15 October (Part 2) - Bexley Cabinet meeting. Same old, same old
Bexley’s
Cabinet met last week to debate their latest self-satisfaction plan.
It is titled ‘Making Bexley even Better’ which pretty much encapsulates all
that is wrong with Bexley Council. Almost nothing gets better, certainly not
taxes, fees and charges and they fail to recognise it.
The Conservatives plan to convert their ideas into a website. As presented to Cabinet the plan is
the usual ambition to get someone else to pay for any possible improvements
which represents no obvious change of direction. Almost everything changed possibly for the better
over the past ten years has come from the likes of Cory Environmental, the
Lottery Fund. American golfing companies and Network Rail.
There is absolutely nothing new in the
latest 34 page report; working with partners, early
intervention and prevention, happy healthy lives, listening, (yes, really!) open and accessible. Growth, better transport, cleaner and greener, thriving economy,
safe and inclusive, affordable homes. The usual fine words that crop up in every report.
It is not strictly accurate to say that the Cabinet debated the report. They’d
had their staff knock it all together and already agreed the contents so it only fell to
them to say how wonderful it was. Councillors Read, Seymour, Diment, Craske,
Leaf and Munur lined up to thank the authors, praised the regurgitation of old
ideas and generally slap a few backs. (Cabinet Member Sue Gower was not present.)
Councillor Borella’s description of the plan was not too far removed from mine and added that
it merely embeds the Conservative Manifesto
into policy which may be no bad thing except that the 2022 Manifesto contained no promises and few ambitions. “A
lack of ambition” to quote the Labour Leader. “Efficiencies mean cuts.” he said and the
Council only goes “for Statutory minimums”. He could not foresee how the
Labour Group could possibly support the plan if it is just a dressed up version of
the Tory Manifesto.
There was a brief and probably unnecessary reference to
John Davey’s unfortunate
words which were “beyond belief and atrocious”. He did not want to see John Davey come back.
Councillor Nicola Taylor (Labour, Erith) made similar points but in a more
unforgiving tone reinforcing my view that my Labour voting days are over. #bekind.
It did nothing to persuade me that the Labour reaction to John Davey’s final
Tweet is not hypocritical. It is not all that long ago that a Labour Councillor
had to resign following an unintentional error of judgment. I don’t intend to
give chapter and verse on it again although the details were reported on BiB at
the time. There was a minor technical breach of the Local Government Act so
arguably far more serious than an ill-judged Tweet.
Conservative John Davey may have ‘misspoke’, to quote our former Mayor, but he
wasn’t in breach of the LGA. The Labour Councillor came back. Why not John Davey?
Why is it only me who remembers all these old law breakers and not the Labour front bench?
The plan was approved and will go before Full Council.