Council Meeting

After attending the Southampton Council meeting on Wednesday 17th February at 3.00pm, I found out what happens in the meetings and actually found the set up and debates quite interesting; much to my surprise.

The meeting was about proposed council tax discounts for special constables and persons over the age of 65. This wasn't a particularly interesting subject to talk about but the way in which the councillors argue, jest and provoke each other did make me giggle a couple of times.

I was very happy to see that our Mayor was a woman; Liz Mizon, who is a Liberal Democrat. When the councillors are speaking they always refer to the Mayor as "Madam Mayor". This led me to believe that she ran the meeting. She also called for order a couple of times which makes it a little more clear who runs the meetings.

I'm not completly sure but there were two sides to the council chamber. When a person from one side was speaking they would make a sarcastic comment towards the opposite side; which would have nods and tapping of the desks from their side and moans and groans from the other. This led me to believe that maybe the two sides follow different political parties. The left side had the most people giving speeches, they also made many comments about the dislike of the Conservatives.

In front of the Mayor there was a man and a woman sat next to each other. The lady was taking minutes of the meeting, (I think) and kept time, (I think). There was a little box with a green, amber and red light on that she would switch on when a new councillor would start their speech. The man took the votes and read the rules and proposals out; when he wasn't asleep.

One councillor gave me the most laughs, to demonstrate his points in his speech he had bought in a recycling bag with a spade, some trucks, a box and a couple of other things in. On each item there was a post-it note with different amounts of money on each. Even though this didn't make a lot of sense to me as I wasn't at the last meeting, I did notice that the side opposite to him, the left, did not like what he was talking about. They laughed and called him ridiculous. He got quite angry, red faced and threw in a lot of sarcastic comments towards the side opposite him.

I noticed that there were about 34 men and only about 16 women at the meeting. Even though the number is quite small for the women, this is still more than I thought that there would be at the council meeting.

Overall I found the meeting quite interesting and wouldn't mind going back. Next time however I think I may pick a meeting that talks more about something that concerns me as I am neither a constable or over 65.