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Twitter ban on Leeds councillors
Councillors have been known to witter during council meetings but those who Twitter are definitely out of order.
Members of Leeds City Council have been banned from sending "tweets" – short messages of up to 140 characters – to the online social networking site during meetings of the full council.
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Council convention is that mobile phones are switched off during meetings and at the start of the recent annual budget debate, the Lord Mayor, Coun Judith Elliott, made it clear it was not permitted to text messages to Twitter from the Civic Hall council chamber while the meeting was taking place.
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The ruling has been criticised by councillors who consider it an effective way of communicating council proceedings more widely.
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Coun Jamie Matthews (Lib Dem, Headingley) said people who followed a councillor's tweets from a meeting would pass them on, so involving many more people in council affairs.
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He said: "It opens up council meetings to the public in a way we have never been able to do before. People need to move with the times.
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"Councillors who tweet are paying attention because they have to listen carefully to what's being said."
Coun James Lewis (Lab, Kippax and Methley), a self-confessed Twitter rebel who continued to tweet despite the Lord Mayor's pronouncement, said: "I tweeted about a green belt debate that was taking place, an issue of great importance to many people.
"It's a simple way of connecting with people who would otherwise probably take no interest in council matters."
Stuart Bruce, managing director of Leeds-based Wolfstar public relations company and a former councillor, backed the pro-Twitterers.
He used Twitter as a campaigning tool in 2007 during Alan Johnson's bid to become Labour's deputy leader.
Mr Bruce said: "Not allowing people to tweet during the meetings is very short-sighted. You have to engage with people and this is just one way of doing it.
"I used to blog live from the council chamber when I was on the council and that was in 2003 – it seems the council is going backwards."
Coun Elliott said: "It is standard procedure to ask for all mobile phones and other electrical equipment to be switched off at the start of full council meetings.
"This is to make sure that we are not distracted from the business being discussed by incoming texts and phone calls, which can be annoying for others and interfere with the sound system in the council chamber.
"If it is felt that it's time for this system to be reviewed, further discussions will need to take place."
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
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Temperature: -2 C to 0 C
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