When
I saw this X post yesterday my first thought was how do they know. Has a man with a clipboard
been standing in Broadway accosting passers-by or is it a sub-set of a national poll?
Probably it doesn’t matter because one can feel the discontent that is sweeping
the country. It has been getting worse ever since Covid when everyone could see
for themselves the calibre of our politicians and then came Two Tier Keir to
throw an accelerant on the flames.
Starmer has managed to get
everything wrong, aided and abetted by the biggest bunch of incompetents one
could ever dream about but far too much of what they have been doing is on the back
of Conservative laws. Who passed Net Stupid into law? Theresa May. Who was it
who refused to wipe EU laws from the Statute Book? Kemi Badenoch. Who botched EU
withdrawal and left Northern Ireland under foreign control giving Starmer a
further excuse to cosy up with Brussels? Boris Johnson.
Who are the Conservatives looking at for renewed leadership now? Robert Jenrick,
a man who the Electoral Commission said broke election expenses rules in 2014. (A
by-election.)
He was involved in some ‘funny [planning] business’ in Notting Hill which involved local MP James Brokenshire in
2019 and in 2020 even funnier business in Tower Hamlets when he
over-ruled the decision of the Planning Inspector to
give a pornographer friend of the Conservative Party planning permission, just in the nick of time, to allow him
to avoid a tax bill that may otherwise have reached £150 million.
The local Council went for a Judicial Review but it was derailed by Jenrick’s
manoeuvres. Even Boris Johnson could see through him and Remainer Jenrick was
sacked from his Ministerial position in 2021.
And he is the best that the Conservatives have to offer!
One can feel the discontent at any social gathering. My week tends to see
meetings with three different sets of friends. There is just one man who retains
a leaning
towards Labour but absolutely none have any inclination to back the Conservatives.
No one is happy. It was obvious to me that when the police began to persecute
motorists 40 years ago when radar speed guns first came into use, sooner or later
nearly everyone would get to hate the police and when Councils began to take
over their roles they would go the same way.
Bexley is notorious for its unnecessary yellow box junctions rigorously enforced. I have personally shown
the responsible Cabinet Member how a local parking restriction is carefully
designed to become an entrapment. No written warning and a near invisible road marking.
The local CEO agrees with me that the restriction is nothing but deliberate
entrapment. How can one respect - or vote for - these people?
In 1958 my father was fined ten shillings (50 pence) for a parking offence. The Bank of
England inflation calculator says that is £10 now. What is the actual price?
£140? We have every right to hate our governments.
If Councillor Gower is kicked out of the Bexleyheath ward next year I shall be sorry at
the personal level but of the others, it is mainly good riddance. Sue and BiB have enjoyed a friendly relationship for more
than ten years, but Councillor
talent in Bexley is in extraordinarily short
supply. Just look at the Cabinet. David Leaf appears to know what he is talking
about and Melvin Seymour comes across as sincere in his wish to do his best for
the vulnerable but the remainder usually appear to be spouting what the Council
Leader wants to hear. A Leader who reports her critics to the police and
requests my arrest for “criticising Councillors”.
It will be a shame to see June Slaughter’s career come to an ignominious end
after 50 years of service and the younger element to the South of the borough
are not all bad, but if they go then ultimately it is their fault for not changing the Leadership years ago.
It’s no wonder that Reform UK is on the up. They may not be perfect but what
choice is there? I will never forget their Deputy Leader being a petty dictator
over Covid. Vaccination or lose your freedom and your job! I have my doubts about
Nigel Farage too but at least he tells us what he is thinking. Yesterday I heard
Conservative Shadow Minister Helen Whately refusing to engage in a debate on
Lucy Connolly’s 31 month prison centre, She didn’t know anything about the case
so couldn’t comment. An excuse straight out of a lying Prime Minster’s rule book.
By contrast Nigel Farage was not afraid to say that a gobby housewife should not
be in prison. With Reform UK you know what you are getting while the other
parties only lie. We know they do. They have been found out and we are all
wiser and sceptical now. They ask me to believe that a slightly built man wearing white
gloves driving in a murderous fashion and quickly bundled into a police van is
the same gloveless burly individual wrestled to the ground a moment or two after
the van door was slammed shut. He is definitely not a Welsh choirboy. When
things don’t seem to add up, history suggests we are wise to be suspicious. It
didn’t used to be that way but the truth and authority have become strangers to each other.
The police are corrupt, - a Home Office report on the bookshelf in front of me
says so - the Labour Government is incompetent and probably corrupt - please don’t talk
about Ukrainian models - and the Conservatives demonstrated their total
stupidity at every level for most of the past 15 years. At a personal level I think UKIP
represents my views more closely than Reform UK but UKIP is a total dead end
right now. So for me and it would appear many of us, it is hold your nose, vote for Reform and
hope for the best. It is our only hope that involves a ballot box.
