Tsk, tsk, Bromley Conservatives.

There is a council by-election campaign underway in Shortlands ward, Bromley where the excellent Anuja Prashar is the Liberal Democrat candidate. (So excellent, I’ll forgive her for organising a raffle once that broke all my Lib Dem raffle rules.) She has been campaigning against council plans to axe the lollipop ladies at two local schools and, as part of that, presented a petition signed by 283 residents to the council.

And then things started being done differently…

For the first time, Bromley Council decided to respond personally and directly to all the signatories on a petition, posting out a letter to all of them – using council stationery and council postage – from the relevant Conservative Cabinet member, Colin Smith.

A very generous soul might think that perhaps Bromley Council had been planning to start writing directly to every petition signer and it’s just chance this started during a council by-election campaign in response to a petition organised by a rival candidate. Oh and that the council wanted to spring a pleasant surprise on everyone which is why that decision had been kept secret.

But even such an extremely generous soul might struggle a bit when it comes to the text of the letters. For what is in them? Not simply a reply on the issue of the petition, but a defence of several other controversial council policies, none of which were mentioned in the petition and even promoting the council’s work in other areas.

The Chief Executive has been asked to explain what his council is up to and the District Auditor has been asked to investigate.