24 May - Please stop talking because we don’t want to listen
Councillors
voted blind. That’s what the News Shopper said last Wednesday about
the Tesco vote.
They did it again within hours of the headline
appearing; councillors voted unanimously to severely curtail the ability of the public to
question the council. The restrictions were supposedly listed in Appendix A to the Agenda but it was
omitted from that publication. That Agenda is now to hand and the principal restrictions are…
• Questions must not be similar to others asked within the last six months.
We reserve the right to get tame lackeys to plant easy questions to block
genuine questions by real residents
• Questions relating to operational matters will not be accepted.
Please don’t question us on our many failings and injustices because we find it
embarrassing
• Questions on human resource issues are not permitted.
Don’t ask about the Chief Executive’s high pay level because the
Minister might get to hear that we are taking no notice of him
• Questions relating to Licensing or Planning are not permitted.
If a lap dancing club is opened in your road, tough titty, it’s your problem
• The mayor or chairman of any meeting will have discretion to introduce any sanction
they can imagine on any questioner if they feel he is not respectful of the chairman or mayor.
The mayor or chairman’s habit of singling out individual residents for special
punishment must be protected
• If the questioner does not attend the meeting his question may not be answered.
We prefer that you stand mute with no permission to actually pose the
question and listen to any non-answer we deign to give. You must accept
ridicule and rude gestures by councillors and if you do not attend your humiliation
session we won’t answer your question - so there!
• Names and addresses of questioners will be published on the web and elsewhere.
As our contribution to transparency we reserve the right not to have our own home
addresses published on the council’s website and as your contribution we insist
that you must agree to publication. Otherwise we think it is fair to
disenfranchise you from the questioning process
The council twice rejected a request that the new rules included the need for
councillors to actually answer questions, so Craske-style
filibusters, non-answers and lies are still permitted but going back to try to get an
answer later is now forbidden. What is left is questions on policy only, that have not
been asked by anyone else - answered or not - from residents who have not expressed
their discontent in some way or other. And if that isn’t enough to stop questioning
there is the appointed gatekeeper to Fortress Bexley, one Eva Read, for
yes, the council leak machine went into overdrive after
yesterday’s blog and
confirmed my speculation that the wife of councillor Philip Read is in charge of
question acceptance. You must agree it’s a neat arrangement that any bent
council would be proud of.
Appendix A.