Things turned ugly at a meeting of the Isle of Wight Council on Wednesday, as microphones picked up muttered insults directed at 2 councillors.
At a virtual meeting of the full council, proceedings were halted twice as it was determined who said what.
Firstly, while voting on whether to freeze councillors allowances, Cllr Lora Peacey-Wilcox, the representative for Cowes Medina, was called a ‘coward’ for abstaining the vote. A voice could be heard calling her a ‘coward’ and chair of the meeting, Cllr George Cameron, asked whether anyone would like to ‘own up’ to the insult, after Cllr Peacey-Wilcox called it to his attention.
Cllr Cameron said:
“We cannot have councillors insulting others. Not while this meeting is happening and not while I am chairing it.”
Cllr John Hobart, ward representative for Carisbrooke and Gunville, who has recently stepped down from his position on the council’s cabinet, put his hands up and apologised for the ‘uncalled for’ comment. He said:
“I do apologise. I was muttering under my breath and did not realise I was unmuted” and warned other councillors from doing the same.
Cllr Peacey-Wilcox said she was deeply hurt and offended by the comment.
Later in the meeting, while introducing her motion to put the wellbeing of residents at the heart of planning and design of public spaces, Cllr Julie Jones-Evans, Newport Central representative, was told to ‘shut up’.
Proceedings continued, as leader of the council, Cllr Dave Stewart, amended her motion and the vote was about to begin before Cllr Jones-Evans was able to draw it to the attention of the chair. She said:
“Who told me to shut up? I clearly heard it.”
Neither Cllrs Stewart nor Cameron said they heard the remark and as the meeting was running out of time Cllr Cameron moved on.
Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Jones-Evans said she had emailed the chief executive, John Metcalfe and Cllr Cameron about the incident to follow it up.
An Isle of Wight Council spokesperson said no complaint into a councillor’s conduct had been made from the meeting and it is in the council’s constitution that the meeting end after 4 hours so the chairman was obliged to stop when he did.
Very strange, councillors can’t insult each other, but can insult our intelligence day in day out, what a shower.
And these so called adults are in charge of making decisions which affect us all? And they want a pay rise? A group of children wouldn’t be allowed to act this way.
telling a councillor to shut up, is valid and absolutely necessary advice and it should be followed to the letter.
Their jobs are to run the administrative affairs of the island – ensuring the streets are clean and bins emptied – not much else – they need to do it effectively, quietly and cheaply – so we get an actual service that we pay an amount equal to the level of competence they display.
This clearly bullying, pressurising one another will not be ‘contained’ within the Council chamber, but to anyone opposing building, planning, or anything else which costs them loss of wealth.
We all need to ensure we vote these parasitic leeches OUT at the next given chance.
DON’T leave it to others to do.
I know for a fact that not all members of the higher level of the council are honest people.
Worrying when they control so much public money and decision making to know that personal greed comes above honesty and decency.
So as you say, all we can do is vote these cretins out next time. And hope the next lot are not as bad. Much damage will be done by then however.
That is fine, but their replacements will be no better. Until party politics is banned from local goverment and better yet local councilors are chosen by ballot out of the eligible population, in a similar way to selection for jury service and only serve for one term, there will be no change. The results will always be the same, because they always have been the same.
We all “pugwash” stewart is a bully boy, so it’s no surprise he “didn’t hear” the comment. Get rid of them all, if only we could ALL stand up and not pay our council tax en masse on the island. Come on lets get this sorted.
IMO there is no excuse for people at this level of office to abstain from voting. They are there to make decisions for the good of the Island and it’s population otherwise why are they in post. Nothing wrong with calling people out, it should happen more often, although in a grown up way rather than muttered insults.
I think that if they can’t be adult and professional and run the council properly remove all of them from their positions
The intimidation runs far, far deeper outside the chamber than a few words said in spite.
This lot must ALL be voted out.
Agree the next lot may be not squeaky clean but can only be an improvement.
Planning and development are not what many assume such to be. Where there is huge sums of money to be made, corruption is rarely far away, but always well hidden.
Play nicely children or I’ll take your self elected pay increase away !!!!!!
Now Now children !!
#saynotolockdown
If these people were employed in private industry they would be out of the door .Surely the I.O.W
must have brighter people to represent them than these dregs. I suppose we should blame ourselves for voting them in but remember our time will come when we can put these selfish people on the scrap heap.
Unfortunately many people like this are in industry, but one never hears of it. They tend to get into positions of power then think only of staying there instead of putting their energies into what they are supposed to be doing. I’m sure everyone in industry recognises them!
There there, don’t cry about sticks and stones thing. Run along and spend your £200 pay rise you’ve all given yourselves at our expense. If you can’t act like adults you are no use to us and should not be in charge of our futures
Very encouraging to see dissent in the Tory ranks.
I’m intrigued/worried by the phrase “as leader of the council, Cllr Dave Stewart, amended her motion”. Really?
I wish those ‘cowards would shut up!’ oh my keyboard is working better unplug it from my computer….sorry…sorry
Complete buffoons the lot of em.and they want a pay rise why exactly?
These comments should be regularly ssud too there faces as obv warrented
Muttered Insults – who can honestly say they don’t do it when they hear something they don’t agree with?
Elected councillors know what they’re getting into when they put themselves forward for election. One cannot sympathise with those who cannot take criticism.
If there were no differing opinions, everything would get voted through, good or bad.
If you don’t like the current councillors, you know what to do – stand for election yourself.
If you don’t do that, you can’t complain.
A dubious bunch, to say that the least. I just found out that land under the collapsed Belgrave Road in Ventnor has been given free of charge to the owners, and part time occupants, of a house next to it. Surely this is dereliction of duty? The land is unstable, the people who have applied for the land clearly need help understanding that when it shifts they have nobody to help them (as the land that will fall on all or part of their property is now theirs), people next to the unlucky new owners of said land could sue when a landslide affects their property…. And so on. Admittedly, this one could argue you have to be pretty greedy to want land that’s moving to France when you live in England, but the Council surely has a duty to protect people from themselves, and not give away land we pay for, or shirk responsibility?