Leader Listens? Well he can't even be bothered to turn up !

If you were the leader of Barnet Council and you decided to start a program called Leader Listens and you promoted this as a chance for regular people to engage directly with the council leader, and you only had to fit around one visit a month in, would you bother to turn up? Well it seems that if the meeting is in Burnt Oak and your name is Mike Freer, the answer is clearly NO. You send your bagman - Matthew Offord - (check Leader Listens for full details and video of this charade).

Now as the scheme is Mike Freer's baby, you think he'd be able to plan the meetings so that he could be there. The sessions aren't called Leader and Deputy Listen. They are not called "A bloke from the Council Listens" they are not even called "Leader Listens if he can be bothered to turn up". The sessions are quite clearly called "Leader Listens". Now if I'd put off a hot date or given up a pre Christmas night out with the boys to engage with Council Leader Mike Freer and he sent a lackey along, I'd feel pretty cheated. You see if the Leader is there, you know he's heard what you have to say. If you tell Deputy Dawg what is troubling you, our great leader can say "Oh, Matthew in the middle was very naughty and forgot to tell me".

So what is it about Burnt Oak which means that Mike can't be bothered to go? I put this question to the Burnt Oak Society of Jedi Knights and after 3 days meditation on this issue they suggested the following possible options:-

a) Mike Freer is a snob and wouldn't be seen dead in a working class area such as Burnt Oak.
b) Mike Freer got a better offer and went somewhere else
c) Matthew Offord did the session as Burnt Oak is in the constituency he's standing in for Parliament.

So lets explore these options.

a) Well if this is true it's terrible. The voters of Burnt Oak deserve the same treatment as everyone else.

b) There is no mention in the minutes of an apology from Freer, so we can assume he either hadn't had a better offer or he is too bad mannered to offer an apology. Not the standard of behaviour we'd like from a council leader.

c) It seems to me that Freer and Offord have form on this. I attended the Mill Hill Leader listens session (again in Hendon Constituency). Offord took this session as well. If Offord and Freer are divvying up the sessions according to who's constituency they are in, I'd say that could be an abuse of public funds to gain an electoral advantage. Candidates are not allowed to abuse their position to gain an unfair advantage. As opposition councillors candidates are excluded from these meetings on the grounds that the purpose is engagement with the Council leader, use of the forum for party political advantage would clearly be deemed "out of order".

The only way to clear this up is for Mike Freer to post an explanation as to why Offord took the Burnt Oak and Mill Hill Sessions and he took the Finchley and Golders Green sessions (in his constituency).

The only crumb of comfort I would take from this, if I were an opposition candidate is that from what I saw of Offord at the Mill Hill Leader Listens session, he is completely useless.

I raised 3 points with him

1) The fact that the council had failed to chop down a tree on their property which was damaging my mothers flat. A week later they dispatched a team and chopped the wrong tree down.

2) Illegal turns onto Mill Hill Broadway from Goodwyn Avenue. Offord confirmed that this had been monitored and that 300 offences a day were occurring. I asked what he intended to do and he said nothing. I asked if this would change if someone got run over. He said "It might then".

3) Improvements to Bunns Lane Car Park. Offord said he would investigate this and report back to me. I'm still waiting. It must be a very thorough investigation, having taken over a year.


So there you go. If you live in Hendon Constituency, you don't get the Leader Mike Freer - he can't be bothered. You get Captain Useless - Matthew Offord. I just hope that the voters in Finchley, Golders Green and Hendon see through this charade.