Day 19 of the 26 Day Big Shut Up: shut up to shut down.

Of course, if things aren’t going your way and you’re facing a lot of hostile questioning from various bewildered quarters, then shutting yourself up is the perfect antidote to troublesome interrogators and shutting down the debate

One way to shut yourself up is to lock yourself up in your office, gird your loins with a couple of catchy catch phrases such as “Yes, it’s a difficult and controversial decision but it’s the right one” which you repeat ad nauseum or until the next catchy catch phrases are written for you.

Another way to shut yourself up is to just to walk out of the room when faced with having to argue for those difficult and controversial decisions.  If you can do this with various colleagues at the same time, this can be a very impressive way of shutting down the debate too.  

This was attempted this week at a meeting of the Westmorland and Furness Shadow Authority at County Hall in Kendal.  Conservative councillors refused to take part in a vote on a motion on tackling the cost of living by simply walking out of the meeting: a perfect example of shutting up to shut down the debate.

Fortunately, their attempts to shut down the debate didn’t work and the motion was carried by the remaining councillors: the democratic process lived to fight another day, despite attempts to silence it in its tracks.

And for balance: the Northwest Mail attempted to contact the leader of Westmorland & Furness Council’s Conservative Group for a comment but none has been forthcoming.  So far. There’s a surprise.  Shhhhh!

The Mighty Creatives staff team are going to support the campaign by taking part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, on the 5th October. If you want to join us on the day and take a vow of silence, then please check out the campaign here. 

Of if the thought of donating your silence for 24 hours is really too much, then you can donate your hard-earned disposable income here.

Or if neither of these is possible (and heaven knows we’re all in tough financial times right now), then anything you can do to share and shout about the campaign would be equally welcome and appreciated.

So… come and help me to shut up, once and for all. You know you want to.