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News and Comment November 2020

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27 November (Part 1) - Not another one!

It is possible that the last couple of weeks will prove to be just as ruinous of the local Conservatives’ reputation as was the 17·5% annual Council Tax increase imposed by the Labour administration in 2003. Forever regurgitated is the figure of a 40% increase over four years but never returned by the Tories when voted back into power.

The current financial crisis has got Bexley Council into The Guardian and on BBC London News. Accurately reported whatever Conservative propagandists might tell you.

The Council Leader and Chief Executive have come in for a lot of Facebook criticism, some ill-informed, some not. Someone started a petition to get some salaries reduced and a fat lot of good that will do. I have a sense of déjà vu and 100 signatures will get nowhere. When last I looked the Council would turn up their nose at anything under 2,000. In fact they will probably turn up their noses whatever the number.

PetitionThere was a very similar petition in 2011 when the only way of getting signatures was to stomp the streets and bang on doors.

2,219 Bexley residents eagerly signed up and Bexley Council rejected the petition. Not a word of debate was allowed.

Their reason was the usual concoction of lies which was Bexley’s norm back then. I wasn’t personally involved with the petition but I was sent an advance copy of the proposed form. I had the organisers alter it. Their statement of the top brassְ’s pay was a bit vague and I suggested they copied and pasted the numbers directly from the Council’s website which they duly did. Their form, PDF, may be viewed here.

Bexley Council said that the petition organisers had misled the signatories with wrong salary figures. Figures which were on the Council’s own website. Not a penny more, not a penny less.

In 2011, in fact until much later, Bexley Council was an outrageous liar. I thought things had improved but recently I am not so sure.

To make tracking the progress of that petition an Index to blogs has been created but on reflection it is far too long. Suffice to say the petition was taken up by newspapers both national and local, LBC radio, The Taxpayers’ Alliance, two non-local MPs and the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone. Nothing would persuade Bexley Council to debate the issue. One Tory Councillor actually said “petitions to Bexley Council are a waste of time”. That Councillor is still in office.

Click the image to go to change.org.

 

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