Everyone knows about the Dear Leaders' trips to the USA, on more than occasion, funded by the council. He attended very important conferences, that amongst others discussed the merits of a single telephone number for council services.
In the course of one of these conferences, not the one in Boston or San Francisco, he had dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, costing around $500. It was a dinner for two.
Under the council expense rules now he wouldn't have been able to claim for a dinner for one, but at the time the rules were absent, so the council very kindly picked up the tab.
When asked, Sir M was "unable to remember" whom he entertained that evening, claiming it was a long time ago and he can't remember who his dinner guest was.
Therefore, Dear Reader, we invite you to suggest possible candidates in the attempt to jog the poor fellows memory.
So get your thinking caps on and send in your suggestions, and of course a selection will be published.
with thanks to thisisnorthkensington.wordpress.com
You are a tease, Dame H, we all know who it was and you know too. How long will you keep the rest of the world in ignorance?
ReplyDeleteBefore readers start to guess who Cllr Cockell's mystery guest was, dear Dame, you should remind them that the dinner for two at the Four Seasons restaurant (a favourite of Bill and Hilary Clinton) was on a SATURDAY night - after the conference ended on Friday morning at lunch time.
ReplyDeleteCllr Cockell could have caught a flight home on Friday afternoon like everyone else.
But no, he was having a jolly in the Big App
Taking a stranger out to dinner at a posh restaurant on a weekend break is behaviour that is as old as the hills. If you cannot even remember the name of the guest, then it was not about business or intellectual conversation
ReplyDeleteMyers protects Cockell who in turn looks after Myers. Mr Myers steers well clear of the Freemasonry that runs the Rotten Borough, but what does he do to prevent its insidious influence
ReplyDeleteMosquito is mistaken. We don't all know who it was. Perhaps it was Donald Trump. He seems the sort of chap to turn every inch of RBKC into a land exclusively reserved for the billionaire classes. Rather than Chinese 'York' stone paving, 'The Donald' will want to pave our streets with pink marble! Of course, that's when he's not busy claiming that Obama is neither a US citizen nor a Christian. Sounds like Cockell's kinda guy!
ReplyDeleteCllr Merrick Cockell is entitled to take whoever he wants to dinner and this is persecution by the Hornet.
ReplyDeleteIt is a great pity that his expenses record was discovered by mischief makers and the Hornet is being a pest
The cost of a dinner for a friend in New York is a tiny amount of the Council Tax
Tagging on a weekend in New York after a business trip is one thing. But charging up the weekend hotel bill and entertainment expenses for friends to hard pressed tax payers is quite another.
ReplyDeleteFor too long politicians have assumed that "out of site and out of mind" is the basis for all kinds of abuse. But no longer, Cockell. Freedom of Information put paid to that.
I used to fire salesmen in the private sector who tried to swing this kind of nonsense. The private sector understands the need for discipline.
Cllr Merrick Cockell is entitled to take whoever he wants to dinner and this is persecution by the Hornet.
ReplyDeleteIt is a great pity that his expenses record was discovered by mischief makers and the Hornet is being a pest
The cost of a dinner for a friend in New York is a tiny amount of the Council Tax
3 May 2011 13:51
WITH IDIOT FRIENDS LIKE THIS COCKELL NEEDS NO ENEMIES...
WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, YOU CLOWN, IS THAT HE CAN SPEND OUR MONEY AS HE FEELS LIKE IT. GROW UP FOR GOODNESS SAKE
"It is a great pity that his expenses record was discovered by mischief makers and the Hornet is being a pest"
ReplyDelete"Yes, what a pity it could not have been hidden away under a stone. We don't want these boring taxpayers finding out how we waste their money"
That would seem to be the inference if your comment......
13.51 you are entirely wrong to think that the cost of a dinner to entertain Cllr Cockell's companion in New York is a "tiny amount of the Council Tax"
ReplyDeleteFrom time to time this argument is trotted out by the Town Hall. "The cost of the Bentley is an insignificant percentage of the budget"
The problem is that when this attitude is allowed to grow and fester in an organisation it leads to widespread financial abuse and profligacy.
It is a failure of Leadership (Cockell) and stewardship (Myers). A very big failure. They have been getting away with it because there has been nothing like the Hornet (and our noble Dame) to hold them to account