@tonyofsidcup

Ten December 2023 essays by @tony

Click date to read source blog with added comment

22 December

10. The Green Mile
Are you an idealist or a cynic? If it’s the former, you can think of Green Flag Awards - an annual certificate awarded by Keep Britain Tidy to parks that meet certain criteria - as an incentive for a council to improve its green spaces. If it’s the latter, you may see them as a way for a council to get some good publicity in exchange for a £400-plus application fee, without doing anything on the ground. Guess which way the #MakingBexleyEvenBetter council is swinging?

By no means an outlier among fellow London councils - Greenwich, for example, paid for a Green Flag for the green space at Eltham Crematorium - Bexley Council has grabbed the figurative flag pole with both hands. I remember how, in the halcyon days when I wasn’t blocked by @bexleynews on Twitter, I read how a Green Flag given to Danson Park meant it was recognised as one of the world’s best parks. Take that, Yellowstone!

This year, it was the turn of Lesnes Abbey Woods. A FOI asked “What improvements have been carried out at Lesnes Abbey Woods in 2020-23 specifically to meet the requirements of the Green Flag accreditation?” The answer was a short and honest “None”.

23 December

9. The Last Boy Scout
Hollywood has the Oscars, and Bexleyheath has the Teresas… sorry, Bexley Civic Recognition Awards. Every year, Bexley spends hundreds of pounds to acquire a batch of paper certificates and plastic plaques - were those £70 or £90 a pop? I forget - to give away to deserving residents, nominated by the people of Bexley. In the last two years, fully 40% of the awards have gone to the Scouts - an anomaly which had absolutely nothing to do with Vice Chairman of Bexley Scouts and Vice President of the Greater London South East Scouts, Bexley councillor James Hunt, former Mayor of Bexley, being one quarter of the judging panel. (The panel includes the current Mayor, two preceding Mayors, and a Labour representative, currently Cllr Mabel Ogundayo).

I calculated the 40% based on the output of an earlier FOI request, which asked for nomination statements for the award winners. A second request asked for nomination statements for Bexley Civic Recognition Awards losers. (The group includes BiB himself, nominated by yours truly, twice.

One would think that the borough’s only local-politics blogger would be welcome at civic recognition awards. Not true. Alas, the council rejected the request on privacy grounds - and I chose not to dispute the rejection. What kind of people do not make the cut at the Bexley Civic Recognition Awards? Except for Mr Knight - who perhaps should be considering joining the Scouts - we can’t be sure.

But then, could the third time be the charm? ‘Tis Bexley Civic Recognition Awards season again, and this time, we have a new and improved Mayor of Bexley, Cllr Ahmet Dourmoush, on the judging panel. Will he - and, hopefully, Cllr Ogundayo - overpower the Scouts lobby and vote for an award to BiB? (Alternatively, have all local Scouts been awarded now?) There is only one way to find out. Please complete the nomination form, saying why you think BiB deserves a Bexley Civic Recognition Award. https://www.bexley.gov.uk/about-council/recognition-awards/civic-recognition-awards Unless his continuing electrical experiments result in accidental rejuvenation, Mr Knight has missed out on the Young People award, leaving Voluntary Service by Adults and Outstanding Achievement categories, aka Paper (Certificate) and Plastic (Plaque). I feel that Voluntary Service by Adults is a safer bet, but you can flip a coin and go with Outstanding Achievement.

Your reward for completing the nomination form is the next installment of the FOI countdown!

24 December

8. The Lady Vanishes
As the Bexley council’s finances are sliding into a multi-million hole, the £147,853.20 spent by Teresa O’Neill and her minions on the Tory PR exercise known as “ULEZ judicial review” increasingly looks like small potatoes, but the partisan waste of public money still rankles.

The vast majority of Bexley residents who are not themselves liable for the £12·50 will be pleased to hear that they are not paying the ULEZ charges through their council tax: a FOI response from November indicated that in the first two months of the ULEZ expansion, the council’s ULEZ bill was £0. The small minority of Bexleyites who do have to pay may be wondering - was the judicial-review exercise the only thing that Teresa and Co. did for them? After all, Labour-run Merton and Wandsworth councils each set up a £1-million scrappage scheme. What did the Bexley council do?