A shame that they have reprobates among their leading lights - I have the Court
papers that prove it - but show me a party that does not.
It’s the Labour way
I
am just a little unpopular with a BiB reader. He drew attention to
yesterday’s blog on London Borough of Bexley News and Views
(Facebook) and earned himself
an instant ban by the red mods. But have they called him a fascist yet?
Maybe the main moderator would be better employed on
filing his company accounts.
Note: The Tweet which the Lefties found objectionable was
one which condemned the police for bashing old ladies over the head when only a
week had passed since an officer was murdered in Croydon after a detainee had
not been searched for weapons. Apparently that excuses police brutality.
BexleyCo
I don’t usually report planning issues here because
From the Murky Depths has
developed its coverage into an art form, but I have been asked to draw attention
to BexleyCo’s proposal to build on
the Council Leader’s back garden; Burr Farm.
71 new houses, half of them two bedroom. 50% three bedroom and the remainder
four bedroom. Unusually under the current London Mayor’s anti-car agenda,
each of them will be provided with a car parking space.
You will be able to see the plans on 5th June (4 p.m. to
8 p.m.) in the church
hall of Christchurch on The Broadway.
Comments to
consultations@nexusplanning.co.uk.
www.bexleyhomes.co.uk/developments.
Bexley Council
rejected a much smaller development squeezed into a ‘hole’ between existing
houses so not unlike the Burr Farm plans.
Bonkers continuity
I am occasionally asked if I have fully recovered from
recent
short stays in hospital. Thank you for the concern. The answer is basically
yes but treatment is not yet complete so there will be further gaps in Bonkers next month.
Lack of material makes some gaps inevitable, so maybe no one will notice.
24 May (Part 2) - Labour in Bexley may be in big trouble
It has been mentioned before but local Labour Facebook groups are too often run by Labour activists. They set up a poll on London Borough of Bexley News and Views a few days ago to see who might win control of Bexley in 2026. It didn’t go according to plan.
Conservatives 2%
Labour 21%
Reform 87%
Other 3%
I looked at it on Thursday and Reform was on 67% but
I did not vote myself. Yesterday the result was briefly on display (see summary
above) but today the page is no longer
available. Taking their lead from their lying leader, the truth must be suppressed at all costs.
If Labour thinks they can profit from the failures of the Tory Government in recent years, they must be totally deluded.
24 May (Part 1) - Someone messed up…
You may have read here that in response to an FOI request, Bexley Council
was unable to provide any evidence that it had ever lobbied Government for a better funding grant
which in view of the number of times the Leader has said otherwise was more than a little strange.
Soon after publication of that news here, coincidence I am sure, Paul Thorogood
the Chief Executive, wrote an exceptionally friendly email to @tonyofsidcup apologising for
what had been a horrible mistake by whichever highly paid official had been delegated to respond.
The corrected response is that there have been quite a lot of addresses to various governmental committees and
briefings to MPs plus letters to Government Ministers. Some of the most recent
ones to the present Government at the most senior level were supplied as evidence.
23 May - What’s going on in Blackfen?
It would probably be unwise to say exactly what I think of Kier Starmer and
his treacherous crew in our police state but probably I can get away with saying
that his daily tyranny is seriously depressing and I look forward to the Prime
Minister’s early demise.
The only encouraging sign is that I appear not to be alone; his 18% support
[of eligible voters] at the General Election
has fallen off a cliff. Unfortunately, the only way forward would appear to be a vote for Reform UK.
A party that is clearly not very good at vetting candidates. Yesterday they scored 78% in the by-election in Ongar which is not so very far from Bexley.
The
comments coming out of the Conservative (former Conservative?] X account for
Blackfen appear to be welcoming the new political direction.
Three days earlier the same account said “The Polls out today showing the
Conservatives in 4th Place mean that Blackfen and Lamorbey will get new
Councillors next year and there WILL be a new Party running Bexley. Survey after
Survey in B and L says the same, people need change and Bexley needs Reforming”.
Another unusual development is that @BandLWardNews began to follow @BonkersBexley
on X. A small number of Conservatives have done so for a long time but never before has an ‘official’ Conservative account.
My guess is that the account was run by Councillor James Hunt and after the Conservatives
failed to select him for May 2026 he feels able to tell the truth.
I must admit that a near total wipe out in Bexley, as happened in Dartford three weeks
ago, might be interesting, just as long as Reform UK can find a candidate (or
forty five) who is not thoroughly dishonest.
Police hammered
Louie French MP seems to have spurred the Crown Prosecution Service into letter
writing mode. Just 24 hours after @tonyofsidcup received
his not very useful
first response in months the CPS told him exactly what has been going on.
As we already knew, the CPS returned the case papers to the police last December
because of inadequacies in the submitted papers. They were resubmitted to the CPS on 27th December 2024.
