The front page has a nice picture of the High Street. Click on the constituency link and you get a very interesting breakdown of the history of the seat. The Branches link gives you all of the details of the wards and the key people. The Gallery page has a selection of pictures of various people, events and themes for association activities. Some have pictures of MP Theresa Villiers, some have pictures of other worthy people. The Links page is a bit of a disappointment as it has no links to the Barnet Eye, but other than that has most of what you'd need. In short, if you were interested in the Tory Party in Chipping Barnet, it's a good place to find out about it.
Now have a look at their next door neighbours, Click this link for Finchley Conservatives website. You are greeted with the Banner
Welcome to Mike Freer's Website the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Finchley and Golders Green
There are two short sentences which say :-
Finchley is best known for its former MP, Margaret Thatcher. She was the UK’s first female Prime Minister, breaking a string of records including three general election victories and the lengthiest premiership of the 20th century.
If you compare that to the five paragraphs Chipping Barnet dedicate to backbench former MP Sydney Chapman. Now I would have thought there would be a few quotes about Lady Thatcher's achievements in the constituency. Maybe something about her charity work. It seems that to Mike Freer, such a venerable predecessor is unimportant. What does it say about the conservative councillors? Nothing. What about Links to other important Conservative websites? None
Now click on the photo's. What do we get? We get 15 pictures of Mike Freer. Just in case we haven't got the message there is a special link to "about Mike Freer". Whilst Lady Thatcher warrants two short sentences, Mike gives himself 9 paragraphs. Strangely the achievements don't list increasing Barnet's borrowing by 5 times, losing £27.4 million in Iceland, deposing the Leader who'd just won the Council election in 2006, putting a Plasma screen Telly on the desk of all the top officials or overseeing a huge cost overrun on the Aerodrome Road bridge project. Mike recently supported a motion from former Mayor Braun condemning the governments "Big Brother" policies, but he lauds the installation of the 100th CCTV camera in Barnet. He mentions that he used to be a meals on wheels volunteer, but fails to say that he privatised the service last year, causing chaos and major distress to the borough's most vulnerable people.
Mike also says on his biography that he'll work for less Government regulation. As his field of experience is Financial services, it is fair to assume that he would deregulate this, even though the credit crunch is a direct result of loosening of regulation.
I wonder what ordinary Conservative members of the Finchley association make of this. Wouldn't you like to know about your councillors on your party website? Wouldn't you like some info on the history of such an important association? Does Lady Thatcher's contribution to Finchley really only warrant 2 sentences? Far be it from me to tell Mike Freer how to do his job, but if I was a Conservative in Finchley, I'd have a whole page dedicated to Lady Thatcher and her life's works. The association must have a whole stack of photographs and papers which are genuinely worth viewing.
One other thing I noticed. If you go to the Home page of Mike's website and click on the map of the constituency, you get a map of the whole of the Borough of Barnet. It seems that our very own Napoleon, Michael Witney Freer, isn't content with the current boundaries of Finchley. It reminds me of a Monty Python Sketch where a candidate, bearing an uncanny similarity to a certain rather unsavoury historical figure announces "Historically, Taunton is already part of Minehead"
Remind you of anyone?
6 comments:
There's one big difference between Chipping Barnet and Finchley which you have, unsurprisingly, not mentioned!: Finchley is not a safe Conservative seat.
Finchley Conservatives will probably want to heavily promote their parliamentary candidate and will not want floating voters who see the site to have to read through 5 paragraphs of history to find out who he is and what he is doing.
That is another theory for readers to balance things out.
"Julie"
I'm sure those voters who wouldn't want to read about the history of the constituency are enthralled with Mike Freer's large hagiography !
Finchley used to be a safe seat for the Tories until they started treating the voters with disdain
By the way "Julie", you win a free pot noodle for the person leaving the most posts in one night - 8 so far. Well done. You must really enjoy my blogs !!! Has the telly broken down?
Julie
Whilst it is quite reasonable for the web site to feature Mike Freer as the Parliamentary candidate, to do so at the exclusion of all others is the height of arrogance.
If the public visit this site in the hope of finding out about their ward councillors and what they have been doing, they will be bitterly disappointed.
It is not Mike Freer’s web site - it is the Finchley & Golders Green Conservatives website. The Association is far more than just one man and his ego.
As things stand, the likely date for the next General Election will be June 2010 - on the same day as the Council elections. But if the Finchley Conservative councillors are willing to sacrifice their re-election chances to help their glorious leader, that is their look out I suppose.
Ah, yes, of course, he's managed to brainwash and control all the people who run the association and it's councillors!! Hehe!
I expect he doesn't even run the website and whoever does thought heavily promoting him was the obvious thing to do as do the rest of Finchley tories......
"Julie",
I suppose he looks at it occasionally and gives a little bit of input? Does he like it like that or not. Maybe he'd care to post a comment from his superman rather than his Clarke Kent persona?
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