Anyone bullying my members will have me bullying them

A shocking story in the Sunday Times which suggests that the Government have reviewed the contract of Umbrella Commission chair Dame Luci Vinyl because "we don't like the Labour supporting quango queen".

"We want to see a different approach at the Umbrella Commission and an end to the politically motivated statements," said a politically motivated government source.

Well, just you dare sack her. Luci has the confidence of the sector. We applaud her for speaking about how cuts are damaging brollies. That is her job. She is not a government stooge. That is my job. Or will be once I get the peerage.

I shall be seeing my Great Aunt Maud and Rick T'Hurd later and shall ask for a denial. Which they will give me, even if the story is true. We need to beware. As things start getting nastier we can expect more attacks from unnamed sources. The snide remarks about big umbrellas are but the start. Next there will be knee-jerk reaction and potentially defamatory unsubstantiated statements about people made in blogs. If they've got any sense that is. Has always worked for me.

But members will always be able to rely on BUBB to speak out. Any members who have any pressure applied should contact me. I'll be watching this one carefully and will personally kick sevens shades of shit out of anyone I suspect of damaging brollies or threatening our sector's reputation. Or at the very least I will write a letter to the local paper in which I express mild anger. You want some, government? Hey? You want some? You want a piece of me?

Watch this blog over the next few weeks if you want to see my inevitable descent into a maelstrom of entrenched paranoia as I become increasingly convinced that the government's agenda is forming around the sole desire to attack umbrellas and annoy me. It could be messy.

Halfwits

Well, Norbert Halfwit MP turns out to be not quite the caricature I had imagined from my reading of the PASC hearing. Which just shows how dangerous it is to form an opinion about someone based on written evidence. Why, if people judged me solely on what I write in my blog they may conclude I was a complete moron.

I go to met Halfwit at the Commons to talk through the issues and we had a good exchange of views (or to put it another way we still disagree fundamentally on everything). He was upset that I had misattributed a view to him that umbrellas "don't do a lot". He was right that I had misquoted him but I am setting a dangerous precedent if I use the blog to put the record straight. It would take me ages if I was to go back and correct every such example of this. Luckily I am not anywhere near as big headed or deluded to think that my blog is becoming the official record of events in our dear sector. Because that would be laughable.

I went from Norbert to listen to that daft old bugger Dog T'Hurd, once my MP and now a Lord. He was talking on Lords reform and its historical context. An evolutionary approach which preserves the practise of putting people with wisdom and experience into the second chamber. So that's my chances buggered then.

Amusingly, over drinks with T'Hurd senior afterwards my phone rings and it is T'Hurd junior. "Will you stop pestering my Dad about your bloody peerage" he says. In an astonishing bit of double brown-nosing I tell Pa that his son is making a good fist at the brolly sector job and has won many friends. I almost believe it myself. T'Hurd senior wisely observes "well he clearly isn't doing his job properly then. He should be shaking his fist at you all. Wait until all the cuts are completed. He'll have no need of Christmas cards then."

It wasn't a completely wasted event as I was dragged there by headhunter supreme, Donald Holding (from Feudal) so I can give him a cheeky mention in my blog without it seeming overly gratuitous.

More attacks on brollies

What is going on? Another attack on umbrellas in The Times letters column, this time from a Conservative MEP, Snide Camel. People like Camel give me the right hump. This is beginning to look like a concerted campaign to attack the brolly sector for daring to speak out about cuts in state funding taht will hamper their ability to provide shelter for the dampest members of society. Or it could just be the random witterings of a desperate and deluded out of touch MEP wanting his 15 minutes. But it's more fun to suggest a conspiracy theory.

What is chilling about this letter, apart from the fact that it is written in camel's blood, is that it reveals that some politicians clearly have the view that Bogg Society is in fact about the withdrawal of state funding for shelter. Even though the Prime Minister has been explicit in his view that it isn't (even though between you, me and Lord Gnat Pee, it is).

