24 July (Part 1) - The power has gone to his head already
It is with a sense of relief that I announce the end of the current series of
council meetings. Seven were crammed into two weeks and now all that has to be done
is write something about the final two.
They all went off at least reasonably well and last night’s full council under
new mayor Howard Marriner particularly so. Anybody who watched the webcast would
find it hard to believe that not long ago a bad tempered shambles was the norm.
As mayor, Councillor Val Clark knew exactly
how to work up both opposition and public to a frenzy; now
it is all sweetness and light. Last night councillor Craske came across as a perfectly
decent sort of chap who would never in a million years resort to homophobic
blogging and councillor Philip Read can make an entertaining, if irrelevant,
speech which bears no resemblance to his cock and bull designed to put residents
behind bars. Four years of reporting and latterly the webcasts has tamed the
brutes and thank goodness for that.
Whilst
councillors may have learned to keep out of trouble some of the council officers
haven’t. The new Deputy Chief Executive Paul Moore seems to be intent on making
a spectacle of himself. He’s the overpaid chump who told me I must delete
a blog
that revealed that a friend of Mr. Kevin Fox had worked at 10 Downing Street,
something I had picked up from the friend’s own blog. What sort of cretin gets
into a tizzy over revealing something that is already on the public record? A
cretin like the new Deputy CEO presumably.
Last night (and it isn’t the only recent example) he was in full on ‘I’m looking after my friend Kevin’ mode. Elwyn
Bryant found himself sitting quite close to Kevin Fox and took the opportunity
to ask him if his recently rejected question
would be considered for the next council meeting.
Paul Moore crossed the council chamber (picture coming later in full report) to say “Stop bothering Mr. Fox” as if
Kevin Fox is a spotty school kid unable to answer for himself and when Elwyn
looked at him in disbelief added “The meeting is waiting to start”. There were
fully four minutes to go. Paul Moore: how did we come to have a silly sod like him as Deputy Chief Executive?