So Bexleyheath council (who might they be?) claim I am harassing
councillors and alarming them. I suppose I would be alarmed too
if I was shown to be incompetent and worse on a daily basis, but harassing them; how come?
The last time I sent an email to a councillor was on 17th September 2009 when I
advised John Davey (Lesnes Abbey, £9,543 + £7,782 from the Bexley Care Trust) of the existence of this site, then
no more than a page or two. I have made none of the Freedom of Information
requests which are admitted within council to be giving them so many
headaches. I wrote to the mayor after my very first attendance at a council
meeting because having come from a business background myself and not unfamiliar
with high-level meetings I was absolutely appalled that her chairmanship skills
were so obviously lacking. The mayor told me that she was wonderful and I did no more about
it. No point; people that deluded don’t listen.
I did send an official complaint when councillor Craske made
personal remarks
about Mr. Elwyn Bryant and when the reply came up with an excuse which was
proved false by the council’s own minutes I sent it back under the appeals
procedure. That came back with another obvious lie but as I had in the
meantime seen a letter from the Standards Board for England saying that they
were themselves being closed down and in future there would be no sanctions
against any local Standards Board however corrupt it might be I felt I had
better things to do than pursue a lost cause.
A complaint I made against the mayor when she
blatantly played fast and loose
with Standing Orders and the timing of questions wasn’t even acknowledged. I
haven’t gone out of my way to be awkward with formal questions at council
meetings either. I have asked if any precautions have been taken against the council’s website
going down during a major power cut as it did when EDF cables were vandalised in
July 2009 and I asked what if anything was being done to retrieve the £1,931.95
that the council’s website says is still owed by convicted Conservative
fraudster and ex-council leader Ian Clement. I left my questions late so that
the council had the option of replying privately by post and was rewarded with
no answer at all.
So how else might I have been harassing them? If examining the inner workings of
council, much of which they should be ashamed of, is harassment then I suppose
they may have a point, but none of it has been made up and I frequently link to
original documents or put things within quotation marks to indicate
authenticity. If I was fundamentally wrong about anything a reasonable council
would have sought corrections but they have said nothing; presumably because
they know what is written here is always basically true.
Not really harassment in the accepted sense of the word is it? What about the
nicknames? I was a little surprised to have to explain ‘The Fat Controller’ to
some readers; I had believed it was well known that the FC is the big boss man in
the Thomas the Tank Engine series of books. Twankey came about after I first
described a council meeting as a pantomime and the mayor looks so like a
pantomime dame dressed up in her regalia that Widow Twankey seemed not
inappropriate. What would she have preferred, the Ugly Sister? Unlike some others in
the council chamber I do stand up when requested while she enters the chamber
although I must point out it is to show respect for the office, not for her.
Where else should I look for signs of harassment? I have published some
councillors addresses on the site but only those which show up after 30 seconds
playing with Google and when I once published a freely available email address I
took care to encode it in such a way that it would not attract spam.
Could it be
NoToMob
that’s upset them? The council won’t be liking their
attentions and NTB told me (and it’s on their website) that it was Bonkers
that attracted them to Bexley and it was me who provided contact
details (including phone numbers with permission) of unfairly penalized residents.
Saving motorists a pound or two is bound to get up councillors’ noses. How will
they fund their Christmas outings?
What finally tipped this utterly brainless council into showing their hand and proving
they read Bonkers so that it becomes worthwhile addressing them directly via its
pages? My guess is that the last straw was when I turned up at
Boris Johnson‘s little publicity stunt down at Erith station last week. I
was the only ‘nobody’ there and got the beady eye from the Fat Controller. I was
there because her office leaks and because Erith Station car park is publicly
accessible property and the council had not spent £1,320 on a team of bouncers
to cut the
riff-raff down to size as she was advocating at a council meeting only two days later.
Calling councillors Twankey, the Fat Controller or TLC is pretty mild stuff in
the world of blogging, I never use bad language except when reporting
insults
traded between councillors. If they don’t like that sort of heat they shouldn’t
be in their chosen kitchen - and I don’t make them read the blog anyway - but
thanks council for making it appear more influential than it probably is. But
there again I may be wrong on that. Twankey won’t like to hear it but the site
is not entirely without friends in high places. I shouldn’t put this one in
quotations marks because I cannot reveal the source but I will say that someone
deeply into Tory politics in Bexley said “your blog is the best thing there has
ever been for democracy in Bexley” and went on to tell how councillors read it
and are running around like headless chickens not knowing what to do about it.
He certainly got that right!
Oh, the alarm thing. Yes Twankey and co. should perhaps be alarmed. Once I’ve
called a supporters meeting to discuss the ideas that flowed in overnight they
should probably feel alarmed. All legal and above board of course, but a blog
may prove to be the least of their concerns.