It set up a ULEZ Task and Finish Group, composed of four junior councillors (Smith, Adams, Brooks and Ogundayo) and asked to develop mitigations of ULEZ expansion’s impact on Bexley residents. The group got off to a flying start, with Cllr Ogundayo boasting of sterling bipartisan work at a Places OSC meeting. Then, after just a few weeks, the ULEZ Task and Finish Group vanished.

One could be forgiven for thinking that “ULEZ Task and Finish Group” was a sexually-transmitted disease. When asked about the group’s output in a FOI request, the council initially denied it existed! Both Tory and Labour representatives of the group refused to talk about it. (Only the chairman, Cllr Smith, responded at all).

A batch of four FOI requests obtained correspondence between the four councillors, and revealed (a) a plan to set up an online survey, (b) a draft document with the most tantalizing section, “Proposals”, blank. That’s it.

I believe that Bexley did not provide the full correspondence of the ULEZ Task and Finish Group - for example, there was never an email announcing its demise, which is odd - but I feel pretty confident that Cllrs Adams, Brooks, Smith and Ogundayo just did not do a whole lot of work on the project, and were embarrassed to admit it. (Cllr Ogundayo’s refusal to answer questions was especially disappointing - so much for Labour being different!) If you are paying ULEZ charges, please do know that both local Tories and local Labour have done nothing for you. Bexley Tories used the hopeless judicial review as an excuse not to do anything else. Bexley Labour… simply were their usual lazy selves, using Bexley Tories as their excuse.
Bexley Council’s ULEZ report.

25 December

7. The Odd Couple
Moz who? As Susan Hall’s mayoral candidacy ambles from a Tweet ‘Like’ for Enoch Powell imagery to a stolen-but-returned wallet - unlike Liam Neeson’s character in Taken, Susan did not even need to inform the miscreant of her “particular set of skills”. One barely remembers that a few months ago she competed in the nomination race with a colourful gentleman named Moz Hossain. (Earlier, Mr Hossain was mysteriously included in the short list by the Tory HQ, while London Tory heavyweight Paul Scully was passed over. Another contestant, Daniel Korski, a David Cameron flunkie turned fake “tech bro”, was derailed by - what else? - allegations of sexual assault). On July 3, both candidates visited the Bexley Civic Offices and met with a group of Conservative councillors including Council Leader O’Neill.

Was it Ok to use council premises for a Conservative Party event? Bexley’s constitution says that council resources cannot be “used for political purposes unless that use could reasonably be regarded as likely to facilitate, or be conducive to, the discharge of the functions of the local authority”. I suppose one could make the case that hobnobbing with a future Mayor could facilitate the council’s business - but wouldn’t such a broad interpretation accommodate *anything*? Think of a (purely hypothetical) cocaine-fuelled rave in the
Bexley council chamber, attended by Michael Gove - would anyone in good conscience dispute such an event’s possible relevance to the council’s negotiations with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities? A Bexley-council-funded asylum-seeker safari on the Kentish coast, led by Suella Braverman? Completely sensible relationship building with a central-government department. etc., etc.

A FOI request asked the council: “Was use of council premises for a Conservative party event within council's rules?” And this was Bexley’s response: “The role of the Leader as outlined within Part 3 of the Constitution includes providing overall leadership to the Council. The Leader is also the principal spokesperson on Council policy or matters affecting the Borough at local, regional or national level, to include issues relating to the Greater London Authority. The Leader and other Councillors met with the Mayoral candidates to ascertain their plans for London and specifically Bexley residents and businesses. The meeting was not a Conservative party event, but towards the discharge of Council business”. (Emphasis added).

Note the claim that “The meeting was not a Conservative party event, but towards the discharge of Council business”. How does this mesh with the fact that only Conservative councillors were present? The council’s official voice never elaborated, but unofficially, it was reported that Suzie and Moz made a brief appearance at a scheduled meeting of the Bexley Conservative councillor group. A little diversion after a work event focused on council business, a dessert rather than the whole meal. And that made it completely alright.

If I were in charge of Bexley Labour, I just might use the precedent and invite Sadiq Khan into the Tory citadel at 2 Watling Street. Maybe Cllr Borella is saving that surprise for 2024.

