Lynch mobs and slave traders, or the worst Medway Council meeting we’ve ever covered

The first fully virtual Medway Council meeting took place last night, with councillors all contributing remotely to proceedings. Somehow this managed to make the meeting even longer than usual, clocking in at over seven hours, but also saw some of the most unseemly debates ever held at a Medway Council meeting. If you weren’t able to watch the whole thing live, we’ve got your back with our Twitter coverage from last night. Strap in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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Recap: Socially distanced live streamed Medway Council!

Quite a novelty for Medway Council last night. In light of the ongoing situation, Medway Council conducted a socially distanced full council meeting last night, and live streamed the proceedings online. For years they said this wasn’t financially viable, yet here we are. If you had a better use for your Thursday night than watching three hours of a council getting used to new technology, we’ve got your back with the recap below:

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Recap: Annual Meeting of Medway Council

This week saw the first Medway Council meeting following our recent local elections. While not a regular full council meeting with all of the bells and whistles, this one saw the election of a new mayor and deputy, a selection for leader of the council, and a couple of other bits. Keevil went along to cover the proceedings, and you can find the highlights below.

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Recap: The final full Medway Council meeting before #MedwayElects19

Last night saw the very last full Medway Council meeting of the current term, before Medway votes in local elections next week. It was a long, rollercoaster of a meeting, with moments of cross-party unity, and also some of the more vicious exchanges we’ve seen in a while. If you didn’t feel like coming along to the St. George’s Centre for all six hours of proceedings, we’ve got you covered here with the highlights from our live tweeting last night.

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Medway Council Budget Smackdownapalozza 2019

Last night saw the 2019 Medway Council budget meeting. If you weren’t one of the handful of members of public in the gallery, you might have missed out on all of the exciting local politics action like us all being kicked out of the meeting. Here, thanks to the power of embedded tweets, we bring you the highlights of last night’s live Twitter coverage of proceedings.

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Medway Council’s January meeting, told through the medium of tweets

Last night saw the first full Medway Council meeting of the year. If you weren’t one of the handful of members of public in the gallery, you might have missed out on all of the exciting local politics action. Here, thanks to the power of embedded tweets, we bring you the highlights of last night’s live Twitter coverage of proceedings.

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New social media code of conduct for Medway councillors

At this week’s full Medway Council meeting, Medway councillors will agree to add a new section to their Code of Conduct, specifically around councillor’s use of social media.

The process of introducing this code began a year ago, when we published a story on the controversial tweeting of Conservative councillor for Luton and Wayfield, Michael Franklin. The Medway Labour group lodged a formal complaint over the matter, and while no direct action against Franklin was taken, the council have drawn up a new section to the Code of Conduct (above) to emphasise how seriously such matters are taken.

While many councillors maintain rather boring accounts, and others avoid it altogether, there are some who are ‘colourful’ in their use of social media, and we look forward to seeing how they react to the new rules.

An indication might come from the aforementioned Councillor Franklin, who has spent recent days calling celebrities ‘silly cows’ and demanding black people thank him for ending slavery. With the change in policy, it’s probably best he gets it all out of his system now.