Friday the 31st

So an observation from the regulars would seem appropriate, and it goes like this:

Victims of bullying are like spilt milk - not worth crying over. As we have said all along.

All the Forces of Excellence have to do is apply a bit of heat, either with a blowtorch or a P45, and the stuff evaporates leaving nothing but a stain and a bad smell.

Then if they can string things out for long enough, even that disappears!

Who Pays Wins! ...

... is the motto of the"Special Excellence Service", or SES as some would have it.

Down at the D&D we reckon that this is in fact a load of bollox, as WE were the ones who paid for it all, and we most definitely did not win!

Anyway, for anyone who wants to see what the legal system does when someone without representation goes up against someone with unrestricted access to our wallets ... click here.

(WARNING! Link should not be attempted by miners or people suffering from high blood pressure, or indeed anyone who would rather that their illusions remain intact. Ed.)

A lesson for us all ...

... as Paul Buchanan is convicted of Organisational Terrorism in Taunton's first ever Show Trial, and confirming the validity of the Dog & Duck Code of Conduct for Somerset County Councillors!

Presumably this puts any of the new members who may have been considering asking questions "on notice".

It also confirms that it really wasn't worth getting out of bed for last month's elections.

Don't want to be smug or anything ... but we were right all along!

Flushed with Exc**ment?

Now is this really a £4 million headline?

Somerset taxpayers (all 190,000 of us) pay £20 each a year for Council spin, and we really do deserve better.

Even Alan (the 21st Century's answer to Judge Jeffreys?) wrote a better article on famous Taunton Toilets.

Perhaps the inspiration came while he was trawling? That might explain where the evidence of willingness came from!

Taunton Terror Trials - End Game?

The "incompetence or malice?" issue should finally be resolved in Taunton next week.

Let us be confident that the judges will do their jobs properly and establish who's who in the world of Somerset Terror, with no more evasion, distraction, distortion or spin.

Incredible as it may sound (especially to the regulars down at the Dog & Duck who have had experience), the story this time is that the Forces of Excellence were in fact the victims of bullying. Yep, that's right, same as perpetrators, but in reverse!

Now this may sound like a sick joke, but let us remember that an acknowledged "culture of bullying" was one of the building blocks of Excellence as Somerset knows it. Also, a lot of people now have experience of living under Excellence. They will know that it is has been standard management practice for anyone who asks unhelpful questions to be branded a "bully".

However, up until now, that has been a purely internal procedure. To the outside world, dissenters have always been presented as "Organizational Terrorists", at least since Venice. This implies some sort of subversive underground movement, rather than a display of jackbooted authority. And it's pretty obvious why - imagine headlines in the Sun:

Mouse Terrorises Cat!; or

Somerset Worm Scares Birds!

Anyone who wants the full background to the sordid little saga could do worse than check out Hansard. (P.S. - nice to see someone standing up for a political opponent for a change!)

As for next week, everyone at the D&D says:

Good Luck Paul!

A farewell to Excellence?

It has been pointed out to us that without Bullying we may also have to say au revoir (sorry, that should read “adieu”, get it right Duck!) to our old friend Excellence.

As for whatever it was that would have lain “Beyond Excellence”, well without the Bully Boys to tell us we’ve reached it, that will return to the realms of Scientific Impossibility. (Hey! Maybe that will speed Albert Einstein’s return from the Loony Bin! Ed.)

You see, as we have hinted in the past (but not properly explained – yet), there is an inextricable link between Excellence and Bullying in Somerset. It’s to do with these people from London and Brussels and places like that, who send little men called “inspectors” to Somerset. We’ll get Carla to explain how it works – next time she is in Somerset.

Meanwhile, we just hope that the new members will realise that the ignorant yokels won’t even notice if they shed the plus, or even a star or two. In fact, if it means more resources for libraries, PMCs, roads, achievement, care, etc. …. then we may actually welcome it!

A farewell to Bullying?

When new Leader Ken Maddock interviews Jonesy later on today, we hope he will make one thing, above all others, absolutely clear.

There must be no more bullying at SCC. No bullying of staff, and certainly no bullying of Councillors.

You see, the recently consulted electorate has a right to expect its representatives to ask questions of senior managers - however “unhelpful” such questions are considered to be.

