13 December - Bring back Anna Firth
After keeping me up until 4 a.m. to see their results, congratulations
are due to David, James and Abena for being the borough’s three MPs. Perhaps Joe
Robertson, the previously unknown candidate for Erith & Thamesmead deserves
a pat on the back too for turning that constituency into a Labour marginal but
he should have done more. Maybe the Mayor, who
did the announcement honours, will learn to pronounce Abena’s surname now.
The usual Bexley crew were in attendance at the count, I declined an invitation,
who would want to talk to me, but apparently I missed John Ferry’s more than usually gaudy
tie, some scruffy looking Bexley Directors who have not recently encountered a razor and a good victory speech
from James Brokenshire. Better prepared than Boris Johnson’s no doubt.
If Joe’s candidacy had been announced before Nomination Day, if he hadn’t buggered
off to Eltham to help Louie French, if he had been outside Abbey Wood Station
when I came out of it at 6:30 on Wednesday evening it may have been different.
It was as if the Conservatives didn’t care. Didn’t capitalise on Teresa Pearce’s
withdrawal, didn’t capitalise on the incomers drawn to the area by Crossrail,
didn’t capitalise on Thamesmead and Erith voting Leave (maybe not the Plumstead
end of the constituency) in the referendum and generally being lack lustre.
Where were John Davey and Philip Read in this campaign? Sore that their favoured
man was whisked away to Batley at the last minute presumably.
Fortunately for right wingers the Tories further north ran a better campaign.
Watching all those northern industrial towns come crashing down into Boris Johnson’s
clutches was a sight to behold, steel making towns, railway centres, former
mining areas all painted blue and John McDonnell on TV saying his was a centrist
party. If the blinkers are not removed Boris Johnson will be in No. 10 for ten years.
Clearly I should spend less time looking at Labour supporting web sites and
listening to radio phone ins. In both 1987 and 1992 I won the office sweepstake
for guessing the election results. Listening to real people is obviously a much
better thing to do than listen to a small number of loud mouths trying to
masquerade as a well organised army of rational thinkers.
In recent days I became a pessimist who thought the Conservatives might be lucky
to secure a majority of 25 seats.
With Erith & Thamesmead no longer a shoo-in for Sadiq Khan next year maybe the
area will benefit from a few of his bribes. Is the DLR to Abbey Wood too much to hope for?
With extreme left wing politics consigned to the dustbin for five years maybe my
BT and Shell shares plus two Jewish friends will be safe from Corbyn’s clutches along with my pension,
savings, children’s inheritance and single person Council Tax discount. But no free Broadband.
Actually I could be wrong on that. Yesterday afternoon the Technical Director of
my ISP called me to enquire if the Christmas hamper he sent me had arrived
safely and asked if I would revert to my old beta testing role by being the first
of his customers to be given a 330 meg line.
If Bonkers fails to update during January you may assume it has all gone Corbyn shaped.
One bit of bad news… You will have heard me say I never watch the telly. I did last night obviously and discovered
that every 30 minutes or so it turns itself off, sometimes rebooting itself and other times not.
Ten years old and it does that to me!
Commiserations to Anna down in Canterbury, my big disappointment of the night.
12 December (Part 2) - When in a hole; change the subject
Commenting
on politics will be rapidly losing me the few Council friends I have although it
has pushed the number of Twitter followers to an all time high.
This evening I will take refuge metaphorically in Greenwich, but only just.
I think it was on 15th November that the bottom end of Knee Hill close to the
old Post Office building cracked and partially subsided. It was so bad that FM Conway’s
men rushed to patch it up before a motor cyclist went over his handlebars.
Within a day or two (Photo 1) it had subsided again.
I wouldn’t mind betting that Bexley and Greenwich Councils then argued over who
should patch it up but it was fairly obviously a foot or two across the boundary and in Greenwich.
Today only a day short of four weeks later Greenwich Council came along to fix it. It looked
like they meant business; barriers and spades and temporary traffic lights.
Photo 2 was taken at 12:32 today.
I don’t know when the contractors packed up and went home but three hours and 56
minutes later the repaired hole was subsiding nicely all over again.
12 December (Part 1) - It’s fingernail biting time
It’s been a funny sort of day, dodging the rain and apprehensive about the
future. Forty years ago, not to the day obviously, I promised my then seven and
nine year old children I would double their pocket money to a pound a week if
Mrs. Thatcher was elected; they told me not all that long ago that it made
them the richest kids in class but I am not sure it did a lot of good. One is
sufficiently left wing not to be sacked by the BBC and the other one runs a
successful small business but is inclined to vote Lib Dem this time. University First
Class Honours Degree and all!
I must have been a bad parent.
I have never ever seen any reason to vote Lib Dem. Until this year I’ve never
known what their policies are; they have always been inclined to have different
policies for different constituencies but in 2019 we do know what they want, to
undo the result of a referendum they campaigned for.
There have been a handful of interesting emails today, one from someone who has
extracted a promise from the Conservatives to fix the social care problems.
We will urgently work across Parliament to find a cross-party consensus that
addresses the significant and complex challenges we face. This process will
begin as soon as the next Parliament is established, and we will bring forward
an answer that solves the problem, commands the widest possible support, and stands the test of time.
The third point of our plan is that without exception no one needing care will
have to sell their home to pay for it.
This three-point plan stabilising the current system, immediately securing
cross-party consensus for a long-term solution, and guaranteeing that no one
will have to sell their home to pay for care will provide certainty and
security for our older population.
With the old girl in East Ham seemingly going on for ever that would be a welcome development.
There were less interesting emails too. Someone complaining they would not
vote for anyone who called an election in December. Was there any choice? The complaint
came from one of those poor losers who do not understand the word democracy. A school teacher. Would you expect anything else?
There was another from a Sikh complaining bitterly about the Labour Party’s antisemitism. “It will be us next.”
A local businessman gave me a Crossrail related anti-Sadiq Khan rant. “A sh*t Mayor”.