After being reviewed by a lawyer they were returned to the police on 28th January for being err… inadequate.
Back they came again for another CPS review and on 26th March, guess what? They were found to be inadequate again.
After a third return to the police because of their incompetence the CPS took
another look at the resubmitted file and found it was, please excuse the
constant repetition; inadequate.
That was on 15th April 2025 since when the police appear to have done bugger all.
Meanwhile a hammer thrower with a motive who was caught on video walks free,
In defence of incompetence and malignancy
While out with friends
yesterday I bored them with my story about the former union official who is no
longer a Labour Party supporter. Mischievous because I knew that one of them
thinks that Keir Starmer has done a thoroughly good job.
He rose to the bait so I asked him what good things Starmer’s regime had achieved so far.
“He has returned illegal immigrants and reduced the NHS waiting list”; and then he was stumped.
In fact the declining NHS waiting list has now gone into reverse even after the
trickery of cancelling appointments and putting patients on to a new list. Also
I thought it was fairly well known that it is not the boat people who are being
returned but mainly ‘legal’ immigrants
who have over-stayed their visa
entitlements and in some cases given £3,000 to persuade them to leave quietly. Apply here.
21 May (Part 2) - An impossible act to follow
No one of note wanted to take over from Sue Gower as Mayor this year so Councillor Christine Catterall was drafted in to fill the gap unopposed. The webcast cut off before the end of the meeting and no Agenda was published so it is unlikely that there will be a formal report on the meeting.
Note: The webcast page subsequently announced that there was a published Agenda after announcing that there was not on the night in question.
21 May (Part 1) - Bullet points
Derogatory remarks
@tonyofsidcup is not very popular in some quarters of Bexley Council, among them the CEO’s office. I have a copy of
an email from Paul Thorogood complaining about @tony’s
constant references to the information Commissioner and how he wastes taxpayers’
money with his questions. The CEO continues a tradition established over the
past 15 years of failing to recognise that half of FOIs and follow up complaints
would disappear if Bexley answered questions fully and truthfully or even at all
in the first place. It is very evident that the vexatious declaration which
a
Court found to be illegal was the CEO’s idea.
Currently the Council is refusing to properly answer a two month old
question about their
lobbying for a better Government Grant which the Leader never tires of telling
us about. Bromley Council when asked the same question immediately responded
with eight PDF documents. Bexley cannot produce any evidence whatsoever.
Obviously they are not going to admit that the Leader has been lying or
exaggerating so they simply sit on their hands instead.
Another waste of money which may well earn another reference to the Information Commissioner.
Tunnel Tolls
I have read several times (Murky Depths etc.) that the new Silvertown Tunnel is
causing all the predicted traffic congestion on the A2, but worse. As very
attentive readers may know I drive to Chingford once a week and have done so for
20 years or more. I am well used to the Northbound delays in the late afternoon
and have become an expert in how to slip into the traffic queue with the minimum of delay.
Few have a lower opinion of Sadiq Khan than I do and yesterday he took the £1·50
a trip tax from my bank account. However since the charge was introduced I have
sailed through Blackwall without any queuing either approaching or
within it. Never have I had to stop in the tunnel as was the norm previously and
around five minutes is saved on every journey. Lorries seem to have disappeared from it too.
Unfortunately the congestion on the A12 as it leaves the tunnel is as bad as
ever. I can only speculate that cheapskates are using Rotherhithe and then
returning to their old route.
Last night at around 11 p.m. Blackwall was closed
without warning. Not a breakdown but a planned closure with barriers everywhere.
TfL could have used the large signs that pepper the A12 to give advance notice
but incompetence being TfL’s stock in trade only the very last one a mile before
the tunnel gave the bad news.
Never mind, we have Silvertown now we all thought; but no. The access road had
been reduced to a single lane and what should have been a 40 minute journey took
nearly two hours. I think I might give up on my Chingford visiting.
At 10 p.m. when I checked, Waze did not give any indication of a problem.
Between the eyes
I don’t watch any TV so I am not indoctrinated by the left wing babble that
allegedly comes from the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky etc. and my news comes from a
Daily Telegraph subscription, on-line newspaper sites and YouTube. As such, I am
well aware that I may not be getting a rounded view of current politics and my
disdain for the lot of them may not be as widely shared as I might imagine.
On X I have taken to muting anyone whose idea of a rational argument is to lob
the C word at someone. I’d guess there is more than a thousand of them and
almost by definition that means I have muted a huge number of Lefties. Maybe I
have a distorted view of current politics as a result.
I am the oldest of my pub quiz team but not by much. One, a cousin, I know to
have been a Labour man all his life but Jeremy Corbyn persuaded him to swap
sides. Sir Iain Duncan-Smith has been getting his vote since then. Over
twenty-ish years I have learned not to talk politics
to the second oldest of of our group. A union man on a cruise liner for half
his life and then for Waltham Forest Council until retirement.
