News / Politics
Rees makes impassioned plea for new councillors
Marvin Rees will no longer be in City Hall when a new tranche of councillors enters the chamber, but the outgoing mayor has made an impassioned plea for the next generation of Bristol’s elected representatives.
Rees has previously criticised opposition councillors for not attending cabinet meetings and has been criticised by a former Labour councillor for having “no respect for councillors other than those in his inner circle”.
But at the most recent cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Rees spoke of the need for councillors from all backgrounds in order to bring “diversity and dynamism” into City Hall.
is needed now More than ever
During a debate about the merits of citizens’ assemblies, Rees said: “What we need are people to come forward as councillors to come from backgrounds who do not normally come.
“So if we’re just recruiting from the private school talent pool – anyway, I’ve got my own views on that but – if we’re just recruiting from the usual class backgrounds that become elected, retired people who’ve got some spare cash and time on their hands, then we’re not going to get the diversity and dynamism in this chamber.
“We can actually put resource into that. Now we have tried as an administration to get engaged with that but let’s not accidentally set up a parallel system that diverts people away from actually getting into this chamber.”
Rees added: “I just think we don’t want to undermine the legitimacy of actually becoming a democratically-elected politician.
“I think it’s a really important role and it’s one that should be upheld, not that I think it’s great, not that I think it’s perfect, not that I think it solves all ills.
“But I want people from backgrounds like mine, from backgrounds like Craig’s, like Asher’s (deputy mayors Craig Cheney and Asher Craig), and the other people around here, to take their seats in this chamber.”
…………………………………..
Read more:
- Rees: ‘The quality of political discourse in the chamber dismays me’
- Marvin Rees says the way Carla Denyer does politics is ‘demoralising’
- Opposition leaders unite to accuse Rees of ‘rank hypocrisy’
…………………………………..
During the debate on citizens’ assemblies, Green councillor and former lord mayor Paula O’Rourke expressed her disappointment that the experiment was not more widely known about.
The councillor for Clifton said: “The reason I have always promoted (citizens’ assemblies) is because I said that for democracy to work, you need informed citizens and a reliable media.
“Now, the citizens aren’t here. They probably don’t know enough about this.”
Rees interjected: “Councillors aren’t here either.”
O’Rourke continued: “What I’m saying is, we need the media. When we were doing this citizens’ assembly, we tried so hard to get some really good press about it. It was very hard because it was a good, positive story.
“We need our media to be speaking about this and telling our citizens about deliberative processes.”
Cabinet member Ellie King said: “Luckily we have the media here.”
Rees interjected once again: “Well.”
Deputy mayor Asher Craig said: “And I will make the point that at the time when we were doing this, they (the media) weren’t interested because it was a good news story.”
Craig added: “We did this because we wanted to make sure that the voices of our citizens were very much a part of our response to Covid and how we were going to recover and I remember making that statement again and again and again…
“We need to make sure that the voices of the citizens are very much a part of it because while everything was shut down, I was seeing some really good nuggets coming through on social media from ordinary citizens in this city that had some really great ideas and that’s why I was and am still a huge fan of what we did.
“It was a huge eye-opener for us but I suppose the point that has been made is that it’s not the be end and the all end, we captured this information, we have to find a way in which we can communicate with the wider city and the point has been made about the role of the media – or the lack of the media – in actually telling our story, the Bristol story, because it’s a Bristol story about the citizens. We weren’t trying to push what the council did.”
Main photo: Bristol City Council / YouTube
Read next:
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
