I attended the Executive Board meeting and enjoyed it enormously: Councillor Procter (Conservative) patronising the public and losing votes every time he opened his mouth; Councillor Golton (Lib Dem) sharing with us his touching family-reminiscences and concluding sagely that it is ‘a generational issue’: we are privileged to be represented by intellects like that: the torch of John Stuart Mill still burns bright (I wonder how many Lib Dem councillors have read On Liberty: it’s awfully good); poor Councillor Monaghan (Lib Dem) squirming to tow the party line while not alienating his voters: a treat to listen to (how he’s got himself tied up with this farce I can’t imagine; he ought to find a way of extricating himself.) Finally, seeing the vote go through on the nod, so that we all knew that the talk meant nothing, and it was all only done for the entertainment of the public. I recommend it to anybody. And it’s free. Except it isn’t. We pay the bill, in advance, and during, and retrospectively.
