The One That Feels For The Scapegoat. . .

Can you hear that dripping sound? Listen carefully, that is the sound of my heart bleeding.

Poor old Rose Gibb, I blogged yesterday about this horrible woman, well she's started her case in court today, and you know what, it just isn't fair.

I might have got her wrong.

According to her testimony, the Healthcare Commission's report into the state of hygeine in Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS was 'full of inaccuracies, innuendo and unfounded criticisms' and that she disagreed with the findings. She has also said that she resigned as she 'understood that this [her treatment] was a reaction to the impending HCC report to manage the public and any fallout. I was to be the scapegoat.'

Scapegoat? You were the Chief Executive of an almost criminally dirty hospital, indeed if memory serves correct, Al-Beeb made an undercover report into conditions in another hospital in M&TW NHS Trust.

Damn right you carry the can, you were getting paid £150k per annum, so you'd better take fucking responsibility. How I long for a job where I can get that amount (and probably a tasty bonus as well) and then absolve myself of any fault if it all goes tits up.

I hope you lose your house, AND contract an illness which requires you get treatment in a hospital as filthy as the one you ran.

The One That Wants You To Take A Good, Hard Look . . .

This, my friends, is what a total fucking bitch looks like.

Take a good hard look.

'Who is this contemptible non-entity?' I hear you ask.

Her name is Rose Gibb she was the Chief Exec of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. On her watch 90 people died of C.diff infection. That's 90. The hospital under her charge was so filthy that hygeine standards were revealed which would have caused concern in some fly-blown sub-Saharan hell hole hospital.

Health Sec, Alan Milburn did one of the few correct things this government has tried to do by attempting to prevent her receiving a pay-off. Bearing in mind this is a woman that walked away from a contract of employment having overseen the deaths of the better part of 100 people, just before a damning report into standards at the hospital were released.

Even though she'd failed to stop the death of 90 people, even though she'd walked away from her job, even though the Health Secretary had figured out it was a shocking waste of taxpayers' money to pay her off and asked the Trust not to do it, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, amazingly, negotiated a £250,000 pay-off but then witheld £175,000 of that following Milburn's little campaign.

Excuse me? What the fuck? She walked away from her job, where she had spectacularly failed in her job (how does it go? 'First do no harm' or something isn't it?) and actually expected a pay-off! Only in British Public Service would this happen.

But poor old Rose, obviously £75,000 isn't enough, oh no, she's taking the trust to the High Court now to demand the balance of the £250k. I suppose she's been advised she's got a decent case, or she wouldn't have taken this action. I can only hope the Judge tells her to fuck right off and saddles her with a huge costs bill.

Proof positive, public service at the high level in this country is dead. It isn't about doing the best by your country or your community, it is about as creaming as much of the taxpayers' money as possible and having no shame or self awareness.

Rose Gibb, in a country that is administered by the sociopathic, hubristic, avaricious, arrogant, incompetent and detestible, you truly are one of the stand-out candidates. You have been shown to be one of the biggest wastes of space in Kent. I hope you lose your house, bitch.

The One That Is, To Be Frank, Amazed. . .

By this story.

Not the fact that she's been sacked.

The fact that she's been sacked without pay.

Did you ever?

What a pretty situation we find ourselves in now. What is the country coming to when a perfectly incompetent public servant, who totally fails to deliver on what she is paid to do, and is responsible for failing to prevent the spectacular death of a little boy, loses her job and doesn't trouser an enormous pay-off?

This sets a very dangerous precedent indeed. I hope the taxpayer takes note. . .

The One That Wonders Why It Was There In The First Place. . .

I normally consider myself quite lucky to live in Kent. It is a very pleasant place with some lovely countryside, excellent produce, nice (and some not so nice) towns, and it is only a short hop out of this mess of a country. Admittedly France is your main option, but beggars can't be choosers.