There was an email from a lady who says she is not voting because her back garden
fence is in a different constituency to her house and she is not going to vote
for an MP from, as she sees it, a foreign borough. All her business is conducted
on the far side of the fence. There is no accounting for that but it is one Tory vote lost.
A rather premature message commiserates with me (using today’s favourite word) for being represented by “a sh*t
new MP”. That is very unkind and we don’t even know for certain that Joe Robertson is going to be elected yet.
By the way, the neighbours who burned their furniture to keep warm in the late
1960s “when the pound in your pocket” bought less as every day passed by went on to burn all their doors.
It’s going to be a long night and I have a horrible feeling it will be a
horrible dark five years ahead of us too. A reader is so sure I am wrong that
he emailed to say he would bet and buy me a beer if Boris Johnson didn’t win a
majority. I told him to keep his money. If Corbyn wins he is going to
need every penny he has and under him the beer will be all froth anyway, just like his promises, no substance, just air.
11 December - It’s only banter, honest it is
When this election was first declared I honestly didn’t know who I would vote for, some days it was
the Brexit Party candidate, other days it wasn’t.
I thought Mabel Ogundayo might make a worthy successor to Teresa Pearce although
to actually vote for her was a bit of a stretch for someone who believes that
Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell would be the worst disaster to hit this country
in my lifetime. I felt I would probably choose between Brexit and Conservative dependent
on what I thought of each candidate on a personal basis.
Since then Mabel fell by the wayside to be replaced by Abena Oppong-Asare.
Presumably her close connections to the GLA enables her to summon
support from Sadiq Khan
even though he knows so little about the area that Saturday’s video shows him mispronouncing Erith.
However Abena’s
influence appears not to extend as far as Jeremy Corbyn but only to lesser comedians. Yesterday she
brought Eddie Izzard to Abbey Wood and Erith. If I was still a floating voter that would certainly help me make up my mind.
What is more striking is the comparative lack of local political support. I’ve looked at
Abena’s photos as they have appeared on Twitter and seen her backed by Joe Ferreira (Erith Councillor) in one
and I think I saw Mabel Ogundayo (Thamesmead East Councillor) lurking in the
background of another. There are probably some with Greenwich Councillors but I’m not sure I would recognise them.
I have not seen local Labour Councillors Daniel Francis, Sally Hinkley, Nicola
Taylor, Esther Amaning or the former MP in any of the photos although former Councillor John Husband was seen out delivering leaflets.
Probably I have missed a few.
The wisdom of being disproportionately photographed alongside
people of talent, as Channel 4 News might call them, even when canvassing the Northern Territories is debatable to my mind but presumably Abena
knows exactly what she is doing. It is not very surprising. In 2018 the Thamesmead East ward was calling for an all black candidate list.
Probably they regret not going ahead with that plan given events earlier this year.
My oscillation between The Brexit Party and The Conservatives did not make any real headway
until very recently because I knew next to nothing about the two candidates.
I still don’t. I know what Abena has achieved because various Labour people have told me but
Joe Robertson has proved to be something of an enigma.
In 2015 Anna Firth made sure I knew everything I needed to know about her, Joe Robertson is not cast in her mould. Who is?
My decision has had to be based on something else and that something else has been Nigel Farage. I confess I had been going off him for several months past
but his recent decisions have left me puzzled.
He says Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement, which I read but maybe didn’t always understand, was good enough to justify withdrawing his candidates from
traditionally Conservative areas but it wasn’t good enough for withdrawal from Labour areas. That makes no sense whatever and I can only conclude that Farage
is no longer thinking clearly.
If his intervention causes a hung Parliament he will have defeated his own lifetime’s work.
If Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister I can see only one benefit. A whole new
generation of voters will learn the very hard way as I was forced to in the
1960s and 1970s that Labour governments always lead working people to disaster.
I am probably sufficiently well off to survive financially but not so well off
that I will be specially singled out by the Marxists for individual attention. Maybe the best place to be.
The average family will suffer to an extent they might not believe. I remember
neighbours who burned their furniture to keep warm and sat on orange boxes and a
government brought to its knees because a nationalised airline
bought one solitary Boeing. Income tax at 98% for those who led successful
lives. No one knows what poverty is any more and a bit of
me will probably be thinking ‘Serves them right’ about working Labour voters in a year or two’s time.
PS. Councillor Philip Read thinks I am a Labour supporter paid to Troll his party. He’s not very bright is he?
10 December (Part 4) - Hey Jude, don’t make it bad
Another leaflet from
Labour candidate Abena Oppong-Asare tumbled on to my doormat this afternoon. At
the bottom of Page 1, or maybe it is Page 2, hard to tell with the way these
things are folded, is a picture of Abena complete with trademark scarlet lipstick and a
bearded gentleman against the politicians’ favourite backdrop; Abbey Wood Crossrail
station. Not Sadiq Khan of course, he’s too embarrassed to be seen anywhere near it.
The hirsute social worker is named Jude. I’ֹm pretty sure it is the same Jude who sorted out the
crisis caused by the totally incompetent uncaring nincompoops at Newham Hospital back
in May. He lived in Abbey Wood and took the train to Newham every day.
I said then he was good. He recognised the situation, knew what had to be done and
did it. I hope his support for Abena proves to be justified if she is elected.
Click image for the complete leaflet.
10 December (Part 3) - Newham’s financial woes. Bexley next?
Funny things go on in my second home across the river, Newham is a bit of a dump and I try not to be there after dark. The current Mayor
Rokhsana Fiaz was elected in 2018 to clean the place up after Sir Robin Wales’ 16 years in office.
Newham Council is the major partner in OneSource, the three borough consortium that is
supposed to save Bexley money. In the year before Rokhsana’s election a lot of money, reported to be £7·5 million, went unaccounted for at OneSource.