Yesterday to my surprise, he mentioned Keir Starmer’s EU surrender deal and he
didn’t pull his punches. ”The man is a lying arsehole and I cannot understand
why someone has not yet put a bullet between his eyes.”
It would seem that my opinion of Starmer and his evil government is not as far
removed from reality as I thought it might be. Next March we may see a total
wipe out on the benches of Bexley Council. A shame because they are not all bad
but their leadership nationally is beyond appalling.
Louie French
Following the intervention of his MP, @tonyofsidcup received a message from the
Crown Prosecution Service. It doesn’t say anything remotely interesting about
the hammer attack
on @tony’s home but it is better than nothing, Well done Louie.
18 May - Assault (on the greenbelt) and battery
A company called Net Zero Thirty Two is planning to build on the green belt
behind North Cray Road. “High quality agricultural land” according to local
Councillors. The company’s name alone should ring alarm bells.
Their plan (25/00833/FULM) is to install an
electrical storage battery but useful information on the
environmental impact is scarce. Net Zero 32 has provided many documents as you
might expect but whether they are wholly truthful may be debatable. The land is
described as having negligible botanical value.
Councillors Kurtis Christoforides and Cameron Smith have
written to nearby residents
urging them to object. The Planning Portal suggests that 69 may already have
done so but the site has not allowed me to read objections. With 53 complex documents submitted by the
developer it is next to impossible to make a sensible objection without days of
study and technical understanding.
The cut off date for comments is next Thursday.
The development would not have been possible without the recent intervention of
Ed Miliband who has changed the rules to suit his Net Zero agenda. Green belt is
downgraded to ‘grey belt’ whatever that means.
The battery will have a capacity of 200 megawatts according to the summary of the
proposal on Bexley Council’s website which anyone who passed their GCE physics exam
will recognise for the technical nonsense that is. What else would you expect from Bexley Council?
Assuming Bexley Council meant to say 200 megawatt hours the facility would
be, if my own consumption is typical, enough to keep 16,000 houses running for 24 hours.
I can only assume that the plan is to charge the batteries overnight when demand
may be low and discharge when demand - and price - is higher. Having installed
my own system a couple of years ago I do find myself wondering how noisy it
will be. The inverters tend to buzz and need cooling.
With so many people encouraged to charge batteries and cars overnight, for how much longer
will the early hours of the morning be a period of low electrical demand?
Several years ago I became quite friendly with a woman - no, not like that -
and we shared a few secrets, a few more glasses of wine together, did each other
the occasional favour, exchanged emails and had fairly frequent long telephone
conversations. Her mobile number still features on my list of regularly called numbers.
Then I discovered that she was not what she had seemed to be.
Beneath the smooth exterior there was a liar, probably a
thief and definitely a forger of letters. Foolishly perhaps, I let a few details slip to
mutual friends and showed them the evidence.
The result was that my female friend reported me to the police and signed an
extraordinary false statement which the police should have seen was untrue by
simply comparing the conflicting statements contained within it. But plod,
reliably unintelligent as always, decided to charge me with making false statements and summonsed me to Court.
Everything was a tissue of lies but it blighted my life at the time and for several years afterwards.
It is with this in mind that I will not be commenting on the news that so many
people were keen to tell me about yesterday. I have been hearing about this
latest case of friends falling out for the past couple of months and the story is not unlike my own experience. I do not
know where the truth lies. In my own case it was clear cut, the woman in
question who now claims to be a reformed character, had put her name to several very obvious lies, but this
new dispute does not rely on the written word, so potentially more
difficult.
I will not be speculating on accusations which are now in the public domain.
14 May (Part 1) - A correction
Yesterday’s photo of
Bexley’s longest pothole was taken
from an email which @tonyofsidcup sent to Councillor Lisa Moore (Longlands) on 12th May. I
assumed that it must be a recent photograph, but I was wrong. Yesterday Lisa
sent @tony an up-to-date photo and explained that the road had already been resurfaced
and would have been done earlier if it was not for Greenwich Council and TfL sticking their oars in.
Councillor Cameron Smith, Chairman of the Transport Sub-Committee, sent me what was essentially
the same message, that the road was resurfaced more than a week ago using part of the £4·5 million the Council
allocated to road improvements.
13 May - The reason it is called Longlands?
The Council ward on Bexley’s South Western border is called Longlands and this pothole may be its justification.
The Councillors for Longlands are Lisa-Jane Moore and Andy Dourmoush. The Labour Government’s claim to have handed Bexley Council
£900,000 to fill potholes may be the fiction that the Conservatives
and the Highways Manager said it was.
In
far away Belvedere the bins are still not being collected reliably.
Just as at
the end of March, I put out my neighbour’s bin the evening preceding
collection day - Saturday 10th May - and once again it was ignored. I have no
idea why. It is not full and has not been given a red ‘adulterated’ tag.
