When Bonkers was in its infancy, Council meeting reports would often include
questions from Bexley’s awkward squad, the redoubtable Messrs. Barnbrook,
Bryant, Dowling and Watson. John Watson would organise a meeting after every
Full Council meeting where he’d suggest and occasionally dictate what the next
set of questions would be. By agreement I remained aloof and provided supposedly
detached reports of their activities. Bexley Council hated us and had us
reported to the police; even got them to retrospectively rewrite their reports on one occasion;
but I must not
digress too much.
More often, public questions would be thwarted by more mundane methods. There might be
no straight answer to a question, a 15 minute filibuster might do the same job
and maybe refuse to answer on the grounds that the questioner had once voted for
a rival political party.
Totally illegally (the ICO confirmed) anyone unwilling to have his or her
address published in the Agenda alongside their name was barred. This effectively excluded
people who might be living with their parents or, for example, in a refuge for abused women.
Fortunately most of those things appear to be consigned to the history book except perhaps
the simplest method of all. Simply say you don’t like the question and refuse to accept it, preferably at such a
late stage that there is no time to submit another.
Head of Committee Services Kevin Fox would often pull that trick supposedly at
the behest of the Mayor. He has not forgotten how to do it. Today he wrote to
Mr. Shvorob to say his two questions for next week’s Council meeting are
rejected as being “frivolous since the Council has provided required
available information and explained the position under queries raised under the Freedom of Information procedure”.
I am not sure exactly what that string of barely intelligible words mean as Mr. S is illegally banned from submitting FOIs because
he has been declared vexatious.
The rejected questions are not yet known to me. Maybe they were mischievous, dishonest
Councils tend to provoke such reactions. One way or another Bexley Council is
unlikely to emerge from this nonsense smelling of roses.