My friends in Fishguard have been asking what has become of
the "Monster Lunch Muncher'', Councillor Alwyn Luke, who
used to feature regularly in this space.
Readers may remember that he acquired this nickname after I revealed
details of his inordinate fondness for taxpayer-funded lunches.
During the financial year 1998/99, when he was chairman of the
authority, he dined out at our expense on 145 occasions and in
1999/2000 he treated himself to 107 free meals.
You can judge the scale of the Muncher's liking for free grub
by the fact that, in 1999/2000 the other 59 members are only managed
500 lunches between them.
Alas, the glare of publicity seems to have dulled his appetite,
because last year (2000/2001) he managed only a modest 24 visits
to the trough.
Perhaps, he's on a sponsored slim.
Gone too is the practice of nipping back to Fishguard between
morning and afternoon meetings - 32 miles at 45 p (£14.40)
being more lucrative than claiming for lunch (maximum £6.37)
- especially as it is impossible to check if the journey has actually
been made.
On one occasion this turnaround was accomplished in such short
order that I had reason to ask if a Tardis qualified as a vehicle
under the Member's Allowances Regulations.
This Tardis theory is not as daft as it seems because I have come
across evidence that one of Councillor Luke's colleagues has also
mastered the difficult business of being in two places at the
same time.
But that story will have to wait for last week.
Despite the dramatic drop in Luke's consumption schedule it seems
that he has not yet kicked the habit of claiming lunch allowances
to which he is not entitled.
The rules state, quite clearly, that to qualify for a free lunch
the member has to be on an "approved duty'' and be absent
from his "normal place of residence" for "more
than four hours including the hours 12 noon to 2pm".
When calculating these hours members are allowed to add "
reasonable" (council's emphasis) travelling time.
Last year I detailed several instances (more than 15) when meetings
that Councillor Luke attended concluded before 12.30 but where,
nevertheless he claimed for lunch on the basis that he didn't
get back home until 2:30pm of 3 o'clock i.e. that it took him
two hours or more to cover the 16 miles back to Fishguard.
Now, there is nothing that says a member must jump in his car
straight after a meeting and drive home.
But if he or she chooses to hang around County Hall; using the
place as a Day Centre, then, however congenial that might be,
it is not an " approved duty '' and therefore cannot possibly
count towards the qualifying period for a subsistence allowance.
Otherwise, the old boys would be never away from the place.
I had thought that, having had all this explained to him last
year, Councillor Luke might have mended his ways.
But, no!
When I checked his current claim forms, last week, I found 12
occasions when he claimed lunch though the meeting ended at least
an hour before 2 o'clock.
I can only assume that he is either a slow learner or an even
slower driver.
Old Grumpy hears that Mark Edwards, one of the three Conservative
councillors who defected recently to the Independent Political
(sic) Group, has wasted no time in getting up the noses of his
new political masters.
The reason for their annoyance, a well-placed mole tells me, is
the photograph showing Cllr Edwards signing a petition calling
for a referendum on the question of an elected Mayor that appeared
in last week's Mercury.
He was obviously not aware that an elected Mayor is emphatically
not the policy of his new "party".
My mole informs me that Cllr Edwards' departure from the official
line has resulted in him being summoned to appear before The Leader,
Maurice Hughes to explain himself.
Had Cllr Edwards asked my advice, I would have told him to steer
well clear of this Inquisition.
If he does condescend to attend he should ask The Leader what
right he has to control what an "independent" member
says or thinks.
If Cllr Edwards has any sense he will jump before he is pushed
and set himself up as a truly independent, Independent.
That is what he should have done when he left the Tories.
It is never too late to repent.
Old Grumpy has been carrying out a detailed forensic examination
of three faxes sent by Cllr Maurice Hughes to my former employers
at the Western Telegraph.
These letters concerned an article in the Telegraph, based on
something I had written in my Old Grumpy column in the Mercury,
regarding Cllr Hughes' expense claiming habits (see August 20
for details).
Cllr Hughes complained that the Telegraph had libelled him and
threatened legal action unless they published an apology and retraction.
Aside from the content, which was nothing more than the usual
bluster, these faxes were interesting in themselves.
Although they appeared to have come from Cllr Hughes' home address
the typeface and the layout of the letters bore a striking resemblance
to correspondence I had previously received from the County Council.
Even the aggressive, threatening prose style had a familiar ring
about it.
And whoever had sent them had gone to the trouble (on all three)
to programme the fax machine so as to conceal the sender's fax
number.
Also significant was the fact that, in every case, 9 preceded
the number of the target fax machine, indicating that they had
been routed through a switchboard.
I have now had the opportunity to compare the times and dates
on these faxes with Cllr Hughes' expense claims.
In two cases this has yielded interesting results.
The first fax was sent at 4.45pm on November 26 1999. On that
day Cllr Hughes left home at 8am to travel to a meeting in Llandrindod
Wells, returning at 4.15pm.
Not much time, there, to write a two-page letter!
And the second, sent at 5.47pm on November 29, revealed a similar
pattern.
On that day Cllr Hughes left home at 7.30am for another visit
to Llandrindod, this time getting back to Haverfordwest at 5.00pm.
Of course, none of this is conclusive evidence that taxpayers'
money has been used for Cllr Hughes private purposes.
The only way to prove that would be to examine the logs of the
County Council's fax machines to see if there was a transmission
to the Western Telegraph at the relevant date and time.
When I go to see the District Auditor in a couple of weeks time
I will be asking for this to be done.
I have just finished reading "The Skeptical Environmentalist"
by Professor Bjorn Lomborg.
Anyone who has ever been tempted to swallow the one-sided propaganda
peddled by environmental doomsayers like Friends of the Earth
and Greenpeace, on such subjects as global warming or the Kyoto
accord, should read this book
Professor Lomborg, himself a former member of Greenpeace, dismantles
the gloom-mongers' case brick by brick with a combination of hard
facts and impeccable logic.
As he points out, the Kyoto Treaty, even if implemented in full,
would only lower the increase in temperature by an insignificant
0.15 degrees by 2100 or, put another way, it would delay the projected
increase by six years from 2100 to 2106.
But this miniscule benefit would come at enormous cost - much
greater, in fact, than the cost of global warming itself.
And he argues, convincingly, that on almost every environmental
indicator: air quality, marine pollution and the purity of our
rivers etc; the World is now a cleaner, healthier place.
If we really are being poisoned by pesticides, gender-bending
chemicals, dioxins and radioactive waste, as the doomsayers and
their allies in the media would have us believe, how come that
life expectancy across the planet has doubled in the past 100
years? He asks.