Allowancegate : The Tory Spivs who are up for sale

The Barnet Eye returns to it's role as the Mystic Meg of Barnet politics. I have a prediction. Mark Shooter will fail in his bid to unseat Lynne Hillan on September the 7th. Despite having won the argument on both the moral and the competence grounds, Lynne Hillan has a little rabbit in her hat. It's called a big pile of  (your) dosh. In my absence, eagle eyed bloggers and blogger correspondents (why is it never the local press) have spotted a little bribe which Hillan used to secure the vote in the first place.

I guess I should have cottoned on to the scam when Councillor Hugh Rayner collared me at the Hendon & District Residents forum and urged me to read his press release detailing why the allowance rise was such a good idea. Now me being a naive and stupid person, I just thought this was a coup de grace of brown nosing. How wrong I was. I should have used the old FBI investigation maxim "Follow the Cash". I am endebted to my commenter Baarnet for pointing these out :-

Andreas Tambourides (Licensing Chairman SRA to increase by 50% - meets twice a year - even after supposed u-turn)

Hugh Rayner (Business Management OSC Chairman SRA to increase by 50% even after supposed u-turn)

Joan Scannell (General Functions Committee Chairman SRA to increase by 50% even after supposed u-turn)

Alison Cornelius (Health OSC Chairman SRA to increase by 50% even after supposed u-turn)

Darryl Yawitch (Budget & Performance OSC Chairman SRA to increase by 50% even after supposed u-turn)

Brian Gordon (Policy and Performance OSC Chairman SRA to increase by 50% even after supposed u-turn)

Wendy Prentice (Planning and Environment Committee Chairman SRA to increase by 50% even after supposed u-turn)

To win the Leadership, Mark Shooter needs 20 Tories to vote for him. There are eleven cabinet members and this mob makes 7 more. Basically this means Hillan only needs to buy three more members (with your cash) and the job is done. One interesting thing, which shows just how unprincipled these Tories are is this letter from Richard Cornelius. Does he mention anywhere that the scheme change gave both him & the missus a 50% pay rise (click on the letter to enlarge).

Dissident Barnet Tory, Ex Councillor Daniel Hope has been detailing all of this on his excellent Barnet Bugle blog. I suggest you take a quick peek at this if you want the full details.

One other thing which may surprise you is the fact that friends of mine who are active in both the Barnet Labour have "unofficially" suggested that it might be a good idea to back off from pressing for a leadership change within the Barnet Tories.

There is a belief that Hillan is a complete liability and there is a chance that the Tories will unravel completely if she's left as a wounded and critically damaged leader. She has clearly "lost" the local party membership and a good proportion of the councillors. My sources tell me that at least 15 Tory Councillors who are completely sick of Hillan. There are another ten who have stated privately that she's, shall we say, not necessarily the best choice, but have reasons to possibly carry on with support for her (lets say that most of these reasons are nothing to do with morality or principles).

It is now a matter of public record that Hugh Rayner gave the Chairmen of Hendon Tories a dressing down after he called the rises "Immoral, disgusting and vile". Did Councillor Hugh Rayner disclose the fact that he'd made a packet out of the scheme, when dressing down Mr Adrian Murray-Leonard? The bottom line in this whole issue is that Mark Shooter is fighting a bunch of unprincipled Spivs who are quite prepared to put cash before principle, put career progression before public service and put lining their pockets before doing a good job.

I have this message for any Barnet Tory Councillors who have a conscience and care about the people of Barnet. Go public with your support for Mark Shooter. He is clearly a far more capable candidate than Lynne Hillan. It is vital that for the good of Barnet, Hillan is replaced and only public declarations of support, rejecting troughing allowances will sanitise the Tory party in Barnet.

I urge all Barnet residents to contact their local councillors and urge them to support Mark Shooter and to go public with this support.