26 January (Part 2) - Bexley council - Uniquely bad
It’s a rare month that goes by without me being contacted by someone from
the national media amazed at the antics of Bexley council and saying they would like
to submit an article to their editor. I used to get quite excited by the
prospect of bringing Bexley’s cheating ways to national attention but I don’t
any more. The routine always takes much the same course; they are interested in
the harassment letter issued for nothing other than “criticism” and even more so
when told that Olly Cromwell was charged and spent three days in court for the
same thing, but then they baulk at linking their feature to the rude words on Olly’s
blog. So they switch attention to Bexley council’s criminal blogging and find to their
dismay that that leads to a lot of rude words too. Bexley council is being
protected from exposure by the fact that their activities are too extreme for
publication in the proverbial ‘family newspaper’.
This month brought a variation on the theme. A couple of weeks ago a
journalist asked questions about how councils might be defying Eric Pickles’
ideas for Armchair Auditors in The Big Society. I provided a few blog links to show
how Bexley council had clamped down on democratic involvement and away that one
went to the editor too. It failed because the editor wanted his feature to
be nationally based and they can’t find any other council that gets anywhere
near Bexley’s level of skulduggery. I mentioned Barnet which reported a blogger to
the Information Commissioner for keeping a note of his contacts’ email addresses
without being registered under the Data Protection Act and Carmarthen who
threatened to have a blogger charged for filming a council meeting. But
apparently no other council is so supremely vindictive as Bexley and until their
brand of Conservatism spreads wider it doesn’t make a national story. Perverse or what?