How interesting to learn that Kent County Council are on the verge of waving goodbye to £50m that was invested in an Icelandic bank. Indeed there's a double whammy here, Canterbury City Council, the body responsible for running my city could also come out light, to the tune of £1m.

Let us set aside the fact that indicators have not been good regarding the Icelandic banks for a little while now. Let us set aside the fact that having lost millions of pounds of taxpayers' money that the local authorities are now crying to the government about this and want the same protection afforded to individual savers. Actually, no, let us not set that aside. You've lost £50m and then go and ask the government for more taxpayers' cash to cover the shortfall? Are you crazy?

I mean, really, you must be stark raving, batshit, howling at the moon, madder than a bag of cut snakes, mental. I'm a civil servant, although central rather than local government, if I were to cash up my wages and then chuck them in the back of a passing rubbish truck, would I expect the government to cough up again? No, of course not, because I'd been rather stupid and should had known better.

But anyhow, £50m, that's fifty fucking million quid, gone, more than likely. Gordie thinks that Iceland have acted illegally (I'm inclined to agree with him, but that's more to do with awful bloody adverts, THAT woman and awful rubbery frozen prawns) I'm not sure of the details. But even if they have, what are we going to do? Sue them? They're bloody broke, that's the whole point.

Hang on a second. . .

What the bloody hell was all that cash doing in saving accounts and investments anyway? I don't pay my taxes to have it hoarded away. I don't pay my taxes at all, I have large amounts of cash regularly and forcibly removed from me, in some cases it is intercepted before it even reaches my bank account. I resent having this money taken from me and spent on equality, diversity, climate change and 5-a-day advisors (£42,000 pa + car + pension, 37.5 hours per week) but at least it isn't taken off me and put in a bloody savings account.

Oh wait, it is!

So you're stealing my money for investment purposes? That isn't governance, its being a mugger with red braces and a really nasty, shiny suit.

You utter, utter, utter bastards. I hope all your children have small penises. . . especially the girls.

The One That Figures If It Is Good Enough For The Goose . . .

You see, that's the problem in schools. When you have a large number of impressionable and malleable people, you have to be careful about what they are exposed to, what they consider to be the norm and acceptable.

No, of course I'm not talking about the imminent release of Crack Whore Pimp Blows Cars Up - Vilnius Edition. Nor am I talking about the latest reports of kids on school football pitches displaying the lack of respect to match officials which is so apparent in the Premier League. I'm not even talking about the rap genre perpetuating the promotion of women as items for nothing beyond sexual gratification.

I'm not even talking about the kids. I'm talking about the teachers.

Al-Beeb is reporting that staff from Edensor Technology College in Stoke are pissing off to Marbella for four days to 'discuss the school's new curriculum and plans to turn it into an academy.'

You what? You have to go to Spain to discuss this? Apparently the trip to Marbella was 'best value for money'. Really? How much an hour does it cost to hire out your own fucking hall then? I'm guessing it's a lot, I'd hate to think you were spending MY money on this jolly, so you must have raised the revenue somehow.

But then, why the hell should they not spank thousands of taxpayer's cash on this? Teachers see council officials, MPs, Civil Servants, MEPs and anyone who gets within half a mile of the public purse going to Can-bloody-cun to see how a municipal building looks with a wheelchair stairlift, so why can't they get a bit of the gravy?

I hope that parents remind them of the fact that they closed down the school for two days and nipped off for some early winter sun the next time they start bitching about how much work they have to do, and how little cash they get paid.

What a bunch of bastards, I hope all the kids accuse the teachers of touching them inappropriately.

The One That Loves And Hates Things Like This. . .

I'll tell you a little story.

I work for a government department, which is fun.

Actually, that's a lie, it is miserable. A situation I am currently trying to address. Anyhow, just about a year ago, my team moved from a scruffy but much loved office in Dover, to a spanking new purpose built building in Folkestone. Of course it isn't as nice as the place we used to work at in Dover.

