A pledge to the pensioners of Barnet

The pensioners and tenants who live in Sheltered Housing were out protesting at the headquarters of the three main political parties on Monday. It is a scandal and a disgrace that these folk, who have paid their dues to society many times over, need to fight a protracted campaign, when they should be sitting safely and comfortably at home. The policy of scrapping wardens for the the elderly and vulnerable was the brainchild of Councillor Lynne Hillan. She used to have the social services brief. The council had hoped that they would have implemented it by now, but they botched it up. The pensioners fought back, launched a legal challenge and it turned out that the Council hadn't even done the basic groundwork to check whether the policy was legal or not. The High Court squashed the Councils decision.

How did the rest of the local Tory group react to this fiasco? Their social services policy had landed them in court, they'd lost and they all looked like a bunch of plums. Their beloved Social services chief, Lynne Hillan had proven to be useless and incompetent. Well they sat down and decided to promote her. She's now the leader of the Council. In a free election of Tory Councillors, they decided that the person who had made the lives of the Boroughs pensioners a misery, the person who'd landed the Council in court, costing tens of thousands of pounds, was the best person to lead their group. Councillor Lynne Hillan has done all of this to save less than half a million pounds. In the recently passed budget, she's allowed for a sum TEN TIMES BIGGER to fight legal challenges for her policies. It seems her mantra is "STUFF THE PENSIONERS, WE'VE GOT TO LOOK AFTER THE LAWYERS".

In Mill Hill, we have Tory Councillor John Hart who told the Guardian the following, during an interview :-

With council tenants, and I'll admit I am putting it crudely, it has been a lot of 'my arse needs wiping, and somebody from the council can come and do it for me.

Mr Hart seems to resent the fact the infirm and the disabled have to rely on Council services to perform these tasks. This statement was the most crass, repulsive thing I think I've ever heard said by any politician. What made it especially upsetting for me on a personal level was that less than two years ago, my dear father in law died. He was 89 at the time. He'd become very infirm and for the last year of his life, he relied on a team of carers from the council to wash, dress, bath and clean him. He lived at home with my mother in law, but she could only manage helped by a team of young, fit carers who visited twice a day. He was one of the people John Hart was talking about, who needed a carer to wipe his arse. He didn't like it, but he was stuck. Was it right for Hart to stigmatise him?

I urge the pensioners of Barnet to throw out on their arses the likes of Hillan and Hart and all of the other heartless Tories who care nothing for the vulnerable, who care nothing for the residents of sheltered housing. The Barnet Lib Dems have made a solemn pledge to the pensioners and the vulnerable of Barnet. If we take control of the Council on May 6th, we will immediately scrap all plans to destroy the Sheltered Housing Service and the wardens. We will guarantee that this will not be cut as long as we have any say in it's running.

I have a special reason to want to defend and preserve the Sheltered Housing service. My cousin who is the same age as me, lives in Sheltered Housing in Barnet. She's independent but needs a bit of help. The picture at the top of this page was taken last year in Gavarnie in France, I took her their on holiday - she's the good looking one on the horse !