,
not acquainted with any facts, have behaved rather badly.

The difference is that, rather than having been misinformed, they know
that they have no facts and decide to make judgements nevertheless.

(Or are simply pursuing an attempt at a wind-up and spectacularly
failing to get the response they hoped for, which indicates an
appropriate degree of restraint from the Councillor concerned.)

Or is it that in a case of Usenet, being wrong doesn't actually risk
peoples lives?


Still, Colin is in good company really. No one, it appears, is actually
responsible for anything these days. Not in politics.

Of course its different in aviation, where someone is alway to blame for
a crash.

And people do extensive studies to understand them and issue warnings.

In light of the crash IN NY state a few days ago a friend passed me this
link.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...23060735779946

Let's hope Colin is never a pilot on a plane with a passenger. Where
awareness of subtler clues than blue flashing lights, are necessary to
avoid killing people.

On Feb 14, 10:03*pm, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
MIG wrote:
On Feb 14, 11:53 am, "Brian Watson" wrote:
wrote in message

om...

Can I make it clear that this was no power-hungry grab. It was a (totally
screwed up admittedly) attempt to deal with a problem that constituents
have complained about vehemently and repeatedly for many years.
I would never have met the ambulance driver if a constituent hadn't rung
me up and told me that the gate had been broken open. If he had correctly
reported that the gate had been left open by someone entitled to open it I
wouldn't even have gone to look. I'd just have called the council officers
and left them to it. *That was where things went wrong and I lost it in
frustration for the failure of people to do their jobs as promised.
I'd say (as someone who doesn't actually live in the city and has no
political or personal beef with Colin) that that looks like a perfectly
reasonable statement about why he was there and why he did what he did..

He got it wrong, but was not fully-acquainted with the facts. It doesn't
excuse it but it explains it.

I spot a parallel with the way in which people posting to this group,
not acquainted with any facts, have behaved rather badly.

The difference is that, rather than having been misinformed, they know
that they have no facts and decide to make judgements nevertheless.

(Or are simply pursuing an attempt at a wind-up and spectacularly
failing to get the response they hoped for, which indicates an
appropriate degree of restraint from the Councillor concerned.)

Or is it that in a case of Usenet, being wrong doesn't actually risk
peoples lives?

Despite knowing nothing about the situation, apart from a newspaper
report which was clearly nosensical and full of misleading hints which
weren't backed up, you've decided that someone's life was risked.

Where did you get this information?


Still, Colin is in good company really. No one, it appears, is actually
responsible for anything these days. Not in politics.

Of course its different in aviation, where someone is alway to blame for
a crash.

And people do extensive studies to understand them and issue warnings.

In light of the crash IN NY state a few days ago a friend passed me this
link.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...23060735779946

Let's hope Colin is never a pilot on a plane with a passenger. *Where
awareness of subtler clues than blue flashing lights, are necessary to
avoid killing people.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

MIG wrote:
On Feb 14, 10:03 pm, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
MIG wrote:
On Feb 14, 11:53 am, "Brian Watson" wrote:
wrote in message
...
Can I make it clear that this was no power-hungry grab. It was a (totally
screwed up admittedly) attempt to deal with a problem that constituents
have complained about vehemently and repeatedly for many years.
I would never have met the ambulance driver if a constituent hadn't rung
me up and told me that the gate had been broken open. If he had correctly
reported that the gate had been left open by someone entitled to open it I
wouldn't even have gone to look. I'd just have called the council officers
and left them to it. That was where things went wrong and I lost it in
frustration for the failure of people to do their jobs as promised.
I'd say (as someone who doesn't actually live in the city and has no
political or personal beef with Colin) that that looks like a perfectly
reasonable statement about why he was there and why he did what he did.
He got it wrong, but was not fully-acquainted with the facts. It doesn't
excuse it but it explains it.
I spot a parallel with the way in which people posting to this group,
not acquainted with any facts, have behaved rather badly.
The difference is that, rather than having been misinformed, they know
that they have no facts and decide to make judgements nevertheless.
(Or are simply pursuing an attempt at a wind-up and spectacularly
failing to get the response they hoped for, which indicates an
appropriate degree of restraint from the Councillor concerned.)
Or is it that in a case of Usenet, being wrong doesn't actually risk
peoples lives?

Despite knowing nothing about the situation, apart from a newspaper
report which was clearly nosensical and full of misleading hints which
weren't backed up, you've decided that someone's life was risked.

Where did you get this information?

From the extremely clear and detailed evidence given by both Colin and
the driver in the PDF of the hearing whose link was posted by Richard
Kettlewell.


Unlike the rest of you, I actually downloaded it and read it.

In message . li, Tom
Anderson writes
On Sat, 14 Feb 2009, Ian Jelf wrote:

In message , Andrew Heenan
writes
Councillors, on the other hand, seem to be held to account
by this Orwellian-sounding "Council's Code of Conduct for Councillors".
That "code of conduct" sounds a bit like an employer's disciplinary
procedure to me.
What's wrong with disciplining a power-hungry ******* who has
betrayed those who bothered to vote -

That is the job of the electorate; not a non-elected body of officials.