We also have a right to expect that our representatives can ask questions without fear of incurring a trawl of the thousands of SCC employees to see whether they might have ever said, done or thought anything that anyone could possibly consider to be inappropriate, unhelpful, rude, exasperated, or downright despairing.

Not many people on God's Earth could survive such a trawl unscathed, and unless Ken gets this straight right from the start, then we really did waste our time at the booths on Thursday.

Thanks Ken!

Cultural Bullying?

Now that the elections are all over, the landlord is allowing us to post again. Hurray!

So … regardless of who wins the elections (party-wise that is), we feel that the issue of Bullying ought to be addressed by the new members. You see, down at the Dog & Duck we agree with Sir Chris Clarke that this sort of thing is a bit unhealthy, and really shouldn’t be allowed.

Some of the latest raw material can be found in this article, which needs reading ...

Expect more on bullying from the Dog & Duck in coming weeks, drawing on the archives and personal experiences of the regular and casual clientèle.

Allez Jim! Go Doug!

In the week that Somerset achieved its latest accolade: a well-deserved mention in the “Rotten Boroughs” section of Private Eye (“vindictive campaign backfires”); and Dog & Duck regulars achieved previously unimagined depths of despair; a bit of good news came in from – of all places – You Tube!

The latest “SCC – politico-administrative disaster area” video was, potentially, yet another wrench to the already pummelled gut of Joe Public. We saw it just before closing time on Friday evening. It had been up less than twelve hours, but had already been viewed more than 100 times!

At first even the battle-hardened regulars were shocked at just how rude and disrespectful Simon (£4 million) Clifford was to Mr. Buchanan.

‘Well, b*gger it Duck,’ said Pat, ‘just exactly who is supposed to be smearing who?’

‘Hang on, hang on,’ said Daff, ‘wind back a minute … that looked like our Jim!’

‘You’re dead right, Daff!’ said I, ‘and the other one’s Doug!’

Well, how about that for a turn up? At least one, maybe two representatives from Dog & Duck country apparently showing public support for Paul van Buitenen! (sorry, meant to say “Buchanan” – Freudian slip).

So it’s not just Sir Chris Clarke making a stand then. And the landlord was totally made up (Jim’s a mate of his) - so much so that he allowed us to write this post, which almost strays into the forbidden realms of “Politics”.

See the complete video here.

Maybe they’re not all a bunch of lily-livered lemmings! Maybe we will bother to vote after all!

And anyway - we're a County, not a "Borough".

And they expect us to bother to vote?

Hard to believe, but some of the regulars were approached by electioneering types yesterday.

Apparently there is this thing called a "Council Election" coming up, and a bunch of them were out there with their clipboards and surveillance footage. They were trying to persuade the ignorant yokels to get out of bed on some day next month to go down and vote for a new Councillor.

Meanwhile - and believe this or not, as you wish ... one of the regulars is actually a "leading light" of a high-powered local organisation. She was able to confirm that there is in fact an election coming up soon, as it was mentioned at a meeting of this particular body. There was an issue, you see, over something the Council was supposed to be doing (no! not filling in potholes on the roads - we've given up on that one!).

It seems that one board member suggested that now would be a good time to raise the issue with the relevant Councillor, given that there was this election coming up. The suggestion was greeted with derisive hooting and snorting, and a scornful 'you don't seriously think the Councillors run that place do you?'

As the Dog & Duck is most definitely a secret society (Landlord's rule 1), our colleague was obliged to say nothing throughout this exchange (which became quite heated by all accounts). However, she did tell us all about it last night, in a discussion about the depths to which the expectations of Somerset residents have plunged over the past few years.

The discussion was prompted by this article about how the Buchanan saga has been allowed to drag on YET AGAIN, and how the ruling Junta has managed to drag Sir Chris Clarke into the fray. Now, he's one we HAVE heard of. He was leader of the Council in the days when the politicians were in charge. They even had a word for it. Let me see ... oh yes! "Democracy" they called it.

Down at the Dog & Duck we have another term for it. We call it "the good old days".

GUTTED!

We have just come across this - Mr. Liddell Grainger's latest speech about Wonderland.

Everyone is agreed. This is NOT FUNNY.

Yet another serious sense of humour failure is blighting the Dog & Duck, thanks to Jonesy's shower.

Daffer is on the warpath with a filleting knife. Normally it's used for fish when he's at sea, but he would like to make it clear that if half of what ILG says is true, then it will work perfectly well "for that little squirt that I'm ashamed to share a name with ..."

