Comic: “I say, I say, I say, my dog’s got no nose”.
Foil: “How does it smell?”
Comic: “Bloomin’ awful”
Yes, it’s January’s Wokingham Borough Council’s Executive sketch and skit show, but it’s unclear whether the scriptwriters were having an off year or a year off. (For a report on the meeting, see page 18).
Salty powers
Oh. The irony. With extra iron…
The conduct of the Standards Committee was brought into question in a ‘once more unto the breach dear friends’ sort of a way and the declamation that followed was inspirational…
Errr … better make that perspirational and you’ll get the picture. The bow-tied one apologised for the “honest mistake” – honest, he did. The composition of the committee was awful … the committee was awfully established … its decisions … are awful … and it was awful for the council to change it the way it did …
Eh?
What’s that?
Oh, I see.
Apologies to one and all, I appear to have genuinely misheard the eeder and many ‘l’s are missing from the above quotes of what the eeder actually said. It’s an ‘L’ of an error on my part and nothing to do with the shockingly bad audio – honestly. It’s an ‘honest mistake’.
Rather Fed
Up, along with the “honest [John] mistake”, there followed a contrite admission that despite the awfulness of the situation (or its legality) for two years “neither had any member of the committee, nor officers, nor members, nor the press raised this issue previously”. Then, “If there is a fault it is jointly and several of all”.
Hmmm, jointly and severally responsible?
That puts a new light on things – that the press should be jointly and severally liable for the “honest mistake”.
So in case you weren’t aware of the roles that a single “honest mistake” could be responsible for …
… until a member of the public brought matters that had been artfully hidden, entirely awesome, in plain sight, awfully agreed by council etc, etc, and so on and so forth … that a single person could be:
- Deputy Exec Member for Planning
- Deputy Exec Member for Highways
- Chairman of the Standards Committee
- Primary consultee on Member Conduct Complaints
- Chairman of the Personnel Board
- Vice Chairman of the Constitution Review Working Group
- Member of the Special Executive Committee
- Chairman of the Executive Committee
- WBC nominee for the Local Government Association (LGA) General Assembly
- Leader of WBC’s Conservative Group
And who, in their “spare” time also happens to be … Leader of Wokingham Borough Council.
If anyone wanted to control everything that goes on in WBC, the phrase “Think you used enough dynamite there Butch” might come to mind about now. Provided it wasn’t an “honest mistake” of course.
Are you being Swerved?
But we weren’t done. No sireee, not by a long chalk, as the member of the public then went on to the supplementary with such choice morsels as “You chose to pack the Standards Committee with three very senior members of the executive” on the way to “requires you to consider your position as leader of the council” …
… “Er, no I don’t Philip, for the reasons I’ve given” came the reply and that was it.
Except that it isn’t – or wasn’t at the time of writing.
Because for Standards, the Leader as chairman and two of his Executive colleagues have now been replaced by the Deputy Leader and two Deputy Executive colleagues.
However, full council doesn’t appear to have approved these appointments, nor was the chairman elected by full council either (the fourth sentence of clause 9.1.1 a).
So that’s OK isn’t it?
Ah, but word from January’s kerfuffle, aka the Full Council meeting a week earlier, has it that one of WBC’s Scrutiny committees will be considering the role of the Standards committee.
Nobbles, sorry – nibbles anyone?
The last word
And there was so much more – WBC’s finances with ‘free’ town centres, a cost that doesn’t know if it’s a benefit or not, some quick-fire comedy on traffic modelling and a proverbial ‘good question’ that was and is entirely silent.
Oh, and 22 householders will be having their homes bought then demolished as WBC undertakes its most ambitious building project yet.
So future topics such as Words of a Blether; The Loyal – Clammily; Absolutely Fibulous; and so on … will all have to wait for another week.
Until then, and on behalf of taxpayers, please would WBC revisit its rules then play by them, remembering that that foul play, whether intentional or not, should have meaningful consequences?