The gaping hole in this i dea is that the electorate only get a chance
to do this every few years. Are you really saying that if an elected
official does something dreadful, then there should be no way of
getting rid of them, we should just have to wait until the next election?

Yes.


I think that sounds like a really bad idea.

Well, as I said earlier, this is Usenet and we all tend to differ. I
would, though, like to think I do so in an affable manner! :-)


In some places, they have such things as recall elections, whereby if
the public are unhappy with an elected official, they can depose him
before his term expires. If we had a mechanism like that, which worked
effectively, then i'd be fairly happy with not having a bureaucratic
disciplinary procedure, since the employers (the public) could hire and
fire directly.

The "gaping hole" in that to borrow Tom's phrase, is that "someone"
would have to decide the circumstances under which such a recall would
occur. That's where (presumably) unelected officials are able to
affect elected ones.


But in the absence of such a mechanism, we need a procedure to keep
elected officials in line on our behalf.

Note that i'm not saying here that i think the process that was in
action in the case we've been discussing is a good example of this - it
might or might not be, i really don't know. And obviously i'm also not
passing comment on Colin's case either.

One of the reasons I've posted so much on this (even after vowing not to
any more) is that I am much influenced by a case here in Birmingham
which has been running for some time. It was the first time I had
encountered the idea of councillors being punished by a body other than
their electorate. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now.

There are details and links at

http://www.martinmullaney.co.uk/sbe2.html

for those interested.

As a final contribution and to lighten matters somewhat, I had to clean
up after the cat last night (!) and found myself wrapping "it" in part
of the mother-in-law's Daily Mail which included an article and
photograph of Colin R!
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

In message , at 22:38:21 on
Sat, 14 Feb 2009, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
you've decided that someone's life was risked.
Where did you get this information?

From the extremely clear and detailed evidence given by both Colin and
the driver in the PDF of the hearing whose link was posted by Richard
Kettlewell.

Unlike the rest of you, I actually downloaded it and read it.

I read it too - dislocated kneecap iirc.
--
Roland Perry

In article ,
(Ian Jelf) wrote:

One of the reasons I've posted so much on this (even after vowing
not to any more) is that I am much influenced by a case here in
Birmingham which has been running for some time. It was the first
time I had encountered the idea of councillors being punished by a
body other than their electorate. I didn't like it then and I
don't like it now.

There are details and links at

http://www.martinmullaney.co.uk/sbe2.html

for those interested.

Can't get to the site now.Is this the case involving taking a video?

As a final contribution and to lighten matters somewhat, I had to
clean up after the cat last night (!) and found myself wrapping
"it" in part of the mother-in-law's Daily Mail which included an
article and photograph of Colin R!

MMMMMMM

--
Colin Rosenstiel

"Ian Jelf" wrote
But they are "Public Officers" (Holders of a public office) so, eg,
liable for "Misconduct in Public Office" and can reasonable be held to
higher standards than private persons.
Yes, that's what I don't agree with. I want these people held to the
*same* standards as everyone else. Nothing more, nothing less.

There is a case for a higher standard, but this is niether the time nor the
group for it.

For the purposes of this thread, I'd be happy with the *same* standard - ie
treated like you or I would be if we lost our rag in public and deliberately
obstructed an emergency ambulance that *could* have been on a life or death
mission.

We'd at the very *least* have been prosecuted, not allowed to make a
mealy-mouthed apology (while still implying it was someone else's fault),
and get back to expenses paid largesse.

It stinks ... like most local politics. He's nothing special. Pigs and
trough and no prosecutions just about sums up local government.

Andrew

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 22:38:21 on
Sat, 14 Feb 2009, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
you've decided that someone's life was risked.
Where did you get this information?

From the extremely clear and detailed evidence given by both Colin and
the driver in the PDF of the hearing whose link was posted by Richard
Kettlewell.

Unlike the rest of you, I actually downloaded it and read it.

I read it too - dislocated kneecap iirc.

Yup. clear straightforward info from a professional versus a highly odd
account from Our Esteemed Councillor.

"Andrew Heenan" wrote in message
...
"Brian Watson" wrote ...

Everyone else here (especially those lining up to have a pop at him) so
damn spotless?

Of course I'm not spotless, but we're not talking about me, and I'm not
his agent.

You've missed the point that this was an AMBULANCE - and by some strange
coincidence, so does his 'explanation'.

Plus your friend's action broke the law.

He is not my friend. I don't know him, though I *may* have met him once, to
deliver something.

Strange that those were the only relevant facts, yet you and your pal have
ignored them.

As I say, not my pal.

And I'm not ignoring anything. re-read what I wrote.

It does not address the incident at all; it addresses the reasons why he
seems to have got it *wrong* and the subsequent wittering on about it.

--
Brian
"Fight like the Devil, die like a gentleman."