Some light (bedtime?) reading offered here, in this link to a Guide to Localism. It includes such riveting stuff as whether or not Councillors can campaign.
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Sidmouth Independent News 
Thank you Sidmouth Sid, and thank you by default to another person, shorter than I for bringing the reference to my attention ( you know who you are – so many thanks to you personally )…. If as a councillor, I am unable to campaign on local issues – WE ARE GOING TO PUT A WIND TURBINE ON TOP OF THE MINSTER let’ s say – then how can I represent the people who elected me, and those who did not – both of whom deserve equal representation. Just because I believe in certain things, and object to others, that does not mean that I have ” pre-determination ” on those things, just that I have a view… Ergo, just as the Conservative Party does not believe that the Hammer and Sickle should fly on every flagpole, does that mean that 68% of the DMC should leave the room if a planning application for a HUGE statue of Lenin was proposed for the middle of Sidmouth? ( I have already raised £3.67 for this project by the way ) ….
Another little gem in the document hyperlinked above is the fact that communities and councils can, if they so choose, do away with the executive style of governance .ie. leader, mayor, deputy leaders, chief executives, and operate on a pure ( aahh, let me just wipe my eyes and stop laughing ) committee basis…. All it would require is a positive and definitive mandate from the people, a referendum perhaps. Cllr Twiss recently told me that a full referendum in East Devon would cost £100,000 – now on the strength of the £500k that was spent considering the move to Honiton, we could have had 5 referendums:
I am sure that everyone has a favourite that they could think of… Perhaps, we can start a postcard campaign so that local residents and tax payers ( their bosses ) can tell the Cabinet ( 100% Single party ) what the real local issues are ( not the pretend ones in their heads ) so when they next blow half a million quid, and then tell me that they can’t recycle a cornflake packet profitably, unlike the 6 other Devon districts, I can suggest a better use for the cash extracted legally from each and every one of our pockets each month – and that might possibly be a statue of Lenin, or maybe Trotsky, he was cuddlier!
Interesting… Lenin and Trotsky had views on democracy which I prefer to avoid. Indeed can anyone tell us who runs this website? The lack of transparency does not help engender a feeling that it is all governed by people of integrity… Will be interesting to see if this is published… JM
Why is it that some people obsessed with local party politics also seem to have absolutely no sense of humour? Paul Hayward writes a completely light-hearted piece which I for one thoroughly enjoyed and “Marker” goes all po-faced and nasty. Everyone is different, everyone has different points of view, everyone has different sense of humour (or none at all). Poor old Marker – time to get out a bit more and smell the coffee.