Thursday, 5 February 2015

Brent Odds-On for Private Eye Awards 2015


Local bookies braced for surge in betting          
                                                

Guest blog by I.L.Wager
Brent Staff Achievement Awards are not the only annual awards likely to prove a continuing embarrassment to Brent Council’s Butt, Gilbert and Davani over the coming months. The Brent Leadership’s attempt to figure in Private Eye magazine’s regular Rotten Borough Awards ( given to local councils who have demonstrated particular talents in the areas of corruption, greed, stupidity or cronyism) failed last year as they left their trump card ( the Rotten Boroughs article on the racist bullying verdict, jobs-for-the-girls, inflated salaries, romance in high places etc) too late in the year to overtake boroughs like Tower Hamlets and Rotherham who had made the most impressive early running. Not wanting to make the same mistake again, Brent have put down an early marker for the 2015 Cash for Cronyism category by getting the following article onto the Rotten Boroughs page of this week’s edition of Private Eye:
‘A heartfelt welcome back to Lorraine Langham, newly-appointed £140k ‘chief operating officer’ at the London borough of Brent. Ms Langham made frequent appearances in Rotten Boroughs in the Noughties, thanks to the umbilical link she appeared to have with her chum Christine Gilbert, wife of disgraced former Labour minister Tony ‘Second Home’ McNulty.
In the early Noughties, when Gilbert was chief executive of Tower Hamlets council, Langham was its communications supremo. Then in 2006, Gilbert became the boss of Ofsted and Langham was appointed director of corporate services. Now Lorraine has joined senior management at Brent following a ‘restructuring’ overseen by (amazing coincidence) the council’s ‘interim’ chief executive…….Christine Gilbert.   Small world!’ 
An unflashy, solid start from Team Brent but timing is all, and with the Failed-Rosemarie-Clarke- Appeal-Waste-of-Money story soon to come, and who knows what else up the sleeves of Butt/Gilbert/Davani/Langham, the smart money is beginning to take Mo’s girls’ chances for silverware in 2015  Very Seriously Indeed.
                                                                      Go Team Brent!
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14 comments:

  1. Anonymous6 February 2015 at 16:20

    According to today's Guardian The Leader 'could spend rest of life in jail'!
    Seems a little harsh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous6 February 2015 at 20:26

    FYI for Mo Butt and Brent Council cabinet

    'cabinets..heavily reliant on powerful and highly paid full-time officers..system inherently anti-democratic' - they should be scrapped

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11390767/In-the-wake-of-Rotherham-the-Tories-should-scrap-local-council-cabinets.html

    I agree.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous6 February 2015 at 22:53

    Not sure what 'should be scrapped'.
    Cabinets? Highly paid full time officers?
    When did they start calling themselves 'cabinets' anyway? Is it more than just a grandiose ego-serving change of terminology? Like 'The Leader' ?
    Martin, your potted history of the phenomenon, please.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous7 February 2015 at 01:25

    Sounds very much like the current Bent Council
    For too long, town hall leaders have been shielded from proper public scrutiny by the structures of governance created under Labour, in which council chiefs grandly preside over “cabinets” that are heavily reliant on powerful and highly paid full-time officers.

    This system is inherently anti-democratic. Decisions are often taken behind closed doors by a small group of favoured burghers, whose conclusions are then rubber-stamped by the full council. The local press, or what is left of it, struggles to find out what is going on, as its reporters once could under the old open committee system.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Richard Cornelius7 February 2015 at 08:02

    Dear Mo,

    I'm working hard to ensure Barnet continues to trump Brent. I've started this year with a bang in West Hendon, moving towards full-scale privatisation of education and taken your lead on getting rid of pesky libraries. I'm also hoping to exceed contracts to Capita, £100,000 last year isn't nearly enough for those boys.

    Game on!

    Yours Fondly,
    Richard Cornelius

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous7 February 2015 at 10:08

      Yo Dick!

