Emergency council meeting held in Hounslow - to discuss Middle East

I think it is right that opposition councillors should have the power to call an emergency council meeting. However given the cost of holding a full council meeting this is something that (as the Prayer Book says about marriage) "not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly."

In Hounslow some Labour councillors have used it to have a special full council meeting at the climax of the election campaign - to discuss town twinning with Palestine. Each full council meeting costs £4,000.

The meeting, held on Tuesday, had one item on the agenda. This was the following motion:

“This council welcomes the re-establishment of the Hounslow-Ramallah Town Twinning Association and agrees that the body be formally recognised by the Council as its representative twinning organisation”.

While the Conservatives in Hounslow get on with freezing the Council Tax and improving services, the Labour councillors offer a throw back to the 1980s loony left - when councils had their own foreign policies.

More details here from Cllr Mark Bowen.