Sound of silence from uncivil servants

This time last week, all was calm on the Boston political scene - but, as they say, a week is a long time in politics.
Just hours ahead of a full council meeting, no-one could have known that a walk out was on the cards that would plunge the council into controversy, along with allegations that - in a major change of content - the ruling BBI was promoting pornography from its web page ... adapted to fool casual readers into believing that it was the Boston Eye blog.
When the issue was raised by Better Boston Group Councillor Anne Dorrian, she found herself shouted down by the "impartial" Mayor Peter "Old Grumpy" Jordan, a former deputy leader of the BBI and a member of the crisis-ridden cabinet who has pledged to make the council "a more cohesive, positive and efficient force for good."
Eventually, Councillor Dorrian's question managed to penetrate the consciousness of BBI Leader Richard Austin, who denied the existence of any link to pornography - which if nothing else suggests some knowledge and approval of what occurs his party's official blog.
In the past, we have honoured the Beloved Leader with the sobriquet "Papa Dick" as a nod to the late unlamented Haitian president, whose management style seemed so similar in many respects - but in light of these latest developments, we wonder whether "Papa Dick" might now acquire an entirely new significance.
"Papa Dick's" denial of any impropriety was followed immediately by the removal of the offending link and the restoration of the layout to its original state - clearly the act of a group that has nothing to hide.
Notwithstanding, we took issue with the BBI stunt, and wrote to the deputy chief executive Phil Drury, whose response was short and sweet.
"This is not a matter for the council and you should take up any concerns that you may have directly with the group concerned," he wrote on Wednesday in reply to our e-mail of the previous day.
Despite waiting patiently, our reply suggesting that this issue did in fact form part of his domain has been ignored by this uncivil servant.
So we followed his advice and wrote to Councillor Austin.
Not for the first time, the leader employed his time-honoured ostrich impression, burying his head in the sand, and ignoring the e-mail entirely - something we predicted would happen when we wrote to Deputy Dawg Drury .. which is probably why he suggested that we take it up with Papa Dick. Perhaps they both attended the same local government charm school.
At this point, a sane individual would imagine that the BBI would retire hurt and hope that their stupidity might eventually be forgotten.
But we're talking about the BBI here, and it seems there is little or nothing that the sniggering schoolboys who write their blog won't stoop to.
On Thursday afternoon, the site launched a snide attack on Councillor Dorrian, purporting to apologise to "for outraging her delicate sensibilities," and adding "we realise that not everyone has quite adapted to the 21st century yet and for those people we offer the BBC's article on how internet dating has empowered women from, errrr, 2002."
We wonder what reaction the five female members of the BBI might have to this - assuming that they are allowed to speak!


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