20 June - Lull before the storm? Possibly
This evening marks the beginning of the Council meeting season. A Scrutiny meeting.
Blogs
You must have noticed that blogs have been infrequent since the local election
in May; the reasons are varied but one stands head and shoulders above the
others. I have frequently said privately and occasionally publicly that if
Bexley Councillors stopped lying Bexley-is-Bonkers would whither and die and
with the election out of the way and the meeting season not yet started even the
most prolific of Bexley’s liars has not found the need to do so.
Whilst the idiotic fringe led by Councillor Philip Read continues to label me a
Labour troll if his comprehension skills were a bit greater he might have
noticed that any support for Bexley’s Labour Group does not go beyond the
rebuttal of the lies that he and his ilk tell about Labour policies. If he has
read what I think of Mayor Sadiq Khan how can he continue to believe I am a Labour activist?
Relatively minor contributors to the reduced level of blogging are the constant
trips to East Ham - every two days for the past three weeks but with luck now
stretching to three or four day intervals, and maybe the effect of the recent
criminal prosecution - dropped at the last minute. I don’t often think about that any more but earlier in the year the
stupidity of Kent Police dampened my enthusiasm for blogging. They are still refusing to
investigate an untruthful harassment statement, unless of
course they simply cannot be bothered to tell me anything. When they responded
to an enquiry from my MP three months after she made it her description of their reply was
extraordinarily diplomatic. “Very poor” she said.
For the record, Kent Police is still investigating why one of their Sergeants
fell for a set of lies hook, line and sinker
The News Shopper
Until two or three months ago a copy of the News Shopper was reliably delivered
to my door every week but now that it isn’t I am afraid I haven’t given it
another thought. However today I noticed - via Twitter - that they are reporting that
50 Bexley staff have been given £800,000 in gagging agreements. Doesn’t
surprise me at all, I have met some of these people. A very small number have
consciences and live to regret their blood money, for in some cases that is what it is.
As a result I have heard how the Council Leader herself has been involved in
high level cover ups of major mismanagement and possibly criminal behaviour but
in every case I have recommended that the ex-employee
sticks to the agreement - especially when the money has been used to pay off a mortgage.
Anonymous messages
Useful though the Anonymous Contact facility
can be it occasionally creates a dilemma. Some lead to a blog which then indicates to the writer that his
input has been found useful but a few that look good turn out not to be so useful.
Ignoring them will look rude but the only other way to respond to anonymous
messages is via the blog. This blog appears here only to avoid appearing to be
ungrateful for the input. It will not make a lot of sense to anyone but the
sender.
An anonymous message provided an analysis of various things that a Conservative
Councillor had apparently written which on the surface appeared to be less than
honest. There are some Conservative names which I would automatically link with
dishonesty and deception - only a small number, but they do exist. This
anonymous message was not about any of them, in fact it was critical of someone
for whom I have a high regard.
Because of that I forwarded the message to the Councillor concerned. With
commendable speed I was sent an expression of, if not quite horror at what had
been published, at least a degree of shock.
34 minutes later a more detailed response dropped into my Inbox. It included
evidence that an original hand written draft had been very carelessly
transcribed by a Council Official resulting in an inaccurate publication which
could be construed as having something to hide.
A second similar but much older ‘allegation’ was made against the same
Councillor. It provoked a near identical response and again with supporting evidence. This
time the inaccurate transcription was both very small but very important. The error was made by a third party not employed by Bexley Council. It will be
possible to correct the first set of mistakes but not the older one.
As the Councillor said, “the lesson is to do things for myself in future”.
I trust this will satisfy the anonymous messenger and demonstrate that
in my opinion Bexley’s comment “[the Council] has serious issues with Malcolm Knight” (†) is
entirely the fault of a few individuals at the very top of the Council.
† Friends have told me that this was said by a Council Officer addressing a meeting earlier this year
when, for reasons which are not totally clear, the subject of
Bexley-is-Bonkers cropped up. Since my website only reports as best it
can what Bexley Councillors do and say, how can I be a serious problem to them?
Unless of course they know that some Councillors are still up to no good.