Hendon Conservatives failing us on First Capital Connect

On May 6th, we'll have an election. We'll have the chance to elect a new government.  There aremany challenges which this government will have, but one of particular concern to the voters of Hendon (which contains Hendon and Mill Hill First Capital Connect stations) is the state of the mainline railway into London. Anyone familiar with First Capital Connect will know how miserably they have failed to deliver a service. As the local Conservatives are trying to take this marginal seat, you might think that they'd put sorting this awful train company out at the heart of their campaign. Whilst local Lib Dems and Labour politicians have actively joined the campaign to sort out First Capital Connect, the local Conservatives have been strangely silent. I visited the Hendon Conservatives website to see what they had to say on the matter. Nothing at all, not a dickey bird. Whilst there is a cursory mention of issues with the Northern Line (strangely run by a Conservative Mayor) - Boris Johnson, nothing at all on the biggest source of frustration in the Borough. I note with interest that the story was posted on 14th December, at the height of the problems with the First Capital Connect Temporary timetable, due to lack of staff.

I rather cruelly wondered whether the same people designed the Hendon Conservatives website as designed the rather useless one for First Capital Connect. For instance in the ABOUT US section it says about the People section :-

PEOPLE - How to contact your Conservative Councillors and representatives

Now if you click on the link it says :-

People

The Conservative Party is a large and complex organisation, representing and involving people with a diverse range of backgrounds, interests and concerns.  It is a broad church, which encourages open debate and accepts differences of opinion.

It doesn't actually tell you who any of the people are and how you contact them. It then waffles on about their aspirations. Strangely enough, it used to mention some of the people here, but this blog pointed out that a certain individual was, shall we say, rather controversial in Mill Hill and so all the "people" have been removed from the people section. I daresay if you click on enough links, rather like First Capital Connect's website you'll eventually find them.

I just find it amazing that the main challengers for the seat, completely ignore this story. We can conclude that either

a) They don't care

or

b) For some reason they don't want to upset First Capital Connect

Either way, if I were a Hendon Conservative who has struggled into town, I'd be none too pleased at the total inaction of the Party. I also note that there are no reports of Barnet's only Tory MP signing the petition, whilst the other MP's signed up straight away.

The campaign against First Capital Connect is one across party lines. Having said that, I'd expect the candidates to explain their views on the problems. My message to the Local Conservatives - pull your fingers out and tell us what you are going to do