From our Reporter at the Parish Council Meeting
I missed the December Parish Council Meeting and all the mulled wine andmince
pies. Instead I looked back to the Crier report on the December 1997
Parish Council Meeting, the year when New Labour came to power.
Since that time more than 600,000 people have been added to thepublic payroll, we have become fatter, we can drink longer -and we drink more, we sold off gold reserves for a song, the Millennium Bugnever materialised in spite of spending a fortune after taking advice from the computer industry, most other government inspired computer innovations (as advised by the industry) have gone belly up after costing billions, private pension schemes are in a mess, some MPs have been shown to be as crooked as we have always thought, wind farms are sprouting everywhere (our local flour mill is thinking of going electric because the wind is unreliable), and we have just survived a Swine Flu pandemic (the Pharmaceutical Industry advised on this) which some doctors reckon is probably the mildest flu epidemic of the past 100 years.
But it hasn't been all gloom and already in this year is the good news that Ed Balls now wants every child to have the right to study Mandarin. Also latest research suggests that excessive use of mobile phones may not result in Alzheimer'sdisease. On the contrary. Professor Gary Arendash of South Florida University thinks that mobile phones may even reverse the effects of Alzheimer's. He has a collection of mice who are allowed to use mobile phones for an hour twice daily. It seems that the function of their brains is improving. An eminent Canadian professor warned us that mice are not men -so they won't be able to learn Mandarin. We are also working hard to combat food wastage. A Government report said that a third of all food bought for home consumption is wasted every year. I don't believe it.Does anyone believe it? And BOGOFs are blamed. Both Gordon Brown and our vegetarian Hilary Benn have put their weight behind the new "Buy one now and buy one later" initiative. Sainsbury is at the fore front of this and made the offer on two products. One of these was PAMPERS NAPPIES!! -a product considered by some to be highly damaging to the climate. What is wrong with Terry Nappies?
So what did happen at the December 1997 Parish Council Meeting? I don't know, I didn't go. But a report was published discussing the merits and purposes ofReports as opposed to Minutes.
This is the original Report published in the January 1998 Crier.
The PC meeting was held on 11th December 1997 and the final copy date for theCrier was the 10th December. Hence there is no Report this month.This then becomes a good time of year to reflect, and what I would like to reflectupon this month is the role of the Crier Report, and the role of the PC Minutes.Some people think they are trying to do the same thing, but this is not so. When RonPrime reported the April 1997 PC Meeting he noted that the minutes of an extrameeting of the PC were challenged by one member and that "there was a somewhatemotionally charged altercation with the Chairman." Ron went on to say "I can'thelp feeling that there's a simple way to ensure that Council meetings are accuratelyrecorded -that is to record them, magnetically. Parliament does it ... why not thePC?"
Alas, that would not have provided the answer. I attended that particular meeting and it was like Parliamentary Question Time, but with seven people speaking simultaneously, rarely listening to anyone else, and worse. A full transcript would not have helped, and most likely a transcript of any other meeting is likely to be beyond the resources of a parish council. Nor should this be necessary, as the apparent role of the minutes is to record decisions, providing the decisions have been clearly defined at the meeting.
And what is the role of the Crier Report? Ron Prime made the comparison between the Parish Council and Parliament and perhaps we should look at the history of parliamentary sketch-writers for the answer. James Grant, a Whig journalist, initiated sketch-writing in the 1830s. A few others joined the game in the 1850s and 1860s but it was not until the 1870s that the steady growth began. Disraeli was soon to lament:
"Our Own Reporter'has invaded Parliament in all its purlieus. No longer content with giving an account of the speeches of its members, he is not satisfied unless he describes their persons, their dress, and their characteristic mannerisms. He tells us how they dine, even the wine and dishes they favour, and follows them into the very mysteries of their smoking room."
But the Parliamentary sketch-writer has a more positive role. T.P.O'Connor, anIrish Nationalist MP and also a sketch-writer, maintained:
"The reporting columns of a newspaper do not always give an accurate and rarely a vivid picture of what really takes place in a legislative body. Columns appear of speeches which have been delivered to empty benches, and which,therefore, have influenced the fortunes of debate little, if at all ... The speech that reads convincing and elegant may, owing to the physical defects of the orator, have not been listened to at all. Equally a speech which appears dull and cold in printmay have produced wild outbursts of enthusiasm or of anger. It is assuredly as important that there should be some record of how the speaker influenced the assemblies to which they were addressed as of the mere words of the speeches themselves. Nor can any account of a speech be entirely complete which does not convey some idea of the man who makes it, his manner of speaking, his appearance,his character, his career."
If this applies to the full reports of speeches which once appeared in newspapers in plenty, how much more does it apply to minutes. Minutes are not going to record a remark like "We don't want Poverty Row down there" or any other delicious quotes from PC members. Minutes need to be more discreet. While the Crier Report is a poor thing compared to the great parliamentary sketch-writers, it does follow the same tradition and, without fear, will be lively, irreverent, critical, factual,informative, as well as seeing the PC as theatre, or, as Norman Shrapnel of the Guardian once wrote of Parliament, "a famous but ever-struggling repertory company."