26 December

6. Femme Fatale
Being a relative newcomer to Bexley - I didn’t even know the word until 2017, when a property viewing in New Eltham brought me to Sidcup - I missed the golden age of Bexley Conservatives’ power couples, the time when the Bacons, the Beckwiths, the Bishops and the Slaughters roamed the council chamber. [Note: Someone has forgotten the Hurts.] The hallowed tradition of a husband and a wife firmly positioning themselves on the back of the Bexley taxpayer ceased altogether in 2022, when Cllr Christine Bishop chose or was asked not to contest her safe seat, leaving her husband Brian alone on the council’s salary sheet. (Ever the disciplined party soldier, Christine ran in a no-hope Bexley Labour stronghold, and showed up in campaign photos with Bexley Conservatives’ favourite developer, a gentleman with a history of health and safety violations and allegations of assault).

In late 2023, the last surviving member of one of the local Tory power couples, the former Blackfen and Lamorbey councillor Brian Beckwith passed away. Brian’s wife Aileen, who had died years ago, was for many years a councillor for the adjacent Sidcup Ward, @tonyofsidcup’s home patch. On at least one occasion, the two councillors cast opposing votes: when the fate of Old Farm - Blackfen and Lamorbey’s largest green space - was being decided, Brian, representing the ward, voted for bulldozers, while Aileen voted against. Let me be frank - based on their Old Farm votes, I like Aileen more than Brian. Even so, I could have avoided responding to the news of Brian Beckwith’s passing with a Tweet - in my own feed, far away from the official announcement - recalling how, two years ago, the Beckwith name came up in the Bexley Volunteer Event story.

In mid-2021, Bexley council decided to throw a party for the borough’s volunteers who helped residents through Covid. The splashing-out did not feel right for a council that - one of only four across England - applied for a ‘recapitalisation directive’ from the government, a sign of financial trouble. On the other hand, the amount in question was not big - around £50,000, a third of 2023’s ULEZ judicial review bill - with most of the money going to the caterer. In a move that, again, was a bit odd for a council with money problems - but not against the rules - Bexley chose not to advertise the contract. Instead, staff in the Mayor’s office, who were organising the event, reached out to three or four companies, and obtained a single viable bid. That bid was from a fairly new and, in retrospect, short lived company whose sole owner and employee was a Beckwith.

Wondering why a small company belonging to an individual with a familiar surname was invited to bid for a sizable unadvertised contract must not seem outlandish to anyone aware of Conservatives’ “VIP Lane”. I revisited the Partygate after my Tweet prompted Twitter outrage from @bexleynews’ two moral compasses, Cllr Peter Craske and Cllr Philip Read. The duo lambasted me for besmirching the memory of Cllr Beckwith, and at least one of them denied a - never claimed - family connection between the company owner and the late councillor.

I found the businesswoman on LinkedIn and asked her if she was related to Cllr Beckwith. No response. So I made a FOI request, asking Bexley if they knew whether the company owner was related to the late Cllr Beckwith, and, more broadly, if they had any information about why this particular company was invited to bid. The council said they did not have any: the employee who handled the catering contract had retired. “The employee may be gone, but the emails remain”, I reasoned, and asked for the council’s correspondence with the company. A month passed, then an email from Bexley arrived, saying they could not meet the response deadline due to staff sickness, and promising to respond within two weeks, by December 8. Then, on December 1, the FOI request was dismissed as “vexatious”.

Did this query provoke the Bexley leadership into bringing down the vexatious hammer? Did Bexley’s favoured caterer benefit from a family connection? (Maybe *we* did? What if a family connection moved the business owner to patriotically offer Bexley a discount?) Was there a family connection to begin with? I guess we’ll never know.

27 December

5. Courage Under Fire
“Should you be a councillor if you are afraid to tell constituents where you live?” I would like to ask this question to Cllrs Asunramu (Lab), Carew (Con), Christoforides (Con), Dourmoush (Con), Ferguson (Lab), O’Neill (Con), Ogundayo (Lab), Smith (Con), Taylor (Lab) and Ward-Wilson (Con). The ten councillors invoke Section 32 of the Localism Act to avoid publishing their “beneficial interests in land” - a good proxy for one’s address, as most people only own or rent the place where they live - in Register of Interest disclosures, available for inspection on Bexley’s web site.

