INDEX	Saturday February 13, 2021
Sleeping on the job
Years ago I was the London Borough of Waltham Forest planning committee chair, but more significantly I was also the Labour Group Secretary. It was a tiring time for me. In addition to failing to do enough to bring up my two young children (according to my wife, at the time, who subsequently banned me from standing for the council); I had a big job (I was editing a national magazine), I was a member of lots of cross London bodies and I was a Mental Health Manager. In other words, I was pooped. Full council meetings tended to go on until 3 in the morning or later and we had this dangerous tradition of stopping for half an hour for sandwiches and cakes. Of course, those in the know rushed down to the council club for a pint or two. On returning to the council chamber at one particularly dull meeting, I said to the deputy leader of the council: 'I'm going to have a kip. Wake me up when the first vote is taken.' This may seem discourteous to the opposition who clearly liked the sound of their own voices, but the reality was that all the decisions had been taken by the Labour Group and I had no choice but to vote with the Group. I have the ability to go to sleep in strange places. I have even been known to sleep standing up. So sleeping in a warm comfortable council chamber was not a challenge. When I woke, about half an hour later, all hell seemed to have broken out. The Liberals were claiming that the vote that had taken place while I was asleep, had been miscounted because my vote had been included. 'Why didn't you wake me,'I asked Bill. 'I thought you were joking,' he replied. The vote had to be taken again and this time I did stick my hand up, enabling me to tell the local paper (who made it the front page lead in all editions that week) that I had actually voted. Not long after that a guillotine was imposed on the length of council meetings, so they had to end at a civilized time. At the time we had a waifer thin majority so there was considerable satisfaction on the Labour benches when the Liberals decided to boycott the council as a protest. The leader of the council let me know that he was very satisfied with the result.
Posted by Jonathan Brind.
INDEX
Saturday February 13, 2021