Whatever it was the auditors spotted the discrepancy and
Newham’s
new broom Mayor asked The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) to look into its accounts. The CIPFA
report is here. (PDF)
Paul Thorogood was associated with Newham Council from January 2013 until
December 2018 being Director of Finance for the final two years - the period
covered by the CIPFA report. It was Paul Thorogood who oversaw Newham and
OneSource’s financial affairs during that critical period, the same Paul
Thorogood who has been in charge of Bexley’s finances since this time last year.
CIPFA said that during 2017 and 2018 there was “a lack of clear vision” and “a
lack of transparency on financial matters between members and officers. Savings
targets were insufficiently planned”. There was “a lack of accurate profiling of
Capital expenditure and a lack of delivery”.
CIPFA was not exactly complimentary about Newham’s high interest Lender Option Borrower Option loans either.
Just as in Barnet there were multi-million pound frauds, allegations of fraud and staff dismissals.
Nearly £9 million of it in Newham. Councillors
reported the matter to the police. More poor financial management?
It’s a pity that it took a new Mayor elected on a promise to drain Newham’s
swamp to get on top of the money problems and not their Finance Director.
Bexley appears to have imported an architect of failure. One must hope
that ‘Lessons have been Learned’.
10 December (Part 2) - Five feet from death
It
is fortunate that baby buggies are no longer five feet long. The specimen seen
here was a Silver Cross from 1970 which cost £35. If that was put in the Abbey
Wood station lift and taken down to Felixstowe Road the front end would have to
be pushed into the road before it could be got out.
The clowns who design these things have provided a five foot pavement and no
kerb before reaching the road which is a Z bend.
Lunacy by Andrew Bashford and his friends.
10 December (Part 1) - How can this be? An explanation
Two days ago a blog was published entitled ֹ‘How can this be?’ which was an
allusion to Bexley’s Returning Officer not rejecting Nomination Papers from an
election candidate who admits, some might say boasts, to having served a lengthy prison sentence. I have received an explanation.
All candidates are read a statement reminding them that it is a criminal offence to make a false
declaration. The Guidance does not require the Acting Returning Officer or deputies to advise the candidate further
who should have read the Guidance disqualifications himself.
Presumably the Electoral Commission takes an interest if they discover the law has been broken.
9 December (Part 4) - Candidate makes his threat
There are hundreds of videos freely available on the web showing election candidates saying and sometime doing controversial things;
politicians must rue the day that someone squeezed a video camera inside a phone, TV
stations started putting news clips on the web and YouTube hosted a trillion bits of incriminating evidence.
I can dig them out and reproduce them here until my ISP sends me a stroppy
letter about the number of megabytes I have been putting on its server.
Here’s one of Jeremy Corbyn refusing to condemn the IRA’s bombing of innocent
people and eventually putting the phone down on his inquisitor. There is not a
thing he can do about it and God help the paratroops who served in Northern
Ireland in the 1970s and 80s if he is allowed to form a government.
Jeremy Corbyn refuses to condemn the IRA bombing of innocents.
I can do that about Red Jezza and no one complains but do it about a local candidate and the threats rain down.
You know nothing about what you are writing about except what the MSM have told
you. The entire case was a fraud. You have written a libellous article during an
election. Remove it or I will prosecute. What YOU have done is a criminal offence!
For the record I have not been in touch with any Main Stream Media,
sometimes, especially at weekends I idly browse around the web.
The blog which
is said to be libellous did not directly mention the candidate’s name but merely provided a link to an
interesting newspaper article; there are more but one was probably
sufficient. A YouTube video had the candidate himself boasting about his criminal past.
I took advice during the day and found no legal reason why the facts need to be suppressed during an election
period and have a clearer picture of the legalities of the nomination process. The blog remains off line
only because it is possible that people who spend five years in Belmarsh will have acquired some unsavoury friends.
9 December (Part 3) - Pretty damned good!
Bexley Council has treated me well over the past week.
I complained that my Winter issue Bexley Magazine was not delivered and it was getting to be too much of a habit.
Jane Parsons popped a copy in the post for me and promised to have a word with the distribution company.
I had occasion to seek advice from a Council Department and received an excellent response with an hour or two.
On Friday I engaged in a Twitter conversation with someone who had not received
any instructions on use of the new bins and I said delivery was a bit hit and miss in my road too.
I subsequently discovered a very wet copy in a neighbour’s front garden. He had
chucked it out unread which perfectly illustrates how difficult it is to get the recycling message out to residents.
This afternoon a pristine copy of
the same
leaflet dropped through my letter box. There were in fact two booklets,
one
I hadn’t seen before.
That’s pretty damned good don’t you think?
9 December (Part 2) - Vote Alan B’Stard!
A second
Conservative election leaflet to mull over in Erith and Thamesmead.
Joe Robertson says he lives in Abbey Wood and my detective work suggests he is
on Bostall Hill and his links with the Isle of Wight are largely severed.
His priorities are schools and he has employment links to the NHS. He wishes to
focus on housing and cutting crime while raising the minimum wage along the way.
He wants to see Gigabyte broadband across the country which may be a bit
ambitious in one Parliamentary term but a full fibre connection to every address
was coming to most places under existing arrangements anyway but without the downside of the internet being controlled by
the government as if we had adopted the Chinese economic model.
Like his Labour counterpart Joe fails to mention Jeremy Corbyn but he does
remember to include the all important buzz phrase, Get Brexit Done.
I don’t think I really need the missing Lib Dem and Green leaflets, I have done
enough mulling for one election.
9 December (Part 1) - Police incompetence - or is it more corruption?
It is 21 months since I wrote to Alan Pughsley, the Chief Constable of Kent,
accusing former Bexley Councillor Maxine Fothergill of a criminal offence, that
is making a false statement with the intention of getting me arrested for
reporting her Libel against her employee at Amax Estates and a business
associate. She admitted the Libel before the Court gave its ruling and incurred a very large bill.
In
summary Alan Pughsley said I was not her victim and so did the Police and
Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott. On appeal the PCC said I was abusing the complaints process.
