30 August - Cheats never prosper
I appear to have got into the habit of winding down at the end of the month
and short of spare time as I am today I am not going to let my new ‘tradition’ die.
A reader who used to live in Welwyn has put me in mind of the old saying that
school children of bygone years would chant at their friends who had been caught
offending against the norms of the day - “Cheats never prosper”. I don’t suppose
they say that anymore especially after seeing so many politicians with their
hands in the till two years ago. How many finished up in jail? Was it four or
five? I'm sure my colleague Mick Barnbrook will know, for it was he who was
responsible for putting most of them away.
The norm for too many of Bexley’s politicians seems to be to cheat and lie and
one wonders where it is going to lead them; my new ex-Welwyn
friend gives a clue. He says his council there played fast and loose with the planning of
two shopping complexes, one developer took his complaint to court, the judge called the
council liars and awarded damages against it of £48 million. Ouch! But it was the council
tax payers who footed the bill. It should have been like forty years ago in Clay
Cross, Derbyshire, where eleven councillors were made to pay back £6,895 each
that they lost their council over a rent irregularity. That was in the days when
councillors weren’t able to award themselves large chunks of tax payers money. Now
the cheats prosper all the time.
The Welwyn case is still on record at
The Lawyer website.