The mayor of Brighton and Hove is to drop the tradition of prayers being said before council meetings, replacing them with poems read by children.
Councillor Alex Phillips has invited two pupils from Patcham High School to read poetry as she prepares to open a meeting of Brighton and Hove City Council for the first time.
Councillor Phillips, 34, the youngest ever mayor of Brighton and Hove, said that in her first two months in the post she had focused on engaging with women, children and young people.
And she wanted to carry this over into the meetings that she chaired.
The Green councillor, who is also a newly elected Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and mother of one, said: “As a young mayor, I see the importance in opening the world of local politics up for our school children to experience.
“It’s vital that there is some sort of moment’s attunement ahead of full council meetings because they are quite long and they can become very heated.
“However, I felt that giving young people the opportunity to showcase their talents in the council chamber, while simultaneously focusing councillors’ minds on the decisions and interactions they are about to make, was the best way to go about it.
“It’s important for our young people to understand local democracy but it’s equally important for elected representatives to be reminded by young people that the decisions councillors are about to take will affect our young people the most.”
Her plan is for all future meetings to start with young people reading poems of their choice or ones that they have written themselves.
Full council meetings are held every six to eight weeks after a cycle of committee meetings.
They provide an opportunity to ratify decisions made by committees as well as agree policies and ask questions of the administration.
Prayers are not part of the formal council meeting itself but take place shortly beforehand.
It is up to each mayor whether they choose to have prayers and Councillor Phillips’s decision to have poetry readings instead has caused a stir.
Conservative councillor Tony Janio said that he had asked the council’s head of democratic services whether it was in the “mayor’s protocols” to stop prayers “on an atheist whim”.
He said: “Learnt morals and traditions – we ignore these at our peril.
“I am not sure the mayor has ever attended prayers but she should not be allowed to prevent us from continuing with our traditions.”
Not sure this innovation contributes to the mindfulness and humility that various philosophies & religions all generate with prayer or little meditations.
Children will be children. Better a dedicated chamber space for invited schoolchildren to occupy so they can observe and learn without the pressure of being performers for assembled amusement.
Council mtgs can be theatrical but its not the place for awkward entertainment poetry.
Attention seeking as it’s best. These virtue signalling displays rather than doing the job just shows you why we are in the mess we are it. And the media laps it up.
I sometimes read prayers here (such as the Yale Edition of Samuel Johnson’s). I cannot help but feel, however, that God prefers to listen to The Archers on iplayer rather than give time to looking in at Full Council meetings in Hove and Brighton.
Time and again the Prayers have called upon Him/Her to make the Councillors behave in a civil manner but, as we know, within a few minutes of Prayers being over it is as though a bell rings and the place resembles a boxing ring, the ropes spring one way and another.
Not so long ago, I went along to ask a Public Question which turned around visits by the Libraries service to the housebound and (now ex-councillor) Daniel’s Reply was a stream of derogatory remarks about me.
Lo and behold, soon after, we Library campaigners witnessed a Miracle, for in the nearby pub, to which we had repaired to soothe our nerves after that, we were duly told that the tab had been settled on our behalf. Puzzled, we asked how, and the landlord simply gestured skywards.
Whilst I completely support the dismissal of superstitious incantations I fail to see any benefit whatsoever in the introduction of kids/poetry. Councillors are neither there to pray or to be entertained (or smile politely and pretend to).