Is Richard Cornelius really Santa Claus?

You may have noticed a little change in this blog over the past fortnight. The Barnet Eye likes to try different things, be innovative and also to encourage other people to get involved. That was why we declared it "Crowdsourcing Forthnight". I invited anyone who was interested to submit as many guest blogs as they felt fit.  I got rather more than I expected, which is why I published one from Linda Edwards today. The experiment was so successful that I will be actively seeking even more guest bloggers. I sometimes worry that the blog is becoming stale. I worry that people will tire of reading of the unending stream of stupidity from Barnet Council. I worry that I am becoming jaded and miss things which are really important, just because I've developed a resistance to it and I feel I've written it all before. I have now been blogging about Barnet politics for over four years. It seems like four hundred.

Anyway, enough of my musings. I haven't looked at the local papers as I have been doing some intensive research for a new film I'm putting together. Being dyslexic and thick, I can really only focus on one heavy piece of research at a time. I have three film projects on the go. These are as follows

1. A follow up to "A Tale of Two Barnets". It has been six months since we finished the film and nearly eight since we finished the interviews. Much has happened.

2. A film about Cancer. There are all sorts of films on this subject, but I believe that there is one important aspect no one has covered. I can't say any more at this stage, but I have read two fascinating books as part of my research. One of them over the last week and the other six months ago. I am now ready to start storyboarding the film.

3.A film about social exclusion of people with disabilities. This will only commence when the other two are completed.

Anyway, having picked up the local press, I read almost identical articles about the leader of the Council, Richard Cornelius. I was rather chuffed to read the article in the Times. It appears that Santa Claus is real ! Is he Richard Cornelius, I don't know, but if he isn't then they are clearly good friends. Maybe the tooth fairy is also part of their club. What important facts did I learn?

* That One Barnet will be fine if the contract is written "robustly"

* That all of the Boroughs problems with Parking will disappear because traders can now sell 4 hour parking permits at a 5% discount or keep the money if they choose

* That the Pay and Display machines were "perpetually breaking or being vandalised".

* That the death of the High Street is the fault of the traders for drawing attention to the charges, by starting a campaign against them

* That the only people who have complained about the parking charges are "vocal" campaigners such as Helen Michael at Cafe Buzz.

Does Richard Cornelius really believe all of this rubbish? Does he actually inhabit the same planet as the rest of us, or does he really live at the North Pole with Santa and the Tooth Fairy? I wonder if Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer will get ticketed when Santa is delivering presents?

 So lets do some analysis of the claims (my response is the bit in red italics)

* That One Barnet will be fine if the contract is written "robustly"

Barnet Council has a long history of badly drafted contracts, which they only realise are flawed when they try and get contractors to perform. The contractors have huge legal teams who deal with such contracts all the time, Barnet doesn't even have it's own in house team anymore. As no one is allowed to even see the contracts, we can only sit and wait. Barnet will claim they've employed the finest legal brains, but I ask this question. If the contracts have problems for Barnet, who will they employ and who will cash in? The same law firms that they are getting to draft them now. If that doesn't ring some alarm bells when a billion pound contract is at stake, what will?

* That all of the Boroughs problems with Parking will disappear because traders can now sell 4 hour parking permits at a 5% discount or keep the money if they choose
So the likes of Helen Michael can sell a £2 parking permit for £1.90 and keep 10p. That does not solve the issue that it would cost someone wanting a cup of tea at her cafe, more for the right to park than for the tea. For some traders, such as hairdressers etc, this may be a good option, where there is a high spend, but this doesn't address the issue of someone who just needs to buy a pint of milk, or stop for a cuppa on the way through.

* That the Pay and Display machines were "perpetually breaking or being vandalised".
Presumably these issues were raised with the machine vendors and the SNT schemes in the hotspots for vandalism. My staff used the machines on a daily basis in Mill Hill Broadway for banking and getting lunch. They were unaware of these reliability problems. As to the vandalism, if this was happening, it was in certain hotspots. Barnet has a far lower crime rate than other London Boroughs, so it should not have been beyond the wit of the council to address these issues.



* That the death of the High Street is the fault of the traders for drawing attention to the charges, by starting a campaign against them.
This is quite frankly insulting to our intelligence. Does Councillor Cornelius really think that people would see a £2 charge for parking for half an hour as anything other than extortionate. As to the issues for people who don't have mobile phones or don't have time to register, how on earth can he have the chutzpah to blame traders.

* That the only people who have complained about the parking charges are "vocal" campaigners such as Helen Michael at Cafe Buzz.

Thirteen thousand people signed the petition against parking charges. To claim that only a few vociferous opponents have complained is an insult to every one of these voters. Has Richard Cornelius not got the courtesy and good manners to recognise that they have a genuine concern with the cost of parking.

In the title of this blog, I asked the question "Is Richard Cornelius Santa Claus?" I suspect that the one group of people in Barnet who will answer "YES" are the Labour Party.  It appears to me that his policies are buidling, day by day, a situation where only the most hard core and ideologically driven Tories would vote for them in the 2014 elections.  No one else will touch them with a bargepole !