Chief Toad: Brian Mammon forced through massive pay rises for himself and his fellow Tory Toads last night.
One Conservative, Brian Salinger was absent through illness. His wife Councillor Kate Salinger abstained from every vote. At the end of the meeting there was an unexpected item as Chief Toad Mammon indulged his bullying nature by publicly humiliating Ms Salinger for daring to abstain. She was vindictively and publicly removed, with immediate effect, from every chair, vice chair, committee membership and any other official role that she held in the Borough of Barnet.
After the meeting, a visibly delighted Mammon enjoyed bragging to the press about how strong, immediate discipline had been imposed on those who depart from the party line.
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ReplyDeleteMy earlier post said 'the Mammon pic is brilliant, did you do it?'. But I wanted to expand on that.
ReplyDeleteIt's particularly good because Barnet council Tories are big on sanctimony. The meeting started last night with the mayor's chaplain (is this normal practice in all councils?) blessing the new council. He went on at some length and wasn't even very interesting, which I know religious speeches can be.
Being godless, I sat down throughout, but everyone else - including the public - felt obliged to stand.
(We go in for this sort of ceremony a lot in Barnet. As well as parading the mace before themeetings, there's a big colour portrait of Queen Elizabeth in the chamber, above the mayor's chair.)
Anyway, after the mayor's chaplain had enjoined everyone to be modest and unselfish and think about serving everyone in Barnet and not just themselves, blah, blah, the meeting went ahead.
In the motion from the Tories getting all enthusiastic about academies and free schools they said how great it would be if there were more faith schools. John Marshall, whose sons went to a CofE school, said it would be discriminatory to stop other faiths setting up schools.
This is all true, but where would you draw the line? You could get all sorts of weird 'religions' setting up schools, teaching their own curriculum, and doing it with public money.
Anyway, one or two more people made reference to religous faith throughout the evening (yawn - as if being religious makes you a good person!). Susette Palmer for the Lib Dems deployed the religious imagery most effectively, though, when she berated the Tories for voting through an expenses hike for Lynne Hillan of 55% and the Cabinet members of 99%.
Palmer basically said that the Tories who'd stood and prayed during the chaplain's speech and who were about to vote the rises were hypocrites. At which Brian expostulated "That's outrageous!" (He is, as we all know, a Methodist.)
Palmer topped off the evening's entertainment by exhorting the Tories not to 'follow the Judas goat [Lynne Hillan] to the slaughter' - a very blood-stirring speech it was! The Tories didn't like it. Well, they're all good Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc, so they wouldn't.
I wish politicians would stop wearing their religion like a badge - I suppose we have to thank Tony Blair for making that trendy again. Down with sanctimony!
Very nice comment vickim57.
ReplyDeleteI adapted the pic from the one I found at:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/images/Mammon.jpg
And thank you - 'sanctimony' was the word I was looking for. That and 'hypocrisy' of course.
:)
Mr Toad
ReplyDeleteI salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you until victory.
Hello mate ggreat blog post
ReplyDelete