There are some Council meetings which really have to be
reported straight away and there are some days when the time available for blogs
is extremely limited and sometimes the two coincide. Today is one of those days.
Last night Bexley’s Full Council was due to rubber stamp its 3·99% Council Tax
increase, not quite a full Council actually, Councillor Fothergill did not show
up. You might think that the huge Tory majority would ensure a quick vote
in favour of the proposed increase but there was nothing quick about yesterday
evening, it dragged on for close to three and a half hours while numerous
Conservatives queued up to tell each other how wonderful they were.
The evening started well enough when Cabinet Member Alex Sawyer gave me an
especially warm welcome. I would guess that he at least is content to see the
Member for Colyers put back in her bottle, however it was mainly downhill from then onwards.
Something I have noticed with six of the seven Mayors I have seen perform is
that even the best of them, and Councillor Peter Reader has been one of the
better ones, is that at this time of the year, realisation that they are soon to
rejoin their nobody friends on the Tory benches sets in. All trace of impartiality
then disappears. Four or five times last night Labour Members pointed out that Tories
were breaking Standing Orders and each time it happened the Labour Councillor
was told to shut up by the Mayor and the Conservative was invited to carry on. The seventh
Mayor did that throughout her year in office and not just at the end.
The
Mayor also stretched the rules by allowing a new Tory Motion to take precedence over
those already in the queue, it was a blatant piece of electioneering “utterly
condemning” Mayor Sadiq Khan for his decision to merge Bexley’s police with
Greenwich and Lewisham. In my humble opinion Sadiq Khan is possibly the biggest
(or should that be smallest?) idiot to ever be elected to high office and few
would doubt that Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich would make a better match.
The Labour Group wanted to expand the Motion to call for more government
funding, but that would look like Bexley Tories were criticising the
Conservative government so they were having none of it however sensible it
might have been. More than once the Conservatives fell about laughing at the
very idea and voted it down.
Labour proposed a rebalancing of the budget which would mean that the newly
formed BexleyCo would run off with less of our money but the payback would be no
park sales and a restored CCTV system.
During the ensuing debate Council Leader Teresa O’Neill criticised Councillor
Danny Hackett (Labour, Lesnes Abbey) for his support for maximising housing opportunities and tried to
twist his words to mean he was in favour of building on parks. Danny had been
speaking only of brown field sites of course, it is the Tories who are hell bent on building over parks.
Labour Councillor Brenda Langstead (North End) reminded everyone that
a huge unused park lay
behind Church Road in Bexleyheath. Whose house backs on to that unsullied space?
Council Leader O’Neill’s of course.
Labour's
Press Release on building over parks.
The abandoned CCTV system came in for much comment. The Tories are spending
£585,000 a year on maintaining it but not spending the £225,000 needed to staff
it. Both Cabinet Member Craske and Teresa O’Neill said the police were
monitoring it but everyone knows that is a lie. In his report to the People
Scrutiny Committee following the Northumberland Heath riot the Borough Police
Commander stated very clearly that it was followed on Social Media not CCTV.
Maybe a few coppers went into the control room late in the day but that is a
long way from it being used effectively.
Labour's
Press Release on the restoration of CCTV.
After Conservatives Linda Bailey, Val Clark, David Leaf, Gareth Bacon, Geraldine
Lucia-Hennis, Ray Sams, Eileen Pallen, Sybil Camsey, Steven Hall, James Hunt,
Louie French, Melvin Seymour, Caroline Newton, Brian Bishop, Christine Bishop,
Colin Tandy, Brad Smith and Christine Catterall all stood up and waffled to various degrees
of ineffectiveness, Cabinet Member Don Massey accused the Labour speakers of
being “the comedy act”. The man is a very bad joke.
Councillor June Slaughter said something about Old Farm Park which was so far out of character for
her that I am not going to report it before she is given an opportunity to better explain it. (†)
Councillor Dourmoush
(Conservative, Longlands) said he was pleased that Bexley Council was building a new town in Thamesmead
which will come as news to everyone, especially Peabody Housing Association.
After behaving himself in Council for the past year or so Cabinet Member Philip
Read decided it was time to reopen his dispute with his opposition shadow Mabel
Ogundayo. When she first took office he took issue with her youthfulness and
inexperience and left many of us with the impression he was not in favour of the
election of attractive black women. His criticism then was that she took three
weeks to respond to his urgent email about a young child said to be in need of the
Council’s help. The delay was entirely due to her parents’ preoccupation with
their daughter being close to death with meningitis.
Dragging up ancient history for an imaginary political advantage while he was
supposed to be debating the budget was a disgraceful performance by Cabinet
Member Read and detrimental to his achievements in Children’s Services. A
leopard never changes its spots.
Councillor Read said that Labour was nothing but “a collection of slogans masquerading as a political party”.
As the meeting dragged on I amused myself by viewing it as an election
hustings which in many ways it was.
As you may know I am a traditional Tory voter, at least I was until David Cameron became
Prime Minister. I very much regret voting Liberal when a friend stood in
Aldershot in the 1960s and I gritted my teeth when I cast my one and only Labour vote for
Danny Hackett in 2014, but he had become a friend too. I had no idea who I might vote for next May, in part
because Danny has gone to Thamesmead and I had no confirmation of who the candidates might be in Belvedere.
Yesterday’s lamentable performance by a bunch of self-serving, self
congratulating, arrogant, unlistening and occasionally lying Tories has made up
my mind very firmly. There is no way anyone can vote for such a bunch. A bunch
who it might be said appointed as Vice-Chairman of the Resources Committee no
less, someone who admits to losing “about £100,000” of other people’s money.
I detect not the slightest bit of Corbynitis among Bexley’s present Labour
Group, I am going to vote for them next May before Momentum comes and gets them!
† No further explanation was forthcoming. To a solitary cry of “traitor”
from the public gallery Councillor Slaughter said in response to the Labour Motion to save Old Farm Park…
Mr. Mayor, this is a potty pathetic piece of political nonsense.
Labour Party Members are wondering what I am going to do about this amendment as
my opposition to the sale of Old Farm Park is well known. I have fought this
fight and I am proud of having done so but I am a realist and I do not propose
to join the opposition in this piece of political posturing.