The case was taken up by my MP Teresa Pearce. Matthew Scott’s incompetent outfit
told her that the case had been settled and provided her with evidence in the
shape of various letters which they hoped would prove me either an idiot or a liar.
Teresa Pearce went straight back to Kent’s Police and Crime Commissioner to ask
them to look at the papers more carefully. They eventually came back only
slightly apologetically to admit they were in a right old muddle. What they
didn’t do is answer the original question. How was I not the victim of Maxine Fothergill’s dishonest statement?
Teresa decided that responding to Matthew Scott might not be very useful and she
would be better off going directly to the organ grinder.
I’ve seen the letter, it couldn’t be clearer, but precisely six weeks later Alan Pughsley
has not seen fit to acknowledge or respond to it.
This creates an interesting situation. I have a written admission from the Crime
Commissioner that he was wrong to have dismissed my complaint and accuse me of
abusing the process - there is an office for complaints against the PCC - and I
can complain again about the Chief Constable of Kent not responding to complaints at all.
If I have counted correctly no fewer than seven allegations of
crime have been made to Kent Police against the Independent Councillor for Fawkham and West Kingsdown, Maxine
Fothergill, and every one of them has been ignored, some with an acknowledgment and some without.
It is tempting to think she has some sort of hold over them which makes her immune from prosecution.
8 December (Part 4) - Mr. Graham Moore
Graham Moore the English Democrat candidate for Bexleyheath and Crayford has
told me that drawing attention to a YouTube video and a newspaper article that may or may not refer to him is a
criminal offence so I have taken a blog off line until I consult someone at
Bexley Council in the morning to see what the truth of the matter is.
I stumbled across both and a third I didn't mention while idly putting candidates names into Google, I had no idea
no one was supposed to do that during an election.
8 December (Part 3) - Lost in the post
The Party Election leaflets I have not received so far are from the Lib Dems
and the Greens. I am led to believe it may be the fault of the Royal Mail.
Several thousand Lib Dem leaflets which were addressed to the Royal Mail’s
distribution centre in Dartford allegedly ended up in Rochester. The delay will
likely stop them getting to some electors in Bexley before Thursday, a huge waste of money and
the total loss of the Lib Dems election message.
Legal action is said to be under consideration.
8 December (Part 2) - Another recycling degrade
The Recycling Guide Book that
my neighbour flung out unread has dried out now.
The diary is probably the most useful thing in it and it says the blue
lidded bins (paper etc.) and green (refuse) will be collected one week (the
shaded weeks in the diary) and the white (plastic and glass) and brown (garden
waste) will be collected on the unshaded weeks. (This will be reversed in some areas.)
Complicated isn’t it? Blue and Green, White and Brown. Say it over and over again.
The Guide highlights for the very first time a further downgrade of the refuse
service, it robs you of an additional 15 minutes in bed. Bins must be on the
street by 06:30 now and not the 06:45 shown in
last year’s Recycling Guide.
All the Recycling Guides issued in the past ten years are available from the Services menu beneath the site’s banner image.
8 December (Part 1) - How can this be?
Now that General Election voting has come to an end, this blog is no longer very relevant so is hidden from view.
7 December (Part 3) - Abena is supported by Sadiq. Is that an election winner in Abbey Wood?
Thanks
to former Councillor John Husband trudging the bin littered
streets of Belvedere this afternoon I now have leaflets from four of the six
General Election candidates in Erith and Thamesmead. Abena Oppong-Asare for Labour is the only one of the four to splash out on
an A3 sized double sided leaflet but
failed to find room on it to mention either Brexit or Jeremy Corbyn. Who can blame her but by the same
logic one might have thought she would keep Sadiq Khan at arm’s length too.
Not one of the dozen photos of him that have cluttered up Social Media today (he joined Abena’s campaign) were taken outside
Abbey Wood’s Crossrail station. All the candidates
short and long listed were anxious to be photographed on the station concourse but not the Mayor of London. I wonder why.
It’s not a bad leaflet overall, better public transport, more houses, more
police, tackling climate change, against privatisation of the NHS, it could almost be a
Tory leaflet except there is not a word about paying for it all.
Abena even manages to get an endorsement from her illustrious predecessor Teresa
Pearce. Maybe it is just me and my conspiracy theories but it seems to read more
like a catalogue of facts rather than a a ringing endorsement.
I had better shut up, I may need Abena one day if Bexley Council ever produces
another Maxine Fothergill.
I have also received
a copy of the personal letter referenced
on 3rd December.
7 December (Part 2) - The beautification of Abbey Wood?
Peabody’s
architects were in Abbey Wood Sainsbury’s today
to show off their plans for the redevelopment of what is now called the Lesnes Abbey Estate.
It’s the Coralline Walk area opposite the Thistlebrook Estate.
It was too crowded to get any photos but they will be repeating the exercise in
the Information Hub on Yarnton Way next Tuesday between 15:00 and 20:00.
(Apologies for the lack of notice, I prepared a short blog
but somehow seem to have lost it. The ambiguity may be very apt.)
7 December (Part 1) - The uglification of Bexley
My
two new bins arrived last Tuesday, three days ahead of schedule and are now inconveniently parked in my back garden store of never likely to be used bins. The
brightly coloured lids are particularly unsightly. They were
supposed to come with a Guide Book but not in my road they didn’t. That probably
explains why lots of them were out on the road on Friday awaiting a collection
that isn’t due for another week.
Without a Guide Book most people will be unaware that Bexley has lost its weekly recycling service except for food waste.
Almost
needless to say, the driving force is money. Collecting on alternate weeks only will
save £450,000 a year.
I attended all the Council meetings that discussed the revised recycling
service. It seemed a reasonable enough change overall. I heard Cabinet Member
Peter Craske say that he needs every last bit of recyclable material collected even
down to the humble toilet roll core. It all adds up.
I heard numerous Councillors say that too many people still ignored the recycling
rules and more than 50% of what goes in the rubbish bin could have been
recycled. I heard the Director of Bins say that the government does
not allow Councils to penalise those who break the rules.
