5 April (Part 1) - A rare outbreak of honesty?
On
a
fateful day in April 2011 a committee chaired by Bexley council leader
Teresa O’Neill met to declare war on residents who had the temerity to
scrutinise or criticise their many nasty little ways. She, aided and abetted by
councillors Chris Ball, Graham D’Amiral, Caroline Newton, June Slaughter and
Simon Windle decided on
a number of actions designed to thwart democracy.
Among those actions was the decision to publish the address of any resident who asked
a question at a Full Council meeting. It was never a reasonable thing to do and
Simon Windle and June Slaughter said as much at the meeting. However such is the
malign influence of Teresa O’Neill on Bexley council, there was a unanimous
decision to adopt the new measures. Maybe the fact that councillors Windle and
Slaughter were kicked out of Cabinet only two weeks later was not unconnected
with their less than 100% support for The Great Dictator.
O’Neill’s personal war against democracy was in full swing in 2011. Just a month
earlier she had gone to her mates in the police and told them blatant lies about
me organising arson at the Civic Centre. She had the police summoned when blogger Olly Cromwell took
Eric Pickles’ word
for gospel and took a camera into the Civic Centre.
The decision to publish residents’ addresses on the web led to Elwyn Bryant and me going to
the Civic Centre in May 2011 to make a note of all the councillors’ addresses to place on this
website as promised in the final sentences
of the blog for 27th April 2011. Then just a few hours later a certain red faced little man thought up
the great wheeze which became known as
Bexley council’s obscene blog.
All that damned foolery, the police cover up that ensued, thousands of pounds worth of police time and
complaints that are still ongoing can all be laid at the door of the leader of Bexley council.
The most admired politician in London according to Mayor Boris Johnson. It was
she who sparked off pretty well all the trouble in which Bexley council finds itself. Under her leadership
Bexley is well and truly Bonkers.
For how much longer can O’Neill, a politician so totally arrogant that she believes
she is above the law, (publishing the addresses
offends against Principles One and Six
of the Data Protection Act) be allowed to impose herself on the borough?
Following the Information Commissioner’s advice in February 2013, members of the
Bexley Council Monitoring Group submitted several questions to council
accompanied by instructions that their addresses must
not be published. An unnaturally long delay ensued and
there was speculation
that Bexley council might be on the brink of obeying the law of the land.
Yesterday there was an even more direct indication. Bexley council has accepted
that Elwyn Bryant may pose a question at the forthcoming Full Council meeting without his address being published for all the world to see.
This website published councillor’s addresses only in response to Bexley
council’s illegal actions. At this first indication that the criminally inclined
Teresa O’Neill has seen the error of her ways, councillors’ addresses have been
hidden from view on Bonkers. Don’t bother
to go looking because the deed was
done yesterday afternoon. When Bexley council removes the requirement to publish
addresses from its Constitution the appropriate webpage will be edited to remove every shred of
reference to addresses.
Let us hope that this change of policy, protocol or
rule book issue,
as it has been variously called to evade questioning, is confirmed and heralds a new honest and
transparent approach by Bexley’s notorious council. But don’t count your chickens. Of the
771 councillors across
London that I have checked so far, just
15 of them have claimed that they would be at serious risk of violence if their
addresses were to become widely available. Eleven of them are in Bexley and they
have the cheek to claim that Bexley is the least violent and safest borough in
London. Bexley council. Once a liar, always a liar.
Unfortunately I doubt that this probable but belated outbreak of sanity will
prove to be enough to satisfy everyone. The horse has bolted, residents are
still at risk, their addresses are on the web. Some victims of Bexley council’s criminal
endeavours may seek redress. At the very least, those two year’s worth of web documents must be amended. Maybe
asking for that sounds like the actions of the awkward squad but Bexley council appears to have
committed a serious offence and some of its victims will expect that their wrongs must
be put totally right. If that wastes money blame Teresa O’Neill; the expense pales into
insignificance besides the several tens of thousands of public money that Teresa and her cohorts
caused to be wasted when they embarked on their futile attempts to close Bonkers and
criminally target Elwyn Bryant and me.
Will they ever learn?