Prospective Labour MP, James Alexander is supporting a Labour motion to make the Council transparent in the 21st century.

James will be seconding Labour Group Leader, David Scott's motion to make the Council make full use of social networking sites such as facebook, myspace and youtube.

"I am very much a modern Councillor and I have been using these sites to communicate with constituents for some time. My youtube videos have received just under 400,000 views. When I got elected to the Council I was told that there is no transcript of full council meetings and that I was not allowed to make a recording otherwise the press would want to. I am sorry but if you are an elected official, people should have the right to hear what you say on their behalf. The public pay our allowances and as far as I am aware the Council is not a secret service but a Lib Dem run local authority and as such should be open and transparent."
Councillor James Alexander - Labour Candidate for York Outer and Holgate Ward Councillor

The motion proposes the investigation of how to use these sites to communicate the work of the Council and also to web-stream council meetings.