The DISDAIN and DISREGARD that the Reverend Rees and his council boss friends hold for our elected councillors and the public was on full display when the Reverend decided to REFUSE to answer public questions at a Full Council Meeting because some of them may have proved HIGHLY EMBARRASSING.

 The Reverend’s senior managers went to work for the mayor convincing councillors and our idiot Lord Mayor Jos “Halfwit” Clark that ‘rules’ PREVENTED the Mayor answering public questions during a general election. Councillors eagerly accepted this ‘advice’ from their expert officers, apparently oblivious to the fact NOTHING in national nor local election guidelines prevents either mayors or council leaders answering public questions at meetings during an election.

 To add insult to injury, at this very same council meeting where council officers were busily INVENTING RULES on behalf of their coward mayor, councillors were asked to consider an updated ‘Member – Officer Protocol’. A document outlining how councillors and council officers needed to treat each other with ‘RESPECT‘! Might this reasonably include the expectation that council officers tell councillors the truth about election rules?

 However, the real kick in the teeth came the next day when council officers used the council’s official Twitter account to PUBLISH A PHOTO OF THE REVEREND and his cabinet sidekick, Anna Keen, promoting some crap mayoral initiative in Southmead in direct contravention of, er, ELECTION GUIDELINES TO COUNCIL OFFICERS. These simple guidelines state, “councils should ‘not publish any material which, in whole or in part, appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party’”.

 How could council officers possibly not think a photo of two senior members of the Labour Party PROMOTING their initiative in the middle of a general election would not appear designed to affect public support for Labour?

The officers involved are bent and biased