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News and Comment November 2020

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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.

ArsonWith 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.

Tweet 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.

 

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