I was just going to point out that it was Keith who put his hand up to second Stan's motion to allow a debate to happen as his seconder David Wood had been called away by a family bereavement. However he is wrong to say councillors were being asked to arrange a referendum or spend money as the borough solicitor had ruled that a motion proposing expenditure would have to go to cabinet before full council.
The debate ended in confusion as Stan was asked to sum up the debate before the vote on the amendment was taken. Technically Rod as proposer of the amendment should have done this and as it was successful it became the substantive motion before the council which Rod would then have moved. I'm asking Stan to take this up with the borough's legal officer and also with scrutiny. Stan, in the debate, said he would be asking the scrutiny committee to examine the elected mayor issue in greater detail.
As Kieth points out, the issue has been getting big exposure through 27,000 copies of The Link each month (potentially 50,000 plus readers) and more recently through the Advertiser readership. James summed up last night up well in the Adver. and managed to get the paper to give the elected mayors better coverage. (Certainly a much better job than his heavily sub-edited -buried - story of several weeks ago).
Is the low level of public interest because people are not bothered about how the town is run (in contrast to 2001 when there was a positive response to the idea of an elected mayor for Swindon), or are they so thoroughly cheesed off with local politicians that they can't be asked to engage with the issue? On the other hand they might be thinking that the present Conservative administration is so good that they want to see them in control forever.
So, after the warm up since the May Link magazine, Stan's motion has put the ball into play, and the forces of resistance have absorbed the first glancing blows, or is it achieved the first corner? Does the game go on and do those interested in elected mayors start discussing the idea directly to 'the people,' face to face, and seek the support that councillors are encouraging us to do?