Einstein suffers apoplectic fit

SCC’s £4million per year spin machine seems determined to give our auditor a nervous breakdown.

Apparently the Executive Committee doesn’t know about the hundreds of millions of pounds in savings that Jonesy & Co. have been announcing, and are actually proposing to put the Council Tax UP!

Unlike the rest of the regulars down the Dog n’ Duck (who are still confidently expecting a decrease of £100+), Albert was not actually surprised by this. That’s because he never believed all that stuff, and even refused to sign up to our summary.

The bit he took exception to this time went as follows:

“For a typical Band D household the increase will be just 53p extra per week … For such a small amount of extra money from each household the Council is able to plan over £200 million of investment in key services such as roads, schools and social care over the next three years.”

[There it is again! That famous £200million! SCC’s favourite number! Ed.]

Anyway, according to the SCC website there are 190,000 households in the county. And according to Albert Einstein, 0.53x52x190,000x3 does not equal 200,000,000.

“Zis time it is out by more zan a factor of 10!” He squawked at the bar last night.

“So what?”, said Daffer (who’s got the maths “O” Level, remember), “That just means they’ve put the decimal point in the wrong place again.”

“But zis is not “investment”, it is “running costs”, zey can NOT use such language…” said Albert. “It is misleading, nein! it is vorse, it is FRAUD!”

Now, when an accountant who also happens to be a famous mathematical genius uses the “F” word, people notice. Especially in a popular local pub that hasn’t even been shut down yet.

Which is how Carla Young came to join in the conversation, and ended up talking about “Excellence” into the small hours, long after the men in white coats had turned up to haul poor old Albert off to the local nuthouse.

A very interesting young lady, Carla - believe it or not she just happens to be a Public Sector Transformer from London who has recently moved into our area.

What a coincidence!