27 August (Part 1) - “Tainted by the actions of Officers”
On
July 3rd there was a Conservatives only event in the Civic Offices after which
Susan Hall the Mayoral candidate said “Thank you to the Bexley Conservative
group for inviting me to speak about why I am our best chance of defeating Sadiq Khan”.
Her Conservative candidate rival Moz Hossain said something similar and as the
photo clearly shows, it was a Tories only event. Local Labour Leader Stefano
Borella said he wasn’t invited and didn’t expect to be because it was a Conservative event.
Mr. Shvorob
the Independent candidate for Sidcup at the last Council election
spotted that Section 7.2b of Bexley’s Code of Conduct expressly forbids using
taxpayer funded resources such as the Council Chamber for political events and
made a complaint on that basis. You may, as I do, think that debases more
serious complaints but it was, on the evidence available to him at the time, a valid one nevertheless.
The Monitoring Officer rejected it on the grounds that it was “a business
meeting” and added that “the Leader and other Councillors met with the Mayoral
candidates to ascertain their plans for London and Bexley. It was not a
Conservative party event but one to discharge Council business”.
The implication was that the meeting was open to all Councillors to meet all the Mayoral
candidates. Not the biggest ever lie to come out of Bexley Council but why deviate from the truth at all?
Does the M.O. have zero concept of how she must always be beyond reproach? The
meeting was not one “to discharge Council business” but one to discharge Conservative
party business. One of the faces pictured has said exactly that.
If the M.O. is prepared to deceive members of the public she is the wrong person for a job
which demands total accuracy and honesty - but this is Bexley and perhaps I am naive.
“The meeting
concerned was a scheduled Conservative Group meeting, hence no Labour members
present” says a Conservative friend who went on to assure me that such meetings are pretty standard stuff
before Mayoral elections. “There really was nothing untoward”.
I agree. I would back the Leader totally on her right to call such a meeting and
where better to hold it than the Civic Offices?
Another Conservative Councillor said that both parties hold such political
meetings, Labour with the unions and the like. “It helps form policy”. Once
again entirely reasonable but that was never the issue, it was the Monitoring
Officer’s indication that the meeting was open to all which is the problem.
Is she simply lax with the use of the English language, ill-informed or
willfully distorting the truth to dodge the provisions of Section 7.2b?
Yet another Conservative Councillor has provided something close to the Agenda
for their Group meetings which includes rehearsing for the theatre which is Full Council.
On 3rd July the meeting accommodated guests as it has done before previous
Mayoral elections.
It begins to look as if the M.O. may be on firmer ground with her phrase
“business meeting” because in part it was. It was a Conservative Group business meeting but the M.O.’s
carefully chosen words about “other Councillors and Mayoral candidates” were an
unnecessary variation from the whole truth.
If the attempted deception went to the police with an allegation of Misconduct
in Public Office it would not get anywhere near to the seriousness of previous
reports. In the past
the police initially said a child’s murder was an accident
after Bexley Council neglected to act on reports from both GPs and teachers that
he was in dire need of protection. This allowed the crime scene to be cleaned in
an attempt to hide the evidence. What hope of them taking minor fibs seriously
when black and blue four year olds in a mortuary is not a serious matter?
Bexley police failed to act on a Crown Prosecution
Service recommendation to charge a Councillor and instead de-arrested him and
admitted that “the case was crippled by political interference” before which they crumbled.
I could go on and conflate two associated incidents. A Councillor was hauled
before a Kangaroo Court for allegedly providing evidence to me for use in a
Misconduct in Public Office complaint which the police upheld but still nothing
came of it. An enormous amount of stress imposed on the honest by the dishonest
with nothing to show for it.
To make another MIPO complaint now would inevitably see the names of
Conservative friends dragged out of me and that cannot be allowed to happen. So
the M.O. gets away with being less than wholly truthful.
I am consoled by these words from a well known Conservative source. “We are always tainted by the actions of officers
who refuse straightforward answers” and “the M.O. has already caused a couple of issues. We shouldn’t defend the indefensible.”
So that is that. I hope @tonyofsidcup is not too disappointed.