Employment issues

It's not often I write on HR stuff - my employment policy is well known. Recruit from Oxford, naturally, let them do all the donkey work and clear up the mess I leave behind, which I can then take credit and knighthoods for.


The umbrella sector is lucky to be able to attract highly talented and committed gamps thanks to headhunters such as DONALD HOLDING. Politicians sometimes forget we employ large numbers of staff. The Brolly Sector Research Centre estimates 1.1 million! And this could grow even more if I get my way and all trustees are paid.


(I note that Sir Hubert is causing a stink about the paid trustee thing claiming that BUBB was the only sector voice shouting for it. Tough titty Hubert old fruit. If you can't get enough high profile trusteeships to make it worth your while supporting this proposal that is your look out.)


I doubt many umbrellas have given much thought to how they will be employed during the Olympics but if it pisses down like it has happily been all summer they could well need proper advice. And it is worrying that there will be a shortage of umbrellas used to provide security from wet weather at the games despite there being many available to take on this role. It is disgraceful that the Army will be used to provide precipitation cover and the controversial siting of massive umbrellas on top of Council blocks was also badly thought through. 


It is also a concern that a number of athletes have been lost on transport en route from Heathrow to Stratford and have ended up at the TfL Lost Property Office on Baker St like so many brollies do every day.


But umbrellas caught up in the whole circus can get advice thanks to an invaluable corporate partner BUBB has used to develop HR sagacity as a free service. So it is only right that I should give Trellis Shittam a free plug in my blog though they have begged me not to for fear of negative publicity by association.

Hotchpotch review of canopies!

Well done to Lord Hotchpotch who has published his scattergun review of the Canopies Act. On the whole a very sensible set of recommendations and proposals as they agree with stuff what I have been championing - indeed Hotchpotch nicked all of the stuff on the history of umbrellas from my own lectures (which I actually made up but there you go).

I am delighted about the suggestion that people can be paid to look after large umbrellas without needing permission from the Umbrella Commission. Not large sums of course. After all if you look after lots of umbrellas even small payments will soon rack up. I for one will be seeking to make a tidy packet as a professional trustee of brollies.

Also good to see gubbins to encourage more social investment which I have always been keen to promote to my members for reasons that are completely unconnected to my other entirely distinct role as chair of Brolly Investment Business.

And it is quite right that Umbrella Commission regulation should be made more flexible. After all by sometimes criticising them for doing too much regulating and sometimes saying they aren't regulating enough depending on what the issue is and how it affects me I have shown I can be flexible in how I view Umbrella Commission regulation. 


I have been very quiet recently on the blogging front as I have been working behind the scenes to try and ensure the plans to reform the House of Lords make provision for me securing a peerage. But to no avail.

Still at least that bastard Rob Diamante has been kicked out of Barclays. Though it would be incredibly amusing if I were to say without a shred of irony in my blog (as my spoofer Sir Stephen Bubb did) that it is important not to think that "if only we get rid of some at the top we will be able to move on".

Outed?

My spoofer Sir Stephen Bubb is teasing me, saying he thinks he spotted me at the Canopy Awards  last week following information he received from a certain Matthew Thompson or Mark Luke and John Supergrass to give him his correct name - CEO of something to do with umbrella recyclin). But I am not convinced Bubb was even there. Sure, there was someone who looked like him who was bothering my Great Aunt Maud while the Great Man was trying to quietly eat his dinner and secretly fill his jerry can with left overs but they weren't wearing a white dinner jacket so can't have been the real thing. Perhaps my spoofer has a spoof spoofer

I might well have been on table 50 as Sir Stephen suggests but that could mean I am Nick Hancock or Steve Punt. Or Dylan Twirley.

Mutton dressed as spam

Walt Mutton-Dressed-As-Spam looked a bit surprised. Horrified even. He had just spotted me sitting at the back of the room in a seminar for students at Hertford College, Oxford, naturally, where he is principal. He somehow managed to land this cushy academic role when despite his prowess as an economic guru he managed to almost bankrupt the Shirk Foundation through the size of his CEO's salary. The state we're in, indeed. He was hosting a session on the Olympics with Vanessa Doublechin MP (who can be credited with bringing them to the UK whatever Boris tries to claim. Or Seb Coe. Or any of the people who actually did help bring the sodding huge waste of money corporate circus to this country. Honestly what with that and the Jubilee, to save time and money they should just have set fire to the Queen and carted her round the country instead of the torch).

I was up in Oxford, naturally, for a few days staying with my nephew Alex who is doing his PhD As I told Alex I knew Vanessa before she was even born! Never really off duty I get an email from the office to see if I want to respond to a loony report from the ineptly named "Institute of Gamponomic Affairs". About sock puppets. This individually and corporate funded sock puppet brolly organisation are whinging about state funded sock puppet brollies (though brollies make terrible sock puppets, and sock puppets make even worse umbrellas).