Section 32 allows councillors to not publish their interests when such disclosure “could lead to the member or co-opted member, or a person connected with the member or co-opted member, being subject to violence or intimidation”. Are a full quarter of Bexley’s councillors really scared of violence or intimidation if they disclose where they live? Genuine personal-safety concerns should not be dismissed - although my question still stands in that case - but it seems far more likely that Bexley councillors abuse Section 32 - because they can, unafraid of pushback from the Monitoring Officer or their party group’s leader. (Of course, one of the leaders, Cllr O’Neill, is part of the Section 32 squad herself - however, this is a new development, possibly related to her House of Lords status). Who cares about the high standards of public service and all that claptrap? “Take the perks, avoid the responsibilities” - now that’s a motion Bexley Conservatives and Bexley Labour can agree on.

While the practice was niche before the 2022 election - I think there were four councillors invoking Section 32; only two of them still do - the know-how was enthusiastically adopted by the 2022 intake. Asunramu, Carew, Christoforides, Ferguson, Smith, Ward-Wilson - all of these are new councillors. The way things are going, will every Bexley councillor “go off the grid” in 2026?

Note the role of Bexley’s Monitoring Officer, who needs to approve a councillor’s application for a Section 32 exemption. A Freedom of Information request asked the MO (a) if any Section 32 applications were rejected in 2022, (b) what sort of reasons were advanced by councillors - no need for names or details - in support of their requests.

The council responded to the first question - there have been no rejections - but declined to answer the second, raising privacy concerns. I asked the council to reconsider - after all, the request expressly asked for anonymised information - but had no luck.

Surprisingly, the Information Commissioner accepted Bexley’s reasoning, as if repeatedly falling to see the word “anonymised”. On to the last stop in the FOI journey - the first-tier tribunal. In a couple of months, a judge will either side with Bexley and ICO, or require Bexley to disclose this information.

PS. St Mary’s & St. James’ ward has already been special, as Bexley’s “bluest”: even in the bad-for-Tories 2022 local election, there were 1·7 Tory votes cast for every Labour vote, whereas across Bexley, the ratio was only 1·08. (“Decisive victory”, according to Council Leader O’Neill). The dashing Cllrs Christoforides and Smith were duly elected - and each made their address secret, with Cllrs Christoforides going on a virtual Section 32 rampage and invoking Section 32 to block publication of his address, his employment, and his partner’s employment. Google tells me otherwise, but I think that Kurtis works for MI6 - and this is great. When bombs start exploding in Sidcup, we need a man who won’t duck for cover. Yipee ki-yay, the 61-year-old man from Horsham! (Unless, of course, the Tory identity prevails).

PPS. A few months ago, I emailed the Section 32 club, gently asking the councillors to reconsider the practice. I received one response, from a Labour councillor, who threatened to report me to the police for harassment. [Dear Tony. I think you should tell me who that was to avoid blackening all their names.] Oh well. However, as I was preparing this post, I found one councillor who used Section 32 but no longer does. A second point for Bexley Conservatives. Cllr Adams, I am willing to forgive your silence on the subject of the ULEZ Task and Finish Group. Welcome to @tonyofsidcup’s Nice list.

28 December

4. Last Call
As much as Teresa O’Neill and Co. would like to present yours truly as a scandalist who harasses council staff with frivolous, repeated, distressing queries, this image is not close to reality. Repeated queries are actually disallowed by the FOI Act - if you ask a question, you cannot ask the same or essentially the same question again for 6 months. “Frivolous” is a subjective assessment, to use Cabinet Member Diment’s expression.

(I once complained to Sidcup Ward councillors about a “dangerous” unleashed pit bull walking on Sidcup High Street - alongside my then-two-year-old - and asked them to lobby for a dog-control “Public Space Protection Order” similar to Bromley’s. Richard helpfully advised that “dangerous” was a subjective assessment. Then, a year later, another Sidcup Ward councillor, Cllr Bacon, denied my request to briefly speak at a committee meeting discussing a proposed PSPO - targeting dog walkers, but not unleashed beasts roaming the high street. But I digress).

