Wednesday 15 April 2009

Smear tactics

One gets used to the attention of the press in my job but sometimes it does get too much. There is nothing I like doing more of a weekend than buying Barkles a big juicy bone to chew on. She loves it and is like a, well, a dog with a bone. But she has nothing on the dogged determination of the newshounds at Brolly Weekly.

Their continued obsession over the supposed rivalry between BUBB and NCVO reached a new nadir this week. Apparently one of my policy bods, Simeon McSnide, has been caught sending emails about employing smear tactics to discredit NCVO's chief executive, Hubert Carrington, and his deputy Con Corrigan. Simeon sent a number of juvenile suggestions for stories we could place in the press about Hubert and Con to shadowy spin king Eric Cordwainer who runs a pro BUBB website, called BUBBlies. Now, I have got no problem with Brolly Weekly reporting this per se, as we all know it is true. But I do resent their implication that I somehow knew what my staff were up to. Give me a break guys. I haven't got a clue what I am doing myself half the time let alone my team, brilliant as they are (Oxford, naturally). So, no, I won't be resigning. It is not the chief executive's job to take responsibility for management issues in his organisation.

Happily, Brolly Weekly also ran a follow up story to its recent scoop over BUBB's supposed ruck with NCVO over the umbrella management centre at the Len Ganley Management College. A Freedom of Imagination request has revealed that NCVO's business plan for the initiative was at best woolly. I am not in the business of saying "I told you so" as that does no credit to Robin Bogg. Which is why I left it to my deputy Hector Rule to issue a press statement that said: "Ner ner na ner ner...we were right, you were wrong, IN YOUR FACE Carrington!"

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