The Council’s proud claim appears to be unadulterated BS. (Now
increased to a fictional 99·93%.)
From the latest Bexley Magazine.
Pretty much every day sees a new example of police stupidity and fascist
tendencies. This weekend it has been the Kent Constabulary (upset by Brexity
things) but it should not be forgotten that it was the institutionally corrupt
(™ the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel) that put the idiots up to it.
Let’s add to their embarrassment - not that they seem to be susceptible to such
things - by reminding you that the Met did nothing about
the hammer attack on @tonyofsidcup’s
home by an identified individual with a motive and videoed in the act until
heavily leaned upon by local politicians including Louie French MP.
Even then the Met gave the case to a part time policeman to investigate but they did
manage to submit a file to the Crown Prosecution Service on 13th November 2024.
The CPS almost immediately asked the police for more information which was
submitted just before Christmas. As far as @tony knows the CPS has been sitting on it for nearly five months.
His enquiries have fallen on deaf ears.
As for Kent police, they are most definitely corrupt and I include the office of
the IPCC in that. I have all the relevant papers to demonstrate the truth of it but even my MP could not get an
honest answer out of them.
8 May - Bexley Council says this is totally acceptable
My road was blocked to all but the smallest of vehicles all day today because of the
ridiculous practice of end on parking which Bexley Council refuses to address. Unless the proposed
Experimental CPZ includes marked bays it will do nothing to help the situation as the van belongs to a resident who could buy a permit.
P.S. 9th May. Still the same this morning. Fortunately there was a bank
holiday on Monday
so our three dustbin lorries are not due today. (Three because for reasons
unknown the small flats are on a different green bin schedule to the houses.)
Only a Labour MP would deny that Reform UK secured a stunning victory last
week over the UniParty. They were of course pushing against an open door in the
shape of a Tory Party which has been anything but for ten years or more and a
Labour Party that has once again demonstrated how corrupt, incompetent,
dishonest, self-serving and anti-British they can be. This time with bells attached.
Old school politicians have reaped their reward nationally and locally and Bexley Councillors seem
to be in total disarray based on the small number of contacts there has been
with them in the past few days. Running for cover when they can.
Former
two times Mayor James Hunt, now an Independent Bexley Councillor for not being one of the Leader’s
favourites any more has been particularly outspoken. He thinks the Conservatives
are finished in Bexley and he may well be right. They are finished in Kent of
all places where a former Bexley Councillor is angling to be leader.
Except that I am under threat of being sued I could link to old blogs where she
did reasonably well as a Councillor in Bexley and Committee Chairman. Because of that
threat you won’t find much on the Reform convert on Bonkers;
it is just not worth the hassle but one must wonder why I am under so much pressure to
sign a Gagging Order. Just what is it that I might know but which Reform is so
keen to make sure that you don’t?
I have not signed any such order though as it happens I really cannot be
bothered to dig out the old files on the subject. On balance I would rather
Reform succeeded in governing in a professional, and dare one say, honest, manner.
With so many inexperienced Councillors elected in Kent they will need someone who
might know the ropes.
From BBC website.
6 May - Inconsistent enforcement
Bexley Council still
refuses to
accept my reports when a dropped kerb is obstructed by six or eight inches but not far away a neighbour reports
much smaller infringements with total success.
It’s trivial but maybe it is special treatment for me.
Perhaps the more blatant the infringement the less likely it is that a PCN will result.
Photos 1 and 2 taken today. Photo 3 last week.
The vans have access to the grassed area albeit via a less direct route.
Last night, around 11 p.m. I managed to get home with only inches to
spare because of end on parking and a van partially on the footpath right behind it.
5 May - Reform UK on Bexley’s doorstep
Reform
did quite a lot better in last Thursday’s elections than many expected
but maybe not those with an ear to the political ground. Do you know anyone who
is not a train driver, a civil servant or on benefits who thinks Labour has done
anything laudable? And the Conservatives are mainly Limp Dems so barely worthy of
consideration nationally. They lost a lot of seats (674) as was to be expected
after doing so well in 2021 but Labour who did very badly that year and might
normally have been expected to bounce back lost more seats. (187.) One
might argue that Labour got the biggest bloody nose. Well done Keir.
Reform UK is far from perfect and harbours some extremely dodgy characters but
which party does not? They are now parked on our doorstep having taken over Kent
County Council and Dartford Council. (57 of 81 Councillors in Dartford are now
Reform.) What a shame that the Police and Crime
Commissioner was re-elected last year. Another dodgy character.
Former Bexley Counclllor so maybe not surprising.
Bexley’s Councillors must be worried for May 2026,
Three former Councillors (Felix di Netimah,
James Hunt and Nigel Betts who we
are not allowed to talk about) have fallen by the wayside since 2022 and unlikely to
be seeking re-election and several are scrambling for safer seats; though none are truly safe any more.
