What am I going on about? Well I used to write a blog on the Edgware Times website. I wrote about three legged dogs, the music scene in Barnet, the dangers of systemic insecticides in Skunk weed and other local issues. One day I wrote a satirical piece, aiming to highlight how useless Council leader Mike Freer was. In this blog I drew attention to the fact that Lib Dem MP's comments about Gordon Brown going from Stalin to Mr Bean could equally apply to the way Mike Freer ran Barnet council. Rather ironically for someone who claimed to be offended to be called a Stalinist, somebody (I wonder who) made a big fuss and the Times removed the blog. Can you think of any worse way to try and show that you are not a control freak than to demand your critics be censored? Anyway I got a phonecall from the Times and was asked not to criticise Freer anymore as he was "a fellow blogger" and it wasn't the done thing to criticise "fellow bloggers". Now at this point, I drew the conclusion that Freer is a rather thin skinned, humourless character with a rather unpleasant authoritarian streak. Here was the leader of Englands 9th biggest council, getting in a strop because a local punk rock musician decides to lampoon him. Rather odd for a man who has a dream of becoming an MP. What will he do when Vince Cable starts winding him up? Doesn't he realise that there are some rather good wind up merchants at Westminster?
In short it became clear to me that Freer was useless. Trouble is that at the time, no one else really knew. Now I'm not someone to lie down and say "kick me" when I get bullied. The good thing is that there are others in Barnet who feel the same. One such person was an occasional commenter on my blog "Don't Call Me Dave". Unlike me, he's a traditional Tory. He's also a Tory with a sense of decency and fair play. He too had formed the opinion that Freer was pretty useless. Even though he sits at the other end of the political spectrum to myself, he was affronted by the Times censorship of my article. It spurred him into launching his "Barnet Council Watch" blog. He reprinted my "Freer Beanite Stalinist" blog in full. He then started publishing other information about various shenaningans in the council. Whilst you'd get a very different Government if David or myself were Prime Minister, we both agree on a few things. We believe in open, honest government. We believe in accountability. We despise bully boy tactics and we both think Mike Freer is useless.
Mike Freer eventually got his wish and my blog was discontinued by the Edgware Times. I criticised the council once too often and once too harshly. Phil Crowther, then editor of the Times told me that the blog was stopped not for what I had said, but what I may say in the future??? I guess Mike Freer thought that was that for "Rog T". Dream on Mikey. I immediately set up the Barnet Eye. Unlike my Times blog, I was no longer working under any editorial control and could say what I liked about the Council and it's leader. So the attempts at control freakery failed. I'm sure that Mike's response if you asked him whether he was happy with having created the Barnet Eye, he'd say "Nobody could have predicted that Rog T would have set up a blog when the Times sacked him". I'd love to play chess against Mike Freer, he never sees the next move, he's always surprised when things don't go his way. In short he is useless. When I first started my blog, I was a lone voice in the wilderness. Like a snowball rolling down a hill, it seems that others are catching on. What started with one satirical blog has mushroomed. Mike Freer has just been awarded the prestigious "Private Eye Banker of the Year Award". In the citation this is specifically awarded for having "raised cluelessness to an art form". It's like that joke you told six months ago being told on Television as you have your fish and chips. Even better, my old stomping ground, The Time have featured the story in the paper - click HERE
So pencil a note in your diary. Today, 8th January 2009 is a date to remember. It's the day Mike Freer officially became a laughing stock. Has Barnet Council ever had a more embarrassing leader? Has Barnet Council ever had a worse leader? It reminds me of the old song "The King is in the Altogether". It seems to me that only his 32 Conservative Council Colleagues still think he's got a fine suit of armour. I'm not a Tory and I'm loathe to help them, but surely the time has come to say "Thanks Mike, you've done your best, now can we have a proper leader please?".
1 comment:
CHEERS!
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