Barnet Eye Exclusive : Freer snubs local Jewish voters

Let me ask you a few questions :-

a) Name an area of London with a large Orthodox Jewish population?

b) What do Orthodox Jewish people usually do on a Saturday Morning?

c) Who is the Conservative Candidate for Golders Green?

d) If you were the Conservative Candidate for Golders Green, what would be the worst possible time to hold a Council funded meet the public session in Golders Green?

I kid you not, Leader of Barnet Council, Conservative Candidate for Barnet, Mike Freer has decided that the best time and place for his Leader Listens roadshow to visit Golders Green is Tomorrow (Saturday 25th April) between 10am and noon, at Sainsburys.

Read all about it here :- http://www.barnet.gov.uk/press_releases.htm?id=1956

According to the press release, voters can tell Mike how to improve Barnet. Leader of the Council, Councillor Mike Freer said:

“The Leader Listens programme has been instrumental in allowing residents of the borough to interact and share their views with the Council outside the normal channels, therefore expanding the scheme to make the Council more accessible makes perfect sense.”

Well it seems that a rather large and rather important sector of the public have been excluded. The question is whether this is pure incompetence from Mike Freer or whether it's a deliberate snub to the religioulsy minded Orthodox community. I recently attended the Bahmitzvah of my friend and local businessman Lawrence Bard's son and I asked his opinion of Freer's choice of venue and timing? His response "I'm speechless. It is awful." He added "It will exclude a whole section of the community which has many issues it would like to raise with the Council".

I would say that the appearance or otherwise of a grovelling apology from Mike Freer would indicate whether this is conspiracy or cock-up.