9 May (Part 1) - Councillor Philip Read. Respect for that!
Five years ago there was no money, today, where I am at least, there is very little news.
However I am grinning widely at the fact that I appear to have won the election.
Teresa Pearce is back in Parliament, Ed Miliband is not in Downing Street and
UKIP made a mockery of the First Past the Post electoral system.
Of
course I am not a winner in the same sense as Will Tuckley is an election
winner. As Returning Officer he can claim a very healthy fee. Bexley council is
not sufficiently open and transparent to have made the sum public but judged by
the statements made on the pages of more honest councils it seems likely that
his winnings will be around £4,000 per constituency, and Bexley has three.
An altogether different sort of winner is councillor Philip Read who taunted his
Labour counterparts more than four months ago with his prediction for 7th May.
Not only did his crystal ball work, he put his money where is mouth is and put a
bet on it. Respect for that!
I wonder if he was able to negotiate a special rate through councillor Peter
Craske who is the betting industry’s paid mouthpiece?
Craske
spends his waking hours making up excuses for the onward march of High Stakes Betting Machines.
Note: Will Tuckley is Chief Executive of Bexley council and
one of the very highest paid council officers in the land even without these
annual bonuses. There is to be an election of some sort every year until at
least 2020. Bexley’s Head of Electoral Services told me a year ago that there
was one every year until 2022, if I remember correctly.