The rumour mill says that the Leader may decide that she is no
longer fit enough to
get around easily and there has been comment suggesting that West Heath ward
may be changed considerably. Brian Bishop is apparently no longer a Barnehurst
favourite and has been eyeing up Blackfen and Lamorbey. Cafer Munur is reported
to have done the
Chicken Run to Blendon which may be a safer Conservative ward. Frazer Brooks who is rarely heard
of here allegedly had to fight
for his Falconwood seat and no one wants to be in Sidcup where Reform UK did
better than was deserved last July. (They say they will sue me if I say too
much about Reform in Sidcup and several
General Election reports were removed
from Bonkers a few months ago in the face of such undemocratic threats.)
Andy Dourmoush no longer runs his chicken factory in Erith so is not qualified to stand here again and
Cheryl Bacon has already said she
will not stand in Sidcup next year. Understandable given that her husband is MP for Orpington and presumably lives
there now. Which leaves Councillors Diment and Slaughter to defend their Sidcup patch.
Note: Today is the beginning of the VE Day celebrations, hence the 80 year old photograph.
3 May - Council meeting - Leader’s report
The written report was 31 pages long and covered…
• Conservative Bexley not being given a share of the £600 million Recovery Grant
despite being in greater need of it than the London Labour boroughs that have
benefited.
• The 800 Bexley Boxes designed to combat the Labour Government’s attack on the elderly.
• Bexley residents being penalized by higher Tunnel Tolls than those living North of the river.
• A welcome for
Tanusha Waters who replaces
Jane Richardson.
• The Care Quality Commission’s upcoming inspection of Adults’ Services.
• The opening of the first Family Hub.
• Improvements in the recycling rate. (Bexley in 3rd place in London.)
• Objections to bus 472 (Abbey Wood to North Greenwich) being replaced by a limited stop Super Loop
S11 over the same route.
…and many other things few of which were discussed at the meeting.
However the Leader added to her written list and singled out former Councillor
Daniel Francis “who in Westminster had applauded a Great Big Public Health
increase for Bexley when in reality the borough got nothing. A percentage of
nothing is nothing and Bexley is still second lowest in London. No Conservative
borough received any part of the £600 million Recovery Grant”.
However Bexley has found money for potholes, playgrounds and upgraded CCTV.
The Leader confirmed that the SL3 Superloop is not going to be delayed by
an
unnecessary diversion into Bexley but there were a few lines in the written report that said
minor changes elsewhere on the route (parking restrictions?)
will attempt to speed it up. Apparently unaware of the geography of
the borough or the raison d’être of Superloops the Baroness said that the Council
had asked for the proposed SL11 to make a massive diversion into Welling. As a
Conservative Councillor said to me a month or so ago, she is losing it.
Councillor Nick O’Hare (Conservative, Blendon & Penhill) mistook the Leader’s Report for Question Time and
asked the Leader to brag about the transformation of Danson Park. £556,000 has been spent on it
in the past year. £220k. on the water facilities, £65k. on toilets, £99k. on
tennis courts, £62k. on the lake and £100k. on upgraded footpaths. Where the
rest of the £556k. went was not revealed but maybe it includes Lesnes Abbey
which is to get another £250,000 in the immediate future.
Councillor Philip Read, Chairman of the Audit Committee) took a similar approach
to Nick and asked the Leader to put a positive spin on the Auditor’s Report. “Bexley has the right processes in place.”
Labour Leader Stefano Borella asked if the Bexley Box scheme will be repeated
this year when the Winter Fuel Allowance is not resurrected. “was it political
posturing?” He went on to say that withdrawing the WFA was a Conservative idea
floated in 2017 but forgot to say that the idea was rejected as being a
thoroughly bad one likely to kill 4,000 people. (Labour’s estimate.) On firmer
ground he said that Bexleyְְ’s adjustments to
the Council Tax Reduction scheme were “a disgrace”.
There was no indication that Bexley Boxes will go out again next Winter.
Stefano said that contrary to Bexley getting left out of various grants, it was
one of only seven London Boroughs to get a share of the Violence Reduction Grant
and listed a number of reasons why Councillor Bishop was wrong about
the Community Centres being in a good state. They are closed, falling down
and in trouble with the heating systems.
2 May (Part 3) - Council meeting report - The Motion and the Labour Amendment
A major downside of not attending a Full Council meeting
in person is that one doesn’t get to see Amendments to Motions. Probably I
should have included Howard Jackson’s Motion in this morningְ’s report but I felt
it was a bit too long but now that Labour Leader Stefano Borella has asked me to
tell you what his Amendment was it becomes essential to show Councillor Jackson’s original.
Without seeing the Labour Amendment I had visions of it being too difficult to
integrate various other conflicts into a narrative aimed at Ukraine. Having seen it I
cannot see a particularly good reason for not accommodating the Labour Group’s
ideas. However it appears to be a rule in Bexley that even the most reasonable of
Conservative Councillors will never cooperate with the opposition. Probably the
Baroness has issued one of her dictatorial edicts.
