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News and Comment November 2011

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15 November (Part 2) - A council controlled by criminals?

Will Tuckley Teresa O'NeillThe facility for sending anonymous messages is proving to be a mixed blessing. The negatives are minimal, there has been no out and out abuse but the attempts to be helpful with tales of what smelly mess might be found if the right stone is lifted are not a lot of good without an indication of which stone to turn. As must be clear by now I try to avoid subjects that are undocumented. Some anonymous messages are clearly from council sources, councillors most likely. They appear to be rattled as well they might be. I take website hits with a pinch of salt, but 28 from Parliament and 26 from newspapers among the recognisable ones isn’t too bad for a single day; yesterday as it happens but not that atypical. Perhaps that is why Bexley council is so keen to have bloggers put back in the bottle.

An anonymous message at the weekend complained about ‘pitchforks and flaming torches’ and the fact I said I only reposted it from somewhere else. “What difference does that make?” said the anonymous message sender. It’s true I thought the original posting was funny at the time and offered support for it, maybe I shouldn’t have done, but I knew the author well enough, met him a couple of times, spent a whole day with him once. There is no way either of us was encouraging a scene out of a Mary Shelley short story. Similarly when a friend said to me that the only way Bexley council might take note of resident discontent was if it escalated to “petrol bombs” I shouldn’t have turned it into a joke, but all that was a long time ago and I was new to writing about Bexley council. My first council meeting was only five months earlier. I try to learn from mistakes.

The weekend’s 59 word message ending “Get a life” read as though it was defending leader Teresa O’Neill, the butt of the “flaming torches” metaphor and it crossed my mind it may have come from her, or at least one of her closest “scheming cohorts”. I am going to assume it did.

Many people have told me who wrote the pitchfork thing, he is a popular local blogger. His picture is on this site if you care to hunt it down and as everyone seems to know, he keeps our local Neighbourhood Watch alive and relevant to this digital age. Is Teresa O’Neill or any other councillor living in fear of the Neighbourhood Watch? I doubt it and even if she or they were, does his mischievous remark begin to compare with the criminal acts Teresa O’Neill will not condemn?

Teresa O’Neill may or may not have sanctioned the unscheduled emptying of my dustbin looking for anything incriminating, but the council definitely used its CCTV system to track my movements, that fact is confirmed by their obscene blog. (†) She and others definitely (I have the written confirmation) asked her Chief Executive to have a word with his mates in Arnsberg Way and get them to threaten me with arrest because “some of the content [of this blog] criticises councillors on a personal level”. Since when was that a crime Teresa? You have enormous power and abuse it to further your own ends. As bloggers we can only throw back the truth. How can we post your misdeeds every day? Because there are so many of them, that is why.


No placardsAnd why the anonymous messages? We look for openness and transparency from our politicians but we don’t get either. Those behind this blog believe in openness and honesty above all else. My name has been included from the outset, those who joined me - ditto, all have had their photographs on the site at one time or another and my email address and phone number may be found on the Contact page. There have been photos of my own house on Bonkers and anyone who puts the provided details into bt.com will find my address. But Bexley council shelters behind its privileges abusing its power. Why? Because it knows no other way.

On a whim it can summon up 27 police officers to keep control of a few pensioners and a group of peaceful Asians carrying placards - which you promptly banned with a newly published notice. When Eric Pickles’ Under Secretary of State wrote to you on 23rd February 2011 you changed the Constitution so that all of his wishes were thwarted.

If a councillor takes exception to a blogger he can make an untruthful statement to the police knowing that when he is found out nothing is going to come of it.

Police statement
Do you accept that that is an untruthful statement Teresa? No blogger ever said that. The accused blogger did not reveal an address, Bexley council did that, didn’t it, and then when you were rumbled promptly withdrew the evidence? Not what you would expect of someone keen on upholding the law and not trying to rig a prosecution is it?

Because a councillor claims his wife, children and grandchildren are all put at risk a blogger spends 7½ hours in a police cell. When your people commit the most outrageous of hate crimes you and your policeman friends contrive to cover it up. No investigation according to Will Tuckley. Crime dismissed as nothing but a counter allegation by your friends in blue. Their Commander was still writing to MPs more than a month after his enquiries had ceased to tell them that the investigation was thorough and ongoing. When the truth begins to come out it is labelled not in the public interest to talk about it, the tried and tested routines honed in the Ian Clement era.

You imply you were concerned about a Neighbourhood Watch volunteer making a joke but you don’t seem to give a damn about the distress you and your cohorts caused with your obscene blog. What about Elwyn’s wife, how do you think she reacted Teresa? What about Elwyn? He was initially very disturbed by it and wasn’t himself for two or three weeks afterwards.

You must know who wrote that blog Teresa but you seem to think you can brazen it out, just as you did when Ian Clement was your leader and you were deputy. You claimed then you had no knowledge and perhaps you will claim the same again now. Few will believe you.

We all know you aspire to follow in Clement’s footsteps on your way to County Hall. Already you are Boris Johnson’s chosen one. His ambassador to the Outer London boroughs, the local politician that Boris has said he “admires” most. How is it going to look next year if Boris’s chosen one explodes onto the front pages as the woman who put concealing a criminal above honesty and any claim to be seen as an upright and law abiding politician? Because sooner or later it will. It’s probably too late to salvage your tarnished reputation but it might look better if you tried.

You know and I know that all the evidence is against you. The police might be covering your tracks at the moment but will they want to save your skin and lose their own when the crunch comes? The truth will out eventually and Boris will be scrambling around looking for an honest politician, or maybe he won’t and we will have to accept that the whole of London’s Conservative politics is tarred with the same brush.

Times have changed, your critics are not going to go away, neither will the issue of criminal cover up.

The hate crime, the criminal blog, call it what you will, is now available for all to read in full. The blogs have been assembled into a single page - which causes the dates to be out of sequence - and the profile page including Elwyn Bryant’s picture separately. Your people associated his face with all that untruthful filth Teresa. You are trying to keep their names secret. I hope you are ashamed of yourself.

To protect the innocent a user name and password is required. User name : teresaandwill. Password : mustknow. No full stops!

† The blog refers to Nicholas Dowling and myself going to the Cinema car park (a council car park). We did. Who but Bexley council watching us would recognise us and know our names?

 

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