Finally, there is little emotion involved, at least on my part. Once I submit a FOI request, I set a reminder for 20 business days later. If there is no response by the deadline, I complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office and let them deal with Bexley. If the response is unsatisfactory, I explain the “gap” in a request for “internal review”, and set a reminder for 40 business days. If the final response is unsatisfactory as well, I complain to the ICO. There is never a need to argue with council staff - certainly not with the helpful FOI manager, who depends on other teams for a timely FOI response. (†)

I think I can recall only one FOI response that annoyed me, and it came from the Parking team, shared by Bexley and Bromley. The occasion was the 2023 cuts to Bexley’s parking enforcement. I live near Sidcup High Street and can tell you that pavement parking is a problem here. Until about a year ago, one could dial 020 8301 6317, select option 3, be connected to an operator, and tell him the location and the details of the rogue vehicle. This was convenient and quick, unlike the cumbersome - 10 screens! - online form also provided by Bexley, and it was available at seemingly all hours.

Until one day, there was no operator, and a recorded message told me to go online. At some point, a new parking-warden phone line emerged, as an extra option of an existing council number, 020 3045 3000. Well, kind of: since directions on the Bexley web site were not updated, nobody knew about the new phone line. When that problem was resolved - weeks later - it turned out that the new phone line was only available during business hours. Evening and weekend service? Only online.

“Why cut a service that must make money for the council?” I wondered. “Surely, the online form is much less convenient than the phone line, and the volume of parking-warden call-outs fell, along with FPN revenue? Why would the council anger residents *and* lose money?” I made a FOI request with four questions:

1. When did the ‘old’ parking-warden phone line (020 8301 6317) cease operation?
2. When did the ‘new’ parking-warden phone line (020 3045 3000, option 4) begin operation?
3. How many employees (or FTE equivalents) were employed on the "old" line, and on the "new" line?
4. What were the hours of operation of the "old" line, and what are they for the "new" line?

What Parking did in their response is play dumb and pretend that my question referred to 020 8301 6317, not 020 8301 6317, Option 3. 020 8301 6317 is still in service - to report faulty pay-and-display machines and to pay for parking using Ringo - so what “cease operation” are you talking about? Nothing has changed but the phone number!

“I am talking about the old parking-warden phone line accessed via 020 8301 6317”, I explained in my internal-review request. “Not about other services available through the same number”. The council’s final response was dismissive and information-free, so I escalated to the Information Commissioner. Surprisingly, the ICO caseworker considering the case did not pick up on the “020 8301 6317 vs 020 8301 6317, Option 3” distinction, and my complaint was rejected. Once again, the case went to the first-tier tribunal and will be decided by a judge in 2024.

This was not the only odd FOI response provided by Parking, with regard to the same issue of the parking-enforcement cut. A query about why the council cut parking enforcement was put forward to Cllr Diment, the new Cabinet Member for Places, as a “public question” at a council meeting. Cllr Diment praised the online option, and claimed that FPN revenue did not fall following the change. I duly made a FOI request, asking for weekly totals of issued FPNs. The Parking department told me that only annual (!) numbers were available. I let it go. FOI requests are great, but there’s little you can do when a council officer chooses to deceive, and Bexley’s Parking Manager definitely gave me that impression.

29 December

3. Liar Liar
Pedestrian safety - especially safety of school children walking to school - has been an interest lately. Bexley council is actually not that bad in this regard - because the neighbours are even worse. Labour-run Greenwich built only one pedestrian crossing in five years. Tory-run Bromley is doing a decent job analysing collisions, but then spends money to protect motorists. Bexley builds a zebra crossing now and then, but the decisions seem to be driven by lobbying from influential councillors - for example, the Blackfen and Lamorbey bunch - not by any fair and systematic process.

(By failing to have that systematic process, the council appears to violate a legal requirement - but the council that has been ignoring the legal requirement to develop an Air Quality Action Plan since 2007 clearly views legal requirements as recommendations anyway).

Then in 2023, the council announced a survey of locations near the borough’s schools, with a view to improving pedestrian safety there. Great news! Unfortunately, the plan was undermined by poor execution, and, in my opinion, wasted an opportunity and council money.

One questionable aspect of the exercise was never involving the schools themselves. Ironically, the council paid people to sit for hours and days next to a school and count passing pedestrians and cars but a council officer never stepped inside a school and talked to a headteacher about their road-safety concerns. “All appropriate people have been consulted”, Cabinet Member Diment declared in response to a public question at a council meeting, in Bexley’s trademark display of arrogance covering up for incompetence.

