Badger and the Hole in One

THE TIME has come to start thinking about the future.

Let’s no longer dwell on the murky past.

There’s too much scandal there for delicate stomachs to handle.

We must forget the past.

We must forget the lies told by councillors and officers before 2017.

We must forget the IPG’s complicity in scandal after scandal after scandal.

Instead, we must think only about the here, the now, and the future.

Read ing , understanding and context are for those of less intellectual steel than Milford North’s County Councillor, Alan Dennison.

We should look at Councillor Dennison’s iron will.

He finds it easy to be iron-willed.

His head is full of ball bearings, each finished to a high sheen, rubbing together frictionlessly in a soup of self-righteous self-importance.

This paper’s deputy editor cruelly suggested that a tin of pilchards would better serve the electors of Milford North in the corridors of power.

Badger is not so cruel, but he observes that a tin of pilchards probably contains more brain tissue than Cllr Dennison.

Cllr Dennison is an interesting character.

He stood for Reform in the Senedd election of 2021.

A year later, he stood successfully as an Independent candidate in the County Council election

A year later, he was attracted to the IPG, nominally led by Huw Murphy but still under Jamie Adams’s control.

Since then, Cllr Dennison has risen to become Chair of the Constitutional Review Committee. His open-mindedness, fairness, attention to detail, and intellectual grasp have become legendary in that role and his other committee appointments.

Meanwhile, rather like an over-enthusiastic chimp in a zoo cage, he’s become notorious for incontinently flinging shit at others in the hope some of it sticks.

His latest online effort takes some beating.

Responding to a member of the public who disagreed with him online, Cllr Dennison impugned his fellow councillors and the Director of Resources’ integrity and insulted the member of the public. It’s hard to work out which is the more egregious slur. However, as the response referred directly to the County Council’s business in which Cllr Dennison participated, he can scarcely argue he was not acting in his role as a county councillor.

In a post and subsequent thread on the Herald’s Facebook page, he asked why The Pembrokeshire Herald had not covered the 12.5% Council Tax rise, the raiding of Council reserves and the budget vote.

We had over two pages. It was also on the front page.

The previous week.

He asked why we had not covered the call-in of the socalled “instagrammable bridge”.

We had.

It was the lead story on our website.

Interestingly, he also laid into Cllr Mike Stoddart’s determination to peel back the layers of fraud and deceit surrounding his IPG chums’ handling of the Pembroke Dock grants scandal.

It was a waste of time, Alan Dennison adumbrated.

The Police and the CPS had already investigated the matter, he said. Seeking a barrister’s opinion on the investigation’s handling was pointless.

Oddly, similarly - if not almost identically - expressed opinions also appeared on the Western Telegraph website, along with a series of other posts attacking those who dared question those remarks or the bona fides of the poster.

Of course Alan Dennison cannot be responsible for the pseudonymous posts on the Western Telegraph website. It would be dreadful if he were too gutless to stand by his opinions and responded as angrily on the Western Telegraph website as he did elsewhere.

Nay, readers!

Nay and thrice, nay!!

Badger will never have it said that Cllr Dennison is a cowardly blowhard with little regard for facts and a worldview extending little further than the 19th hole at Milford Haven Golf Course.

So, readers, let that be the end of such careless speculation.

Instead, let’s focus on other things going on in the County.

Scolton Manor, for instance.

Scolton Manor is a popular destination for locals and visitors. The grounds are magnificent, the house is a minor delight, and the museum and tea room are well worth an afternoon of anyone’s time.

Of course, it costs a fair bit to maintain. Car parking charges have risen, and the Council has sought to diversify Scolton Manor’s income streams by hosting events, craft fairs, functions, and weddings.

Scolton Manor would be a lovely spot for a wedding. The house, grounds, and walled garden are lovely for a celebration or special occasion.

That type of diversification of income is something every councillor can agree with.

Even those who, for example:

Describe themselves as restauranteurs at Companies House or Are directors of premises with which Scolton Manor might compete, or

They are members of clubs that also host weddings and functions.

Any diligent councillor who found themselves in such a position would - naturally - declare any such interest whenever the Council or a Committee came to discuss Scolton Manor.

A failure to do so would be a breach of the Code of Conduct for County Councillors. And if a Councillor found himself in such a position and were - for example - a member of the IPG, they would be reminded of former Cllr Myles Pepper’s fate when he forgot to declare such an interest when an application for a potential rival premises was discussed.

Of course, Cllr Myles Pepper’s error was an innocent mistake and oversight. However, that did him no good before the Public Service Ombudsman.

It’s a cautionary tale, readers.

Badger is glad to say that it’s the sort of thing that could never happen nowadays.

Unless somebody wants to say Badger’s optimistic goodwill is misplaced and he has missed a crucial fact.

Badger would never want to miss an instance where a county councillor’s personal and business interests could arguably lead them to lobby (even indirectly) on those interests’ behalf and against the interests of the local authority and Council Taxpayers.

Any councillor who did that would rightly be held up for public humiliation.

It would feed the incorrect impression that the current County Councillors use their position to their advantage.

That might have gone on in the past.

But now, as Alan Dennison says, we must concentrate on the here, the now, and the future.