Rutland & Stamford Labour, Public Meeting, Not Very Public.
Oakham Labour Rutland County Councillors advertised a public meeting that was held in the Church Hall in Church Street, Oakham, Rutland.
Rutland and Stamford Labour Party, distributed leaflets of a political nature, relating to the anticipated general election, making the same mistake the Liberal Democrats did in the past. They used their publicly funded Rutland County Council email address's on the leaflets. Rutland County Council assured me that no councillor would use their publicly funded email accounts or computer systems for political purposes. The Lib-Dems recognised their error and no longer do this. Lets hope Labour do the same.
Back to the meeting which was billed as a public meeting.
All though you don't have to seek consent to record public meetings, I felt it was just courteous to ask one of the Councillors if he minded me recording the meeting, not at all, it is a public meeting was his reply.
So after being given consent to record this morning's public meeting at the church hall. I am bemused as to why as I started to set up my equipment, I was told I could not record the public meeting.
The lady who gave the order claimed to speak for all those attending and in particular herself. She stated she personally did not want to be filmed, because she may like to ask a question in the public meeting. She told the Councillors there should be no filming of the public meeting.
Perhaps this lady should be directed to contact her councillors privately.
I decided to leave the meeting, feeling most unwelcome.
Perhaps the meeting should have been advertised as a Labour members only private meeting.
Rutland Labour before the last election was an insignificant entity. So I would have thought the party would be grateful that I gave up my Saturday morning to provide some publicity.
The law does permit filming of any public meeting where our Councillors attend in their official capacity in this case, my rights were refused.
I question Rutland Labour's lack of openness and transparency, what if anything do you have to hide?
So unfortunately, I did not get to meet the or find out who the Labour Candidate for Rutland and Stamford Parliamentary Constituency is.
Or learn the outcome of wider public input regarding the six points the Party had surveyed their members to identify their priorities for Rutland.