What
I never heard was anyone say that large cardboard boxes would no longer be
collected. Maybe that is included in the missing Guide Book. It has certainly
not been mentioned anywhere else.
Phil in Ennerdale Road (photos from his Twitter feed) certainly didn’t know and Bexley Council let him down on
his very first paper bin collection day. They left him with a bin full of
material with which they could have made some money and sent him away with a rather dismissive Tweet.
Councillor Craske speaks with a forked tongue and it would appear that
Councillor Stefano Borella (Labour, Slade Green and Northend) was not so wrong after all.
(See Tweet from last March above.)
Why are large cartons no longer welcome? They went in the bin lorries easily
enough before. It can only be due to the petty bureaucracy of a sometimes stupid
Council which has been getting something between £10 and £90 a tonne for paper in a fluctuating market.
Taking nothing because of an oversized piece of cardboard is just plain spiteful and exactly
what one has come to expect from Councillor Craske. A clear case of
cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
The
Recycling Guide Book is not the only Council publication that fails to reach me.
I almost never get the Bexley Magazine.
Ever since Bexley Council
decided to privatise magazine distribution I’ve almost never received one. I
complained into the friendly ear of a Council officer a couple of years ago and
the next two did arrive but then they stopped again.
I resorted to begging from Councillors but for the current issue my Councillor
hadn’t got one either, she told me that she had conducted a mini-poll and found
that most people didn’t get one.
Bexley’s website said if the Winter issue was not delivered by 2nd December the
Communications Department should be advised so I did that. Two days later one arrived
in the post thanks to Communications Manager Jane Parsons.
It is good to see Bexley Council standing by their promise
to publicise Abbey
Wood’s Christmas Market (Page 26) to be held in the Abbey Arms Car Park on Sunday 15th December.
Note: After writing the above I found a rather wet Guide
Book in my neighbour’s front garden lying in the old paper box of all things! When
questioned he admitted to not reading it and told me I was welcome to take it.
The Book does say that only items placed inside the wheelie bin will be collected thereby confirming Craske’s forked tongue.
He doesn’t really want your toilet roll core after all.
6 December (Part 2) - I suppose it is quite clever really
Just
as I was leaving for the hustings on
Tuesday a Conservative leaflet for Erith & Thamesmead came through the letter box.
I thought Joe Robertson’s leaflet was quite good. It appeals to the Erith & Thamesmead Leave majority and
highlights one of the polls favourable to the Conservatives.
A later one put Labour on 41%,
Conservatives 38% and Brexit at 8% so appealing to potential Brexit voters is a shrewd move.
So is reminding everyone that “Teresa Pearce is standing down”.
Teresa commanded a richly deserved personal following and can never be satisfactorily replaced. The 2019 Labour
candidate was a Bexley Councillor from 2014 to 2018 during which time she fought
against removal of a fire engine from Erith.
Whether she is good or whether she is not so good, does anyone wish to see a
Corbyn led government and the economics of the mad house?
The big puzzle with the Conservative candidate is that he claims to live in
Abbey Wood but every Google search traces him back to the Isle of Wight; his
Register of Members’ interests remains visible on its Parish Council’s website.
Probably doesn’t matter much, maybe he is just shacking up with a mate until 13th December.
Click image to see all of Mr. Robertson’s leaflet.
Note: It has been confirmed that Joe Robertson lives on
Bostall Hill in the borough of Greenwich.
6 December (Part 1) - A Lib Dem gets a D minus in economics
This was my favourite bit of the Old Bexley and Sidcup hustings. Lib Dem candidate Simone Reynolds says “Let’s not borrow all this money like the Conservative Party are going to have to do to invest in all these services that we’ve got which are currently paid for by the EU”.
A deluded Lib Dem plonker speaks. “Services that we’ve got are currently paid for by the EU”.
5 December (Part 2) - Old Bexley and Sidcup election hustings
My friend Elwyn Bryant asked me if I would go with him to the Old Bexley hustings in Sidcup’s St. John The Evangelist Church and as he had a friend who
lived more or less next door with a spare parking place on her drive there was
absolutely no reason not to go. Erith & Thamesmead has been dead electorally as
far as I can see.
I
must say the church building is magnificent but whether it is the right place
for hustings is debatable; maybe the environment helped to keep the more
excitable elements on their best behaviour.
All five candidates were present with Reverend Cathy Knight-Scott in the chair.
She ruled the roost very decisively with four minutes of introduction per
candidate and one minute each to answer questions. There were only five subjects
up as questions, a couple on Brexit and one each on housing, NHS, reversing austerity and WASPI women.
Including a quite lengthy introduction and the drawing of lots to determine
seating positions the questions session lasted for only 70 minutes after which refreshments were served.
It was all over far too quickly and by accident or design no one known to be
active politically was allowed a question. As such it was all a bit too easy
going and with no more than 70 people present and no one from the press one
must wonder what the point of it all is.
Rather than provide a narrative version of what went on, below is a list of what was said
in response to the various questions by each candidate. As one might expect given
his experience James Brokenshire’s was the most polished performance but Matt
Browne from the Green Party spoke well too.
You may safely assume that what follows is
mainly verbatim quotations extracted from an audio recording stitched together
into a few short sentences. Despite the temptation, no comments.
Carol Valinejad - Christian People’s Alliance
Ms. Valinejad is a qualified clinical psychologist and long term Sidcup resident.
She had no priorities for the area preferring to consult the electorate first.
Naturally she was fully in favour of the NHS being accessible to all.
She said her key values were dominated by the Abortion Act and family breakdown
costing an estimated £48 million a year. There is too much mental ill health
among young people. They are the challenges this nation faces today.
The unborn child deserves the full protection of the law while providing full
support for those in crisis. More than 9,000,000 unborn children have lost their
lives because of the 1967 Act. Abortion can cause overwhelming trauma to mothers.
A grant of £12,000 should be given to those who marry and possibly more when
they have their first child. The Chairman cut off Carol before she could finish
stating her policy in full.
