As 2014 nears its end, let’s take a few minutes to look back on an eventful year at the Kremlin on Cleddau. The unlawful tax-dodge pension scheme was scrapped, we had the Valentine’s Day massacre, Cllr. Rob Lewis was suspended for a fortnight after the Ombudsman’s Partygate investigation, Bryn was booted out, and the police practically set up an embassy at County Hall investigating all sorts of things including the ongoing Pembroke Dock grants scheme fraud saga.

I started the Golden DonQui Award last year as an opportunity for my readers to annually reward the best bit of buffoonery observed in or around the council chamber over the previous twelve months. The inspiration – and the name – comes from the truly awful speech delivered at the December full council meeting by then cabinet member, Cllr. David Pugh, who went on to beat six other candidates to be crowned your inaugural Golden DonQui.

Despite fewer candidates, I think 2014 is more of an open contest than last year, with four of your elected members making the shortlist, who I present in chronological order of their fluff.

The winner is decided by you, and only you, through online voting. I have extended the deadline an extra week from last year’s December 31st, to midnight on the 7th January, and I will announce your winner shortly thereafter.

May I wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas.

The 2014 nominees.

Cllr. Stan Hudson

For delivering the biggest flip-flop of the year

An extraordinary council meeting was held on Mayday this year to discuss numerous motions submitted by councillors. One of those came from Cllr. Viv Stoddart who was proposing that Pembrokeshire should adopt a resolution which had, recently beforehand, been passed by both of our neighbouring local authorities – Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion.

This was that full council – all sixty councillors – should have the final say and vote on school reorganisation proposals, including amalgamations, closures and the like, instead of the leader’s cherry-picked bunch of cabinet members. It cruised to victory with overwhelming support – only two councillors voted against: Cllrs. John Allen-Mirehouse and Daphne Bush, though neither spoke against the proposal.

One of the only councillors who spoke against the move to hand control of this important topic to backbenchers was former maths schoolmaster, Cllr. Stan Hudson, who told the chamber he had “been involved in education in Pembrokeshire for fifty years.” [At 28 minutes into the webcast.]

Reading his pre-scripted speech, Cllr. Hudson who is the chair of governors at Sir Thomas Picton School, said:

“I regard this notice of motion as a retrograde step. I have no special wish to be one of the sixty county councillors trying to micro-manage the education service in the county. We have to be more far-sighted than this notice of motion suggests.

I feel if passed, this notice of motion will undermine the authority of our professional officers and put the future of our children in the hands of the weekly whims of sixty county councillors.”

So it came as a bombshell when, minutes later at crunch time, Cllr. Hudson actually voted in support of this undermining and retrograde step.

Weekly whims, indeed! And a well-earnt nomination – if he wins it’ll look good alongside his MBE on the mantelpiece.

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Cllr. Tom Richards

For starting his year in office as he meant to go on

Whether it was the heavy chain around his neck to which he had not yet become accustomed, or simply the big occasion that got to him, we may never know. But on his very first day in the most prestigious office in the county – the chairman of Pembrokeshire County Council – Cllr. Tom Richards caused fireworks and took the local social media by storm.

Just minutes after donning the chain of office and assuming centre seat on the podium beneath the authority’s coat of arms at this year’s AGM, Cllr. Richards made a decision which he probably regrets.

In fact, he probably regretted it at the time, but as you can see for yourselves on the clip Radio Pembrokeshire uploaded to Facebook, he was unwilling to back down once he’d set his stall out.

Cllr. Viv Stoddart had hoped (and tried) to nominate Cllr. Tony Brinsden for the deputy-chairmanship of the licensing committee. She sits beneath Cllr. Richards (don’t we all?) and had been trying to attract his attention across the chamber while Cllr. Daphne Bush made nominations of her own.

Such is the structure of the licensing committee, there are four deputy-chairmanships. Ater Cllr. Bush had finished naming her four chosen ones, Cllr. Richards asked if there were any further nominations – without looking around the chamber. Within three seconds he took Cllr. Bush’s proposals to the vote.

Hands had hardly been raised before Cllr. Stoddart produced her voice loud enough for the noble Richards to see she wished to make an additional nomination of her own, but it was to no avail.

“I’m sorry, we’ve taken the vote,” Tom said – he and his chums had a slap-up luncheon waiting for them in the chairman’s suite, so he wanted to move progress. (The rest of us mere mortals had to make do with sandwiches and vol-au-vents.)

I was obviously present during the meeting, and at the time it was hard to agree that a vote had been taken – but the webcam removes all doubt. These committee appointments appeared at the very end of the agenda, and the farce with the deputy licensing chairs panned out over a few minutes.

It included an exchange between Cllrs. Stoddart and Richards, Cllr. Mike Evans, and even yours truly who can be heard (but not seen) saying: “the votes weren’t counted.” A fiery contribution from Cllr. Paul Miller, leader of the Labour group, said that the refusal to accept the nomination would be an “outrageous start” to Cllr. Richards’ year in office. Cllr. Miller went on to lead a mass walkout (the participants of which also happened to be first in line to the sandwiches, an entirely incidental fact, of course.)

