5 September (Part 1) - Bexley’s Tory liars become ever more devious
Are you missing Councillor Philip Read’s lies? Maybe he has turned over a new leaf
because suddenly he is against abuse and intolerance.
However
Bexley Conservatives show no sign of dropping the lies altogether but maybe they are becoming more difficult to expose.
Their current favourite is tree planting, 200 of them across the borough in coming months
(but please don’t ask how many will be
ripped out of Old Farm Park).
The Tories are correct when they say that Labour voted against restoring the tree
planting programme which was cancelled in 2014 but only because Labour members said they would prefer to protect the social care budget.
I’d love to know where in Lesnes Abbey a Tory can be found. I’ve not seen one here.
Some tree planting is essential, Bexley Tories should never have been so stupid as
to stop it in the first place but unless a tree is
planted outside your front door you are unlikely to notice 200. I’ve asked how
many are to be planted in my own ward (Lesnes Abbey) and the answer is two.
To uncover real Conservative lies some research is needed.
Something they have said quite a lot recently is that Bexley is the happiest
borough in London. Councillor John Davey (Conservative, Crayford) has twice said so;
in the Council Chamber last March and
again in July.
Earlier that same month BiB described the claim as “twaddle”.
That’s because the only survey that put Bexley at the top of the Happy Tree was
based on counting smiling face symbols on social media posts.
For evidence
the City AM newspaper was quoted but counting emoji is probably not the
most reliable happiness indicator. Maybe
the News Shopper was closer to the truth two years ago when it reported that
Bexley was only eight boroughs above being the worst place to live in the whole
country. Probably both surveys are total nonsense.
Perhaps Bexley Conservatives think so too because they are now claiming that
‘Bexley is happiest’ is a statistic supported by the Office of National
Statistics. How many Bexley residents are going to check that out?
Probably the Tory liars are banking on it being none. BiB will save you the bother.
The ONS goes around (wasting taxpayers’ money?) asking people how happy they were yesterday
and to score it on a scale of 0 to 10. Every borough in the country scores seven point
something apart from Liverpool (6·96) and one in Scotland plus Orkney which both scrape above eight.
So in truth there is very little difference anywhere, nevertheless Bexley Tories
claim that Bexley is in top place. Is it true? Of course not.
In London alone 20 boroughs beat Bexley. Among the 74 boroughs in South East
England only three are less happy than Bexley.
Maybe we would be happier if we had a Council that didn’t lie all the time.
Source data. See column G.