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News and Comment October 2011

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13 October - Give us a clue; do

CluedoWas it the mayor in his Parlour on his i-Pad, leader Teresa O’Neill in her Chamber with a Blackberry, Will Tuckley in his Counting House on his gold plated laptop or Chris Loynes in the Library on his Notebook. Who at Bexley council cobbled together the obscenities posted on Google blogspot?

Mr. Loynes is certainly the man in the spotlight for it was he who made the arrangements for Elwyn Bryant and myself to inspect the Register of Members’ Interests. In any open and transparent council that visit would have been unnecessary because the Register would be available on-line. In any open, transparent and honest council the author of the obscene blog would have long ago been exposed so that the council could in that overused phrase, ‘move on’. But no, this is Bexley, deeply dishonest Bexley where there is an established track record of council law breaking and fraudulent leaders. What have they and their military wing done?


• A Subject Access Request has been ignored and is now five months old. Bexley council will not respond to even the simplest of enquiries about it. The case is now under investigation by the Information Commissioner.
• The police when asked to investigate did not engage in even the most elementary enquiries. Instead they provided no evidence that didn’t sit on their hands until they eventually said their enquiries were exhausted.
• Under pressure from two MPs, one the Minister for Crime and Security, the borough Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Dave Stringer, ever ready to do Bexley council’s bidding, did nothing but write a meaningless letter.
• Attempts to discuss the case by telephone fail because someone somewhere regards the issue as so sensitive that the file has been marked ‘RESTRICTED’.
• A Freedom of Information Request to the Metropolitan Police asking technical questions and for dates was initially rejected on the grounds the questions were ‘Personal’.
• When the FOIs were eventually accepted they were never answered, these too have been referred to the Information Commissioner.


So the people who run Bexley have ganged up to protect one of their own; a perpetrator of a hate crime. A criminal. Who do you think that criminal is?

The speculation is centred on Chris Loynes. Head of Democratic Services and the one man who definitely did have the facts about the visit to the Civic Centre at his fingertips. For the past few months attempts to contact Mr. Loynes have failed. “He will be in this afternoon.” “He won’t be back until next week.” “He is on long term sick leave.” All rather inconsistent and we thought we had heard all the excuses. But no. The latest is “I’ll get Mr. Loynes to call you back.” And where does that call back come from? None other than from Nick Hollier, Director of Human Resources. Why should a call to Chris Loynes In the Democratic Services department get a call back from the Director of HR? To ensure consistency of excuse perhaps? To get their inconsistent responses sorted out? Does every call for someone who is absent get filtered through the Head of HR? I suspect not, but maybe if the someone was suspended for gross misconduct maybe they would.

Why can Bexley council never behave in a responsible and honest fashion? If there is a criminal in their midst why not just get rid of him, apologise for his behaviour and move on? Perhaps their is truth in the old adage about “honour among thieves”; Broadway is so very close to Arnsberg Way in every sense of the words.

Bexley council has recently taken to combatting adverse media reports on its website. Maybe if there is no truth in the Chris Loynes speculation they could say so there? Currently the fifth highest search phrase (Keyword) on Google - the highest are the obvious ones like ‘Bexley’ and ‘Bexley council’ - that leads to this website is ‘Chris Loynes Bexley'. That’s a bit odd isn’t it?

Speaking of adverse media reports, there have been suggestions that Bexley council would feature on the BBC’s The One Show this evening. I have been assured this is not the case but they may well get star billing on a later date.

 

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