Democracy inaction

What happens when a council excludes the public from participating?

Last week, at Medway’s full council meeting, something unusual happened.

I can’t say it had never happened before, but it certainly hadn’t in the decade that I’ve been covering proceedings in Medway.

Because of the strong Conservative majority that has existed for many years, most votes are a foregone conclusion, and the vote itself is an arbitrary process.

But, for the first time since I’ve been watching, a vote could easily have gone either way.

What followed was an unedifying sequence of events for our local democracy, raising further questions about how well our democratic processes function.