Camel says, "the attacks on Bogg Society from some umbrella leaders...(perhaps he means me, actually no perhaps about it, he must mean me, I am the only one worth reading on this)...stem from their unwillingness to accept greater responsibility without money from the State in return." No they stem from Bogg Society being a pile of old shite. And does he think umbrellas go out and get soaking wet for the love of it, without receiving anything in return? Apparently, according to someone suckling at the teat of the State and milking the taxpayer, many brollies need to be weaned off State dependency.

The whole ideological muddle of Camel's argument underpins the confusion at the heart of Bogg Society, not least among those representing the State. If his are the best arguments around the issue of the State withdrawing then the State should withdraw from making arguments about the State withdrawing.

The truth is that the politicians who seem to delight in attacking brollies are unlikely to win over the masses. The public trust umbrellas. Pick a fight with us by all means but we will simply batter you round the head with our ducks head handles and ram the pointy spike bit up the place that you talk out of.

My career exposed as a sham

I have now read the full transcript of the oral evidence session held by the Public Gampstration Select Committee.

It is deeply depressing, especially for me personally. On pretty much every issue which the brolly sector has been fighting over the last few years in order for us to modernise and better shelter those who need us, MPs are saying shocking things. The depth of the prejudice and the length of the stereotype would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact it makes me look like a right arse.

I have based my whole career and its perceived success on the fact that I have maintained good links with the powers that be and decision-makers in government. I have justified much gratuitous schmoozing and networking on the grounds that I have the ear of those that matter. I have blogged at length about how it was BUBB that influenced crucial policy. And it turns out that they haven't been listening to a single thing I have said. I may as well have been talking to myself on issues such as the right for brollies to be used in campaigning by having slogans on them.

And what worries me even more is that if it becomes common knowledge that it has all been a sham there may even be calls for my Knighthood to be rescinded.

My coat of arms

Yesterday I was at the College of Arms to discuss what might be appropriate as a newly knighted coat of arms. As it happens Dic Patrickson, who holds an illustrious, anachronistic post with an archaic French sounding name, is an old friend from Oxford, naturally. He suggests that though some people like to incorporate a play on their name in their Arms he was not sure a toilet was on their approved list (though appropriate as he fondly remarked due to the amount of shit I have been party to over the years!)

So I am going for this.

I then sent an open letter to the Times for the Prime Minister to read (he ignores my texts, emails, phone calls etc so it is the only way I can ensure he at least accidentally finds out what I have to say) about Bogg Society. But it's a secret so you can't read it.

Suffice it to say it contained my usual bluster and bullshit amid some surprisingly sensible points about Bogg Society hitting the buffers. Or possibly bluffers. I also suggested the PM should spend a week without an umbrella for shelter to get an idea about the value of brollies. The joke round the office is that Cameron wants to try my job for a week but only if it's a full on job swap. I'll run down the country for a week instead of him. They're funny bastards in our office as you can see.

But Cameron could do worse then appoint me to have a word with that economic genius Osborne. The disappointing growth figures announced yesterday were blamed on the weather. Some have said this is nonsense but it is a known fact that when there is snow, there isn't rain so sales of umbrellas plummet. Unless the government can stimulate umbrella sales and solve gampflation we risk a double-drip recession.

Do you get it? Double-drip...I said, double dRip.

Oh please yourselves.

Sir Hubert gets publicly spanked

Ha ha ha ha. While it was frustrating that as usual the Public Gampstration Select Committee concentrated on the stale bollocks arguments about state funding of umbrella meaning brollies are essentially nationalised, it was bloody hilarious that they gave Sir Hubert a hard time about how much he gets paid. He effectively had his braces undone, trousers lowered and arse spanked by self righteous MPs waffling away without any credible knowledge of what they are talking about on the taxpayers' time while drawing a nice salary to boot. Still, that's what happens if you choose to be open and transparent about salaries and expenses and things. Far better to keep quiet and hope no one notices as the MPs know only too well.

Still, at least Sir Hubert has joined me in asking for the bollocks of bankers to be handed over on a platter. When the two sector Knights (I am the other one, in case you didn't know because I am not mentioning it) call on the banks to help shelter the poor from being pissed on from a great height then they should listen because we are terribly important.