Even the leader of the council, Cllr. Jamie Adams, realised how much of a car crash the episode was turning into, and signalled across the room to the vice chairman, Cllr. Wynne Evans, to tell the chairman alongside him to back down. Cllr. Evans can clearly be heard relaying this message from on high to Cllr. Richards: “The leader’s saying let it [the vote] go again” but it fell on deaf ears. All we got was a contemplative Cllr. Richards saying: “I’m sorry, I cannot go back on that. I am very sorry, I am moving forward.”

I think we can look back on the chairman-making meeting as the one which set the tone for Cllr. Richards’ inflexible style of chairmanship, but I can assure Cllr. Richards, securing a nomination for the Golden DonQui Award isn’t nearly as arbitrary as for the deputy chairmanship of the licensing committee.

Oh, and voting closes at midnight on 7th January. I cannot go back on that. I am very sorry, I am moving forward to the next nomination…

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Cllr. Bob Kilmister

For entering coalition negotiations with the IPPG

If he does go on to win the popular vote, I’m not convinced Golden DonQui does justice to the scale of Cllr. Bob Kilmister’s howler from early October. Perhaps Diamond DonQui would be more appropriate.

It doesn’t require much of an introduction, but Cllr. Kilmister entered the running for this year’s award the second he posted the Facebook status, reproduced alongside, on the official page of his new political enterprise, the Pembrokeshire Alliance.

The party, which is and can be all things to all people, had – or so we all thought – at least one common principle: opposition to the ways and means of the ruling IPPG and all it stands for.

Just days before announcing he had entered into ‘negotiations’ for his Pembrokeshire Alliance to form a ‘coalition’ with the dreaded IPPG, he had called for the IPPG leader’s head on a plate, claiming he couldn’t trust him!

How quickly an offer of a cabinet post and the deputy leadership in exchange for a coalition to prop up Cllr. Adams’ ailing party, turned things around. The announcement – which was made without consultation with the Pembrokeshire Alliance’s brethren and sistren – caused holy hell.

The coalition offer was made to Cllr. Kilmister by Cllr. Adams during a one-to-one meeting the latter had arranged at County Hall, on the Tuesday. As one commentator pointed out, Bob should have laughed in Jamie’s face at the offer. But not only did he entertain the idea, he entered negotiations – and not just briefly – because the Facebook announcement was made three days later, on the Friday.

Almost immediately, the proverbial hit the fan. I blogged about it at the time, and Bob went on the attack in the comments section, claiming that what I said he had been offered in exchange for the coalition was ‘untrue,’ because the £35k deputy leadership cabinet post wasn’t the entirety of the offer – he was also offered the opportunity to oversee improvements to the authority’s openness and transparency.

I don’t doubt that improvements to corporate governance and the like is high on Bob’s agenda, but I think we can all agree it was the cabinet post and deputy leadership that swept Bob off his feet.

What ensued, when people realised what had gone on, was nothing short of a PR catastrophe. An attempt was even made in the days afterwards to pass it all off as a misunderstanding because a tired Bob used the word ‘negotiations’ by mistake, having typed the Facebook status at the end of a long day.

The rug was pulled from beneath that woeful excuse because Cllr. Kilmister had used the very same word in an entirely separate communication (a face-saving email to his Alliance members to arrange a crisis meeting) which made its way to JW under separate cover.

To his credit, when he realised he had ballsed up initially and in the aftermath, and that no excuses would cut it, Bob showed some contrition, but his sidekick, Andrew Lye, of the Alliance, just wouldn’t let it go, making the unsightly stain on the Alliance’s reputation larger by trying to claim the moral high ground.

This was the claim that the coalition offer was ‘unanimously’ rejected by the Alliance’s members, after they met days and days following the furore, and after the negotiations had been entered into.

The idea of forming a coalition was preposterous, to everybody. Especially the Alliance’s erstwhile supporters, but even to the IPPG rank-and-file, who were as bewildered as the next person that Bob had considered it. So, the infamous Facebook status wasn’t so much the problem, it was merely a symptom – that Bob got carried away.

Diamond or Golden, it was a DonQui worthy episode, no doubt about that.

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Cllr. Paul Miller

For spelling disaster

Last month news got out that Cllr. Paul Miller, wearing his hat as the Labour party’s prospective parliamentary candidate for the Preseli Pembrokeshire constituency, had taken delivery of a batch of promotional leaflets in which his name was wrongly spelt ‘Millar.’

One of these leaflets was photographed by a north county resident and posted on Facebook. The gaffe even caught the attention of the Sun newspaper.

Miller took the unwanted attention in good sport and told the newspaper he wasn’t sure whether to change his name to Millar by deed poll or to get a new batch of leaflets printed – and that he would go for whichever was cheapest.

The nomination isn’t for the spelling mistake – and I’ve no doubt it was anything other than a mistake – but for the tale behind it.

