![\"\"](\"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/The_Bollocks_Newsletter_4-1-300x300.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nWales is marking ten years since a typing error in a ministerial appointments document in the then-Assembly put a red squirrel in charge for almost eight weeks.<\/p>\n
Civil servants assumed the appointment was intentional and gave the squirrel an office, a security pass, and a bowl of mixed nuts.<\/p>\n
During its administration, hospital waiting lists fell and Welsh education standards reached their highest recorded levels.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The former Welsh First Minister, who wished to remain anonymous, recalled how the situation initially went unnoticed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looked busy and nobody understood what it was doing,\u201d Carwyn Jones said. \u201cWe assumed everything was proceeding normally.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen it started making decisions,\u201d he continued. \u201cObviously, that raised concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee Waters remembered cabinet meetings becoming considerably shorter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you spoke for more than two minutes, it threw a hazelnut at you. We got through the entire transport brief before lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n
The error was eventually discovered when the squirrel buried the budget beneath a tree in Bute Park and refused to disclose its location.<\/p>\n
Normal government arrangements were swiftly restored.<\/p>\n
A committee established to investigate how the squirrel achieved so much without establishing a committee has yet to publish its findings.<\/p>\n
It has now been meeting for ten years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wales is marking ten years since a typing error in a ministerial appointments document in the then-Assembly put a red squirrel in charge for almost eight weeks. Civil servants assumed the appointment was intentional and gave the squirrel an office, a security pass, and a bowl of mixed nuts. During …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,21],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1533,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions\/1533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}