I have no idea what the answer might be to
the question
posed three days ago and reporting on the activities of Sidcup’s Agent Provocateur
is often a tightrope job. He and I are similar in some ways, both ready to attack the
political parties in equal measure but I think I am more ready to accept that
most of Bexley Councillors are decent well meaning people doing their best, as
perhaps we all are, to avoid falling into the black hole which is the Government’s failed fiscal policies.
As must be obvious to every reader by now my political inclinations are to the right
of centre and when I look at the sort of people labelled far right in
today’s Daily Telegraph, to quote just one example, maybe I am that too.
Certainly some way to the right of a man with his roots in Belarus.
Holding a different point of view is not a good reason for silencing anyone, hence the
pro-ULEZ thesis on BiB when my own views on Sadiq Khan might best be
left unsaid. However there is a shared agreement that the dishonesty and deception which infests public
life and from which Bexley is not immune should not go unchallenged. (I am currently going through a phase when
I blame
Bexley’s senior officers more than elected Members but that may change next week.)
BiB owes its very existence to Council officer dishonesty and deception. Long term
readers may safely skip the next paragraph; you have read it a dozen times before.
In 2009, Bexley’s Team Leader (Traffic and Road Safety Group) told me that his
road designs conformed to the guidance contained within two
very expensive Transport Research Laboratory reports. I alluded to it at the
time but 15 years later it is probably safe to be much more forthcoming. My son
headed up the TRL department that issued those reports and he sent me free
copies. He also Co-chaired the European Union’s committee on the same subject.
This week he is back in Europe advising vehicle manufacturers about how safety
can be further improved. I think it is safe to say that I have it on the very
best authority that Bexley Council lied to me about road design but the Team Leader was
subsequently promoted into the very top job. In Bexley the ability to lie convincingly is a necessary skill.
After a number of similar stories appeared on BiB two things happened more or
less simultaneously. Councillor Craske posted a scurrilous blog about me and a
number of other Council critics. A blog for which he was arrested more than a year
later; and Teresa O’Neill asked the police to arrest me
for being critical of Councillors.
Police document dated 24th October 2011, signed by Detective Constable Neil Thomas.
The police report goes on to say that they considered arrest but settled on harassment warnings (†) and keeping
the names of the police involved secret. The officer who signed my warning letter was
never traced and probably didn’t exist.
Council Leader Baroness Teresa O’Neill’s stupid attempt to stifle all criticism is directly
responsible for 15 years of unrelenting and mainly critical reports about her sometimes dishonest Council.
It showed an arrogance which is all too common among the political classes.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely etc.
How different things might have been if she had reached out, as modern parlance
would have it, and asked “What’s all this about Malcolm?” and we finished up
agreeing that lying to residents is not acceptable. Too idealistic
probably, how can an edifice built on lies promise not to do it again? At least
not in 2010 only months after Bexley Council did its best to protect the previous
Leader who went on to serve a suspended prison sentence.
In 2010 there was only one Councillor who reached out to BiB - he was soon
sacked - but things have changed for the very much better since then. This blog was prompted
by two Conservative Councillors who this week have been willing to discuss current
issues. None of us have answers to the dilemma 115 FOIs in 18 months poses.
Responding to the rejection of two Full Council questions with an FOI asking how
many such questions have been rejected in the past may not be the best way to
combat Bexley Council’s poor Leadership
The response to
Matthew Chapman’s question tonight should be interesting
as will the ICO response due within the next couple of weeks.
† The police subsequently apologised for issuing the warning.