In the world of Twits, the one handed leader is King !!!!!

The Mayor of Barnet, The extremely honourable Brian Coleman famously stated that Twitter was for Twits, shortly after his boss, Council Leader Mike Freer started Twittering. As we know Brian Coleman suffers from an obscure variant form of Tourettes Syndrome, whereby he loudly shouts the most inappropriate response possible (or sometimes emails it) at every possible opportunity. Once in a while, you do wonder if he had a point.

I just had a look at Mike Freer's recent Twitterings and for once, I have to conclude that Brian Coleman has hit the nail on the head.

If ever you needed an insight into the tortured workings of Mr Freer's brain here it is. There are 5 Tweets and they graphically demonstrate vain yet thin skinned nature of Mr Freer's personality. He wants to be an MP, but let's face it, running the council has proven beyond him, so why he thinks he'd be any good in the bearpit of Parliament, heaven only knows.

Lets go through them.

Nick Raynesford writes a well argued article about Future Shape. What does Freer call it? Ill informed. Of course, like all Freer sniping, he doesn't actually justify his comment.Freer calls all of the critics of Future Shape "ill informed", even though some of us have read every single document he's published. If we are ill informed, it's because the quality of information is poor.

Unemployment up 67% in Barnet. Mike Shrieks "Shocking". Quite ironic given the posts before and after. Under his Future Shape scheme and his plans to cut wardens, many local jobs are being destroyed. Families of sacked council workers will fall into poverty. I wonder if Mike was any good at "Join the Dots" puzzles when he was a nipper?

The Child Poverty Action group call for social solidarity - ie people to help each other and be good neighbours. Like a good Stalinist, Freer responds "out of touch" and says we need "targeted action". I'm sure he's drawing up a five year plan to address Child poverty in Barnet as we speak.

Next up he tells us he's flattered to be in the list of the 1,000 most influential Londoners. Let's face it he's in charge of a London Borough, it would be a bit odd if he wasn't on the list. being "influential" doesn't necessarily mean being any good. If someone asked you to make a list of the 1,000 most influential figures of the last century, it wouldn't be a great party to attend, would it?

Last of all, he fumes at "Lazy Journalism" over his councils purchase of some rather expensive laptop Computers. It's actually a rather bizarre comment, considering that  there is a lengthy quote, 11 lines long, from his deputy leader, Lynne Hillan. She gets a far bigger say than opposition leader Alison Moore who only gets four lines. If he thinks journalists are lazy for giving lengthy quotes to his deputy, then he should get a better deputy.

Mike really should learn that criticism is constructive and should always be considered. Only a fool dismisses it out of hand in the manner he does. If he'd actually listened to some of it from day one, he'd be running a far more effective administration now.