Wednesday 14 March 2012

Councillor Robert Rams forced to back down over A Tale of Two Barnets poster ban

A right Rams FACup
Councillor Robert Rams bowed to public pressure and lifted the ban on posters advertising A Tale of Two Barnets at local public libraries. This was revealed in a Tweet in response to the Barnet Eye. Here is what Rams tweeted
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I will not allow the leaflets as in easy reach of children, but happy for the posters to go back and have informed officers that
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It is quite clear that he takes responsibility for censoring the posters and leaflets. It is also quite clear that he has bowed to the immense public pressure in reversing the ban on the posters.The excuse for the ban was  leaflet distributed by the Barent Alliance for Public Services BAPS. The exact text that Rams says is offensive goes as follows :-

“As a user of social services my view is that Barnet councillors don't give a sh...t about disabled people and their carers; how would they feel if they were in our situation?!" (a disabled person)

For the sake of clarity, the two .. in the word Sh..t were present in the leaflet. The Barnet Eye believes that Councillor Robert Rams is using a very lame excuse for imposing an ill thought out move. I asked Barnet Council to provide guidelines as to what leaflets and books could say in a Barnet library. They have not responded. Maybe tomorrow I will borrow Lady Chatterlys lover from Mill Hill library. I can assure Mr Rams that there is far more eye watering langauge in this book than any leaflet BAPS have issued. Maybe Councillor RAms would care to tell me whether the book is suitable?

The pronouncements and policies of the Barnet Tories get stranger by the day. I sometimes wonder if Rams and his chums are secretly a bunch of Trotskyite infiltrators, hell bent on destroying the credibility of the Conservative party in Barnet. Did he really believe he'd get away with such a Stalinist attempt at censorship without the staff in the Library service telling anyone. Surely Rams realises that of any department in Barnet Council understand the value of free speech it is the Library service. does he realise what a TW..T he looks?

4 comments:

Morris Hickey said...

Dear God - "in easy reach of children"! Perhaps he should be putting their books behind glass screens.

What a pompous little prat.

tw said...

Give the man a break - he did back down after all.

Though I think we can rest assure they will be digging themselves other graves soon enough...

Mrs Angry said...

hmm well, according to Mike Freer's blogging 'Friend', Mrs T, we Barnet bloggers are all Trotskyites. I have instructed my lawyers at Sue Grabbit & Runne to demand a retraction and suitable compensation.

baarnett said...

Mrs A: Do you not find it remarkable that Mike Freer sent three letters/emails to the Daily Telegraph, each saying Mrs T's organ was NOT his web site.

And that the Daily Telegraph did nothing.

The last letter must have been: "For goodness sake, I'm a personal friend of the Barclay brothers, and you have not even acknowledged my letters to you, let alone removed the web site reference."

The public would like to see the "three letters", I am sure. Would Mike care to publish them?

I can hardly wait until next Christmas, when Mrs T may, like last time, send seasonal personal greetings to the world, from Mike and all his staff.