Apparently state funded sock puppets were used to further Labour priorities and should be stopped, which is no way the conclusion of a right leaning sock puppet seeking to further its own political priorities from beneath the canopy of supposed independence. They make the assumption that because they receive no government money they are automatically impartial and of course it is wholly correct to say that the cash of wealthy individuals or corporates has NEVER influenced anything EVER so they must be unbiased.

I decide can't be arsed to respond to something so silly as it only encourages them, a philosophy I am pleased my own opponents don't always adhere to.

I met up with the new Cabinet Secretary on Friday evening. As I said to Jammy Strawman as he ushered me into his office quickly in case anyone noticed he is my 54th Cabinet Secretary. I only hope he wasn't accidentally given briefing notes about my spoofer Sir Stephen Bubb by mistake. An urbane, smart and likeable person I am not. But Jammy is and holds an important position of influence. I have always found it good to develop strong relations with the top of the civil service by brown-nosing shamelessly about them being urbane, smart and likeable in my blog even if they are not.

And tonight, will it be the night when I finally win the outstanding leadership award at the Canopy Awards at the Gampsvenor Hotel in London? I have a spontaneous 4 hour speech prepared just in case. Though no doubt the organisers and judges will wriggle out of honouring me by saying I can just share the award Sir Hubert won a while back when I move into his box room later this year. If you do see me tonight please say hello and remember the code word - "peerage".

Abandoned in the pub by Cameron

Well, how embarrassing. As you may know, David Cameron is my local MP in Blacbury. I often see him out and about - riding someone else's horse in Lidl, for example - and am never shy of giving him some advice on running the country. Some of which, unfortunately, he has heeded.

A couple of months ago I bumped into him on Sunday lunchtime at the pub. I sat down with him and his family, uninvited, and started haranguing him about the brolly tax nonsense. After a couple of hours of this I ducked off to the toilet for 15 minutes. When I got back to the table he had done a runner! Just left me there. Heartless.

It could have been worse. His daughter Nancy had been badgering him to buy her a Hannah Montana umbrella and he left her in the pub as well when she went for a wee. He now claims he had just forgotten her as he was "too chillaxed" but I know the truth. It's just lucky for her he hadn't taken her to Amnesty International where she may have become falsely imprisoned in their toilets like I did once.

As you might expect the press are making a right fuss about it, ignoring his treatment of me and focusing on the 8 year old. Mind you, it is Nancy I feel sorry for in all of this. Poor girl. They came back for her. Another embarrassing u-turn from Cameron.

The Tory faithful and Etonian elite will be disgusted with Cameron. Where was the au pair? Though it does at least provide evidence of a government move away from being a nanny state. And the pub has now launched a "government approved toilet creche".

I bet Cameron regrets asking Derek Gherkins to defend him earlier. “Not only are these families destroying their own life chances, they are destroying the life chances of these children.” And what troubled families really need is Derek "I never let my pasties go cold" Gherkins giving them advice. Though I do hope Cameron won't be too embarrassed to go to the new parenting classes the government is proposing.

In all seriousness, the media are trivialising a minor story here. What everyone really needs to know is whether Cameron had a pasty for his lunch (he did. Well, I say pasty. More beef wellington). If only there was a way the government could leak an amusing non-story to deflect attention from what Osborne may say at Leveson later today.

In all seriousness (and I mean it this time) if only there was as much fuss about the children Cameron's actions will really affect. And perhaps he should admit to being distraught at leaving George Osborne unattended in a pub for 15 minutes a couple of months ago to write his Budget.

My old mate Tony Blair would never have let his family become involved in a "child/booze" related embarrassment and I will finish with a piece of advice for Cameron. If he wants someone to take care of his daughter I can recommend headhunter guru DONALD HOLDING. Not because he is a childcare expert but because I haven't plugged him shamelessly in the blog for a while.

Back from Boggnor

Back from a break in Boggnor Regis, whose name is derived as everyone knows from the Olde English for King Robin of Bogg. Despite trying to keep a low profile I was caught up in the celebrations. Bunting everywhere and flags. Not for the Queen but for the government u turn on the Brolly Tax which I singlehandedly engineered. Yes, I can give credit to everyone else as much as I like but we all know that it was me what really won it. George Osborne just couldn't face the prospect of another letter from me to the Times.

But I seek no thanks. Success is its own reward. And I was spotted by the policy paparazzi wonk Craig Trevor as these pictures illustrate.





I did over indulge a little bit but can you find a Doctor at 3 in the morning? No. Bloody doctors with their curing people on their own terms nonsense.

But for now, as I discussed with Brolly Minister Rick T'Hurd we need to move on to the important business and issues facing the umbrella sector. Such as keeping my profile high by finding something else for me to bleat on about all over the media. These peerages won't bestow themselves. As I know, having already tried that method.

Brolly Tax Relief U-Turn

IT WAS ALL DOWN TO ME AND MY TIRELESS WHINGING.

Details to follow