Jacob Williams https://jacobwilliams.com

The agenda for this Thursday’s full council meeting might give the impression that Theresa May’s in town for her inaugural PMQs session.

Cllr. Bob Kilmister wants the leader – Cllr. Jamie Adams not PM May – to “outline the financial risk implications” of Brexit, which, he might do well to remember, Pembrokeshire residents voted for even more strongly than the decisive Wales-wide rejection.

Bob also wants Jamie to explain “which potential schemes are now at most risk.”

Ranking among the most prominent lost opportunities must surely be either’s chances of clambering aboard the Brussels gravy train.

Fair enough, you might think. The referendum result is in and Bob wants to try and ascertain what the future holds for PCC.

These questions relate in some way to the council – if not matters under its control – but Bob also asks the leader to “outline what actions he intends to take to ensure to (sic.) local bodies and programmes have the support and resources needed to fight and prevent racism?”

Bob asks Jamie to join him “in reassuring” everyone that they are welcome in the county “whatever their ethnic origin.”

This is bound to align with the unrelenting media refrain since referendum day of some connection between the ballot box and a mass outbreak of racism – or, more specifically, as the police are at pains to point out: an increase in reports of alleged instances.

The post-referendum news coverage has been bizarre, to say the least. Including the suggestion Brexit voters were led to believe the word ‘leave’ referred to what will happen to the UK’s immigrant population and not the UK’s membership of the EU!

This anecdotally supported journalism follows a pattern which has seen attempts to smear Brexit voters – the majority, remember – as a bunch of uneducated racist pensioner barbarians, who’ve ruined the country for youngsters too uninspired to vote themselves.

By far the most shameless attempt made by the media, and others who should frankly know better, was to smear Brexit supporters pre-polling day as having Jo Cox’s blood on their hands.

How the referendum – only Brexiters, though – created an environment whereby the MP’s senseless killing was effectively legitimised as an inevitability of the campaign, rather than an isolated act of a deranged attacker.

The media exploitation of this horrific tragedy didn’t swing the result as many had perhaps either hoped or feared, despite very persistent attempts to tar Brexiters with the brush of brutality.

But who could have foreseen the grandstanding reaching little old PCC? And Bob isn’t the only one on a moral superiority drive. In fact his isn’t even the most shameless.

A question on the topic of racism has also been tabled by county councillor for Solva, Lyn Jenkins.

Lyn asks Cllr. Adams if he can “please inform Council if there has been any evidence of racist, xenophobic or hate crimes in the County.”

Perhaps she doesn’t realise policing such crimes isn’t a local authority responsibility.

But Lyn takes her tokenism to the next level with:

“Also, would he please reassure all people living in Pembrokeshire that they are valued members of our community and that the Council condemns these types of crime and will ensure that support and resources are available, should they be needed, to prevent such crimes?”

Such posturing can only mean an election’s around the corner!

I’m sure Cllr. Jenkins’ Solva electorate will be delighted to see her contrived attempt to tell us all she takes a dim view of racism, but unless she has evidence that the council has contributed in some way to alleged racism, its strict connection to the local authority isn’t obvious.

It will only lead to platitudes nobody could disagree with – like the leader saying: “of course Pembrokeshire welcomes everybody and we should all oppose racism.”

It should go without saying that all decent, sensible people oppose racist attacks in any form.

Cllr. Jenkins would also struggle to find any elected official unwilling to condemn such crimes but what resources she envisages the council should use to prevent these illegalities boggles the mind.

Maybe she wants Jamie to create another new £30k salaried anti-racism cabinet member – to be filled by the best possible candidate, of course.

There’s a label for this. It’s called virtue signalling.

It’s defined as “the expression or promotion of viewpoints that are especially valued within a social group, especially when this is done primarily to enhance the social standing of the speaker.”

One of the most tiresome, overused examples is the expression of sneering contempt for the Daily Mail newspaper. It’s said to cash in loads of karma points – “look at me, aren’t I a goody, opposing this middle-England rag!”

On the topic of virtues, this would be the same Lyn Jenkins who, unprompted and forthrightly misled full council last year over her knowledge of plans to scrap her village primary school.

Some less forgiving souls would use the word ‘lied.’

Incidentally, my article on holier-than-thou-Lyn’s untruths (see: Problem Solva) was my most read blogpost of 2015. Make of that what you will.

