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News and Comment May 2023

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16 May - The Russian invasion

The recent Council meeting heard a petition from the residents of Bostall Park Avenue who are asking that the pavement along that road be made safe for walking. Whatever are these cheeky residents thinking of, expecting Bexley Council to provide something in return for the highest Council Tax in Conservative London? Quite rightly they were dismissed in 14 seconds and the meeting moved on to Questions from the Public.

Dimitri ShvorobIt used to be the case that the only questions asked at Council meetings came from Messrs. Barnbrook, Bryant and Watson but with all of them now into their 9th decade they have found other things to do. Fortunately the challenge has been taken up by the upstart Dimitri otherwise known as @tonyofsidcup.

A recent bee in his bonnet has been the lack of Councillor Surgeries in Conservative wards and he asked the Council Leader to comment. She said surgeries were a personal choice and “as and when” arrangements are preferred especially as a lot of residents prefer to correspond by email which is quicker and more productive than monthly surgeries. She also referred to the attacks made on politicians (Newham, Southend etc.) It seemed to be a reasonable enough response.

Dimitri went on to ask why it is that nearly all the Councillors in London who conceal their home addresses are Bexley Councillors (presumably after seeing the BIB survey back in 2013) and how is the Monitoring Officer persuaded to approve the Section 32 exemptions in such high numbers. Should the Monitoring Officer do a review?

The leader said that it was nothing to do with her and if the Monitoring Officer is a soft touch and Councillors exploit her weakness then that is simply tough luck on residents.

@tony has commented before that after Bexley Council admitted that the Conservative 2022 manifesto claim to have fulfilled every pledge since 2006 was an outright lie they had cleverly not made any promises in 2022 so as not to be caught out lying again. (It should be explained that it is not possible to formally complain about manifesto pledges as everyone expects them to be broken but Teresa O’Neill foolishly repeated the lie on a public website, hence the complaint and the admission that the claim was not true.)

@tony asked the Council Leader “Can you please comment on the near-absence of any measurable, verifiable commitments in the most recent Bexley Conservatives manifesto? Is introduction of a new recycling service the only specific thing you can promise to Bexley residents?”

The Leader said that since the election the Council had gained an outstanding OFSTED rating for children in care and was the only London borough to get it twice in a row; she also promised to deliver every commitment made in the 2022 Manifesto which shouldn’t be difficult because as Dimitri said, there were pretty much none.

Dimitri reminded the Leader that because there had been so few OFSTED inspections Bexley had won in a one horse race. The Leader didn’t like that home truth and said two in a row was outstanding which well it might be but it does not explain the attempt to deceive the population of Bexley.

A Mr. Pereira asked a question about air quality in Bexley and after Cabinet Member Craske replied he rather naively pointed out that Councillor Craske had not answered the question. All the Conservatives laughed which neatly sums up the contempt with which our Conservative Council regards its electorate.

 

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