11 November (Part 2) - Hungry kids. The truth was rather different
From 2011 through to about 2015 this blog existed because four elderly gents
and one not so elderly gent put a lot of effort
into probing Bexley’s secretive and frequently dishonest Council. FOIs and
questions at Council meetings whenever Bexley Council couldn’t dream up a reason
to reject them. A similar number of wrinklies watched from the comfort of their armchairs and fed me a constant supply of funny goings on.
In response to their activities Bexley Council stationed up to
27 police officers outside the Civic
Offices when holding public meetings and reported me - whose job was to
record the dishonesty others had noted - to the police for threatening violence and arson against them.
With
the help of Teresa Pearce, my irreplaceable MP, I discovered that the
metaphorical ‘threats’ were from another blog - not this one - an extract from which is shown here. It said “I
think we need to descend on Councillor Teresa O’Neill with flaming torches and
pitchforks, as it would seem that she and her scheming cohorts are impervious to reasoned argument”.
Click the image for a better view.
So dishonest was Bexley Council at the time that they reported me to what at the
time they regarded as their military wing in Arnsberg Place and not the author
of the blameless words of
someone better versed in English Literature than the Council Leader. The quote comes from Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein.
Sad to say nearly half of those helpers are now dead and two no longer live in
the borough. Bonkers is reduced to merely reporting what falls in to my hands.
Investigative reporting is out of the window, it was never my forté.
However yesterday’s report on hungry children didn’t ring true. Labour Councillors not caring and Tories lashing the cash.
Really? Some digging was required.
This is what I found.
Councillor Mabel Ogundayo (Thamesmead East) set up the Just Giving appeal
assisted by several like minded helpers. Possibly six of them all told.
The £10,000 donation to food banks authorised by Cabinet Member David Leaf had
nothing to do with free meals for needy children during the recent half term. It
was signed off at the beginning of last March - pre-lockdown.
Mabel had to get the money to schools and hungry pupils in a hurry
and the obvious source of assistance was Bexley Council which could easily get
access to the names of poor parents either directly or via their school contacts.
Cabinet
Member Leaf poked fun at Labour Leader Daniel Francis’s Tweet about Bexley
Council being content to see children go hungry, ridiculed it even, claiming that it was the Conservative Council that ensured that all the children were well fed
during half-term.
He said that Councillor Francis's Tweet was not true.
On the contrary I have found nothing to suggest David Leaf's statement was true, the boot appears to be well and truly on the other foot.
When Mabel asked the Council (by email if my researches are correct) for assistance with distributing the money
she hoped to raise she was rebutted by none other than Cabinet Member for Children’s
Services, Councillor Philip Read. He did so on behalf of the Adults’ Services
and Education departments too. Maybe he kept them in ignorance.
I am informed that
Read failed to respond to any further plea to help distribute the money.
You may conclude that his initial response was an act of political malice which left
Mabel in a tight spot and the borough’s children potentially hungry.
I cannot find any school that remembers getting any half-term offer from Bexley Council
which is in line with what Cabinet Member Leaf implied.
Some schools definitely made their
own arrangements as described by my teacher correspondent earlier this week.
Mabel Ogundayo and her team persuaded some schools to send out claim forms to
families normally in receipt of free meals and parents’ consent was sought to share the details with Mabel and Co.
Because some schools don’t look at email during
half-term Mabel also sought other
confidential routes to parents. In total 19 schools cooperated fully and through
her alternative routes she found a small number of children distributed across another 30
or so schools. All were well provided for.