A TOP legal official has been accused of reacting in an ‘authoritarian’ and ‘dictatorial’ manner during Borough of Poole’s annual budget meeting

Cllr Mark Howell, leader of the independent Poole People Party, was stopped from delivering his budget address after Poole Mayor Lindsay Wilson liaised with Tanya Coulter, the head of legal and democratic services, who then demanded to vet his speech.

The independent councillor, whose anti-Conservative address touched on the ‘dangers of corruption’ in any new merged super council, was halted by the mayor three-quarters of the way through.

What followed was a tense stand-off, with the mayor - who was chairman of the meeting - insisting Cllr Howell’s speech was ‘political’ and had little to do with the budget, and the councillor arguing it was his budget speech and he should be allowed to continue.

After brief discussions with Ms Coulter, the mayor adjourned the meeting. However, the same monitoring officer - after subsequent talks with Cllr Howell - then gave the go ahead for the stunned councillor to finish his address to the chamber.

Speaking to the Echo afterwards, Cllr Howell said: “Surely they cannot be saying they would vet a speech of a party leader. This is authoritarian, dictatorial behaviour. It represents censorship. There is no established convention to provide copies of speeches ahead of meetings, many speeches are made off the cuff in the moment.

“It demonstrates the Conservatives’ level of control - they were trying to prevent opposition from having a say or the resources to be able to say anything of substance against them.”

Poole Mayor Cllr Lindsay Wilson was unavailable for comment yesterday.

However, in a statement Ms Coulter - who is also Bournemouth Borough Council’s monitoring officer - said: “For the annual budget setting meeting of council, members are requested to provide a copy of their speech to democratic services prior to the meeting.

“On this occasion, Cllr Howell did not observe this established convention and during the course of his speech made comments which some members and the mayor found offensive.”

Cllr Howell told the Echo councillors would, on occasion, provide copies of speeches to officers, but that this was to help with administration and not an ‘established convention’ in any way. Ms Coulter said: “Once the mayor was satisfied his comments were not unlawful the meeting resumed and Cllr Howell continued to give his speech in full.”

In his original speech Cllr Howell said: “We (Poole People Party) have opposed the merger because the Conservatives administrations and councillors that have been pushing the merger proposals through have failed to include any safeguards that would help to prevent inefficiencies and corruption from becoming ingrained in the new council.”

He continued: “Conservatives only usually object to the existence of large organisations where they are not in control of them.

“Consequently, they advance the interests of multinationals in which they own shares and from which they secure lucrative directorships.

“When Conservatives are in charge of an organisation, their natural instinct is to increase their level of control and use its power and resources for personal benefit.”

He finished his speech with a recital of Percy Shelley’s poem Ozymandias, whose central theme is the inevitable decline of leaders and empires.