The CPA stance on Brexit is to honour the referendum result but have another in
five or ten years time. They have every confidence in Britain’s ability to trade
outside the EU. An investigation should be made into why Britain can’t build
homes and part of the problem is that students are indebted by student loans and
can’t afford them.
The WASPI situation is despicable and the full quota of benefits must be restored.
The CPA said that austerity was caused by a lack of Christian values and the
government was more interested in funding crime than families.
Simone Reynolds - Liberal Democrats
Simone is another Sidcup resident and she said hers was the biggest party out to stop Brexit. Boris Johnson and
Jeremy Corbyn are both extremists and stuck in the past, they do not deserve to
be Prime Minister and the Lib Dems is the centrist party. Under the Lib Dems
everyone will thrive. We will stop Brexit because the Conservatives told blatant
lies (bus references) and the Lib Dems will invest £50 million to boost the
economy and tackle inequalities. She said that the £50 million will come from
the simple act of doing nothing and staying in the EU.
She advocated another People’s Vote. The Labour Party and The Green Party
had both jumped on that bandwagon. If Leave wins again Simone will accept it.
The Lib Dems are going to combat the climate emergency by generating 80% of electricity from renewables by 2030 and spend £100 billion doing it.
There will be 20,000 more teachers and £10 billion a year more going into
schools. Free child care and £10,000 per adult to improve their skills. £2·2
billion extra to solve mental health issues and a billion for 20,000 more police
officers with a 2% immediate pay rise. Everyone will have a brighter future if they vote Lib Dem.
The Lib Dems want to put an extra penny on Income Tax to fund the NHS and build
300,000 houses a year and banish no fault evictions.
The Lib Dems will compensate the WASPI women and there is too much gender
discrimination. Even pink razor blades cost more.
Simone Reynolds said the government should have borrowed more while interest
rates were low, they could have built more hospitals. Universal Credit should be
changed in a way similar to that advocated by Labour. She was proud to say that
the Lib Dems had voted against every Conservative budget since 2015.
Simone finished by saying she was sick to death of Brexit and it was a national
embarrassment. Let’s remain in the EU. We then won’t have to spend the money on
things the EU currently pays for and we will gain a £50 million remain bonus and
make a fairer equal society for everybody..
James Brokenshire - Conservative Party
James Brokenshire the sitting MP regretted the need for another election but
Parliament had become stuck. It was not able to move forward and it was unable
to deal with Brexit. The referendum result must be respected. Without moving
forward on that issue we are stuck in a political purgatory.
The choice is between getting Brexit done and more delay, indecision and dither.
A clear decision will allow a positive agenda for the future. £33·9 extra for
the NHS every year. 20,000 more police officers and more spent on education. We
need a strong economy to do that.
Alternative Agendas proposed by others will lead to more tax and higher rates of
inflation, He referred to protecting local green spaces and better train
services into London. The lack of a Post Office in Sidcup received a mention but
the big issues are Brexit, the economy and the climate emergency. Creating jobs and opportunity is what
is at the heart of the Conservative Party.
James wants to see the post Brexit trade agreements settled by the end of
2020. The terms of the withdrawal are already settled but continued uncertainty is harmful.
The NHS needs a long term plan which the Conservatives now have must be
supported. It is absolutely not on the table at any trade deal.
There have been 222,000 homes built in the past year and it must be raised to
300,000. James had while Minister increased Council borrowing powers and wanted
to see the end of unfair evictions and allow transferable deposits.
A billion pounds had been injected to minimise the impact on WASPI women. The
subject should be kept under review but there could be no uncosted promises.
James said that there were 400,000 fewer people living in absolute poverty and 730,000 fewer children
living in workless households under the Conservatives but there is more to do. The Living wage will be raised
to £10·50 and people have been taken out of tax altogether. Changes have been
made to Universal Credit to ensure payments can be made available quickly. The Lib Dems
and Labour would wreck the economy instead of having one that creates jobs.
James made a final plea for a strong economy and to get Brexit done to allow things to move on.
David Tingle - Labour Party
Mr. Tingle is a local businessman employing nine people. His
manifesto is the best and fully costed and he lost no time in criticising the
Conservatives who questioned that statement. The Tories do not understand averages.
His staff have had a fantastic education and that is why he is a successful
businessman. We must fund the NHS not cut it. Businesses must pay their fair
share of tax. The Tories locally were elected because of their false claim to be
able to save Sidcup’s A&E Department.
Only the Labour Party has a fully costed positive outlook for the country. It
has a new green deal to generate jobs and influence the whole world.
Brexit will be sorted (but he wants to see a credible Leave deal with all the existing arrangements
preserved) and Labour will keep you safe. Court delays will be fixed
and criminals will be rehabilitated. The minimum wage will be £10 an hour immediately.
David blamed all the Brexit delays on the Conservatives. They had a majority and
couldn’t get their deal through Parliament. It wasn’t a Labour responsibility to help them.
The Labour Party said the NHS will be sold off piece meal by the Conservatives. Sidcup’s A&E was sold off.
The waiting list for housing is ridiculous and developers that sit on sites must lose them.
Mr. Tingle said that the WASPI women had had their pensions stolen, it was their
money and he would borrow £58 million to pay for it.
Mr. Tingle is very angry about austerity and he will stop people running out of
money and suspend the vicious sanctions regime that goes with Universal Credit and its two child limit.
The Labour candidate concluded by saying his manifesto would be fantastic for
the country. He will end homelessness, sort out the social care system, save the
planet and get Brexit done by this time next year and we will have a positive friendly country.
Matt Browne - The Green Party
Matt agreed with James Brokenshire that the Parliamentary process was stuck
and he blamed the voting system which is depressing and grubby. In Sidcup one
party has been in power for ever but elsewhere difficult decisions must be made.
The Green Party has power because it is not obsessed by power. A Green vote
sends a message to those who are in power. It was the only party to object to
austerity and now even the Conservatives are taking the same view. Other
parties. Labour in particular now support the Green agenda on climate change.
