A WARM welcome to Pembrokeshire for the rag-tag band of racists, xenophobes, holocaust-deniers, and arm-lifting scum who visited us last weekend!
Of course, it would be unfair to call them Islamophobes. They looked like they enjoyed doner kebabs.
Nevertheless, it was a pleasure to see the Stella-sweating Blackshirts out and about spouting their Trumpian drivel.
As surely as the first sign of impending Spring is the call of the cuckoo, so it is that a band of onetime football hooligans, PayPal patriots, and demented grudge-bearers signals the very midsummer of madness.
It is, of course, a free country, and one of the essential aspects of freedom is the freedom to make a fool of yourself.
What’s very sad about this is the determination of a tiny band of protestors to harangue and harass another small band of protestors at an event that would otherwise have gone unremarked and unnoticed.
The symbiotic relationship between protest groups of different stripes is one of the ornaments of UK politics.
“Boo!” Goes one.
“Yah-boo, sucks to you!” Says the other.
The total sum of knowledge and wit delivered to the world because of these cultured interactions between defenders of free speech is precisely nil.
Metaphorically speaking, it reminds Badger of a beautiful line delivered by the late Linda Smith.
“I’m from Erith. We’re not twinned with anywhere. We have a suicide pact with Dagenham.”
There is a clear line between bringing an issue to the public’s attention and making an exhibition of yourself.
Undoubtedly, travelling down from Swansea to spread a little dismalness shows an unswerving commitment to the latter.
There are many reasons to visit Pembrokeshire in the summer.
The beaches, the coastal path, the woodland walks, the scenery, and the simple pleasure derived from propagating hatred and bile.
As Pembrokeshire is one of the least diverse counties in Wales, the Robinsonettes’ efforts would surely be better focussed elsewhere. For example, in Tiger Bay or Grangetown: areas of Wales’s capital where their proud determination to stand up for Paleo-Pale Rights would get the attention it deserves from those most in need of their aid and assistance.
Speaking of succour brings Badger back to issues of significantly more importance to Pembrokeshire than the clash between provocative tokenism and tokenistic provocation.
Last week, Badger wrote about the lack of affordable housing in Pembrokeshire.
When there’s a chronic shortage of housing for local people, Badger wondered why housebuilders continue to get permission to build £300k+ houses in areas in which there’s a tremendous shortage of affordable accommodation.
The areas in which the shortage is most keenly felt lie within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. An area in which the Council exercises little or no control over developments but must handle the consequences of planning decisions made by the Park’s own Development Control Committee.
That is a topic about which Badger has ‘Views’.
It is sodding ridiculous that there are two planning authorities in a county the size of Pembrokeshire. The Welsh Government must remove the Park’s planning function. You cannot have two local development plans in one county.
The duplication is pointless and pointlessly expensive. Two publicly funded bodies with different priorities in a critical policy area cannot and should not exist in our county.
Far better for there to be one authority responsible, and that body should be the democratically accountable one.
That is the Council.
Now, readers, Badger knows – he should, he’s pointed it out often enough – that the Council’s record on planning issues is spotty at best.
Many of the scandals that engulfed the last administration stemmed from chronic and systemic problems with how the Council managed its assets and administered developments for which it was either responsible or had oversight.
Like Planning Department’s across Wales, Pembrokeshire County Council’s suffers from long term underinvestment and has borne many cuts as local authority budgets have been squeezed. The executive-level leadership of the former Development Directorate has been woefully inadequate and short-sighted.
However, things are changing and mainly for the better.
The current Cabinet Member for Housing, Cllr Michelle Bateman, is trying to get things moving in the right direction. Her efforts to make the system work for those in need deserve applause, not least because the battle with institutional inertia is so great.
Michelle Bateman is hardworking, determined, and focused relentlessly on delivery.
Sometimes it must be like pushing water uphill.
There is no proposal too small and no detail so insignificant that some council officers will not seize it as an excuse to do nothing. And – if forced to do something – do it slowly.
Badger hears noises that things are improving in that regard.
Covid forced key officers and Cabinet members to work more closely together and give other staff the chance to share their ideas to improve how the Council delivers.
It’s an encouraging development arising from a disaster.
The greater the buy-in, the smoother the administration.
The shadow of Bryn Parry Jones’s leadership still looms over the Council. That’s something the Corporate Review acknowledged.
It kindly omitted to mention that most senior managers who ‘worked’ with Bryn-Jong-il remain in place.
Cabinet members carry the can when things go wrong.
Senior managers glide on, no matter what their guilt and incompetence.
It’s traditional.
It’s the Pembrokeshire way.
Hang around long enough and kiss enough ass, and advancement is assured.
That said, Badger has no doubt some Cabinet members – he can think of one in particular – are not popular with officers who must deal with them as part of their job.
Tough.
Badger has no doubt some officers – and he can think of one in particular – are not highly-regarded by members who must deal with them as part of their role.
Tough.
The Cabinet’s role is to determine policy priorities, guided by the input and scrutiny of members.
Officers’ jobs are to put the policy priorities of the Cabinet into effect.
Officers advise – a policy’s lawfulness, for example; but make no mistake, readers, the role of officers is to do what councillors want them to do as quickly as possible.
Officers used to going unchallenged by councillors and having Cabinet members parrot their self-serving answers to critical questions do not take kindly to proper scrutiny and criticism.
‘Tensions’ – as the Corporate Review says – ‘are common’.
Badger says they’re inevitable.