Stefano has given his opinion on things in
a Press Release. (PDF)
Councillor Jackson’s Motion.
The Labour Amendment…
Labour Group Amendment.
2 May (Part 2) - Council meeting report - Motions
After Question Time came Motions; long delayed as
usual. This one had its origins in 24th February 2022, the day Russia invaded
Ukraine, and was presented by Councillor Howard Jackson. (Conservative, Barnehurst.)
If you believe Putin is a ruthless killer, sending missiles into populated
areas, torturing prisoners and captured civilians including thousands of
children, and in general terms a threat to the civilised world, you will not
have learned a lot from Howard’s impassioned speech, and if you did; where have
you been for the past three years?
Howard reminded us that the invasion began in 2014 and that “Russia is a full
blown fascist dictatorship intent on grabbing its neighbours land. No different
to Hitler”. He went on in similar vein for ten minutes. “Putin boggles the mind
by killing people on our soil and cutting internet cables.”
The UK strongly supported Ukraine and Bexley opened its doors to refugees.
219,000 Ukrainians came to the UK, Bexley residents have provided homes for 500
of them and facilitated local employment.
Howard’s plea for continuing help for Ukraine was seconded by Councillor Cameron
Smith. “Ukraine is not a quarrel in a country far away” as Chamberlain said
about Czechoslovakia in 1938. It deserves continuing help. “We stand with Ukraine.”
Labour Leader Stefano Borella agreed with the Motion 100% but wanted to go
further by including the conflicts in Gaza and the West Bank, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Sudan, Yemen (Councillor Taylor’s addition to Stefano’s list) and The Congo in an Amendment.
“My Amendment adds strength. I want all refugees to find a home in Bexley.”
Councillor Nicola Taylor (Labour, Erith) expanded on Stefano’s theme and
claimed that the International Court Of Justice had ruled that Israel had
committed genocide. (The
BBC explains that is a misinterpretation of the ruling.)
Councillor Zainab Asunramu (Labour, Thamesmead East) said she was appalled by Councillor Jackson’s attitude to
Gaza (apparently he had said something pro-Israeli at
another meeting) and alleged that some of his colleagues agreed with her. She went on to
catalogue the dreadful atrocities rampant in some countries.
Whilst both parties were in broad agreement on the Motion, the Conservatives
were in no mood to widen its scope. Councillor Jackson said his Motion was about
Ukraine and Russia’s attack on the UK itself (Salisbury etc.) and he did not
want to see it diluted. He therefore rejected it as did all the Conservatives.
Next item: the Leader’s report.
Sometimes everything seems to go wrong at once. While
building my daughter’s new computer last weekend I noticed that a clip that
holds in one of the RAM sticks was missing. The RAM clicked in OK and it
subsequently passed the memory test but I notified the supplier on Monday
afternoon. They asked for
a photo and then requested I send the motherboard back. It cost me £16 via DPD.
Also on Monday I sent a letter including an expensive gift token so I paid for Special
Delivery. By Wednesday the Royal Mail Tracker said it had not been delivered
and I went on to their website to see what should be done about it.
It gave instructions for when the Tracker says delivered and the recipient disagrees but
nothing about the reverse - my situation. After going around in a circle several times I
filled in the form relating to disputed delivery.
Today RM said I should go back to the website and follow the instructions. How useless is that?
In connection with my daughter’s new PC I had been watching the price of a UHD
screen. The Amazon price had been jumping around daily from £359 (when I bought
one for myself a couple of months ago) to £499. On Monday the price fell to £369
and I judged that was as good as it was going to get. I ordered two and Amazon
said they would be delivered by VOC Delivery on Wednesday. Never heard of them.
On Wednesday I awoke to an App notification that two screens had been delivered
at 9 p.m. on Tuesday evening and a signature had been obtained. Total rubbish.
Amazon’s website still said due Wednesday but that subsequently changed to
‘delivered’. I checked VOC’s website but the tracking number was said to be
invalid. I asked Amazon to call me which they did immediately.
Their operator agreed that the screens were most likely stolen in transit as
though it was an every day occurrence. He could not authorise replacements but
would put a credit of £738 on my account so I could buy again. I told him the
price had gone up by £49 each since Monday and he topped up the refund by £100.
Around 1 p.m, today DPD delivered two screens. A
couple of hours later VOC delivered two more. If I go through the returns
procedure I get a refund so now I have two unwanted monitors cluttering up the
house until Amazon collects them.
Like the Boomtown Rats, I don’t like Mondays.
P.S. On Saturday the gift token beneficiary told me he
received it that morning. Only four days late. The replacement computer
component showed up too. DPD runs rings (£16 for a 15 pound insured parcel
delivered next day) around Royal Mail (£8 for a letter delivered in five days) which should be put
out of its misery and handed over to someone competent.
