How can people be so far off the point with a planning application?

Although I have no firsthand knowledge, I doubt that the thought uppermost in Christopher Blackstone’s mind when he instituted his ultimately successful appeal against demolition and further development was a need to preserve Camelia Cottage at all costs.

My understanding is that it was based more on what the developer wanted to replace it with – to which the powers that be at South Hill had consented – than on the (somewhat weaker, in my view) argument about heritage and /or architectural merits.

Yet, looking through those online comments, I was quite surprised with the number of people who said, in effect, that the Royal Court should not have intervened because the building didn’t look to be anything special, was of little or no historical interest, and therefore wasn’t worth saving.

They had clearly only looked at a photograph, not bothered to read anything other than a headline about the issue, and made up their minds on that. The really frightening thought is that such people can serve on juries, vote and could possibly be elected to the Big House. On reflection, some of them appear to have actually made it to the Big House. And, as someone is bound to remind me, they also walk among us.

WHILE on the subject of online comment, I chanced upon those made about a seminar – being held on Thursday at La Societe in Pier Road, as it happens – on workplace bullying. Having years ago had a line manager who was not only prepared to believe absolutely anything anyone told him about me, no matter how preposterous or malicious it was, but then ensured that new members of staff were fully briefed on what he thought of me as a result, the story caught my eye.

Of course, in those days all that – and the snide remarks that went with it – was something that had to be shrugged off and lived with or one simply found another job; a bit difficult when the job was reasonably well paid and the mortgage had to be paid.

Now it’s called workplace bullying – an expression unheard of then – but I was somewhat saddened when reading further on in the report that this seminar is designed for employers. That view appeared to be shared by the majority of the couple of dozen or so people who commented online, many of whom had some quite nasty illustrations of workplace bullying to recount.

The general impression I got from those comments was employees have little faith indeed in what they tend to call the Human Resources people, viewing them as management stooges who are there to ‘persuade’ complainants either to leave or keep quiet, and little faith either in managers being willing to address such important issues.

I am probably the last person anyone would expect to call for yet more legislation in a place that must rank among the most regulated anywhere on the Les Platons side of North Korea but for those who doubt that more protection should be afforded to those being bullied may I suggest that they read the online comments I read.

Incidentally, the seminars – there are several of them – are organised by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and will be addressed by employment law specialist Vicky Milner of law firm Bedell and Cristin.

I would like to think that at some time in the not too distant future I will be able to comment favourably upon the public-spiritedness of the Institute, along with Ms Milner and Bedell and Cristin, in organising similar seminars offering the same sort of advice to the very many people who have been and continue to be bullied in their workplaces.

HAVING referred frequently – far too frequently, according to Herself – to the warm glow a slug or three of Calvados gives me, may I say that I got very nearly (but not quite) the same sort of feeling when I read last week the comment of former Boss Sir Philip Bailhache telling us all to stand up for ourselves.

Having just re-read the last two paragraphs, it seems somewhat ironic that almost in the same breath I am writing about two very different types of bullying. On the one hand there is the workplace bully, not unlike the playground bully in many respects, while on the other there is bullying on an almost national scale. I firmly believe – and reading between the lines there is more than an outside chance that Philip Bailhache thinks along similar lines – that there exists within the corridors of power in Whitehall a culture of bullying on the national scale to which I referred.

It is the sort of thing which, until relatively recent times – the last 15 or 20 years or so – one would have associated more with the USSR’s subjugation of the Baltic states and what was called the Eastern bloc, than with Britain and the oldest possession of the English Crown.

I well recall Sir Philip’s response – along with that of Guernsey Bailiff Sir Graham Dorey – to Jack Straw (the then Home Secretary)’s ordering what became the Edwards Report in 1998. Sir Philip, in measured diplomatic language, gave Mr Straw what can only be described as a lesson on the constitutional relationship between Britain and these islands, only to be ignored in the first instance and, when a further letter was sent expressing States displeasure, treated grossly discourteously in the next.

I can think of no one better to have in this rock’s corner than someone who clearly won’t be bullied – by anyone.

And finally,

It was lovely to see the daughter of former Young Farmers Club stalwart Paul Houzé – 19-year-old Becky – become Miss Battle, given the club’s support to the event over very many years.