11 January - From wokery to wankery
Do
you know who Thomas Turrell is? Probably not, but you should. He followed James
“Your Blog is Well Out Of Order” Cleverly and Bridge Blocker Bacon (See image
republished on 5th January) as our GLA representative. (Bexley and Bromley.)
Cleverly is best forgotten but Gareth Bacon did a sometimes brilliant job of
holding Sadiq Khan to account. More than that really, he several times exposed
Khan as the incompetent lying city wrecker that he is.
I don’t know a great deal about Thomas Turrell but he is
fairly active on X and
probably deserves more than his 1,885 followers. Earlier this week he caught my
eye with a comment about the GLA’s Environment Committee excluding Bromley Council from a discussion on the health of London’s rivers
many of which flow through Bexley on their way to the Thames.
Through @tonyofsidcup who can never leave any stone unturned I have learned what was behind Thomas’s comment.
Invitations to attend the Committee are the prerogative of the Chair and Thomas
suggested having someone from Bromley there as a guest. He not unreasonably
thought that river management would benefit from an Outer London input and Bromley is
well placed to balance budget and river health. With several small rivers
passing through the borough it has acquired considerable expertise in that area.
The Chairman of the Environment Committee, Green Party GLA Member Zack Polanski
pictured above, rejected Thomas’s suggestion, not because he considered the
Bromley representative not to have the requisite knowledge but because he was the wrong sex.
“We are looking to get a balanced panel especially in terms of Gender. Lewisham
has a female Councillor who is willing to be on the panel” and went on to emphasise
that Bromley’s man would result in a gender imbalance on his panel.
Stuff the expertise, having a woman on the panel is the best way to preserve river health!
The current crop of Labour politicians is widely considered to be absolutely
nuts but the Greens have always been like it.
Polanski is Deputy Leader of the Greens nationally and was arrested in 2019
while protesting on behalf of Extinction Rebellion. He said at the time “I’d
absolutely be willing to go through it again repeatedly.”
