13 October - Give us a clue; do
Was
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.