This new building has had a few problems, snagging it is called. There's been quite a list. One of the more controversial and ongoing ones has been the subject of proximity passes granting access to the building. For some reason these passes were only set up to work for one year and have now usefully expired, across the board. We were initially told that new passes would be made, at a cost to you the taxpayer of, well, God knows how much, but you can bet that because we are a government department a normal quote is taken and then trebled.

These new passes will be with us in a number of weeks.

In the short-term the plan for the existing passes is that they will be re-enabled until the new ones arrive. Yes, yes, I know, if the existing passes can be re-enabled, then why do we need new ones at all? The answer is probably something like 'someone has decided we need new passes, probably a committee, and that decision can't be reversed unless there's another committee and probably a focus group and a project team working to a delivery manager.'

Here's the real little gem, so skilfully hidden in this steaming pile of shite, an email was sat in my inbox this morning from one of the team (a fairly senior manager) that is in charge of the 'facilities managment'.* It spoke in vaguely confident fashion about how this problem is being sorted and that all will be well. One line in particular made me laugh out loud:

'I have been assured that this work is still underway and personnel should now shortly evidence resolution.'

What? I recognise the words, they are all good words, used in everyday English, but this is a combination of such that has hitherto been unknown to me. Evidence resolution? Oh, I see, you mean it'll be working again soon?

What a great representation of the civil service; not set-up properly, stops working, ridiculous plan to fix it, still not working, talk bollocks about it in the hope no-one asks any questions.

Don't worry, your taxes are being well spent.

* formerly 'accommodation team', then 'estate management', and will probably next week be called 'work place environmental management and resource best practice facilitation unit'. We do love a name change in the civil service.

The One That Is Feeling Suitably Chastised. . .

Bankrupt Goldfish holidays in Japan.

Interesting to see Gordon the Goldfish (watch his mouth gaping like a landed fish next time he's on the telly, once you've spotted it, you can't help but notice it, you can even predict its appearance) berating us all from Hokkaido about food waste and how much we throw away.

OK, Mac The Knife said it best a little time ago:

If I want to dump 'Taste the difference' Chicken Nibletz into my garden pond, or nail gammon steaks to the shed that's my affair. When will you people shut the fuck up and bugger off?

What remarkable chutzpah from Goldfish Gordie, having a go at us about waste? Of course it is all our fault. The economy has been bumping along quite nicely for a while and it was all down to him, but now the wheels have fallen off it isn't his fault. What a remarkable turn of events, who'd have thought in this day and age that someone would absolve themselves of any fault and lay the blame at someone else's door?

The report from the Torygraph says:

Families in the UK are throwing away a total of 4.1 million tonnes of perfectly good food every year, costing each around £420 annually, according to the 10-month study.

Waste could be reduced by storing fruit and vegetables better to stop them going off, and planning meals so goods are used up rather than ditched.

Now, let's just rework that a little shall we?

Politicians in the UK are throwing away a total of £4.1 million of perfectly good cash every year, costing each household around £420 annually, according to the 10-month study.

Waste could be reduced by storing tax payer's money better to stop it being spanked on vanity projects and desperate attempts to cling on to power no matter what, and economic planning so monies are used sensibly rather than pissed up the wall like we've nothing to lose.

Of course it doesn't work, does it? Because government waste, where they pump huge amounts of public cash, that is cash they've taken from you and me, into, oooh let's say PFI, where private companies are paid stupid amounts to provide a service, which they balls up, and are then given more money to solve the problem which they then don't solve, far outweighs any financial or material waste we indulge in, even if we really, really tried to throw everything away we ever touch.

Honestly Gordon, it's like telling people not to look at porn, only to be seen wanking over the lingerie section of the Grattan catalogue during PMQ's. I always thought that Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was being used by the soon to be erstwhile Prime Minister as an instruction manual, now it looks like he's been reading Animal Farm as well.

Some are more equal than others. . .