A comment from someone over the weekend made me sit down and think. They asked me this question. The person who asked was a disaffected former Tory voter who works for Barnet Council. It is clear to anyone who has followed the Freer regime and the shenanigans of Brian Coleman, that the Tory Party in Barnet has LOST THE PLOT COMPLETELY.
Disastrous policies such as the Warden Cuts. Bad decisions such as Iceland and Aerodrome Road. Making Coleman Mayor, in a severe recession, when we all know he'll try and spend his way out of it on cabs with our money. Officers with tellies on their desks, junkets to the USA & Cannes. The list is endless.
The question my friend asked me? "Who do you think is really to blame?" Well firstly, it's not me. I didn't vote for them. What about all of the people who did vote Tory? Well actually they voted for a party lead by Brian Salinger, who was deposed by Freer shortly after he won the Election. How would you feel if David Cameron wins the next election and the next day all of his MP's dumped him and replaced him with a hard righter (or the bloke with the Duck House on expenses). That's what Barnet's Tories did. But did they? How many Barnet Tories actually voted against Salinger? Well there are 33 of them. A minimum of 17 and a maximum of 31, given that it's likely that Salinger & his wife had some confidence. Wikipedia says there are 329,000 people in Barnet. 31 at a maximum lumbered us with Freer. That is less than 0.001% of the population.
The people who put Freer in, the 17-31 Tories, not only cocked a snook at the electorate, they will soon be responsible for Corporate Manslaughter. Freer's keynote policy is abolition of the Sheltered housing wardens. Rather than have a local warden, who can pop in and keep an eye, they will get a "lifeline". This is a panic alarm. My mum had one. When she broke her hip, she wasn't wearing the button (it's on a necklace around the neck). She'd had a wash, taken it off and forgotten to put it back on. Luckily, I visited 45 minutes after her fall. The elderly often do things such as this. Highly paid consultants just don't understand this.
There is another scenario, they've not considered. What if the phone line breaks? Then the lifeline doesn't work. This happened to my mother twice in the last 5 years of her life. Then they will be completely alone and utterly exposed.
Then there is one last scenario, which the council haven't mentioned. Many of the residents, more than anywhere else in the country are of Jewish extraction. Sadly there are sick individuals who may see them as a soft target. A live in warden can keep an eye out for dodgy individuals. Who will be the eyes and ears when they are gone.
All of the above scenarios are easily predictable. If an on site warden prevents just one death that would have happened under the new system, Barnet is resposnible for Corporate Manslaughter. This is a criminal offence.
Mike Freer in his disgracefully misleading blog, suggests that the warden cuts mean a better care package for the 55,000 other people aged over 65 in Barnet. This is hogwash for the following reasons.
a) Many people over 65 are fit and active and require no care package at all - they are fit and healthy.
b) The council has a duty of care to provide this service already to anyone who needs it. Barnet already have to do this. If Freer is saying they are currently failing the vulnerable in Barnet after 7 years of Tory administration, he should admit it.
c) The money they've spent on Consultants to draw up reports on future shape, would have funded retention of the wardens and paid for a floating warden service.
d) Other budget savings have been identified, which would negate the need for cuts. The reason that these were dismissed out of hand is because they suggested cuts to allowances for Freer's mates on the Council, who staged the coup that elected him. Many council's have adopted an "allowance cap". Mike Freer is extremely popular with the 11 Tory Cabinet members as under his leadership, Barnet Council has lead the way in paying the maximum possible.
One other thing really disturbs me about the new plans for sheltered housing. The bloke drawing up the future shape scheme for Barnet Council is a chap called Max Wide. He works for BT and is on secondment to Barnet. My friends at the Council, tell me he has Mike Freer's ear. Is it any coincidence that the wardens are being replaced by a scheme which makes extensive use of telephones? BT paid for Mike Freer to participate in a Leadership Scheme called Vital Vision. Where is he leading us - to a land where people are replaced by called centres. Press 1 for a Heart attack, 2 for blocked Drains, 3 for a nutter burning your house down or hold for an operator who will be with you some time soon.
So yes, that's who I blame. Barnet's guilty elite, with their fat allowances and contempt for the electors of Barnet.
As Roger Daltrey of the who sang so famously "Hope I Die Before I Get Old". He's lucky, he doesn't live in Barnet !
1 comment:
Rog
The Barnet / Vital Vision connection is deeply disturbing. In the private sector, where companies are run by intelligent people with experience of the real world, they know that you can’t get ‘owt for nowt. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
BT have not been running Vital Vision out of the goodness of their hearts. They have done so because they are looking for business opportunities. I don’t blame them for that but people like Freer are too naïve to realise.
When BT wrote to him saying he had been especially selected to join the programme, he probably thought that they meant it. He didn’t realise that it was like a Readers Digest letter - almost everyone gets one eventually. Freer looked at this as an opportunity to go jet setting at our expense. It made him feel big and important.
Not only did taxpayers end up paying £5,000 so that Freer could fly business class, but a year later, Leo Boland attended the same conference - again at our expense - and then buggered off to the GLA!
Every new contract that the council signs with BT must now be independently scrutinised to ensure that (a) it represents good value for money and (b) we are only buying a service that we actually need.
Unlike Readers Digest where you can send the book back after 14 days if you don’t like it, once the council signs a contract with a supplier, they are committed to the deal. Opposition councillors need to keep on top of this because the Conservative backbenchers have already demonstrated they are not capable of holding the Executive to account.
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