If it was
a joke, it wasn’t funny.
If “Paul
Skinner and his Amazing Magical Cabinet” was a musical hall act, you wouldn’t
have been able to hear it for the booing.
Had last
night’s Boston Borough Council webinar been staged at the Hackney Empire
in its heyday, the participants would certainly have left the stage richer than
they walked on – as the habit in those days was to throw coins at the
performers as a way to show disapproval.
***
Last
night’s webinar was more of a webinaren’t – and instead of boos, the
air was littered with clicks, pops … heavy breathing at one point … and
something that sounded like a large and demented budgerigar.
So bad was
the intrusion at some points that efforts by members of the cabinet to speak
were rendered inaudible.
And when
silence reigned – it was usually unintentional … to add to the embarrassment of
everyone concerned.
***
Not that
anyone had much to say.
***
The item
under discussion – the proposed merger between Boston and East Lindsey district
councils – had been postponed from the previous week’s agenda because
Councillor Skinner declared that it required “a lot more in-depth discussion”
***
As it
turned out this was a major miscalculation, as last night saw the whole thing
done and dusted in 19 minutes – a full five minutes less than it took to
discuss the dodgy equipment at Boston Crematorium – and could therefore have
fitted easily into the three hours allotted for the original cabinet webinar.
***
The few
cabinet members who spoke – as usual – praised the idea to the skies.
As before,
half of them appeared only in voice form … even though they all should have
council-issued taxpayer funded tablets with webcams to be used at such times as
this.
***
The only
mutterings came in the form of questions from non-cabinet, non-Tory members.
Clan
Austin lodged two easily parried queries – one concerning scrutiny and the
other worried that East Lindsey as a coastal resort might be a dead duck to do
business with after a report in The Times newspaper suggested that coastal
areas will take longer to recover from the effects of COVID-19.
***
A third
question came from Bostonian Independent Councillor Brian Rush. It sounded
confusing – which is not surprising these days – but the apparently rambling
style was made worse by the leader’s delivery
Indeed, he
read it as though it had only just been handed to him. – and, overall, his
contribution to proceedings owed more to rolling his eyes and pulling faces
than to running and smooth, coherent and professional-sounding council meeting
of great significance.
***
Small, but
significant, things cropped up in the meeting that hinted at poor attention – a
passing reference to ‘LDSC’ for East Lindsey, plus mention of Lincoln County
Council.
And the
report – a Boston Eye exclusive that has
raised comment across the county – of a Lincolnshire County Council bid to
become a unitary authority combined with North and North East Lincolnshire –
earned a passing reference to “events that shaped last week” … as if they might
have no bearing on the relatively minor merger being proposed.
***
All in
all, the meeting did not impress.
We had
hoped that lessons might have been learned from the cabinet’s first canter on
to the internet course – but sadly this was not the case.
***
Perhaps
it’s a sign of living in isolation for so long – but the tendency to shout at
the screen and the performers was irresistible … as was the question: “are
these really the best people we can find to look after the affairs of Boston
for us?”
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