HELLO READERS!

It is one year since Badger was lured out of the comfort of his sett to cast a jaundiced eye over the outside world. And what a year it has been! Starting almost from the beginning, Badger has managed to burrow away to find information and, where possible, to bring it out blinking and shy into daylight. Badger has written something in the region of 50,000 words over the last twelve months. Some pieces have been funny; some have expressed outrage in varying degrees of bemusement and dismay; but Badger hopes that they have, at least managed to entertain and inform.

The almost unfettered licence has been given to follow his nose has sometimes caused offence, but not too often, Badger hopes, and not to people to whom Badger did not mean to cause offence. With the caveat that causing offence to those Badger thinks deserve it is both a worthwhile pursuit and causes only those with something to hide to wriggle in discomfort or complain. Being one of the friendly woodland folk of whom tree-huggers are so fond, and ( as is customary on birthdays, there will be gime gifts. Being an odd sort of Badger, it is Badger that will be doling them out to those he deems most deserving. It is for you, Badger’s readers to decide whether the right people have had their just deserts (Badger checked the spelling this time!)  Public Servant of the Year.
This prestigious award is for the person who has done the most to expose the sheer incompetence at the heart of the administration of our County. The overwhelming winner of this award is Badger’s old chum ‘DIMOND’ DAVID PUGH. No single councillor did more to make sure that the Pembrokeshire public were made fully aware of just how supine, dim-witted and in the pocket of officers the !PPG Cabinet and its band of carpet-baggers are than ‘Dimond Dave’. Not a man to stint on digging a bloody big hole for himself and then to carry on digging, ‘Dimond’ Dave ranted and fulminated against those Councillors seeking information. He misled the Full Council; invented an imaginary wall on a building he claimed to have inspected; and said there was nothing to see in the grants scandal that has enveloped the council. The same scandal which has led to European funding being pull from other deserving Projects. How could ‘Dimond’ Dave have known what was afoot?

Well, he could have engaged his own critical faculties, presuming they exist, and done his own research. But no, he relied on the necessarily self-serving advice of officers who were tying to cover the tracks of their own serial incompetence and laxity (Badger said kindly).
Council Employee of the Year
Which employee has most contributed, whether deliberately or inadvertently to the gaiety of public discourse in Pembrokeshire? On the one hand Badger has to consider the claims of the Red Czar of the Kremlin, Bryn Parry-Jones, whose achievements go without explanation. On the other you have the claim of Doctor Doolittle himself, Dr Steven Jones the Council’s Director of Development, who memorably told the Audit Committee that anything found wrong with the Town Heritage Initiative and Commercial Property Grants Scheme in Pembroke and Pembroke Dock would amount to the equivalent of a few missing bread rolls from the canteen. Then we come to Gwyn Evans, the Council’s European Manager, whose Humpty-Dumpty like way with a dictionary and semantics belies his bean-counting background.

A tough call, this one. The little tin god in the CEO’s chair has come in for a lot of flak and a lot of attention. All of it richly deserved. On the other hand, he has let the muppets and puppets in the IPPG Cabinet do his speaking for him, without being quite so crass as to venture into the public debate himself. And it would be unfair to pick again on Gwyn Evans. After all, kudos should always go to the organ grinder and not his monkey. It is for this reason that the bland, arrogant and patronising remarks of Dr Steven Jones mark him out as a man apart.
As in only tangentially touching upon reality as he floats by in a cloud of self-contained self-assurance.

So: well done DR STEVEN JONES Badger sincerely hopes your future in industrial catering is a long and happy one. Remember bread rolls count when considering margin.
Business of the Year As the song goes: “You and me, we sweat and strain/ body all weary and wracked with pain”. But not if you were responsible for presiding over the almighty collapse of a business in hock to local businesses for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Mope, in those circumstances you just walk away and pretend that the accounts which showed Mustang Marine as your subsidiary were in error, even though the same accountants prepared them as prepared your own. You change your website as Mustang Marine was collapsing in effort to evade liability for Mustang Marine’s debts. Traders claim they were told that you stood behind Mustang Marine and that you would make sure they were paid. You had your own men involved at Mustang Marine, so you cannot say you did not know what was going on and what went wrong when money went on paying big directors’ bonuses and building new offices. Refineries come and dry docks go, but that old man river, the MILFORD HAVEN PORT AUTHORITY, it just keeps rollin’ along. Way to go Alec Don!
Trevor Purt Award
This award, formerly the Gordon Brown Memorial Cup, is given to the person who has created the biggest god-awful mess and then walked away from it to another well paid job.
On the basis that Bryn Parry Jones’ exit is not imminent and that Jamie Adams has the type of neck most often found on brass giraffes, there can be only one winner in the award’s inaugural year. Hats off, readers, to ‘Honorary Professor’ TREVOR PURT. Man. Legend. Beloved cost-cutting axe-man who thinks ‘excellence’ is synonymous with wrecking local health services and overseeing a series of decisions that has irreparably damaged the relationship between local people and their health care provider. The Rochdale Ranger rides off into the gloom of North Wales with Pembrokeshire’s curses ringing in his ears. Yes readers like TS Eliot’s Macavity the Mystery Cat, when the well-known brown and smelly stuff hits the fan (and it will) Pimpernel Prof Putt, won’t be there. Will we miss him, readers? It depends how big the field gun is and how accurate its ranging. (Watch out Betsi Cadwaladr! ‘Unforeseen recruitment problems’ ahoy!)
The Badger Award
That Badger has amused, annoyed, perplexed and informed his readers for the last twelve months is always nice to discover. Someone, whilst in their cups, said to Badger that he must really hate the Council, the Health Board and the Welsh Government. Badger was mortified. Badger LOVES them all. Without the constant stream of imbecilities pouring out of those bodies and others, Badger would have no material with which to work. But most of all Badger could not be Badger without the information readers send to him. And to you, readers, Badger gives his most personal and heartfelt award. His thanks.