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News and Comment November 2014

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15 November (Part 2) - Saturday sundries

Crossrail
Plumstead To please the Crossrail enthusiasts I walked from Lesnes Abbey via Abbey Wood station to Plumstead station to see what Crossrail were up to. Nothing very exciting was the answer and the killjoys have gone out of their way to spoil the views with high solid fences and close spaced wire mesh. The few Perspex windows were so dirty that they provided no view at all.

There is supposed to be a Railway Replacement Bus from Plumstead at ten minute intervals. I waited 23 minutes without seeing one and eventually escorted a few day trippers to Lesnes Abbey on to the second 180 that passed by.

Presumably the bus companies are doing their best to emulate Southeastern. Cancellations and late running. I did wonder, rather too late, if a smart luxury coach, which briefly pulled into the kerb was in fact a railway bus. If it was, it bore no clear markings and no one got on.


Email
You have heard it all before but I am nearly two weeks behind with replying to email, but I do read them and most eventually get answers.

There is concern about Bexley council prying into private finances and suggestions it can’t be legal. I’d guess it is, the suggestion has not come from Mike Frizoni’s parking department. David Blunkett was first to erode civil liberties and snoop and another David has done little or nothing to roll back the impending police state. If you don’t like it vote for someone else.

From inside the Civic Centre came a message that staff are prohibited from accessing Bonkers. Nothing new there then. To be honest I prefer the regular hits from BBC, ITV and Sky News, TfL and the Houses of Parliament. Bexley council shows up occasionally too, so not everyone there has been barred.

Another message ended with the comment “the Tory party in Bexley knows that they will always have the majority of seats and no longer even pay lip service to our views”. So very true.

Someone else said that the cost of the six new paid Vice Chairman of three scrutiny committees was offset by the earlier decision to get rid of four scrutiny committees altogether in order to reduce the opportunities to check up on the blighters. But having sliced £30k. from the allowances bill there was absolutely no need to hand most of it back by creating new paid positions as compensation. It’s blatant feathering of their own nests. The original blog was edited to make that clearer.

An interesting email came from one of the guests who attend some meetings, especially scrutiny meetings. Part of it said…


I am more and more sick of the utter hypocrisy and deliberate or undeliberate corruption of these talking shops.


A very small extract for fear of identifying the author.

Twitter
I have found Twitter surprisingly useful for both gathering and disseminating news. I follow the accounts I know of run by local councillors. All the Labour and at least two UKIP, but only one Conservative. I have twice hit the Follow button for cabinet member Philip Read @PhilipRead1 but nothing has happened. It simply doesn’t register. I have no idea why. It doesn’t really matter as he posts little of any worth but I like to treat them all equally.

In the reverse direction I think all the local Labour and UKIP accounts follow @BonkersBexley but no Conservatives whatsoever. Maybe the highest profile Follower is the Scottish UKIP Member of the European Parliament, David Coburn although perhaps Teresa Pearce is the more useful one. Again no Tory MPs. They prefer to live in their bubble.

UKIP
The new Bexley UKIP website has come on by leaps and bounds in the past couple of weeks. A bit too gimmicky for my taste with its fancy page transitions and I find it hard to navigate without a mouse, but it all seems to work correctly and it certainly puts all the other local political sites into the shade. There is lots of interesting comment on it. I rather enjoyed their chairman’s CV.

 

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