6 May (Part 1) - No shelter for Anderson
Time constraints dictate that long and complicated blogs cannot appear on
consecutive days. Yesterday’s involved checking facts with a number of people
and took six hours to complete. Today may produce a number of ‘quickies’.
It must be the inevitable result of tight budgets and the need to compete with
the internet but I really do think the News Shopper is a shadow of its former
self. Gone are the days when Linda Piper would sit grandly before assembled
councillors and have their inanities plastered across the following Wednesday’s front page.
Now their reporters have no time to do other than regurgitate press releases and
what they have read on the web - and live off Brian Barnett’s photos.
I may be nit picking and I accept that given the state of investigative
journalism in Bexley I should not be surprised, but I was disappointed to see that
the News Shopper’s web report on the cancelled Erith & Thamesmead hustings included a reference
to “restraint in the face of some very personal attacks”.
I still don’t know how the comment is justified. I asked to see the evidence and if a
Labour supporter or councillor had been obnoxious you would have read about it
here. No one has a Get out of Jail Free card here.
However the only comment forthcoming has been “I can’t remember exactly
what was said and by whom” and that from the horse’s mouth - or rather keyboard.
It looks increasingly likely that the attacks didn’t happen or the word attack has been redefined.
Anna Firth the Conservative candidate for Erith & Thamesmead didn’t
see any abuse and hasn’t - probably wouldn’t - put below the belt and
potentially misleading stuff on
her website. But Bexley’s own Conservatives
have no scruples whatsoever. They rushed to publish something that implies that
someone on the Labour side has been up to no good. It’s still on the E & T Conservative Association website
and has been since last Saturday - but for some inexplicable reason dated for tomorrow.
I can understand politicians making merry at the opposition’s expense in the
heat of an election campaign but not leaving it there for five days when the
criticism they are so eager to promote is totally discredited.
That is not the mark of an honest party and once more tells you what you need to know about
the special breed of Conservatives that infest Bexley.
The E & T Conservative Association webpage is the work of Elizabeth Anderson,
the Lesnes Abbey ward wannabee at last year’s local election. Obviously birds of a
feather and all that, she has joined the right party for her. Not an ounce of decency in any of them. Ok, if you must
quibble, most of them.
There is
a postscript to this blog.
‘No Shelter for Anderson’. Please excuse dreadful pun. You
need to be more than 70 years old.