18 May (Part 2) - Leader’s choice. Waffle or walk
It is a barrel scraping day again so I will follow up on a reader’s comment from
last week. His theme was that some Councillors are not value for money and the
2018 intake in particular had proved to be especially poor. Several names were
named and I didn’t think his criticism was entirely fair.
ְ“My Councillor Christine Bishop has never been mentioned on your blog” he said
and I promised to prove him wrong. But I can’t. A software search of the blog
source data finds nothing apart from when she became Mayoress to husband Brian
snd a single reference to “waffling”.
Much the same is true of Councillors Christine Catterall
- no mention except when she went well off topic in a budget debate - and Adam
Wildman. Nothing reported here except when he asked a question designed to curry
favour with the Leader. I unkindly described it as “arse licking of the highest
order”. Oh dear, maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
So maybe my reader knows more about what I have written than I do.
Where we did agree is on the distinct tendency for Councillors who resist the
party line to disappear, either from Chairman roles or worse.
At the same time as I was being reported to the police for “criticising
Councillors”, Councillor Peter Catterall was praising me for holding the Council
to account. Whatever happened to him?
Deputy Leader Simon Windle - described here in 2011 as “too decent to be a Bexley Councillor”
- was also noted as being polite to opposition Members and was caught out responding to public
questions about reducing allowances. He stood down
in favour of Councillor Colin Campell.
We can only guess why.
More recently the far too honest Deputy Leader Rob Leitch baled out at the first
opportunity and his successor, the never criticised Louie French, is going the same way. Will
Alex Sawyer survive? Another Cabinet Member not afraid to plough his own furrow.
May 26th (Full Council) should be an interesting day.
Note: In my opinion, Councillors Richard Diment and Howard
Jackson have earned their keep since May 2018.