How do I know that the survey’s organisers never asked schools? Because I wrote to Bexley’s 80+ schools and asked them, getting around 70 responses. Seventy headteachers agreed on two things. First, nobody from the council has asked them about their road-safety concerns as part of the survey. Second, nobody from the council has asked them about their road-safety concerns before the survey. On matters of road safety, there has been no proactive contact from the council. Nada. Zilch. Bupkis.

Wait a minute - that’s not what the council had told me!

I made the following FOI request:

In response to an earlier FOI request, Highways team advised that the council … has (a) “an advisor to support schools in updating their School Travel Plans”, (b) a "Pedestrian Skills Officer". Can you please provide the list of these two officers’ engagements with schools since January 2021. I am looking for a list of format “year / officer (one of the two above)/school”.

The council responded with… a list of 58 schools, saying they did not have any further information. “Really?”, I asked in the internal-review request, “Do council officers not maintain records of their contact with schools?” A month passed, and the internal-review deadline came and went on November 25. Then on December 1, the request was dismissed as “vexatious”.

The council tells you they have been busy advising and supporting schools. Seventy schools tell you the opposite. Who do you believe?

News Shopper report.

30 December

2. For Pete’s Sake
It is a tale of two elderly English gentlemen - both living in Southeast London, both affiliated with the Conservative Party, both no strangers to controversy, both engulfed by it when they least expected.

One is Bob Stewart, the MP for Beckenham. A retired army colonel who once commanded UN forces in Bosnia, Bob has enjoyed a thirteen-year-long Parliamentary career, during which he employed his wife, described the behavior of a Tory MP colleague convicted of three counts of sexual assault as “folly”, failed to declare directorship of a foreign defence company while sitting on a defence committee, and became friends with the not-100%-savoury autocratic regimes of Bahrain and Azerbaijan. In 2022, when a Bahraini human-rights activist heckled Mr Stewart outside a Bahraini embassy reception, Bob heatedly exclaimed "Go back to Bahrain!" - and ended up convicted of a racially aggravated public-order offence, and banished from the Tory benches, later announcing that he would not seek re-election.

The other one is Bexley’s own John Davey, a Tory councillor since 2006. If being a long-serving school governor, and an artist whose works were exhibited at Hall Place, were not endearing enough, Cllr Davey has impressive - relative to his Bexley Tory peers - green credentials, having twice skipped (intentionally, I choose to think) votes on the destruction of Old Farm, and personally watered street trees during dry weather. You would not believe that Cllr Davey was also Bexley Conservatives’ fiercest Twitter troll - until a misjudged tweet put him in trouble.

In October 2022, commenting on Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe’s criticism of that week’s Conservative government, Cllr Davey wrote “Can we ask for a refund? We can send her back as she’s so ungrateful.” A social-media furore ensued, and resulted in Cllr Davey facing a Code of of Conduct complaint, being suspended from his beloved party, and moving to the Independent desk in the Bexley council chamber. (Crayford’s Cllr Di Netimah was still a Tory back then, so at least John had the desk all to himself). However, unlike Bob Stewart, John Davey was, a few months later, forgiven and re-attached to the nourishing Bexley Conservatives bosom.

Given the similarity of what was said, why the divergence of outcomes? Crucially, Cllr Davey did not address Mrs Zaghari-Radcliffe face-to-face - and did not phrase his suggestion with Colonel Bob’s military directness. It also helped that his case was considered in the friendly court of Bexley’s Monitoring Officer. Instead of simply writing up an opinion, the MO appears to have brokered a peace deal between Cllr Davey and whoever brought the Code of Conduct complaint against him - the individual never stepped forward; if he or she really was affiliated with Bexley Labour, the damp-squib outcome is par for the course - and closed the case before it even reached the Code of Conduct committee.

We know about this from the following paragraph published on Bexley’s web site in October 2023: “The conclusion reached on a review of the initial assessment was that the Twitter post has the potential to breach the requirements relating to Respect and Disrepute. However, a conclusion can only be reached following a formal investigation and determination by the Code of Conduct Committee. The Councillor recognised the inappropriateness of his comments on Twitter and the post was deleted. The sanctions that may be imposed by the Members’ Code of Conduct Committee had in the main been effected. Therefore, a formal investigation was not warranted. The Complainant and the Councillor agreed that the complaint could be resolved informally on the conditions below: The Subject Member to render an apology; an apology had already been posted on Twitter and the Twitter account has been terminated; A summary of the case and the outcome to be noted within a report to be referred to the Code of Conduct Committee.”

