I’ve had several emails suggesting that, following his ill-founded personal attack on me at the recent meeting of full council, Cllr David Pugh should do the honourable thing and resign from the Cabinet.
I hadn’t realised so many people still believed in Father Christmas!
I must admit that I toyed with the idea of requesting an extraordinary meeting of the council to consider a motion of no confidence in the cabinet member for economic development and tourism, but realising he is fast becoming the opposition’s greatest asset, I concluded that wouldn’t be a smart move.
In my youth, the great American boxer Joe Louis was spoken of in the same terms as Muhammad Ali is today.
The story was that The Brown Bomber as he was known, was so much better than any of his contemporaries that in order to give the crowd their moneys-worth he used to hold his opponents up for five or six rounds before dispatching them with a sharp left-right to the jaw.
I am told the same ruse is common in cricket where the batsman pretends to be baffled by the other team’s least dangerous bowler in order to persuade the captain to keep him on.
And I’ve noticed that the comments section in the Daily Telegraph’s rugby section is full of pundits advising Stuart Lancaster to persevere with Owen Farrell, who, they claim, has the potential to be the next Barry John/Phil Bennett/Jonathan Davies/Dan Carter and, in some cases, all four rolled into one.
At first I though these were from his dad Andy, but it didn’t take me long to realise it was a devious Welsh plot.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but where else would you find people with pseudonyms like Dai Ponty and Sospan Jack?
This last one; obviously suffering from divided loyalties, was probably born somewhere between Llanelli and Swansea.
So, if you want to help the opposition’s cause, write to Jamie Adams (his email address can be found on the county council’s website) telling him that you think Cllr Pugh is doing a wonderful job.
Though don’t let on you got this idea from me, or he’ll accuse me of pulling your strings.
As things are, I have only grazing enough for the one donkey and Cllr Paul Miller has first option.
The trouble with Cabinet members like Cllr David Pugh is that, while most people only believe they are right, they know they are right.
Of course, once you are certain you are right, it follows, as a matter of logic, that there is no point in listening to people who disagree with you because they are, by definition, wrong.
And, if they continue to express these wrong views, they must be either mad (like Don Quixote) or bad (uttering deliberate untruths or demonstrating sheer incompetence).
Old Grumpy has always been puzzled as to the source of this superior knowledge, though I think I can say it probably has little to do with the education system.
Perhaps Charles Darwin was on to something when he said: ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
We are fortunate not to live in one of those societies where those who refuse to accept the state’s version of the truth are packed off to the Gulags for re-education.
In a democracy all citizens, and especially elected members, have a right to raise concerns about the way government is conducted.
And, as Cllr Pugh will no doubt be aware, a fairly recent High Court judgement held that councillors have enhanced freedom of speech when discussing political matters and, in any event, the democratic process is such that councillors must feel free to challenge the actions of the authority of which they are members.
And it’s no use appealing to the authority of council officers, who are no more infallible than the rest of us.
As Cllr Pugh told the meeting of full council: “Cabinet received a detailed rebuttal of all the spurious allegations made by Cllr Stoddart. Allegations made without any evidence, just his unjustified opinions and self-proclaimed expertise.”
Of course Cllr Pugh was feeling chipper at that point because he still had an Ace up his sleeve in the form of the “third side elevation” at No 25 Dimond Street which he was about to use to destroy my “unjustified opinion” based on my “self-proclaimed expertise” that the rendering had been grossly over-stated in the tender.
Unfortunately, for him, when he produced his Ace, I called him out for cheating and the rest, as they say, is history.
I have always tried to wear my learning lightly, but now that Cllr Pugh has thrown down the gauntlet I think I am entitled to point out that I have spent seven years of my life at university.
Firstly, on leaving school, studying chemistry and biology and, second, in my forties reading law.
That, I believe, is more years in higher education than all the Cabinet put together.
Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if is more than the whole of the IPPG can muster between them.
In addition, I spent many years in senior positions in the building industry.
So not only can I do hard sums, and understand complex legal documents, but I also know a brick from a bull’s foot.
It was using that “expertise” that allowed me to rebut part of the “detailed rebuttal” referred to by Cllr Pugh which, as it turned out, amounted to little more than saying if you add two similar numbers together and express the individual numbers as a percentage of the total, the percentages will be in the same proportion to each other as were the original numbers.
Or, 2 x 4 = 8, therefore 4 is 50% of 8.
I have further information that will discomfit Cllr Pugh, but, being a compassionate soul, I will let him enjoy his turkey and Christmas pudding before revealing it to the world.
In the meantime, may I wish you all a very happy Christmas.
