3 July - Well stuff them then

Another election leaflet reached me yesterday, one I had seen before but unique nevertheless.

Unique because it is the only one of seven that hasn’t been delivered by the postman. It was stuffed through the letterbox during the early part of Tuesday evening.

There is another element of uniqueness about Michael Pastor’s Reform UK leaflet, no other party bothered to respond to my request for their literature.

If they treat my request with contempt I am going to find it it so much easier to do the same to them tomorrow.

 

2 July - Nearly there

By all accounts Reform UK is putting in a big effort in Crayford and Old Bexley in the hope of causing an upset in those two constituencies, certainly if the number of leaflets which have come my way is a reliable measure (it is not!) Reform is taking the lead. Labour on the same measure has done very little. Perhaps they are being complacent or practicing for going off duty at 6 p.m.

The postman delivered two more leaflets to me this morning, the Conservative one already featured here and one from the Greens. The Greens last made an appearance in the leaflet archive way back in 2015.

The Old Bexley Reform candidate claims to have suffered seven burglaries while living in Bexley; in almost the safest borough in London? More than just unlucky I would have thought. Did she find the police useless? Did she even report the crimes?

I have never been burgled ever. Had a car broken into while parked in Plumstead once but that is pretty much to be expected down there, but seven burglaries in Bexley? Weird. Perhaps Ms. Fothergill’s luck will change on Thursday.

 

1 July (Part 3) - Pirates of the Caribbean 5

Rumour has it that Paul Thorogood has lost his Returning Officer role in Bexley; maybe it clashes with Scout night in Saffron Walden (where my Great Great Grandfather was a tinker according to the census in 1851 and 1861).

It is understood that he, Paul not Joshua the Tinker, has been replaced by Sexy Sue presumably in her pirate style tricorn hat, golden anchor chain and red cloak. A pretty fair swap if you ask me. I hope she makes it to the TV screens if my informer has not got his rigging lines crossed.

Things have livened up just a little bit in Erith and Thamesmead. Adjacent roads, but not mine, have received the Independent’s election leaflet and the Conservative one.

 

1 July (Part 2) - The final straw

My political pendulum has been swinging towards Reform UK for about a week now but this little headline from yesterday’s Mail on Line finally did it for me.

I am going to upset a few Councillor friends with this and it may not amount to much but everyone will have his tipping point. That photo may have been mine.

It sums up everything I have come to hate about Tory Britain. A surveillance state obsessed with control freakery and higher stealth taxes.

Even I know someone who runs a car with an occasionally false plate - for when it crosses the Khan line.

According to The Taxpayers’ Alliance, since 2010 there have been 50 increases to Air Passenger Duty, nine on company car tax, four on insurance premiums, 45 on climate change, 51 on tobacco. 103 on alcohol and two on sugary drinks. An incomplete list and a Government which does that has no business calling itself Conservative or to claim my loyalty.

How is it that we managed to elect people so thick in the head that that they couldn’t see that they were alienating their core support to the extent that the more misguided of them are intending to vote Labour. How mad is that?

If Social Media is an accurate guide, Reform UK is going to deliver a shock on Thursday but Social Media is driven by algorithms that deliver what it thinks you want to see and hear. Back in the real world I asked my sister if she was going to vote. “Yes but I haven’t seen any of the debates or watched the news and don’t really know what it is all about.” I have no words!

I asked my friend in Bromley, if she was going to vote. “Yes I am going to vote against Sadiq Khan.”

I didn’t argue, It seems like a good plan to me.

 

1 July (Part 1) - Nothing is done right in Bexley

The always helpful Lorraine who handles complaints and FOIs for Bexley Council - even Dimitri sings her praises - was very quick to acknowledge my Subject Access Request, and then went further by coming back to tell me what had happened to my complaint that Kelly Wilkinson knowingly blocked my road and appeared not to care less.

The complaint somehow ended up with Parking Services who used every tool at their disposal to identify an absence of yellow lines in the supplied photographs and decreed that our Kelly had done nothing wrong. Metaphorically speaking they flung my complaint into the waste paper bin.

The Police have towed people for what she did but that was not the main thrust of my complaint, it is that Ms. Wilkinson refused to apologise or offer a word of explanation.

For three consecutive months Madam Wilkinson has appeared here, is it any wonder that SEND parents with really serious complaints are driven to distraction by Bexley Council’s inability to answer questions honestly or at all and are awarded compensation by the LGO?

Everywhere you look Bexley Council is busy wasting our money because of management incompetence.