15 September (Part 2) - Ten years of Council watching
Today is Bonkers’ tenth anniversary; not the blog perhaps because that was a
bit of an afterthought. The original plan was merely to highlight a very big lie
that Bexley Council’s Highways Supremo told me. I thought it was a big deal but
little did I know that it was pretty much the norm and I would be inundated with
similar stories from other residents.
What had Andrew Bashford done? He told me that Bexley’s generally appalling road
planning fully complied with the Transport Research Laboratory’s guidance. My
son was at the time the Chief Safety Consultant to the Department that issued the
guidance; how unlucky was that?
On one of his visits he told me that road planning here looked to be either malicious
or incompetent. You may think it is both. To be fair the calamity that most
caught his attention has since been modified but he has had something to say
about the various crazy roundabouts in Bexleyheath. His most recent concern is
that there might be no way a fully autonomous vehicle could negotiate the madness that is Trinity
Place. I don’t suppose that will surprise anyone.
2009 is a world away politically. I still cling to the hope that Bexley
Council has cleaned up its act in the intervening years but every so often its
still reverts to type. Nationally things have not improved. I thought that
Gordon Brown was the worst Prime Minister there could possibly be and I was hopelessly wrong.
Dare I indulge in some less than impartial political comment? My friend Michael
Barnbrook has increased his Twitter followers
from almost nothing to 12,000
since he began to stick his political neck out. I suppose if I do it the few I
have will disappear and it will take another ten years to build them up again. Do I really care? Probably not.
Probably everyone will agree that the country is in a Constitutional mess but
who to blame might be more controversial. I mostly blame Michael Gove for
stabbing Boris Johnson in the back in 2016 and Mrs. May for running a calamitous
election campaign in 2017, not to mention allowing the EU to write the surrender
agreement which as someone said only a country defeated in war should accept.
The Economist Yanis Varoufakis according to Google.
However despite the dire position that the country finds itself in thanks to
what the numbskulls in Parliament have engineered it does make one thing fairly clear for
those of us who retain some faith in the abilities of this country. Which party
to vote for when the inevitable election comes.
If the Prime Minister gets us out of the European Union without compromise on 31st October - The Conservative Party.
If Boris Johnson accepts any part of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement - The Brexit Party.
If the Cabinet agrees to pay the European Union more than a token amount of money on exit - The Brexit Party.
If the Conservative Party readmits any of the MPs who were prepared to see the
democratic process undermined on 3rd September - The Brexit Party.
There are no doubt other views.
If you believe the world owes you a living, that you can have your cake and eat
it, that terrorists are your friends and wish to face in multiple directions at the same time. The Labour Party.
If you believe in renegotiating Mrs. May’s deal and then campaigning against a
possibly improved offer. The Labour Party.
If you believe that democracy is best served by rerunning the referendum but
avowing to ignore the result whatever it is. The oddly named Liberal Democrat Party.
If you wish to overturn the majority decision of the electorate by simply
cancelling everything and pretending nothing has happened during the past three
and a half years. The Raving Loony Party. Sorry where did that come from? The
Liberal Democrat Party.
The so called Conservatives who have defected to that shameless outfit were
never Conservatives at all and the party is well rid of them.
Have I frightened all the readers away yet? I hope so. I’m not sure I want to be
still writing about Bexley Council in ten years’ time.