Organisational Terrorism in the spotlight again

Nice to see that the Beeb (radio 4 no less) and the Man are taking an interest in how to create Excellence.

Famous OTs being unmasked and hopefully getting their just desserts include Paul Van Buitenen (nice pseudonym Paul - but just a teeny weeny bit obvious innit?) and Sherron Watkins. Both of them feature in the hall of shame referred to in the story about Somerset's War on Terror.

But I would not like to have to clean Jonesy's underpants if anyone raises this at today's lunch in Frome! It is one thing swanking and bullshitting in front of a bunch of foreigners in Venice, quite another to risk facing your victims direct. (Whether they like it or not, Frome is still in Somerset, just about.)

It's like a voluntary form of restorative justice. Whatever complaints there may be about Jones - you have to admit he's got balls!

Somerset's Darkest Days

I try not to blog when my sense of humour has failed. But today, today has to become an exception.

First, a rumour that Mr. Buchanan may be innocent. There is however no confirmation of this on the Council's website. In any normal Local Authority, the news that a leading Councillor has been cleared by the Standards Board would be something to celebrate. In Somerset's darkest days we wonder whether it will even be reported. Give it time? Maybe.

But as they say in the land of Excellence, "let's park that one". It has been trumped.

There is no easy way to say this. Somerset County Council invested £25 million of our money in Icelandic banks.

In confirming this figure, the Leader of the Council is alleged by the BBC to have said "...the money represented 2.5% of the overall portfolio..." and "...the authority had always tried to be prudent and spread investments..."

£4,000,000 a year on spin, and that is the best they can come up with?

Let's re-spin it.

"2.5%"? That means the Council is sitting on £1,000,000,000 of our money (yes, nine "zeros"). That is more than £5,000 for each household. Why in the name of Alan Jones have they been putting the Council Tax up every year?

"spreading investments"? Iceland makes up 0.003% of the world's population. Somerset's investment represented £100 for every member of that population. An equivalent investment in the banking system of the United Kingdom would amount to £6,500,000,000. If every Council in the UK made a similar investment it would come to £820,000,000,000. The Financial Crisis would be over.

"prudent"? It makes you wonder where they've put the other £975,000,000 that they took from Somerset's Council Tax Payers.

Where was Roger Kershaw when BCCI went tits up? Obviously not learning any lessons. And the country wasn't even a couple of years into a credit crunch at the time (yes, "experts" reckon it started well over a year ago, but Taunton clearly did not notice).

Other councils have also been stupid and have lost money. But I don't care about other councils. They are not cramming Excellence down my throat and bringing Stars to my eyes. They are not fleecing me for the privilege of being subject to their fantasies. And as for the Plus ....

Somerset's War on Terror

Jonesy has repeatedly congratulated himself, at home and abroad, for his success in the War on Organisational Terror.

So who is this “enemy within”? What organisations have they terrorised? What did they do, or say, or write, that terrified their victims?

Even the most incompetent Googler will quickly work out that Organisational Terrorists did not come into being purely to interfere with Jonesy’s delusions of Excellence.

In fact this evil breed has been active since the beginning of time. The second person in history, and the very first woman ever invented, was also the first Organisational Terrorist. She upset the applecart in Eden (NB: the Garden of Eden was officially recognised as the world’s first “Excellent” organisation in the year 6000 B.C.).

Eve threatened to tell God about what she and the Man got up to behind the bike shed, so the Man got rid of her by feeding her to a serpent. It didn’t cost the Garden of Eden £140,000. In fact, it didn’t cost anything – there’s a thought!

More recently another lady, Karen Silkwood, asked all sorts of unhelpful questions. The victim was a Nuclear Technology Organisation. In accordance with the principles of sincerity that underpin Excellence, the Organisation earnestly welcomed these questions. Then she was killed.

As Jonesy said in Venice "It is important to get rid of these people.”

And it’s not just women, or foreigners. In fact the OTs have their own Hall of Shame!

Incompetence or Malice?

Another Somerset County Councillor has got into trouble, and there seems to be quite a lot of glee about it in the SomerBlogging community. It seems the chap in the slurry pit this time is one of Jonesy's mates.

But I, for one, am not interested. The thing I want to know is: how was the Buchanan issue concluded? You know, Cornwall's troublesome "question 3".

