Back in 2013 Richard Leese got himself some feel-good greenie points (and made certain supine types roll over and coo) by launching the world’s first ‘Carbon Literacy’ program, in the Arndale Centre.

It then took our Glorious Leader four years to get round to doing the training (there were many many stories about this on MCFly). That’s how we show leadership- by example.

“Carbon literacy” is both a pathetic joke and useful.  A pathetic joke because a) the level of  skill needed is not high (I am told by reliable sources) and it doesn’t lead to meaningful change – at least one MP who is ‘carbon liberate’ voted for the Heathrow expansion.

It’s also useful though, insofar as it gives a rough measure of how serious Richard takes his leadership responsibilities – see above.  And how much Manchester City Council’s senior management team thinks of the very minor and basically inconsequential problem that is climate change.

Periodically MCFly has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests (because the Council can’t be bothered to have a simple page where you can tell which elected members and senior officers are carbon literate– that would be too much like transparency about the carbon literacy status of the 96 elected members and the top bureaucrats.

Las May and September we asked how many members of the Senior Management Team had done their training. We were told

There has been no change to their status during this period.

No, currently Joanne Roney (sic) has not undertaken Carbon Literacy training but this will take place when the Senior Management Team have their training.

So, almost a year later, in the aftermath of the Saddleworth Moor fires, MCFly submitted another FOIA.

how many members of the strategic management team (or senior management
team, or whatever it’s called) have completed both aspects of their carbon
literacy training. What are their names and what are the names of the members
of the team who haven’t completed their training

And here, today, is Manchester City Council’s answer.

At present Sara Todd is the only member of Strategic Management Team has
completed their carbon literacy training. The other members are: Joanne Roney;
Carol Culley; Carolyn Kus; Paul Marshall; Eddie Smith; Fiona Ledden.

We live in an elective dictatorship.  That’s bad enough, but they are incompetent dictators who can’t seem to wrap their tiny brains around the urgency of climate action.  We truly are toast.  Meanwhile, the ‘activists’ are busy changing the system from within. Oh yes.