Good for the Gander
DGC’s one-way-street hypocrisy shows alarming lack of introspection
Dumfries & Galloway’s finest kicked off a new campaign last week, demanding, believe it or not, that their workers are treated with “respect and dignity”.
Well, how about that! Fantastic. DoD commends D&G Council for holding dignity and respect so high in their list of priorities.
Amongst other worn-out clichés, the article, entitled Respect Our Colleagues – Building Respect Together, mentions:
– Ensuring all colleagues feel safe, valued and support at work
– Deserving to be treated with respect and dignity
– Abuse, aggression or intimidation towards council colleagues will not be tolerated
So, along with respect and dignity, DGC has zero tolerance of abuse, aggression or intimidation. Isn’t that nice!
Except… we can’t quite figure it out, but… there’s something niggling away at our subconscious… something that doesn’t quite add up… some sort of cognitive dissonance that we can’t quite put our finger on… like we’re missing an important word…
Oh, wait!—here it is:
Does demands of ‘respect and dignity’ by an organisation that shows neither of those traits not ring as hollow, not to mention desperate?
This mafia-esque extortion racket issues threatening letters to every household in the region, demanding payments of money that not a single council employee nor anyone else has the lawful right to claim, plunging many into impoverishment in the process. If you don’t pay up, they escalate by sending more threatening letters, pursue court actions without your knowledge, raid your bank account, and if that doesn’t satisfy their self-assured hubris and bloodlust, they then send henchmen round to break into your home and take your stuff.
And what do they do with their ill-gotten gains? Spend it how those whose wallets they robbed would wish? Of course not! Amongst a myriad of monumental misappropriations of money, DGC are ploughing ahead with the contract for the latest white elephant wanted by no-one except themselves—the Whitesands flood protection scheme—despite the fact that the project hasn’t yet been given the go-ahead. Millions have already been wasted on this project, with tens of millions more to be squandered. And you can bet your bottom embezzled dollar that no council employee will ever be held to account for this fiscal negligence. Meanwhile, the criminal cartel just increased its protection racket demands by a whopping nine percent.
If you’re surprised that we just referred to Dumfries & Galloway Council as some sort of criminal cartel, don’t be, because that’s precisely what they are; like all local authorities, Dumfries & Galloway Council are just a mafia with better PR and a fluffier exterior, granted the veneer of authenticity by the misguided belief that anyone ever had the right bestow such “powers” on them in the first place, enforced thereafter by presumption, arrogance, entitlement, and belief. And nothing more.
Just like the mafia, their existence is founded on abuse, aggression and intimidation, yet they will not tolerate abuse, aggression or intimidation.
If only DGC extended the same ethos of ‘valued, respected and dignified’ to the children they bullied, coerced and cowed into submission with face masks in Dumfries & Galloway’s schools.
The same organisation ignored all information regarding mask harms to children and took not a single one of them into account in their risk assessments. No-one has ever been held to account for this child neglect.
Yet they demand respect.
Then, after admitting they had no right to do any of it, that capitulation was not disseminated to either the education department or head teachers. A recent freedom of information request revealed that the information was filed with only the FOI and Comments & Complaints teams and Cllr MacGregor herself, and went nowhere else.
So worthy of respect.
More concerning still, a DGC officer response issued via MacGregor strongly hinted that they would do it all again at the drop of a hat. Cllr MacGregor was not at all interested in meeting to discuss this disturbing development, and instead used the council’s’s trump card—the almighty power of ignorance—and swept it under the carpet.
How ironic, then, that Cllr MacGregor would subsequently boast on a recent Facebook post by Ootn Aboot Dumfries: “My office door is always open as is my ear for those with opposing views.”
So worthy of respect. How much respect would you like today, Gail? Just say when.
Before the champagne bottle was smashed to launch this farcical campaign, it seems not a single council employee had the wherewithal to ask: Just why do people lack respect for the council?
At a wild guess…
If you have to beg for respect and dignity whilst giving neither;
If you have to demand that you are not subjected to abuse, aggression or intimidation when your entire existence is predicated on all of those things;
If your one-way-street directives look just a little bit shallow and desperate;
Then perhaps it’s time to look inward.
Though non-religious, here at the DoD, we’re quite partial to the odd Bible phrase when used in the proper context, so we’ll sign off with this verse:
“… as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head.” Obadiah 1:15 (KJV)
What’s good for the goose, eh.
Right of Reply: Contact DoD@DeclarationofDumfries.co.uk with additional or alternative information. Anonymity guaranteed.
This article can also be viewed on Declaration of Dumfries Substack page.