John Davis...or Johnny....or BROWN ENVELOPE

This posting is the outcome of rumours, observations, anecdotes, allegations and historical memory.

Well what can we possibly say about John that has not been said many times before, he is a poor pathetic sad old man whose brain must now resemble a plate of scrambled eggs.

His reputation is of course well known, not only within the council and the labour party, but the trade union and Fords and employees of that company especially.

That is where John first came by the name Brown envelope Davis. As he was oftern heard to be saying everything has its price and as long as its a good price and put in a brown envelope with my name on it, well there you go.

And it seems that John did not change his way of working (although there are some who will tell you the man never did a days work in his life) when he became a councillor.

He very quickly it seems got himself on the inside track, and was for many years the chairman of General Purposes committee. Very powerfull committee this one, far reaching, fingers in every pie across the council especially the Grants committe under it.

It is we hear a well known story that John would hold court and council meetings every Friday in the Matapan pub, where senior officers were told they had to attend and to bring their wallets with them.

There is also the stories of John and others of the old guard going to conferences and hiring out blue movies in the evenings.

Well as with George once Charles Fairbrass and his modenisers were in this all stopped, officers we are told were greatly relieved, John was and is (when he can remember) furious. He hates Charlie with a passion believing, stupidly that he was the natural successor to George Brooker, thank heavens that dream never came true.

But still John believes he is a power to be reckoned with, that is why he thought he would be a good chair for Barking CLP, but of course all he has ended up being is a patsy, a figurehead, and an embarrassing one at that.

When the first lot of interviews came round to get onto the local government panel, the mafia knew he would never get through the interview process, so all he had was a friendly chat with Rob Chapman from London Region.

But the mafia still need him at the moment, but not for much longer, he is making too many mistakes, being seen walking across the Town Hall square with his arm around one of the female members of the BNP has not helped. His usefullness to them is now coming to an end and they will ditch him, so he will end up alone, he has made far to many enemies within the labour group, he has no power at all now stripped of all his chairmanships.

He is just a sad, lonely pathetic old man, who has not seen a nice brown envelope for years.

Rumour, observation, allegations, conjecture historical memory.

Next we move onto the list of NEW candidates published thanks to D Twomey in the Dagenham post.