Last week, the Daily Telegraph headlined SSDC's payout to the ex-Chief Exec Phil Dolan and some of his (ex) colleagues. The numbers are quite eye-watering, especially when rate and taxpayers within SSDC's administrative area are facing draconian cuts imposed by Conservative Central Office. At the same time, very clever people, like Phil 'smug git' Dolan, are running off with truck-loads of cash and Councillors within SSDC sit silently as if it has nothing to do with them. Their silence, their willingness to be complicit in this sort of corporate mugging and their willingness to implement draconian cuts shows them to be the shallow hypocrits that we all suspect they were in the first place.
Its also worth mentioning that two of Somerton's 'resigners', Beale and Canvin, remain as members of SSDC so we can guess what sort of accountability they pursue there.
But returning to 'smug git', its interesting to read that, being a fully paid up member of the 'revolving door society' Phil just missed out on the top job as chief exec of Cherwell District Council and South Northamptonshire Council. I'm sure that Phil applied for that job because he had honed his corporate mugging skills at SSDC and wanted to try the same stunt twice.
In the meantime, SSDC have published a 'rebuttal' of the Telegraph story on the front page of the SSDC website. What is interesting is that the SSDC rebuttal doesn't take issue with any of the numbers. In fact, the SSDC story confirms the Telegraph's numbers but seems to complain that the numbers that were published are being misrepresented. The thrust of the SSDC 'rebuttal' is that all the dosh that Phil ran off with was just his due. How nice for him. Going to bed on a pillow stuffed with the taxpayer's money must be very very comforting.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, many people will be affected in very real ways by the cuts in services being imposed upon then because the government chose to bail out the bankers who almost destroyed our economy. The ConDems keep on saying, at every opportunity, that they inherited the mess from the previous government and I suppose, if they say that often enough, they themselves might just believe it. But the truth is that the cuts that we face are being imposed because the bankers screwed us and we were forced to bail them out to the tune of £Billions.Amazingly, for reasons that quite escape me, the bankers remain at the helm (assisted by Cameron and Clegg, who stay out of their way) and continue to run off with truck loads of cash. So Phil 'smug git' Dolan is a man of his time. He does nothing that his friends in other high places aren't doing and our elected representatives at SSDC remain silent. Benghazi, Cairo, Tunis .............. Yeovil? I don't think so.
Till next time, I'm still Niall Connolly