Most of us will recall how shifty Jones became when the subject of his relationship with the Standards Board came up on TV (West Eye View, 24/07/08). He was accused of using the Standards Board to get rid of Councillor Buchanan, and eventually put his hands up to it.

Somerset County Council continues to batten down the hatches on information, so as usual we will have to spell it out. Since they are obviously good at ticking boxes, perhaps these will help:

Have the complaints against Cllr Buchanan been upheld by the Standards Board?
Yes c
No c

If the answer is "yes" then we can make our sincerest apologies to Alan Jones for casting aspersions, and blame the Standards Board for not getting their fingers out. Their incompetence will have caused Jonesy a great deal of aggro.

On the other hand, if the tick goes in the "no" box ... (It is so simple isn't it? "Yes" or "No"), then the next question asks itself. Were the complaints the result of incompetence or malice?

Jonesy himself told us on TV how the complaints originated. In his own words, "evidence was gathered from people who supplied it willingly". He admitted that he himself then submitted that evidence to the Standards Board. In other words, he made the decision that the evidence gathered warranted investigation.

This decision was made by someone who costs us at least £160,000 per year (about £1 for every Council Tax payer), just to be in post. It was made by someone who also spends thousands of our pounds on legal advice every year, and who bought himself TWO new in-house lawyers this summer (a big one earning "up to £84,000" and a little one earning "up to £61,000").

So I say again: was this decision incompetent, or was it malicious?

Either way, there is a clear case for impeachment. No golden parachute. Not a penny more!

An Excellent team?

A Big Thank You to the Official Alan Jones Blog for introducing the latest member of the Explaining Excellence Team:
http://theofficialalanjonesblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/big-hitters.html

Down at the Dog & Duck we went over Simon’s job description again. Most of it is the usual incomprehensible Excellence bullshit, but amongst the "Main Responsibilities and Duties" we found this hairy old chestnut “To ensure effective working relationships with relevant partners”.

Now, who could be more relevant than the regulars down at the Dog & Duck? And me and Anon are only the spokespersons, remember that there’s a whole team of us down here! We are all looking forward to working with Simon on the difficult task of explaining Excellence to the ignorant people of Somerset.

With a salary of £70K (50% of £140K as Albert Einstein pointed out), and an annual budget of £4 million, we could really face up to The Challenge.

As you may remember, Al is a famous mathematician who is currently struggling with Jonesian Paradigms.

Then there is Pat, the famous philanderer, who always rings twice. Pat has been able to explain things about Jonesy that the rest of us would never have thought of. (Trailer!: Without Pat, Anon would never have been able to work out what Jonesy got up to in the bar one night after a hard day at the BT conference that got Mr. Buchanan into so much trouble … http://joiningthedotz.blogspot.com/)

And don’t forget Daffer, the famous sailor, who will help us to understand Jonesy’s nautical illusions. Being myopic, Daffer is also well placed to understand key concepts such as Jonesian Loyalty, which are the crucial building blocks of Excellence.

Anyway, in the spirit of partnership, we have asked Simon if he could spare some of his £4million to build us an outdoor smoking room down at the Dog & Duck, where Daffer can smoke his pipe. He needs it to calm down, poor chap – it is stressful sharing a surname with Alan.

New Code of Conduct for Somerset

It is important that everyone knows where they stand. So to simplify things, I propose a local code of conduct comprising 100 simple rules for Somerset County Councillors.

Rule 1: The Chief Executive knows best;
Rules 2-99: As Rule 1;
Rule 100: In the interests of importance, anyone who disregards any of rules 1 to 99 will be got rid of, in accordance with the Venice Protocols.

The local code of conduct also makes life easier for us lesser mortals, since it means we can not vote with a clear conscience.

And if we don’t like it … we can move to Devon, like Jonesy himself!

Excellent words from Venice!

Many thanks to Clara, who was at Venice last November, for putting us on to another rich vein of Excellent Jonesisms. For example, this is how he described his internal critics:

“There are organizational “terrorists”. These persons may even be in the top team or at the most senior level of the local authority. It is important to get rid of these people.”
Alan Jones, Chief Executive of Somerset County Council, Venice, 2007

When the history of Somerset County Council in the 21st Century is written, the story of how this intellectual cleansing was achieved will warrant a chapter all of its own. Perhaps it is something that the Audit Commission will examine in detail as part of the next Excellence inspection?

