A minor constitutional outrage appears to have unfolded at the Town Hall this week after the Leader of the Liberal Democrats was presented with a most unreasonable inconvenience: a question that wasn’t the one he wanted to answer.
The offending resident had the temerity to ask whether 22 months without a response from three councillors (including him) and the LibDem MP was acceptable. Unfortunately, this deprived the Leader of the opportunity to answer an entirely different question, namely how many emails the resident had sent to the council.
Displaying admirable agility, the reply side-stepped the awkward business of whether two years of silence from elected representatives might be acceptable and instead launched enthusiastically into correspondence statistics. Apparently, the real issue wasn’t the absence of a reply, but the abundance of emails.
Sources report that the Leader remains disappointed that residents continue to insist on asking questions of their own choosing rather than those carefully selected for easier answering.
Town Hall insiders are now considering issuing guidance encouraging members of the public to submit both the question they wish to ask and an alternative one that office-holders would prefer to answer, thereby saving everyone valuable time.
