Titbits – Dressing down and dressing up

◆ A prickly exchange at a recent meeting of Hackney’s constitution committee. A question was submitted later than the deadline, and it differed from the question that had originally been sent in. This prompted an irritable response from committee chair and education chief Cllr Anntoinette Bramble. “You wanted to revise the question, and I asked you to ask the question that you sent in,” Bramble, who is a former teacher, told the sheepish inquisitor. “If it’s helpful, I’ve got the wording here, so if you ask the question that you’d [originally] asked, I’ll try my best to respond to that question.” Class dismissed!

◆ It was an emotional rollercoaster as the cabinet debated the merits of a borough-wide licensing scheme for landlords. Members of renters’ union Acorn, dressed in party hats, went from barracking councillors to showering them in confetti. It must have made a nice change for the politicians – not so much for the people who had to clean the chamber!