Allowances for Barnet Councillors - Update

You may recall that we mentioned the issue of how there was a bit of a punch up amongst our local Tories about the allowances Councillors pay themselves. As you may recall, the old guard see the opportunity to trouser even more of your hard earned wonga under the guise of reform. A report reaches me that their chosen method of getting away with it is to rob Peter to pay Paul. In otherwords, shift allowances and cash from everyone else to themselves. To their credit, some of the newer Tory Councillors are not too impressed with this idea. This is why the paper hasn't even been released onto the Council website for review - The relevant paper says "Report to follow". It appears that there, shall we say, be a teeny weeny row about the whole issue.

Anyway, it seems that the whole Tory group are looking to Lynne Hillan for Leadership here. Now whether this Leadership will take the form of a £30,000 rise in dosh for herself, paid for by cuts for everyone else (save a select inner cabal) or cuts for all, who can say. It just seems rather sad that at a time when the Council should be working tirelessly to try and help the good people of Barnet cope with the effects of huge cuts in Government grants, they are spending all their time arguing over how much wonga they can trouser.

I hear that there is one ex-mayor of Barnet who has been having lots of private, behind the scenes chats with his colleagues. I have no idea what they could be about though. Have you?