1 May - Council meeting report - Questions
Yesterday’s Full Council meeting was commendably short at
114 minutes and could have been nearer an hour if only Councillors would confine
themselves to things that directly affect Bexley residents. It began by
remembering two former Councillors who had died; Alan Downing who as Mayor
appeared to take a perverse delight in antagonising members of the public who
attended his meetings, denying them use of the hearing loop system and
jabbing a threatening finger into faces when they objected.
Also Harbhajan Singh, Member for Erith
a very long time ago.
Seven Councillors had absented themselves from the meeting.
The first public question came from Mr. Shvorob who asked the Council Leader
which Bexley services are better than Bromley’s which receives less Government
funding than Bexley and still manages to charge £200 less Council Tax.
The Baroness said that Bromley collects more in Council Tax because its
properties are more expensive and in higher CT bands and it has more green
spaces. Pure bunkum of course. When I moved to Bexley on 7th May 1987 it was
because I could not afford to buy in expensive Bromley (it’s no different now) and it had the same amount of green
spaces and farm land then as it has now. Yet in 1987 Bexley and Bromley levied
the same amount of Rates. She also said that Bromley’s bigger population was a
factor in their services being better and cheaper. That only makes sense if the excess
population makes no demands on Council Services. Mr. Shvorob said he didn’t
follow her logic either. The Leader repeated her claim that if Bexley’s grant
was as generous as some other London boroughs it would be able to levy zero Council Tax.
Mr. S also asked if it was true that the number of children attending Children’s
Centres fell by 85% after the service was ‘improved’. Cabinet Member Chris Taylor
said it was not true but accepted that the service had moved from Universal to
Targeted Provision - so one might guess it is actually true. “The numbers are recorded in a
different way” but the rearrangements and drop in numbers reported was a coincidence.
In what may rank as the most politically charged question ever, a Council employee/pensioner asked why her
pension contributions were invested in Israel and therefore contributing to the bombing of Gaza.
She was told that her £35 million pension fund investment figure going towards the defence of Israeli could only be
true if it included major companies such as McDonald’s, Hewlett Packard, Sony and
Hyundai “and they do not go out of their way to bomb Gaza. The Pensions Committee
is obliged to do its best for pensioners”. The Council pensioner’s response was that
Israeli investments are rated close to ‘junk’ levels and should be disinvested.
She was told that only £81,000 of investment could be linked to
Israel and that is “less than 0·01% of investments. The investment decisions will not be
changed but the Labour Government’s move towards taking away such investment
decisions from Councils may become a factor in future”.
Councillor Craske (Conservative, Blackfen and Lamorbey) was upset that Bexley residents travelling
North through Blackwall or Silvertown tunnels were paying £8 a day to get to
work while those commuting in the opposite direction paid only £3 a day. Could the Cabinet Member comment?
Richard Diment said it was “a kick in the teeth” from Sadiq
Khan and will be costing Bexley commuters about £2,000 a year on top of which
the Mayor has halved LIP funding (Local Implementation Plan) to Bexley since his
election. £18 million for both Greenwich and Lewisham, Lambeth £19 million,
Southwark £23 million, Bexley £12·7 million.
Labour Councillor Anna Day (Slade Green) said that the £4 a trip tunnel charge was “a Boris
Tax” which is of course nonsense. The level of charges was set by the current Mayor.
Councillor Andrew Curtois (Falconwood & Welling) invited the Leader to heap praise on her Bexley Box scheme.
We were treated to a repeat of the well deserved attack on the Labour
Government’s disdain for the elderly and the criticism of Labour Councillors who,
to a man, were happy to boycott the Boxes and see pensioners suffer and freeze. The Leader once again
thanked local businesses for their contributions and kept up her unblemished
record of never crediting any resident who may have helped out too.
Incidentally; @tonyofsidcup discovered via FOI that no receipts were available
for money spent in local shops nor did the Council do any bulk buying and maybe obtain a discount.
Labour Councillor Chris Ball (Erith) objected to the decision to remove Winter
Fuel Allowance being labelled ‘Wicked’ and would a Bexley Box scheme be
organised for those impacted by the Council’s decision to
raise Council Tax by
up to 25% for the poorest members of society? He was told that it didn’t really
matter because there are not many people impacted by that decision and they can be helped in other ways. (Still a 25% increase though!)
Councillor Fosten (Labour, Belvedere) thought that the model for Community Centres should be
rethought (after Belvedere’s recently closed) but was told that with leases not
expiring until 2039 there was no need right now. Belvedere was a special case run
by Labour Councillors. The Labour Group shouted largely inaudible objections to the implication
that they had done a poor job of keeping Belvedere open.
The Mayor called the end of Question Time and out of date Motions followed.
