28 January (Part 1) - My Old Man’s A Dustman
It’s
been a long time since I rolled up to a Council meeting to find protestors on the steps outside. It was yesterday.
The flags told me the Unite Union was behind it and a Councillor told me they
were Serco employees complaining about their conditions of employment. She said
they were paid much less than their counterparts in Greenwich and had had enough of it.
That seems unfair if true especially - and I know this is not a universal view -
they do a pretty good job in my street going beyond the regular call of duty by
returning bins to the preferred place in my garden and not leaving them all over the road.
And then they went and ruined it all.
The Cabinet meeting had only just begun when someone thought it was clever to
bang on the windows (from the car park to the rear) every second or two for around 20 minutes and loudly play
Lonnie Donegan songs over their loud hailer.
Bad behaviour is too often the way with Lefty politics although I suppose I
could name a small number of local Tories who are not above that sort of thing either.
The Finance Director’s report was pretty much inaudible in the public gallery
and I gave up trying to hear what he was saying hoping that the webcast
microphones would pick it up. It was surprising that no Cabinet Member commented
directly or maybe that was another thing I couldn’t hear.
When I left 20 minutes after the racket stopped - thrown out while dirty deals
were discussed in more detail - I noted a police car parked on the pavement
outside. Maybe one of the security staff had done the necessary.