Text A: an original contemporary opinion-style practice extract.

At the council’s listening session, every speaker received four minutes. Previously, the limit had existed somewhere in the chairperson’s notes: contributors discovered it only when a hand rose to stop them. This time, a small display showed 4:00 and counted down. The rule had become visible to the people expected to obey it.

With 1:10 remaining, I abandoned my long introduction and made the practical request I had come to make. I finished without being interrupted, and the next speaker received the same allowance. The display did not silence me; it made me decide what mattered. It also prevented the confident few from borrowing minutes from everybody waiting behind them.

Yet the final thirty seconds turned amber, and attention moved from the speaker’s face to the falling number. At 0:00, the red screen made an unfinished sentence seem like an offence. A device intended to prevent one person from dominating the room briefly dominated it instead.

Keep the countdown, but keep it modest. Place it where the speaker and chairperson can see it without making it the session’s brightest object. Pause it when officials ask questions, and allow a sentence already begun to reach its full stop. A visible limit can support fairness, provided that the display remains a tool rather than the most commanding presence in the room.

Text B: an original contemporary commentary-style practice extract.

The library introduced a three-minute countdown at its public question session after several meetings had overrun. The first speaker began carefully, giving the background needed to explain her concern. As the display dropped below forty seconds, she skipped the evidence and hurried to her conclusion. A practised speaker followed and compressed six claims into the same period. Equal minutes had not produced equal opportunities to be understood.

The display was supposed to be neutral, but its shrinking figures became the loudest voice in the room. People apologised to the clock, rushed when it changed colour and sometimes sat down before answering a question properly. We had solved the problem of long contributions by creating a new problem: contributions shaped more by visible seconds than by meaning.

The earlier arrangement was not fair either. Confident participants continued until the chairperson interrupted them, while hesitant speakers often surrendered time they could have used. Some common limit is necessary if a public session is to hear more than its most persistent voices.

However, the chairperson should manage that limit. Speakers could be told their allowance in advance and given discreet warnings halfway through and near the end. A little judgement would let someone finish an explanation without allowing a speech to expand indefinitely. Fairness needs a rule, but it also needs a person willing to interpret that rule.