Council leader Kevin Madge (Lab) is likely to face one of the most challenging weeks of his long political career. To put it kindly, Kevin has few if any obvious talents apart from his ability to survive and cling on to the greasy pole. Now it looks as though his instinct for survival has abandoned him.
According to what is said to be a very good source from within the ruling Labour Cabinet in Swansea, Kev was phoned by David Phillips, the Labour leader of Swansea council, on the day the Wales Audit Office published its reports, advising him in no uncertain terms to suspend Mark James.
Like the Wales Audit Office's advice, that was ignored, and Kev nailed his colours to the mast with a series of attacks on opposition politicians and press releases defending "the Chief", as Linda Rees Jones refers to Mark James in her e-mails.
Several of last week's bizarre press releases were issued in the name of the Executive Board, which is headed by Kevin Madge and which includes other luminaries such as Meryl Gravell and Pam Palmer. Collective responsibility is the order of the day, it seems.
At the end of last week Keith Davies AM (Lab, Llanelli), having alerted us to the threat posed by unregistered hair dressers, finally got round to throwing his hat into the ring with a call for the suspension of the chief executive. Meanwhile the Carmarthenshire Labour Party is understood to be receiving a lot of unwelcome attention from Labour HQ, which is worried about what all of this is doing to voters.
One of the rumours doing the rounds is that Kevin Madge will now perform a U-turn early this week, and suspend "the Chief" before an expected announcement from the police.
That is unlikely to be enough to save his skin or the hides of Meryl Gravell and Pam Palmer who have so often and so aptly been described as the leaders of the political wing of the council's elite officers.
If that was not enough, he also faces a council meeting on Wednesday when various interesting points are likely to crop up. One of them will be the minutes of the Executive Board held on 6 January when Kevin Madge went on the rampage about the libel indemnity.
Another treat is a presentation of the Housing Revenue Account's 30 year business plan, another exercise in Death by Powerpoint designed to use up time available for holding to account a council which can't plan ahead for more than 30 minutes at the moment.
Councillors will also be presented with a petition calling on the council to help Llandeilo get its own swimming pool. Anyone who has been past the site of the new £30 million school across the river at Ffairfach will know that the town has suddenly gained several swimming pools thanks to flooding and that most unusual phenomenon, a wet Welsh winter.
Despite the enormous cost of the school (being built to, um, save money), there isn't enough for a swimming pool.
Residents and teachers at nearby Tregib school still cannot believe the County Council's insistence despite all the warnings on building the new school on a flood plain close to the river.
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