It was raised by the Tory opposition at the frankly derisory full Colchester Council meeting last week that we should broadcast – and invest public money in letting the public see – what goes on in the council chamber.

This matter is being investigated, but rest assured it won’t be getting my vote, and not because I don’t believe in transparency or honesty.

After witnessing and listening to some of the most disgraceful and unintelligent debate I have yet witnessed in my four years as a councillor, I would be frankly too embarrassed to want people to see it!

The Gazette’s sister paper, the Essex County Standard, carried a story about the conduct of the Labour and Tory groups at the budget meeting in February and took exception to the behaviour of some councillors.

Well, sadly this headline and coverage did nothing to curtail the behaviour of some of the people who were named in the report, so I won’t bother to trot out the list of names again as clearly it doesn’t do any good to mature their behaviour.

What I would say is, if many of these people carried on in their churlish manner in a full-time job and they worked for me, I would immediately be contacting HR and investigating some kind of disciplinary proceedings, as this kind of behaviour would not be tolerated in a fulltime, professional place of work.

Some people in the chamber call it knock-about. Personally, I call it utterly pathetic and embarrassing!

Martin Goss
Lib Dem councillor
Dickenson Road
Colchester