"Businesses shouldn’t say ‘Oh no, we’ve got to give our employee time off so they can go to town hall meetings’.They should say: ‘Fantastic, one of our employees is a councillor’."

I suggest that he gets a job in the public sector. What business would let anybody have paid time off to pursue outside interests? Also businesses can't be seen to do this for somebody's political views otherwise where do you stop? Everybody will want time off for outside interest/hobbies etc as it would set a prcedent.