What niggled JW was why the leaflets weren’t destroyed, and how news of this embarrassing gaffe could make its way outside the walls of the Labour office, let alone how an image of a leaflet came to be circulated on social media. That was, until I unearthed the whole story – it wasn’t posted by a mischievous Labour insider for a giggle but by an observant member of the public who retrieved it from their doormat.

Accordingly, the thousands of Millar leaflets were received at the Preseli Pembrokeshire Labour campaign HQ where the error was noticed straight away, upon opening. At this stage, anybody in their right mind would have heaved them on the bonfire or sent them to the pulpers. The actions that followed were DonQui-worthy, because between ordering and receiving the Millar leaflets, the previous batch (spelt correctly) had been completely depleted on the canvassing rounds.

Instead of ordering and waiting for new (correctly spelt) leaflets to be printed and delivered, a number of the Millar leaflets were distributed by his Labour door-knockers with his blessing.

Cllr. Miller is entirely blameless for the spelling mistake on the leaflets, that’s just misfortune in its purest form – but the fact the erroneous leaflets were knowingly distributed through people’s letterboxes in a bid to win over their vote makes Cllr. Millar a vary worthy Goldan DonQui nominaa.

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HIGHLY COMMENDED

Almost, but not quite worthy of nominations…

Cllr. Sue Perkins

The ex-Labour party leader on the council dropped some jaws this year when she voted with her IPPG chums for the Conservative party to receive one of the authority’s £9k overview and scrutiny chairmanships.

The Pembrokeshire Alliance had an equal claim to the lucrative gig because both groups consist of three councillors, therefore the tie was decided by full council. When it went to the vote I captured ‘True blue Sue’ – clad in blue – voting to reward the Tories. Wonders never cease with that one.

Cllr. Alison Lee

Following in the footsteps of her former Labour party mentor, Cllr. Sue Perkins, who also dumped on her party for the riches of the IPPG, is Cllr. Alison Lee.

The trappings of power have turned Cllr. Perkins into Jamie Adams’ poodle, the yes-man’s yes-girl. Early indications show Cllr. Lee isn’t oblivious to the way she’s expected to vote in the chamber either.

Sue Perkins, after joining the IPPG, said she did it for the sake of her important child safeguarding portfolio, and not the money, leading to her brief label as Sue “I did it for the kids” Perkins, among other less than family-friendly nicknames.

Cllr. Lee, on the other hand, admitted that the money would come in useful. The story goes that she was approached by the leader and had hoped to be able to serve in the cabinet as a member of the Labour party, under whose banner she had been elected for the Pembroke Dock Central ward in 2012.

Unsurprisingly, this idea was completely unacceptable to the Labour group, so Cllr. Lee did what any girl would do when approached by Jamie dangling an SRA with her name on it – she grabbed it with both hands and was booted out of Labour.

Unlike Cllr. Perkins, Cllr. Lee hasn’t joined the IPPG (yet) she has remained unaffiliated to any group – among such councillors as yours truly – or, as Cllr. Michael Williams calls us true independents: “the mongrels.”

The irony behind Cllr. Lee serving as the first mongrel in the cabinet isn’t lost on some, nor is the claim that she’s tarnishing the good name of us ‘proper’ independents, for she’s as independent as the long list of Labour deserters before her, think Ken Rowlands, for one!

The Golden DonQui is a good-humoured celebration of howling cockups and blunders. Cllr. Lee turning her back on her Pembroke Dock Central residents for the trappings of power and the high life is bad form, but it’s more devious than daft – she didn’t so much make an ass of herself, but of her constituents. They don’t need a poxy Golden DonQui poll to register their disgust – they can wait until the next council election.

Cllr. Huw George

Streetlighting isn’t his game, but that didn’t stop cabinet cleric Cllr. Rev. Huw George explaining the technical limitations of the county’s setup at last December’s full council meeting. It wasn’t until several months later, when I was contacted by a constituent who had researched the topic, that Cllr. George’s contribution was made to look a lot…dimmer.

His pancake analogy at a subsequent meeting also impressed the selection panel (i.e. me) and it took an even sadder character in the comments section of my website to note that a pancake with only two sides would be two-dimensional and would therefore provide little nourishment.

However, in the interests of fairness, Cllr. George will have to wait for another year to secure a DonQui nomination – and I’m sure if he’s still alive and kicking, he will manage it. There would be little competition, otherwise.

Cllr. Arwyn Williams

No description needed for this immediate past chairman of the authority.

Cllr. Rob Lewis

He was fingered by the Ombudsman this year for his pivotal role in Partygate but, thanks to the authority’s standards committee, advised by monitoring officer Laurence Harding, he was handed just a two-week suspension from office as punishment.

It emerged afterwards that he had either lied to the Ombudsman when he said Clive James Print and Design printed all of his election leaflets for him, or he lied in his signed disclosure to the electoral returning officer when he included expenditure for self-printing his leaflets, with no reference or receipts for Clive James Print and Design anywhere to be found.