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!

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".

National Anti-Bullying Week (day 2) - diagnosis

This is a serious week, for a serious subject (Organisational Terror, in case you've forgotten). No jokes.

So today, the regulars down at the Dog n' Duck would like to invite you all to examine the inner workings of your mind, to see whether you too are a Potential Organisational Terrorist.

Statistics have shown that POTs are most likely to be:

(1) recent recruits (watch out for Simon & Meic);
(2) newly elected (check out "question 3");
(3) refugees from the private sector (Yikes! That's the whole of IBM); and
(4) used to working in smaller organisations (Phew. IBM ruled out, our £400 million is safe).

As with drugs, young minds are most vulnerable. This is because they suffer from something called "idealism", also known as illusions. Fortunately Somerset County Council has an award-winning inducktrination program that has a proven track record of turning illusions into delusions.

That program uses the techniques of NLP ("Neuro Linguistic Programming" for those of you who are still not familiar with the inner workings of Excellence) to identify an individual's susceptibility to POTism.

What happens is this. To prepare for your journey, you do all that deep breathing, relaxation, visualisation, envisioning, and self-realisation stuff. Then you allow your mind to range freely over the Strategic Excellence Agenda and Service Delivery Branding Options and all the rest of it.

At this point, if your mind cannot be cleared of doubts and insists on returning to practicalities, and vernacular expressions such as "that ain't right!", then not only are you an ignorant yokel, but you have a problem.

Sorry, I meant "we" have a problem.

"Our" problem is that you are a Terrorist Outrage waiting to happen. There are two options. Either you can get rid of yourself, or you can read the advice being posted later this week.

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!

Don't rely on Cornwall!

Sorry to put a dampener on all the excitement generated by Jonesy’s bid for the Cornwall job … but we have to be realistic.

By the Law of Unintended Consequences, all these blogs and YouTube videos, born as they were of frustration, and sharing a desperation to get Jonesy out of Somerset, may have the opposite effect.

If the Cornwall selectors do their job properly they will certainly happen upon the West Eye View programme, not to mention these blogs. They be asking questions such as the three I put to the Local Government Chronicle as being worthy of answers …

(1) Is it the case that during 2005/2006 the Manager of the ISiS Project made complaints of harassment or similar against the Chief Executive of Somerset County Council?

(2) Is it the case that, after several months' absence on sick leave, the Manager of the ISiS Project subsequently received a severance payment of an amount in the region of £140,000 from Somerset County Council?

(3) Is it the case that during 2007, and again during 2008, the Chief Executive of Somerset County Council made a number of complaints to the Standards Board about Councillor Paul Buchanan (who had been deputy leader of the ruling group prior to the first complaints), and that the Standards Board has either declined to investigate, or has investigated but failed to uphold, all of these complaints?

Neither Somerset County Council nor Jonesy himself seem to have done anything to deny or clarify any of the above, but sadly I don’t think that will be good enough for the Cornwall selectors.

And these three questions are only the beginning. They lead unhappily into the whole sorry story about misuse of public funds, dodgy management, abuse of position and what have you. In Somerset, like Liverpool before us, we have come to take these things for granted. We have also come to accept that straight questions will not get straight answers from Jonesy and his crew.

However the Cornwall selectors do not have to accept this. In fact they would run a grave risk in appointing Jonesy while there are so many unanswered questions about his conduct and competence circulating in public. Somerset’s selectors, back in 2003, could at least plead that they had no knowledge of such issues.

Another thing to remember is that Cornwall did not get to where it is today by alienating over 80% of the population.

But all is not lost! This may be the perfect opportunity to finally get some answers. And who knows, if Jonesy really wants the Cornwall job then they may turn out to good and honest answers.