MANURE. Badger has been thinking quite a lot about manure in the days since last week’s Council meeting. Seldom, if ever, has so much been spread by so few for the benefit of even fewer – or for the benefit of one. Where Badger lives, one often sees tankers ferrying waste hither thither and yon and, at the right time of year, smells rich and foul-smelling ordure spread on the fields. Of course, the thing with dung is that in the right circumstances it promotes growth. It enriches the soil and enables it to be utilised to grown the kind of things important to humans: broccoli, mangel wurzles, and bureaucrats (although, left to their own devices, some bureaucrats will propagate solely from waste products). At County Hall last week, the only thing that manure was being used for was to obscure the truth. In much the same way as a startled squid will escape in a cloud of ink, a succession of statements were made by IPPG Councillors that ejected large quantities of nature’s own fertiliser over the proceedings. No doubt the IPPG collectively hoped either that people would be too appalled to dig through their efforts or that the ceiling-high and reeking mound of filth would deter their pursuers. Badger was particularly exercised by those concerned in education and safeguarding. Councillor Daphne Bush is a newcomer to Badger, although he has been aware of her peculiar brand of deranged loyalism for some time. Badger was particularly entranced by her eager toadying. Anyone would think she was repaying a favour. How wonderfully the wise leadership had managed to pass the
last Estyn inspection. Forget why we were in special measures.

It was all a long time ago. Let’s just rejoice, rejoice! Well, even a turd gleams if one rolls it in sequins. Cllr Sue Perkins, the spectacularly graceless Labour turncoat, extolled the virtues of a school of which she is governor. A governor of a school which ignored the wishes of parents. A governor of a school which “needs to improve outcomes for learners”. A governor who thinks, as well she might, that big is better. However, a large amount of ignorant bilge delivered from Cabinet member is still a large amount of ignorant bilge. Sue’s desperate groping for facts to justify the Council’s lying stance on Hakin and Hubberston schools suggested that she had lost her way in the thicket of barbs and petty sniping she confuses for logic. Ignoring your constituents’ views is one thing, there is scarcely a member of the IPPO who doesn’t do that every time they rock up to vote as Bryn tells Jamie to tell them to vote. But ignoring your constituents and telling them that everything is roses in the garden when they can see fresh guano all about them is quite another. In June 2017, when she will most likely be an ex-councillor, Sue might want to ponder if there was any point in her political journey that ensured she occupied the seat next to her bestest buddy Ken “the voice of Ken” Rowlands on has-been row. Sue’s defiant proclamation to the masses that an independent investigation was not required into the way the Council handled the Mik Smith affair is almost certainly a staging post on her way out of County Hall.

From the !PPG benches, and while her colleagues sat abouther nodding rather like they were auditioning as stunt doubles for a car insurance commercial, Sue said it had all been looked at, lessons had been learned and she was sure that everything was now okay. We have heard that sort of language before from the IPPO seats on the Council. Remember Johnny Mirehouse? Who could forget the sound of the Angle Foghorn in December, as he boomed and rumbled in his lordly way about the grants scandal in Pembroke and Pembroke Dock: “Nothing to see here”? All been checked by them accountancy-wallahs. They know what they’re talking about those officer chappies. Sound, all of them. One of ’em read me a report that said everything was ‘rickety-boo’, as you crazy mixed up kids say nowadays.” Now then, readers: what happened next? Whoops. Sue’s words were echoed and added to by Jamie Adams. Now what Jamie said bears some close consideration.

Pointedly declining to apologise to Sue Thomas, who blew the whistle on Mik Smith in 2004, he repeated practically verbatim the letter that Bryn Parry Jones sent to her in November 2005. Talk about His Master’s Voice, readers. Using his knowing and regretful voice (#2 out of a very limited edition of 4) Jamie decided to attack the questioner rather than answer the question. Lying that Paul Miller had not spoken to the Director of Education about the Smith case, Jamie then went on to say: “I too have seen that correspondence (letter from Sue Thomas to Bryn Parry Jones) and I remain still or the opinion that the
whistleblowing of Mrs Thomas was separate from her correspondence to him. Further misunderstanding has occurred in relation to that correspondence. It does not refer to his Mik Smith’s behaviour, the CEO thought the letter intimated a breakdown in the relationship between herself and her line manager.” The email to Bryn Parry Jones says: “It has been intimated that there is some kind of professional vendetta being pursued against the above person. If this were true, why an there at least eight professional youth workers that I am aware of, with serious concerns regarding the work practices of (Mik Smith)?” Straight off the bat, there goes the thrust of Jamie’s point. But there is more, readers. And worse.

The email had already referenced — at more than one point — Mik Smith’s inappropriate conduct towards children. It also pointed out — with some force — that Pembrokeshire County Council’s views on “appropriate behaviour with children” was “widely divergent” from accepted or acceptable models followed by the Police, national bodies and other county councils. Now: Jamie. Let’s assume there is something between your ears. It’s a leap in the dark, but let’s just take that chance. Serious concerns about work practices inappropriate behaviour w i t h children, eight youthworkers with concerns. What does that sound like to you, Jamie? Does it sound like “your perceived problem seems, however, to relate to your personal circumstances and relationships with others”? That’s what Bryn said in 2005. Sounds like what you said on July 17 , 2014 Jamie. Dees not sound much like what was written, though: anything but. In the law of conspiracy, you can be guilty of wilfully turning a blind eye to the obvious. Moral culpability for what happened rests fairly and squarely with Bryn and with people like Sue and Jamie who continue to defend him. An unequivocal apology and a public enquiry is a bare minimum. In the meantime, Badger will just keep digging.