EITHER Bryn Davies and Eifion Evans knew exactly what Marc Davies was banging on about when he called for an independent probe into the work culture at Ceredigion council. Or they were genuinely mystified.

Either the Plaid Cymru council leader and chief executive are putting on an act, pretending they don’t understand the difference between statutory checks on an authority’s regulatory competence, as distinct from looking into whether people are happy in their work. Or there’s a real failure of comprehension. Either conclusion is unflattering.

Marc Davies, an Independent councillor, had mentioned a review published last month which found widespread bullying and harassment at Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service. Most staff described the service as an “operational boys’ club”.

Marc’s request, made at a cabinet meeting, was timely and reasonable.

He asked: “Are we agreeable to this authority having an independent cultural review of its own to look into the same issues as the fire service did?”

It’s strikingly ironic that the only response he got from the leader and chief executive appeared as a series of put-downs, precisely the kind of thing an independent review assessing morale and contentment might take note of.

Bryan Davies seemed nonplussed. He asked Marc Davies: “What exactly are you referring to? Is there a main point that you want to look into?”

The member for Ciliau Aeron: “What’s not to look at?”

Bryan Davies, still apparently confused: “On what? If there’s a problem, tell us what it is and we can discuss it…If there isn’t a reason to review, I don’t know why you are asking for it.”

This is daft. Everyone - well, nearly everyone, it emerges - understands that examination of a work culture is an excursion into the unknown. You don’t know what you’ll find till you look.

In what looked like an attempt at straightforward evasion, Eifion Evans then listed council interactions with statutory bodies, including the education inspectorate Estyn and the Welsh Local Government Association, as if these were in any way relevant to Marc Davies’s request for a work culture investigation. Which they aren’t.

The chief executive tightened the screw. “I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about here. I’ll ask again: what is the evidence? This is the fourth time you’ve asked for an investigation.” He added: “An investigation into what? What else could we look at?” Now there’s a couple of interesting questions.

The point is that no-one will think other than that an apparently perplexed Mr Evans understood exactly what was being asked for while, totally unconvincingly, trying to persuade us he didn’t.

The kind of review suggested by Marc Davies would be entirely beneficial, potentially giving voice to all kinds of otherwise unexpressed fears, grievances and resentments among Ceredigion council staff and members, shining a light on problems which otherwise would remain hushed-up, referred to only in whispers accompanied by nervous glances over the shoulder. Conversely, it might reveal a deliriously happy workforce and membership. Give it a whirl and find out.

An examination of organisational culture might also go some way towards exposing, and weakening, the near-stranglehold exerted over a council - and by extension over the 73,000-odd people of Ceredigion - by an executive-dominated regime allowed free rein by a supine, servile Plaid Cymru cabinet willing always to do as its told, and locked into an unwavering attitude of total indifference to public opinion.

Meanwhile, the cabinet remains unchallenged by anything approaching an official Opposition.

The authority’s nine Independents and seven Liberal Democrats have allowed this skewed administration to thrive, more or less unchecked. The democratic deficit is palpable, with neither the Indies nor LibDems, alone or in cooperation, having the gumption, or the will, to block what has been a slide into something close to autocracy.

This is another reason why Marc Davies’s intervention is important. These days, heads above the parapet is a position the Independents are keen to avoid. They get jittery even thinking about it. Numerically, they are, just about, the Opposition, but you’d never guess it. Marc’s challenge might just ignite further defiance, which might just inspire a probably necessary collaboration with the Lib Dems, if only on selected issues.

Bringing that about could be enough to fracture the cabinet hierarchy’s fixed assumption that it’s an unstoppable political bulldozer.

The next elections are on 6 May 2027. That’s a long wait for voters variously fuming and in despair about the imperiousness locked into this cabinet’s isolationist way of doing things.

It’s more than enough time for Plaid rank-and-file and for the other parties to shake themselves out of their deep sleep. I’m not optimistic. For realists with experience as their guide, the best hope will be for an almost total clear-out two years from now, replacing the bulk of the present membership with people who are not afraid of their own shadows, or too lazy to take the job seriously.