22 January (Part 2) - A protocol is not a policy it is an operational matter
Bexley council has a fantastic track record for pulling some ‘clever’ stunt
and seeing it escalate out of control - and I am very grateful to them.
Their harassment charges eventually led to a councillor being exposed as a liar
in court. Their obscene blog resulted in 20 months of bad publicity and another
dozen or so to come - to say nothing of the trashing nationwide of reputations.
Kevin
Fox decided to flout government policy by banning photography
before as well as during council meetings - the former he admits is permissible
under Bexley’s Protocols. Human Resources supremo
Nick Hollier’s defence
of Foxy put him in the Bonkers’ firing line and thanks to Mick Barnbrook’s persistence
I can take pleasure in once again exposing Hollier’s crimes against democracy. Not for the
first time he has been redefining the English language.
Two years ago when the number of awkward questions to a crooked council were rising
they changed the rules in several ways to attempt to eradicate
questioning. Among their anti-democratic decisions was one which said that
any resident asking a question of council must have his address posted on Bexley
council’s website. Councillors who ask questions are exempted from the ruling
and in recent months eleven of them have gone further by
abusing the Localism Bill
and removing all reference to their addresses. No real surprise, crooks and liars will exploit every loophole.
The situation in Bexley now is that residents are only allowed to ask questions
related to policy. Perhaps I should have said the situation in Bexley was… for
it would seem that things are about to change.
Mick
Barnbrook asked the council
to explain its policy
of potentially exposing residents to risk by having their addresses published on the web. Our disgraced
Mayor said it wasn’t a policy question and rejected the question. A complaint elicited a
response from the infamous dictionary and thesaurus mangling Kevin Fox that a
Protocol was not a policy. Kevin Fox is nobody’s friend so Mick was happy to
make a formal complaint about Fox’s word twisting. His complaint has been
answered by another of Bexley council’s manipulative jobsworths and Nick Hollier has
wriggled as only a Bexley official bent on hiding secrets can.
Mr. Hollier has carefully explained that once a policy is adopted by council it
becomes a Protocol but the implementation of Protocols is a matter for day to
day operations and operational matters are exempted by Protocol from
questioning at council. Is this man for real? By that definition no questions to the
council whatsoever are permitted. Neat. Bexley council has got its way. No questions
for a bent council to answer. Surely there is a job somewhere for Mr. Hollier
devising tax dodging scams and the like. He has no shortage of ideas on getting around the law.
I think managerial staff would be better employed chasing the office crumpet like in the old
days. It does rather less harm, unless they are married of course.