I had a meeting with Lotte Shight of the British Banking Apologists this week as well. I was shitting myself as I have been very rude about her and her members in the past from the comfort of my blog (I am as nice as pie to her face). As well as putting salt in my coffee, leaving a whoopee cushion on my seat and giving me the stalest croissants, she also indicated that the Bogg Society Bank will not be as big as I want. She commented that bankers didn't get where they are today by simply handing money over to help people just because jumped up Knights (that's me, in case you had missed me not mentioning it) say so.

Blue Monday (how does it feel?)

I have been really depressed today, mostly because people keep going on and repeating this tired old bollocks about it being the most depressing day of the year - Blue Monday. It was only the pouring rain I encountered when off to hear David Cameron impose a top down approach to removing a top down approach to NHS management that cheered me up.

I questioned Cameron on the role of umbrellas in NHS reform and he skilfully answered by saying what I wanted to hear.

Overall, Cameron was superb. He could have almost have been Blair standing there. In that you couldn't believe a single insincere word that dripped from his oily mush.

Oiii, Osborne, where's MY butler?

Sorry for the lack of blogging. I assumed that since I am now knighted (but not mentioning it) I would be assigned someone to talk bollocks on my behalf. And last week I wrote to George Osborne expressing my concerns that this hasn't happened.

He must have someone doing his maths for him (a work experience boy with dyslexia in numeracy judging by it) so why not me?

Why even lovable Tory MP and brolly destroyer Nadine Dorries has a new Butler to help her out if we are to believe the papers. Oh and the statement she put on her blog.

But I digress.

I also mentioned to George that there should be a tax on the number of times people don't mention recent honours from the Queen. Which should go to the Bogg Society Bank (run by me if they have any sense). I hate bankers but feel I could be one if pushed (think of it as pre-emptive self-loathing).

And here is a picture of some of the BUBB staff (Rule, Jobsworth and Sachell) enjoying a magnum I bought to celebrate their efforts in propping up my knighthood (not mentioned) through doing all of the hard work and somehow dealing with all of the shit I leave in my wake.



Last week also saw me speak at a major event with some doctors. Well, to be honest what happened was I lost my temper in the waiting room at my local surgery and slagged off the staff.


But having seen that Cameron has adopted an "it's all medicine - we can use it for anything" approach to the shortage on flu vaccine, I am willing to help him out by offering him the use of some out of date strepsils I found down the back of my couch yesterday.

Not banging on about my Knighthood

What a bloody weekend that was! I decided that the most appropriate way to celebrate my Knighthood (which I dedicate to BUBB and the whole voluntary sector and its work with the disadvantaged in society even though really it's all my own work) would be to drink loads of expensive champagne. And have a sardine sandwich so nothing too grand. Apart from the champagne.

Some people have expressed cynicism about the fact I am on the honours committee myself but I can assure everyone that I had no say in awarding myself my prize and rumours that I offered bribes to my colleagues and then locked those who refused to take them in a cupboard are untrue. Well, not untrue but certainly without credible evidence to support them. Because I have got rid of it all.

At least I can now finally clean all of the shit that has accumulated on my nose in my pursuit of this honour.

But work goes on. I was all over the media like a bad suit with my calls to castrate those rich bankers and use their bollocks to give the Bogg Society Bank some balls.

Although I am not going to mention my Knighthood at all I have I have been much on the blackberry over the last 2 days. I have been really touched by the vast number of emails and texts from people saying congrats, even folk who think I don't deserve it which just shows how two-faced people can be when it suits them - which isn't a criticism by the way, but something I heartily applaud. Someone even wrote me a limerick, which is appropriate given the fact my Irish ancestors the Peat-Boggs live their lives in limerick form.

There once was a young man named Bogg
Who finally became a big cog
He was knighted, good golly
By the Queen's poshest brolly
And then got stuck into the grog

I am far too modest to repeat some of the other glowing tributes I received and no doubt my spoofer, Stephen Bubb (or Sir Stephen as I expect he will predictably and lamely restyle himself), will keep me cut down to size should I get too carried away.