4 August - The Reform v MP spat. Who won? Looks like it was Reform
In the early days of Bonkers it got into the habit of reporting local
activists, principally, Mick, Nicholas, two Johns and Elwyn. They specialised in
digging into Bexley Council’s blatant dishonesty, occasional criminality and widespread contempt for democracy. The Council retaliated by running to
their protectors in the police resulting in two reports for harassment, an arrest, a charge
of Malicious Communications based on manufactured evidence and another charge for Harassment: ditto.
All of them went through the justice system and ended in defeat for lying
Councillors who had perjured themselves and made false written statements for
which they should have been prosecuted; but as I said, friends in the police and high places etc.
More lies were necessary when a child and an old lady died of Council inspired neglect.
At the other end of the scale we had a Cabinet Member who lied that white line
painting cost £6 per foot and the Council had not given a £4 million contract to a company
promising to improve the road network. In reality they had been given £2 million
twice and there never was anything to show for it.
All of those alluded to are still active on the political scene locally.
The activists did not take everything lying down. One serving Councillor was
arrested and another along with a Chief Executive no longer in Bexley had a
file on them sent to the Crown Prosecution Service. In both cases corrupt
officialdom ensured that they never did appear in Court.
Long term readers may remember those events and all the detail can still be
found on Bonkers, never challenged.
It
is probably progress that modern day activists are pursuing incompetence and
unjustifiable secrecy and dishonesty and criminality is not as obvious as it used to be.
@tonyofsidcup is probably the best known of the local activists but there are
several from Reform UK Bexleyheath and Crayford Branch beavering away in the background.
We saw yesterday
how @tony has been trying to get a total budget figure out of Bexley
Council to confirm or otherwise the Reform UK claim that 10% of the budget was
going on BexleyCo. Not as easy as one might imagine, however Cabinet Member David
Leaf has belatedly tried to be helpful. I remember when Elwyn Bryant tried to
talk to him during an election campaign and got an outright refusal and told to go away.
Some things are definitely better than they used to be.
David may be just a little too knowledgeable and erudite for his fellow
Councillors and the likes of us. I tried to simplify yesterday’s summary but despite that
@tony mildly reprimanded me for being “too nerdy”.
Certainly I was not quite sure what to make of David Leaf’s latest email and maybe
@tony struggled too. His thank you note to David included the
questioning words “Is your answer £572·518m + £85·790m = around £650m? If yes, then I and Reform folks agree.”
(Reform believed that £64 million went to BexleyCo.)
Which appears to be further proof, if proof were needed, that the Labour MP for Bexleyheath
and Crayford was unwise to have argued with Reform.
Yesterday Labour Group Leader Stefano Borella also wrote to @tony. I like
Stefano and will not repeat his words here but it doesn’t take a genius to guess whose side he has taken.
For those who would like to dig deeper into the budget numbers David Leaf suggests that
https://democracy.bexley.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=149&MId=30188 and
https://democracy.bexley.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=148&MId=30194
might make interesting bedtime reading.