Parliament has long had its own TV channel, with audio and video from the House of Lords and Commons a given, and apart from the odd incident, uncontroversial.

However, a generation gap is emerging within local government between those more mature active citizens on comfy seats in the council chamber and the empowered upstarts in the public gallery tweeting and live blogging proceedings to online audiences.

Last month the communities’ secretary Eric Pickles told councils to open up their doors to filming. He advised that freedom of speech and independent journalism were under attack in local government after residents were in danger of arrest when reporting on meetings.