However, this was not known at the time. At a council meeting in May 2023, Council Leader O’Neill declared that “the remarks went through a process determined by the Monitoring Officer. The result, as you know, did not say it was a racist comment. The matter has been resolved and we are moving on from that.”

Sorry, Teresa, I did not know that the “result” said that. May I see that “result” please? In May, I made a FOI request asking: Can you please share the Monitoring Officer's (full) response to the Code of Conduct complaint recently made against Cllr Davey, after his “Can we send her back and get our money back?” comment regarding Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. (The alleged offence is a matter of public record, so there is presumably no breach of privacy).

The council refused, on privacy grounds: “We neither confirm nor deny that we hold information falling within the description specified in your request. The duty in Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply, by virtue of section 40(5)(B) of that Act. The Council has applied the exemption for the personal information under section 40(5)(B) and will neither confirm or deny whether the information requested is held as to do so would contravene the general data protection principles in the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Any information held by the Monitoring Officer concerning Councillor complaints is not intended for wider disclosure. It would only be considered for publication once an investigation had been concluded and findings made about an allegation by the Council’s Code of Conduct Committee”. I requested “internal review”, pointing out that Cllr Davey’s offence was a matter of public record, and there was no information, except MO’s assessment, that needed to be disclosed. No joy - Bexley repeated its refusal, and I complained to the Information Commissioner, writing:

“A local councillor made an allegedly racist public comment, widely reported in the media, and was complained about to the borough's Monitoring Officer. The MO decided not to refer the councillor to the Code of Conduct committee. I point out that the circumstance of the case are public knowledge – but the MO’s judgment is a matter of public interest, especially when there are concerns about the MO “protecting” a councillor from the local ruling party.” In November, the ICO upheld my complaint, advising Bexley that the council cannot invoke the privacy exemption, and asking them to release the information, or formally refuse to.

If you read the Bonkers blog, you know what happened next. On November 30, the council sent to myself and the ICO a “final” letter reiterating the privacy defence and refusing to supply information. Then on December 1, in a visibly rushed letter signed by a Deputy Director, I was declared “vexatious” and banned from making further FOI requests. Both actions are illegal; never mind the little allegedly-vexatious me, but does Bexley’s Head of Legal - also Bexley’s Monitoring Officer, a remarkable coincidence - really think she can school the Information Commissioner on data privacy? Why are senior council officers spending their expensive time on this? Your guess is as good as mine, but I suspect that it is not to protect the long-suffering Cllr Davey. I know that one of Baroness O’Neill’s closest associates, the longtime Cabinet Member for Places Cllr Craske, is a fan of 1980’s music. Peter, could you please tell your ermined boss about the Streisand effect?

Bexley’s Code of Counduct policy
Newspaper report
Wikipedia - Streisand effect

31 December

1. The Queen
Recalling the story of Bob and John, how would I react if someone - say, a Bexley councillor shamed out of the Section 32 shadows - told me to go back to Belarus? Smugness is a helpful quality: I would smile and say “Thank you, I will do that when it’s safe”. You see, in 2020, Belarus’s “moderate” dictatorship, where “only” opposition politicians risked harassment and jail, was almost overturned at the ballot box. Saved by Putin, the moustachioed dictator Lukashenka retaliated with a wave of violence, followed by a regime of random arrests - where Belarusians with foreign passports became an appealing target, as bargaining chips used to negotiate with EU diplomats. I have no desire to become Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe myself, so going home is not an option.

Belarus, and Russia for that matter, are extreme examples of what can happen when a political leader stays in power for too long. A far more common scenario is stagnation. I think this is what has happened in Bexley under the fifteen-years-and-running leadership of Baroness O’Neill. I have no appetite for unfair Teresa-bashing, but I think it is safe to say - will any Bexley Tory councillors in the audience disagree? - that Cabinets under her leadership have never had a strategy, and just kept “muddling through”. “Muddling through is darn good when your government grant shrinks every year”, Baroness could object - and then I would move to my second criticism.

