1 March (Part 2) - When Meeting Minutes lie
I was disappointed when Labour Leader Stefano Borella didn’t get back to me after I asked
if he could elaborate on his assertion at Public Cabinet that
the Deputy Council Leader had lied. I wouldn’t say that my relationship with Stefano is
difficult because he is among the very friendliest of Bexley Councillors but he
would be right if he is wary of my tendency to lean to the right and I feared I
might have over-stepped the mark in the recent past.
I am pretty sure I have never found any reason to be critical of Stef although
sometimes I might wonder about the strategies he adopts. What he most certainly
isn’t is a liar and if faced with guessing if his version of events or a Tory one
is correct there would be only one way to jump.
However it turns out that the failure to respond wasn’t that he didn’t feel able to trust me, he was
simply busy and took longer than usual to answer. Meanwhile I
reported what I thought I knew.
The minutes of the Children’s Scrutiny meeting said…
Two Labour Members, Councillors Perfect and Amaning, claimed that
the impact and consequences of the Covid pandemic were not causing any
budget pressures and that budget challenges faced had nothing to do with
Covid; but this claim was rebutted by Cabinet Members present who commented
on the ongoing impact on services caused by the pandemic.
Councillor Borella said in Cabinet that that statement was a lie and “a downright lie” in
his email to me. He concedes that it was a lesser lie in the case of Councillor Esther Amaning.
Lie or not it was
indisputedly an inaccurate statement because
the Minutes were revised and Deputy Leader Leaf issued an apology to the two
Councillors and the meeting Chairman. Additionally the Minutes were withdrawn
and the replacement
removed all references to Councillors Perfect and Amaning.
Revised Minutes.
One question must be was it a lie or a temporary lack of judgment. To help decide I revisited my audio recording. Here is Councillor Perfect embarking on her ‘soliloquy’.
Wendy does not get into David Leaf territory but she can go on a bit sometimes, however what she does not do here is utter the dreaded C word.
You should note that Councillor Wendy Perfect went on at some length claiming that Government policy had caused the problems in Childrenְ’s services but did not mention Covid at all. Then Cabinet Member Philip Read jumped in to blame the unfolding disaster on Covid. It might be more accurate to say it was the lockdown that caused the problems but maybe that is nit-picking.
The Gospel according to Philip Read. Covid, Covid, Covid.
Esther Amaning said that there were other factors in play…
Esther doesn’t think Covid has much to do with the massive Children’s budget overspend.
… but Cabinet Member Read was having none of it and launched another of of his strident attacks on Labour women. (But not without some interesting facts.)
Cabinet Member Read goes off on one again.
Well that pretty much proves that the Minutes of the Children’s meeting were
well wide of the mark, there was no reason whatsoever to pin something on
Councillor Perfect that she never said, but does that make David Leaf a liar or
merely guilty of having a bad memory and of researching inadequately?
I would suggest that Read going on and on
and on about Covid in response to Wendy Perfect steering well clear of the
subject misled Deputy Leader Leaf and filled his head with wrong assumptions
which he then felt he must eagerly address. That makes him a fool rather than
a knave but why is he put into that position at all?
You may or may not agree with Wendy, that really doesn’t matter, nor is it very
relevant that Cabinet Member Read is aggressive towards the opposition. That is
not news. What is news is that in Bexley the Deputy Council Leader writes the Minutes
of meetings and is at liberty to bias them in any way the Tories wish.
Cabinet Member Leaf may or may not be a liar but he certainly isn’t the
Committee Clerk and nor should he be allowed to take on that role.