Thursday 9 January 2020

Rotten Boroughs Awards 2019 - Order of the Brown Nose!


Despite his timely and hurried retirement it is pleasing to see that Mark James once again graces the pages of Private Eye. 
The eagerly awaited Rotten Boroughs New Year Honours in the latest edition gives the prestigious Order of the Brown Nose to former council press officer Ron Cant for his oozing tribute to the 'visionary man of steel'...

Private Eye issue 1513, Jan 2020

This potential nomination for Mr Cant first emerged back in April and was posted on this blog, along with a handy list of the numerous accolades and Honours bestowed on Mr James and his rotten borough by the Eye over recent years.

Another contender for the OBN Honour was surely Plaid council leader Emlyn Dole whose obsequious, fawning tribute to the retiring chief executive in May surpassed even Mr Cant's efforts to elevate Mr James to sainthood. Observers of that council meeting, who managed to hold back the nausea, even detected tears in the Reverend Dole's eyes...
The Herald's columnist Cadno was one of those observers...

Surpassing both, of course, was Mr James own extraordinary tribute to himself; a speech resplendent in grotesque self-praise, narcissism and toe-curling conceit, which ended with an attack on the press and those pesky bloggers. It was an attack to which I replied...

I had already posted my own tribute to Mr James when he announced his retirement back in January...and again in April...a little more accurate than Mr Cant's version...

Meanwhile, as the Eye reminds us, we await the outcome of the police investigation, and whatever the future might hold for the Shit of the Year 2016...

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stalin was a man of steel, so Mr Cant could in some respects have made an accurate appraisal.

Anonymous said...

Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

I know it isn't funny for you Jacqui in your situation but I roared with laughter reading that. I do hope however it goes some way to help heal your wounds. The word 'bonkers' springs to mind for some reason.


The gift that keeps on giving...and'It'is not over yet...

Anonymous said...

Brilliant! But unfortunately nothing seems to penetrate the teflon-coated, conscience-lacking former CEO and his bunch of fawning acolytes.

Anonymous said...



After watching the council meeting webcast the fawning acolytes Woebegone Wendy Walters and Lawless Lynda seem to be in charge

The quality of the whole meeting was abysmal with many contributors seemingly having difficulty speaking let alone string a logical discussion point together

Very embarrassing - no hope for the burden ridden tax payers of Carmarthenshire who can only long forward with dread to another increase in the council tax


Anonymous said...


The problem with these large organisations is that the day job becomes a task of rising up the greasy pole / fawning over the senior managers with the hope of rising to the top level in your mid 40's

Forget about actually doing any work

This has obviously been the aim of both Woeful Wendy Walters and Lamentable Lynda

There is nothing much happening in the Council in spite of it poverty status and deprivation status - where is the job creation and development projects

Anonymous said...

and also the really Dreadful Dole - though there may be a very faint chance that he could (certainly should) be removed at the next local elections!
Although the gross indifference/ignorance of the local electorate my be a major obstacle. How many of them actually know or care what is going on "in their name"?

Anonymous said...

I have written to the Am and MP about the dire situation that Plaid Cymru leader is creating in Carmarthenshire with regards to democracy and asked them to do somethign about this situation. Nothing has been done although they are sympathetic , however more blame lies with the pathetic crowd of men and women who call themselves councillors, lacking in integrity and grey matter.

Anonymous said...

These problems will always arise when the quality, integrity and capabilities of your councillors (and in some cases, council officials) falls so far short of what normal persons would deem acceptable, or even adequate, that the persons concerned are quite unfitted to assume any positions of public responsibility.
The levels of salaries, allowances etc given to these persons is grossly over-generous and completely unwarranted. Any savings/cut-backs that need to be made to council expenditure should be achieved by taking a knife to these costs - and without delay. If the persons concerned dont like it, they can do the honorable thing and resign forthwith! If you are not up to the job, then get out!

Anonymous said...


With questions now being asked about what replaces EU regeneration funds post Brexit and who controls the decision making mechanism - will there be a shift from WAG to Westminister - there needs to be leadership from within the Council on this

With Carmarthenshire's disastrous track record of its involvement with the Swansea City Deal - {where is the announcement of it new Director ?} there is a long way to go for this Council to travel

There seems to be a vacum in any debate on this - even the big idea project of the spa development in Llanelli has hit the buffers

We in Carmarthenshire will all lose out with the ineptitude of these Councillors and the new CEO

Redhead said...

Sadly, Wales and elsewhere in the UK now seem to have lost out to "the North" this time around. Previously, England, Scotland and Wales lost out to the DUP in Northern Ireland. For all those people who thought EU funding would be replaced like-for-like in each country/region there is going to be a rude awakening. Councillors and officers who thought they had pots of gold to play with will find that they have nothing at all - what will they do then?

Richard Powell said...

Ron Cant - a case of nominative determinism?

Keanjo said...

When is the long awaited police report on ourformer beloved Chief Executive expected?oOr are the police looking for a big enough carpet?

caebrwyn said...

@Keanjo
No idea. Taking an awfully long time but still ongoing as far as I know.