Resolution

The Council Chairman rapped his gavel and stood to read the latest document that needed Council approval. He cleared his throat and began:

“We, being the lawfully constituted and duly elected members of Ossington Borough Council, do hereby, notwithstanding any previous resolutions of said nature, not including sections 7, 8, 10 (subsections 14b, 27c and 34 f, g and k) of the resolution proposed by the Ways and Means Committee and duly approved by the full council on 27^th May 2017, subsequently amended – according to due process under Standing Order 17B – on 30^th September 2017, resolve to take note of all previous reports on such matters as may want approval before any subcommittee lawfully constituted for such purposes, whether permanent or interim, and that anything said in committee, be that ultra vires or post positum nonsequitorum, be thereby subsequently approved.”

The Chairman paused, then asked, “Are we all agreed?”

He was met by a sea of blank faces.

“I said, are we all agreed? That sounds clear enough to me. You wish to address the Council, Councillor Locke?”

Councillor Locke stood and stated that he did indeed wish to do so.

“With respect, Mr Chairman,” he said, “I don’t think that’s clear at all. I surely cannot be alone in not having understood a single word of that resolution.”

There were nods and murmurs around the Council Chamber that made it perfectly clear that his opinion was shared by all those present.

Councillor Berkeley stood up.

“With just as much respect as offered by Councillor Locke, Mr Chairman” he said, “that resolution is a load of guff and twaddle. I propose that we amend it so that Councillors have at least a fighting chance of working out what it means.”

“And just how do you propose to do that, Councillor Berkeley?” asked the Chairman.

“For a start,”, said Councillor Berkeley, “we know who we are, so we don’t need all that ‘lawfully constituted’ stuff at the beginning.”

“And the same goes for ‘hereby, notwithstanding’,” said Councillor Hume, joining the fray. 

“And how about all those sections, subjections and standing orders?” offered Councillor Bentham, to general approval from his fellow Councillors.

“All right, all right”, said the Chairman. “We’ll do what you say”. He motioned to the Council Clerk that her large red pencil should get to work and start crossing out all the offending words and phrases that the Councillors had objected to. When this was done, he addressed the Councillors once more.

“Is there anything else you want changed?” he asked, hoping that that the answer would be No. But it wasn’t.

“Let’s cut that bit about permanent and interim subcommittees”, said Councillor Mill.

“And let’s stick to good, plain old-fashioned English”, said Councillor Russell. “We don’t need all that Latin stuff. This is Ossington, not Ancient Rome.”

“OK”, said the Chairman. “The Council Clerk has so far deleted everything from ‘being’ to ‘Council’, from ‘hereby’ to ‘nature’, from ‘including’ to ‘as may’ and from ‘approval’ to ‘and that’. I shall now ask her to cut the last bit out as well. That should leave us with a resolution that everybody will be happy with.”

There was general agreement in the Council Chamber.

“I shall therefore ask the Clerk to read out our amended resolution”, said the Chairman.

The Clerk duly rose and read what was left between all her crossings-out.

 

"We … do … not … want … anything”.

© John Welford