£160,000 a year – and STILL second-choice City Director Nicola ‘Lady Gaga’ Yates thinks she ought to be costing us more!

The speed with which Bristol City Council Chief Exec, Nicola “LADY GAGA” Yates, responded to a request by former Lib Dem MP Stephen “DOLE BOY” Williams for detailed accounts from Bristol 2015 Ltd, the company that runs the Green capital fiasco, was extraordinary.

Dole Boy fired in an open letter to Lady Gaga and her HOPELESS INADEQUATE of an Internal Audit Chief Melanie Henchy-McCarthy on 28 January and back came an instantaneous reply by Gaga on the same day! It’s almost as if she had a pre-prepared answer ready to go isn’t it?

The response was, of course, NONSENSE. Gaga claimed that her private company had been open about its SECRETIVE SPENDING of £8.5m of public money because they had handed over a few crappy headline figures to the council’s pisspoor Audit Committee and a couple of council Scrutiny Committees.

On the specific subject of providing line-by-line accounts – in line with the Local Government Transparency Code she’s paid handsomely to uphold – on the spending by this private company run by an UNHOLY ALLIANCE of Gaga, Mayor Bent and his Merchant Venturer mate, Andrew “WINDY” Garrard, she had this to say: “we are NOT able produce that level of detail because we do NOT hold it.”

Highly misleading stuff from Gaga here. “WE” may not hold that level of detail but “SHE” almost certainly does. She’s the bloody Chief Exec of Bristol 2015 Ltd! She must hold a detailed budget of the company’s spending. Because if she doesn’t, then these accounts don’t exist and she’d be looking at a prison sentence!

Gaga, paid £60 an hour by Bristol 2015 Ltd, appears to have a massive CONFLICT OF INTEREST in all this. Does it, perhaps, suit her, as the boss of 2015 Ltd, to keep the detailed finances, spending and especially any personal payments, expenses and ehancements she and others have received carefully under wraps?

However, as the council’s chief exec, the most senior officer at the council, she should be demanding full transparency from this company in the public interest. In her council role, working for us, she’s supposed to be promoting and upholding the VERY HIGHEST STANDARDS in public life.

Gaga appears conflicted between FILLING HER BOOTS via a salary from Bristol 2015 Ltd and the PUBLIC INTEREST she’s handsomely paid by us to rigorously uphold at Bristol City Council.

She ain’t up to it is she? She needs to go.