That way the Excellent practice they uncover can be spread to all parts of the country.

Jonesy also used the opportunity provided by Venice to chew over a few sour grapes left over from his failed attempt to spread his cloak over the Somerset Districts, going on about

“… misplaced rivalry between organizations, e.g., the district councils fighting one another and fighting with the county councils.”
Alan Jones, Chief Executive of Somerset County Council, Venice, 2007

Come here (Somerset) and say that, Jonesy, if you dare! And while you’re rubbing our noses in it from afar, how much did that particular débâcle of your making cost us?

Sorry folks, another sense of humour failure …. Jonesy and his crew do have that effect – must be the latest red letter about my Council Tax!

Source: http://www.items.fr/spip.php?page=globalforum&id_rubrique=82

The net closes in ...

Phew! Only yesterday I posted a link to a document on the internet, and today it has been shredded - allegedly at the request of the Standards Board ... see : http://www.scribd.com/word/removal/4074094

However according to the webstats over 400 people viewed the document before it was censored, including, you will all be glad to know, ME!

And in case you are worried about the fictional work in progress (http://joiningthedotz.blogspot.com/) this blogger, let me tell you, has a memory like a Supergrass. He can remember, with crystal clear photographic recall, documents that never existed at all. The dots are in good hands!

More to the point, during the months that this extraordinary 32-page document was up on the net, many of us had puzzled over a key question: was it genuine, or was it a fake?

You see, it certainly LOOKED genuine - layout, language, subject matter, etc. However when you read it closely (as I certainly did), the content was so extraordinary that I really did have doubts. Among other things, it showed Roger dropping Jonesy right in the slurry pit. Up to his neck in it he would have been (except that Roger pitched him in head first).

As time passed, I slowly came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, a hoax. The main evidence for this was that every time I drove past County Hall, the Plus Fours continued to flutter from the flag pole. If the document HAD been genuine, I had no doubt, the Plus Fours would have been promptly replaced with Roger's Noodly Appendage. Pour décourager les autres!

Anyway, of course, the fact that they have now gone to all the trouble (and our expense) of getting the thing removed does add considerably to the case for authenticity.

Which leads one to wonder - what actually has been done with Roger's ... wotsits?

The Somerset Inquisition?

People ask why I am indifferent to the IBM saga. It's quite simple really, I don't understand it. All I know is what they said on TV, i.e. it is going to cost us a zillion squid, but the Boss says it will save billions in the long run ("We in Somerset have a ten-year-plan"). All we need is faith in the Boss, and everything will be all right. As for IBM, well my Nan says they make really good typewriters.

It all sounded fine until they mentioned the name "Councillor Buchanan". To be honest, I had never heard of him up until that point. I knew about the Boss, and as I said last night was mightily pissed off when he accused me of worshipping the Spaghetti Monster on Valentine's day. I also knew that the regime in County Hall was harsh on employees who asked questions, raised concerns, expressed doubt, or otherwise behaved inappropriately. More about this another time, perhaps.

But a Councillor? This was taking things WAY too far. After all, these are the people we elect to represent us. I had even started writing to my own County Councillor to complain about the Spaghetti Monster and other issues. If they can be bullied, harassed and silenced, then what is the point of voting? This reminded me of Zimbabwe, and is the thing that really made me sit up and start paying attention.

It was quite clear that the Journalist was accusing the Boss of making up complaints about the Councillor who disagreed with him, and of then sending these complaints to the Standards Board (something else I'd never heard of until last week), in order to shut him up. Now I am not a shrink or a fortune cookie, but even I noticed the body language and saw the Boss literally put his hands up (both of them).

I also get suspicious when people answer a question with another question. In this case the Journalist asked the Boss why he had made "x dozen" complaints about the Councillor, and the Boss immediately replied "where did you get that figure from?" One can imagine the poor sod who revealed the figure being tarred and feathered and made to lick the floor of County Hall for the entire duration of his notice period.

The Boss did manage to calm down, and finally started talking about the complaints to the Standards Board. He spoke sternly, saying

"... evidence was gathered from people who supplied it willingly."

Those were his exact words - I wrote them down so as not to forget.

It made me wonder what would have happened to anyone who was not "willing". And why was "evidence" being "gathered" in the first place? It sounded like the Spanish Inquisition.