      Haven't you banned yourself from reading Wembley matters yet? I have as you can transparently see.
      You stick to the right-wing political agenda, Dicky boy. Here in Brent we believe that the personal is political so we'll concentrate on personal grudges, inappropriate romantic entanglements and bullying.
      Talking of personal, I was looking at your pic above a West Hendon report in Mail yesterday (Krupa makes me read it). I thought to myself: you're head of Barnet but there's hardly any Barnet left on your head! Mikey thought it was really funny, but then I suppose he's paid to.

      See you at the awards!

      Fraternally

      Mobutt

      Delete
    2. Dicky Cornylies7 February 2015 at 17:05

      Hello again Mo,

      I was moved to read Wembley Matters when I heard about all your hard work to join me at the awards. When Brian Coleman sadly departed the council, I knew we had to redouble our efforts and we’ve been so successful in doing so. Turns out we have so many gems in Team OneCapita that I needn’t have worried.

      Cllr. Peter Zinkin has just joined us in Childs Hill, I’m so excited. He’s a multi-millionaire Balfour Beatty exec! Just the type we need to develop all those libraries into flats. What a star.

      I do admire your pay rise, I voted to keep my big allowance because I am so worth it!

      Your friend in Captia,

      Dicky

      P.S. Let them eat cake!

      Delete
    3. Dicky Cornylies7 February 2015 at 17:12

      P.S. I forgot to mention that no one in my borough has applied to change their name after dear old Marge. We’ve tried for over 2 years and still no applications. It’s appalling. Not one street, school, library or even dreadful housing estate has applied to be named after our wonderful lady smiling down on us from Heaven.

      The West Hendon Estate has muddied their own name with all this ugly press lately. What would you think about renaming it Margaret Thatcher Kingdom once it’s complete? Hopefully Barrett Homes will be up for it.

      Delete
    4. Muhammed Butt7 February 2015 at 19:10

      Dick!

      Delighted to hear you're following our lead on libraries. If you need any advice on keeping the plebs out of the luxury flats let me know and I'll give you a tour round Willesden.

      Hugs,

      Mo.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous7 February 2015 at 20:25

      Yo Ricky
      Don't get worried but the message above is not from me. Apparently I've been hacked, at least I think that's what the guy from the Labour group delegation said.

      So,I don’t really know how to say this, Rick, but we can’t go on meeting like this.Because the word on the street is that some Brent staff and councillors are disobeying my orders and still reading the filth which appears here on WM. No, I couldn’t believe it either. What ever happened to gratitude and party discipline! Anyway, Andy Gillick says you wouldn't believe some of the people who write stuff on here. Hippies, book-readers, lefties, anarchists, shirt-lifters, tree-ravagers, bird-spotters, Gary Glitter fans, muesli-knitters, taxi-drivers, taxidermists, Greens, Reds, foreigners, socialists, doctors, teachers, girlies,all manner of people.
      Lucky you getting Peter Zinkin on board though. We could do with some builders on Brent council. I’m told he’s a real ass
      et in any situation.

      But don't get me started. As I said. I've got to go but it's au revoir and not goodbye.

      Yours ever,
      Mo

      BTW I was ever so touched by what you said about Margaret (as I always think of her). But she didn't die you know. I like to think she lives on in my Cara, the quintessential child of Thatcher. As Margaret herself once put it, at the Tory party conference LBGT karaoke and disco night in 1987: 'Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves!'

      X

      Delete
    6. Sarah Hayward8 February 2015 at 00:03

      Help! I lead a proper council...get me away from these creepy neighbours!

      Delete
  6. Anonymous7 February 2015 at 15:13

    I think this blog is in bad taste. And his name's not really I.L.Wager you know.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous7 February 2015 at 20:40

    Whoever you are, you are an utter joy in a week that's being a bit crap.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous7 February 2015 at 21:43

      Don't indulge them, sir, and instruct your wife in similar fashion. It's fellow-travellers like you giving them the oxygen of publicity and the smileyfaceicons of approval that are leading us into the swamp of mediocrity and incorrect use of the apostrophe which has enabled this country to be overtaken by distant peoples whose only function historically was to keep a civil tongue and buy British Opium!

      Delete