In an outburst at the last cabinet meeting (23 September), councillor Assad asked the fellow councillor Marilyn Ashton, “Do you have a problem with me? Because I’m a woman of colour and because I am Muslim”.
The disruption took place when the leader of the council Cllr Graham Henson, chairing the meeting, mentioned the council using social media to inform its work, and was listening to Cllr Ashton’s supplementary question regarding what could impinge the reputation of the council.
“You mentioned social media. You do have a member of cabinet who’s in charge of community cohesion, who has tweeted that she will take up arms against the Afghan government and its allies (at the time in recent past), and labelled Israel is an apartheid state and spread doubts about the AstraZeneca as presented a vaccine. And so really my supplemental question is, do you condemn or condemn these statements and is this suitable to have someone who has these things and thinks it’s acceptable to tweet these things and think it’s acceptable to have that person in charge of community cohesion?” Cllr Ashton asked.
Cllr Graham said “I will look at the points you have made, and then I’m probably you know then may consider them, but it’s quite difficult to respond to a question if you don’t tell me what it is and others need to look it up and find out how we got what the context of why it’s been said because sometimes people’s interpretation is different”.
“Cllr Assad interruption was most inappropriate, not respecting the meeting protocol. Equally, concerning was that the leader of the council let the disruption go on and failed to uphold the discipline in the meeting” said Cllr Marilyn Ashton, deputy leader of the Conservation group, after the meeting.
“However, the council leader’s attitude towards me was calm this time, considering to that on previous such occasions” Cllr Ashton added.
It is well known that the twitter is a public platform, and that councillors, particularly cabinet members, have to be very careful about what they say. They can’t skip scrutiny – if they can’t handle this, they should not be in a public office.
The disruption took place when the leader of the council Cllr Graham Henson, chairing the meeting, mentioned the council using social media to inform its work, and was listening to Cllr Ashton’s supplementary question regarding what could impinge the reputation of the council.
“You mentioned social media. You do have a member of cabinet who’s in charge of community cohesion, who has tweeted that she will take up arms against the Afghan government and its allies (at the time in recent past), and labelled Israel is an apartheid state and spread doubts about the AstraZeneca as presented a vaccine. And so really my supplemental question is, do you condemn or condemn these statements and is this suitable to have someone who has these things and thinks it’s acceptable to tweet these things and think it’s acceptable to have that person in charge of community cohesion?” Cllr Ashton asked.
Cllr Graham said “I will look at the points you have made, and then I’m probably you know then may consider them, but it’s quite difficult to respond to a question if you don’t tell me what it is and others need to look it up and find out how we got what the context of why it’s been said because sometimes people’s interpretation is different”.
“Cllr Assad interruption was most inappropriate, not respecting the meeting protocol. Equally, concerning was that the leader of the council let the disruption go on and failed to uphold the discipline in the meeting” said Cllr Marilyn Ashton, deputy leader of the Conservation group, after the meeting.
“However, the council leader’s attitude towards me was calm this time, considering to that on previous such occasions” Cllr Ashton added.
It is well known that the twitter is a public platform, and that councillors, particularly cabinet members, have to be very careful about what they say. They can’t skip scrutiny – if they can’t handle this, they should not be in a public office.
Harrow Monitoring Group 