It will be interesting to see how the leader responds – Lyn may be under the impression that Jamie was a Bremainer.

Wouldn’t we all make that assumption?

After all, how could we forget that he put down a council motion – supported by guff plagiarised from his farming fraternity – urging Pembrokeshire residents to vote to stay in the EU.

On the Friday following referendum night, when the result was beginning to sink in across the world, I and several other councillors attended a briefing with secondary school headteachers, arranged by the leader.

At the end, as we were leaving, Old Grumpy and I were having a chat in the hallway. Cllr. Adams was also lingering.

“You backed the wrong horse,” I said.

“What do you mean?” said Jamie.

“In the referendum, you were supporting remain,” I replied.

“No,” he said: “I voted to leave!”

Confused, I reminded Jamie that he had tried to use the council as a political football in support of the remain camp.

His explanation: “Well, I thought that remaining in the EU was best for the county, but I personally wanted to leave.”

Cast iron proof, if any was needed, that Jamie allowed his strings to be pulled by external influences he didn’t agree with.

Is this the very opposite of virtue signalling?

❏My call-in of cabinet’s decision to loan a huge sum to the companies behind the proposed redevelopment of the former Narberth primary school site has been accepted.

It has been referred for debate by a specially convened meeting of the economy overview and scrutiny committee next Monday, 18th July, at 2pm.

It will be up to the committee members to vote to exclude the public and press – this won’t happen automatically.

In my four years on the council, when senior officers recommend a matter should be transacted in secret, the majority of councillors – who have to resolve the same – have always obliged.

In fact I understand that an officer recommendation to convene in secret session has never been overturned by your elected representatives.

I am not a committee member, so I will not have a vote, but what I would say on the matter is that, what we might regard as the commercially sensitive bit of this whole deal – the revelation that the developer is unable to raise private capital – is already out in the open, published by the council in cabinet’s minutes.

But more importantly, the sum we are talking about – which I know but am unable to reveal – along with the unknown and officer-delegated arrangements, and the long-running controversy surrounding this prime real estate, must surely be a factor in those councillors’ minds when they are asked on Monday to exclude the press and public for the duration of the call-in debate.

If the committee’s councillors vote to accept that the developer’s privacy trumps the funding public’s right to know how their money is being spent and why, I really don’t know when these details will be made public.

❏The end result of the motion at last week’s extraordinary council meeting, signed by me and many others which would have committed the council to an 11-19 English medium secondary school in Haverfordwest, was not at all what the meeting was called for.

I may revisit this topic at greater length in the future, as the situation develops (or starts from the beginning) but I am firmly of the belief that Cllr. Paul Miller’s originating motion, which was the basis for the meeting and within the agenda report, was hijacked by council officers, and on the day, hijacked by Cllr. Jamie Adams.

Proof that the officers’ report to the meeting was hijacked came when it was accepted that their proposed way of dealing with Cllr. Miller’s motion would negate it.

So after a lunch break, during which I believe the leader, chairman, chief executive and Cllr. Miller had a gathering, a new proposal not too dissimilar to the officers’ recommendation in the report was accepted by the chairman as a legitimate amendment:

“That this council task the education department to work up proposals for secondary school provision in Haverfordwest, Milford Haven, Pembroke, Tenby and Crymych and regard is given to dovetailing that provision with existing proposals for St Davids and Fishguard.”

That is to say, the chairman was of the opinion – encouraged by advice from both the head of legal and the monitoring officer – that Cllr. Adams’ amendment proposal, which was voted on and subsequently approved, did not negate Cllr. Miller’s original proposal which read:

“That this Council direct the Education Department to work up firm proposals for an 11-19 school in Haverfordwest and desist pushing an 11-16 model that the people of Pembrokeshire and elected Members have firmly and conclusively rejected.”

I still remain of the view that Cllr. Miller’s intentions were negated – and added to the mix, the constitution only allows matters to be transacted as set out in the agenda.

If Cllr. Adams wanted to put forward his own proposal he had plenty of opportunity before the extraordinary meeting to submit his own proposal to that effect.

Unfortunately, for anybody watching the webcast of the meeting, it’s abundantly clear the council is still in a shambles, and you could just as well have have been watching a council meeting from 2014, 2013 or even earlier – though arguably things are marginally less well organised these days.