Calm down Councillor, it's just a joke

For those that read our little taster yesterday on the highlights of the Budget meeting we'd now like to expand on one of those areas. As readers will recall we said that the young and excitable Cllr Danny Thorpe got err.... excited. Why people may ask? Well it all stemmed from what can safely be called a mild bit of "political piss-taking" at his expense (and we make no apologies for our use of the word "piss", it's a free country (sort of)).

Normal practice in Budget meetings is that most people get a chance to say a few words. On Wednesday however democracy was again canceled, and it was only the two opposition leaders that really got to make any points against the Budget. It was one of those speeches that sent the councillor for Shooters Hill into a lather which resembled a, shall we say, excited canine facing certain doom in Pompeii. We've seen calmer headless chickens frankly.

The lighting of the touch paper occurred when the Tory leader, Spencer Drury, made reference to the Council Leader's penchant for seeing Tory leadership challenges when other Tories made good speeches (quite possibly true). Cllr Drury then alluded to this level of paranoia in the Dear Leaders psyche as the reason why so many Labour Cllr's give poor speeches in the chamber. Otherwise they find themselves whisked off to Middle Park and Sutcliffe to face defeat by Cllr Webbewood for daring to to be an independent autonomous human being.

He went on to point out that Cllr Thorpe was a shining example of this inability to formulate a decent speech and made a prediction that he would "leap to his feet", then go "red in the face" and start blathering on about things that happened before he was born. This would be followed by him sitting back down looking pleased himself. This was, said Cllr Drury, precisely why Cllr Thorpe is safe from the nightmare of Middle Park and Sutcliffe for some time.

At this point, and with no word of lie from us, Cllr Thorpe leapt to his feet, went red in the face, and started blathering on about things that happened before he was born. During his tirade we also think he might have committed the offence of slander against Cllr Drury (but we would need a transcript to be sure). Hopefully Cllr Thorpe has a decent lawyer, after all, the Tories mustered Carter Ruck during the election when Cllr Grant allegedly libeled one of the Tory candidates.

For us the most amusing part of all this was to see Cllr Thorpe's own fellow ward councillor, John Kelly, shaking his head in dismay as the young whippet chased his own tail as if it were a bitch waiting for his amorous overtures. This incident really was the highlight of the entire evening for us. There is little more enjoyable than seeing politicians rattled to the point of excruciating idiocy.