After the Barnet Council cabinet meeting, I spent ten minutes chatting with Alex Hayes, the reporter from the Times as the council chamber cleared. What could be so interesting, you (and a few councillors) may wonder? Well actually, I was chatting about various youth music initiatives. We never actually mentioned the Barnet leadership challenge. It seemed sort of disrespectful with Lynne Hillan standing a few feet away. What struck me about Hillan, was the fact that the only people who seemed to want to chat to her (apart from Councillor Rajput - and we all know he's one for the ladies) were the Council officers. Most of the cabinet couldn't get out of the door quick enough.
Myself and Alex found ourselves to be the last people in the chamber. We decided we'd better clear off. As we left, we found Leader Hillan standing on her own, in the rain, on the steps of Hendon Town Hall. She looked rather sad. It summed up her leadership. Alex went up and said "Hi Lynne, can I have a quick word". I left him to it.
Just to give you a flavour of how pathetic and desperate some of her colleagues have become, read this blog by Suzette Palmer - http://susettepalmer.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/barnet-tribalism/ - it details how Councillor Robert Rams has "withdrawn" cooperation on libraries following the Lib Dems no confidence motion. To me this indicates that Rams has "no confidence" in Lynne's ability to win. If he thought Hillan had the votes to win, would he bother?
The political corpse twitches for one last day today.
ReplyDeleteLet us hope there is a complete clear out at the top.
As I've just commented to Mrs. A, here's Lynne and Brian's picture:
ReplyDeletehttp://brentcrosscoalition.blogspot.com/
This must seem a bit like a mayfly to the Brent Cross people - this picture is funny today - but history tomorrow (we hope).