Britain must lead the world on decarbonisation.
On Brexit the Greens are remainers to ensure there will never again be conflict
on this Continent. The EU is a peace project and the only way forward is a People’s Vote.
The NHS will be safe under a Green government. The demand on its services must be forced down.
The Greens wanted to build more traditional Council houses, a home for life. Ten
million of them over the next ten years.
Mr. Browne would compensate WASPI women through a system of universal income
which he said he could not explain within the minute allowed. Ten billion a year
must be given to local Councils, the money is there, it just needs to be taxed.
The Green Party will do something really really great over the next ten years
with everyone working together based on a radical vision of kindness.
Green votes have power, cast yours for the Greens.
30 minutes of Refreshments
Elwyn
Bryant was not at all pleased about not being able to ask a question, at coffee time he
made an immediate bee line for James Brokenshire. It was entirely the Conservative Party’s
fault that we are still in the EU. We should have been out in March, in June,
in October but we weren’t. That failure was down to the Conservatives and no one
else. No excuses were offered such as Bercow or Ben or Grieve or Soubry or a dozen other democracy deniers. It was James
and his ilk who did not stand their ground and meekly accepted a bad deal
until that position became untenable and everyone changed their tune and turned on Theresa May. Increasing
the numbers of nurses and police officers was a charade, the numbers should not have been reduced in the first place.
Mr. Brokenshire stood his ground valiantly and was a walking encyclopedia of
every government statistic known to man. An impressive display if a little
reminiscent of “Alexa, give me all the reasons for voting Conservative”.
It cut no ice with Elwyn, the Conservatives had let us all down and James had to
concede he might be happier voting Lib Dem or Labour. He doesn’t know Elwyn as
well as I do; a former trade unionist who knows how the Left operate far too well
and there is no way he will vote for any Left leaning party.
Both of us moved off to allow James to recover from the grilling and soon bumped into Councillor Richard Diment. Neither of
us had spoken to him before. I already knew he was a man of intellect and
considerable substance but Elwyn seeing that for the first time was well impressed. A Conservative who was
open, transparent, apparently honest and who spoke a gentler version of Elwyn’s preferred language, a man
he could relate to. I thought I was going to spend the next week convincing
Elwyn that in today’s prevailing circumstances the only sensible vote for a
man of his opinions is to vote Conservative, but there is no need. Richard did the job for me.
5 December (Part 1) - St. Catherine’s School strike
There was a time when I thought my extended family were all school teachers, eleven of
them (only two male) with a school secretary and Council officer in the Waltham Forest education
department thrown in for good measure. Retirement and mortality have taken that
total down to three and the secretary but teachers used to form more than
50% of working adult family members.
Politically all were Pinkos to some extent, two of them fully paid up members of
the Communist Party. In the 1960s and 70s they would regularly take mysterious
expenses paid holidays in the U.S.S.R. I fear they were up to no good. My memory
of that period is that the mildly Pink would complain that the Crimson ones were
leading the profession to disaster. The net result is that I view the teaching
profession with a good deal of suspicion and regard its malign indoctrination of the
young as an affront to democracy.
For the record the school secretary and former Council officer are very far from
being Pinkos now, with age comes the ability to see through the lure of the Left.
About a month ago I became aware of a teachers’ squabble at
St. Catherine’s
(Girls’ Catholic) School. I took little notice of it, didn’t even know where the school was and a
bullying Head allegedly abusing her position seemed to be entirely typical of
bosses promoted until they eventually reach a position of total incompetence. I
was at work long enough to see how that system worked but it was not a Bonkers’
issue, Academies are nothing to do with Bexley Council.
However over the past handful of weeks I have been sent enough snippets of
information from parents to persuade me that I should pass on their views. It is
quite possible that I was not the only observer to draw all the wrong
conclusions - or at least be totally unaware of how some parents feel about the situation.
I am told that here have been twelve strike days so far with four more
scheduled. Can you imagine the disruption to family life that that will be
causing to say nothing of the lost education?
As I understand it from comments received a letter was sent to parents at the start
of the school year. It explained that due to staff dissatisfaction following a staff dismissal
and two suspensions, the teachers would be striking on 28th October. A
meeting with the teachers, Head, governors and the National Education Union (NEU) at
the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) did not
remedy matters so the strike went ahead.
The teachers claim is that staff were fired without due process.
Independent investigations by outside HR companies upheld the dismissal
but not one of the suspensions, a union rep. who has returned to work. I
remember from my time at GPO/BT how it was almost impossible to sack a Union Rep.
The Union was demanding the reinstatement of two members of staff as the price of calling off their child damaging strikes.
At their daily pickets outside school, teachers and NEU members have apparently relished
the opportunity to talk to the public about the “culture of fear” and “bullying”
behaviour of the Head but no one reports them calling for her
suspension or resignation which was one of the stories promulgated on Social Media.
A report sent to me says that the governors have received 34 complaints from staff
about the Head since her appointment in September 2016. The governors
investigated and the school trustees and their lawyers
all deemed no further action was required and that the complaints ranged
from those not warranting a suspension to the 100% “frivolous”. As an Academy,
Bexley Council has no power to intervene.
The NEU does not represent all the teaching staff and so some are not
striking, some are said to vehemently oppose the strike. Apparently the “culture of
fear” does not impinge on non-NEU members. Strange that.
Meanwhile, parents on Social Media have been splitting into various factions. A deep divide has been
created with frenzied calls to topple the Head on one side and suspicion of teachers and unions reminiscent
of my own forming on the other.
A small but growing group are forming a counter-protest on strike days
opposite the picket line. Parents are finding it hard to know where to turn
for help. The Diocese has been told not to get involved.
All parents are naturally very worried about their children’s lost education. Has a strike of this length
ever been seen at a British school before?.
After a meeting with Governors where some parents insisted on further
investigation of the Head the NEU inexplicably moved the goalposts from
requiring reinstatements to insisting
a second investigation could not go ahead and the strike could not be ended until the Head is suspended.