The #MakingBexleyEvenBetter slogan notwithstanding, Bexley’s leader has never seemed to be one to aspire to high standards. Naughty behaviour by councillors - including Cabinet Members - and senior council officers has been tolerated, and criticism dismissed, rather than accepted and actioned. (Recall Bexley Conservatives’ blocking, in 2022, of “call-ins”, i.e. bipartisan scrutiny of major decisions). A vicious circle of poor decisions and poor attitude has developed, with Bexley residents bearing the cost. Who is to blame for a dodgy corporate culture if not the long-serving council leader?

(One suspects that a side effect of this has been difficulty recruiting new councillors. Consider the recent rise in the number of PR specialists among the Tory ranks. Things on the ground may not be great, but the press release will be!)

This year, Baroness’s commitment to transparent and fair governance was tested by The Great Petitiongate of 2023 - and got a failing mark.

The affair started with your truly examining Bexley’s Constitution to see what it had to say about petitions with over 2,000 signatures, the kind that get the organiser a full-council debate of the petitioned-about issue. The findings were confusing. On one hand, there it was, the statement that 2,000 signatures get the full-council debate. On the other hand, almost in the next sentence, certainty evaporated: now 2,000 signatures *might* get a debate - or merely a committee hearing. That is not all: on the same page, “full-council meeting” turned into “meeting which all councillors can attend” - like a pub quiz - and to top it off, there was a provision to dismiss “inappropriate” petitions, but no guidance on what might make a petition “inappropriate”!

I started by asking Bexley, in a FOI request, what process and what criteria were there to guide the council’s “triage” of a petition between a full-council debate and a committee hearing. “We have no criteria, and no process”, Bexley advised, after a lot of prodding. “The CEO is ultimately responsible”.

At this point, I (very politely) shared my observations with Bexley’s Monitoring Officer and Bexley’s Head of Member Services, the council officer in charge of petitions. (Notably, this is the same gentleman who in 2011 “shunted” a petition with over 2,000 signatures to a committee hearing).“There is some dodgy wording in the Petition Scheme guidance - can you review and revise it please?” No response.

Then, in late June, I submitted the following three FOI requests:

Page 56 of of “Codes and Protocols”, Part 5 of “Bexley Constitution and Codes of Governance”, says:
“If a petition has more than 2,000 signatures, this would be sufficient to trigger a debate at a Full Council meeting. This means that the issue raised in the petition will be discussed at a meeting which all Councillors can attend”. (Emphasis added).
Can you please confirm that “full council meeting” refers to a meeting of the full council. (“A meeting which all councillors can attend” is a broader concept).

Page 56 of of “Codes and Protocols”, Part 5 of “Bexley Constitution and Codes of Governance”, says (emphasis added):
“If a petition has more than 2,000 signatures, this WOULD BE SUFFICIENT to trigger a debate at a Full Council meeting”.
Page 3 of “London Borough of Bexley Petitions Scheme” document says (emphasis added):
“If a petition contains more than 2000 signatures it MAY be debated by the Full Council unless it is a petition asking for a Council officer to give evidence at a public meeting”.
Can you please confirm that a petition with over 2,000 signatures - not deemed “vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate” (cf. a related question about what “inappropriate” is) - will be debated at a full council meeting if requested by the organiser, or provide the full list of reasons why it could not be debated at a full council meeting.

Page 56 of “Codes and Protocols”, Part 5 of Bexley Constitution and Codes of Governance, says: “Petitions which are considered to be vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate will not be accepted”.
Can you please provide the full list of reasons why a proposed petition could be deemed “inappropriate”?

On July 14, I received a letter informing me that my requests were dismissed as vexatious. I wrote to members of Bexley Council’s Constitutional Review Panel - Cllrs O’Neill (chair), Borella, Jackson and Leaf - providing examples of contradictory wording and asking them to consider revisions. Cllr O’Neill responded, saying that Bexley’s Petition Scheme was “in accordance with statutory guidance”.

Local-government finance and local-government development strategies are complicated subjects, where Council Leader O’Neill’s contribution and competence are difficult to assess. In contrast, fairness is something that’s pretty easy to judge, and it is very clear to me that Bexley’s Council Leader does not put much stock in that “British value”. Her replacement is unlikely to be any better - and that is, unfortunately, also part of Teresa O’Neill’s legacy.