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News and Comment March 2013

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22 March (Part 4) - Keep it in the family

TWAGSBexley council teems with liaisons. Directors and Deputy Directors, man and wife. Cabinet members and Scrutiny chairmen hitched. HR and Occupational Health, linked. Twelve elected representatives married to each other, and there is no easy way to identify the civil partners.

When you go to council meetings questions are planted by councillors’ spouses or close friends. If you see a pro Bexley council letter in the newspaper it’s odds on, if it’s not from a councillor, that the author can be linked to one. Only a couple of months ago a journalist was dropping dark hints to me that he is hamstrung by Bexley council’s tentacles getting everywhere, and as for the police: they are joined at the hip.


UKIP in BexleyheathI picked up on the news today that UKIP has won their first London borough seat (†), completely annihilating the Conservatives who had held it before. Earlier this month I had the first tentative contact from a would-be Bexley UKIP candidate and last Wednesday whilst leaving the Civic Centre I overheard a councillor in conversation about the threat they imposed. And then I belatedly looked at yesterday’s Bexley Times - those adverts are such a turn-off! - and what did I find? A two page article about UKIP’s presence in Bexley.

For balance, ahem! the Bexley Times has gone to Brian Silk, supposedly just the average Bexley man in the street. Mr. Silk condemns UKIP as “a party that harbours homophobia, no matter how they try to disguise it”. I always research pro Bexley comments in the press and I wondered if I should similarly investigate those who might round on anyone showing a lack of enthusiasm for Bexley council. So I did.

Brian Silk, luckily for me has his own website, and on it the Bexley council link is there for all to see.

“My name is Brian Silk and I live in Erith. My partner is Joe Pollard” and lest there should be any doubt there is a direct link to councillor Pollard’s page on Bexley council’s website.

Like the journalist said, Bexley council has their tentacles everywhere.

† London Borough of Havering. UKIP 39%. Conservatives 13%.

 

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