Only that would enable a second investigation.
The Governors convened an emergency meeting this week and voted
unanimously not to suspend the Head as there is no evidence of any wrongdoing.
With three of them having daughters at the same school they presumably know
exactly what the true situation is. A very recent communication says three
striking teachers returned to work yesterday.
A Conservative Councillor told me that the Labour candidate in Bexleyheath and Crayford, Anna Day, has been joining the picket line and backing the NEU. A sure
sign of how a Corbyn victory in a week’s time will take us straight back to the
1970s and freebie trips to Moscow.
So for now it is stalemate with neither side willing to move. The
teachers are at pains to explain this is “not about the girls”, but it’s
hard to see how the students are not the ones suffering the most.
With thanks to various contributors for their insight into what appears to be
going on. If there is another side to this story I have not heard it directly
but there are some Social Media comments to be read.
@ST_CCSPG and
@OfficalVeritas for example.
4 December (Part 2) - Why are we waiting. Oh, why are we waiting?
Bexley Council's Legal Notice regarding Gayton Road dated 19th September 2018.
Gayton Road unfinished and barricaded. Photographed from the Western end today.
Gayton Road unfinished and stairs still closed. Photographed from the Eastern end today.
4 December (Part 1) - Has Singh moved in?
If
you are familiar with the history of the Leather Bottle site you will need no
explanatory introduction and if you are not aware of it you are probably
uninterested in this recent development.
The site which has had two planning applications rejected so far has been an eyesore
for the past three years but that hasn’t
deterred someone from moving in to live there. Probably not travellers in the
accepted sense, the ratio of caravans to Transit vans is a little too low.
More likely to be one of Kulvinder Singh’s work mates if I had to guess.
If you do wish to catch up with the history of Ye Olde Leather Bottle a list of related blogs
may be seen here.
Registration numbers visible in original photographs are
White Fiat Ducato WR55 BYM, White Mercedes RJ04 WTU, White Transit EJ54 HCF, Red
Transit LJ06 PVU, Peugeot Boxer Van number partially obscured by fence in Photo
2 but Photo 1 suggests VK05 LYU and Trafic caravanette L115 MSO. Which of these
will be legal?
3 December - Reliably spiteful
Still
no election leaflets from the main parties. One
from the
Brexit Party two weeks or more ago and that’s it, however Councillor Philip
Read reveals that there is at least a letter circulating from Abena
Oppong-Asare but as yet I have no evidence that the Conservative General Election
candidate has written anything at all.
Clicking on Councillor Read’s Tweet will reveal a very poor copy of Abena’s
letter and you will need to be reading this on a big screen to have any chance
of deciphering it. Using a direct link to
www.bexley-is-bonkers.co.uk/images/blog/2019/12/0301/letter.jpg might be a better bet.
The original criticism of the letter by @L_J_Hodson is not an unreasonable one; why is the name Corbyn or the
word Brexit not mentioned in Erith & Thamesmead’s Labour literature but Philip Read
says the whole letter is nonsense. He is entitled to that view but I think I
would have used a different word; ‘unconvincing’ perhaps.
Read being Read goes on to criticise Abena’s record as a Councillor. It is true
that she was one of the quieter ones earning
only 17 mentions on Bonkers. If
that is a measure of success as a Councillor I should mention that this blog
takes Councillor Read’s score to over 900 so obviously it is not.
For the record here is a list of blogs in which the Councillor
Oppong-Asare’s name cropped up. Judge for yourself whether or not Councillor Read is right.
Were there ‘No Positive Ideas’?
6th June 2014 -
27th July 2014 -
10th October 2014 -
11th November 2014 -
9th March 2015 -
2nd April 2015 -
27th September 2015 -
7th November 2015 -
19th January 2016 -
15th April 2016 -
26th April 2016 -
25th October 2016 -
26th October 2016 -
4th May 2017 -
2nd September 2017 -
19th April 2018 -
22nd April 2018.
2 December - Decluttering Bonkers
This is barely worth mentioning but it is possible that someone will be puzzled by it…
The pale green background to Bonkers’ text which appeared when viewing on small
screens (480 pixels wide and fewer) has been replaced by white. The barely
visible Bexley Council logo that used to overlay the green has gone too.
1 December - West Street Park sold. The protests continue
West
Street Park is the green you pass on a 229 or 469 bus from Belvedere just before the stop for Erith Station. I went there yesterday
on the invitation of Erith Think Tank
whose people I have met two or three times, I was a little surprised to find none of them there. As far as I could
tell the protest event was being run by Extinction Rebellion; as such the police soon showed up
to see if they had any Super Glue with them.
I stood around minding my own business while imagining what the area might be
like once Bexley Council has concreted over the only green oasis within somewhat
grim surroundings. It wasn’t a pleasant thought but Bexley Council will not be
concerned by that, no Councillor was sufficiently interested to put in an appearance.
I eavesdropped a few conversations, none of them complimentary but maybe some
were misinformed. “They steal the land from the people, they sell it to
themselves, quickly nod through the planning permission, build low grade
housing, sell it and spend the money on improving Bexleyheath and Bexley” was the general theme.
There is some truth in it but maybe planning permission is not as easy as
stated. BexleyCo, Bexley Council’s less than successful property developer came a cropper with
their Wilde Road development. It was thrown out by the Planning
Committee twice and wasted a great deal of money which so far at least is all that BexleyCo has been good at.
I hung around to witness the tree planting ceremony but it was a bit of a
non-event. A hole was dug, some compost added and a small beech tree carefully put in place and nobody took any notice of it.
20 photos
have been added to the Index of Photo features.
BexleyCo’s latest in a line of failed managing Directors is Graham Ward, he who
has been signing the Traffic Orders for the past couple of years. I suppose the
thinking is that his schemes have fleeced motorists out of a lot of money let’s see
if he can work some sort of miracle at BexleyCo. The alternative is another
Thames Innovations Centre/Engine House money pit.