Sunday 18 November 2012

The wit and intelligence of Councillor Robert Rams

If there is one person Barnet you should follow on twitter, if you want a really good laugh, that person must surely be Councillor Robert Rams (AKA Squeaky Bobby Sheepsjacksie). Many people have formed the opinion that I don't like Robert Rams. Far from it, he is (in some ways) my favourite politician in Barnet.

He has a BLOG http://robertrams.wordpress.com/ which whilst not containing the works of William Shakespear, is at least an attempt to communicate with pubic, something not many of his colleagues ever bother to do.

As mentioned above he is also an avid tweeter. I'd suggest you follow him. His twitter handle is @CllrRobertRams. Here is a prime example of his work


I see people talking about consequences of -improved services, investment in services, lower council tax

I hadn't realised that he was a lip reader, most of us hear people talking about things. But then again most of us grow out of having imaginary friends when we hit puberty. Roberts imaginary friends visit lovely imaginary libraries he claims he's opened in Barnet. They would rather buy books in Tescos than visit their library and they simply love the idea of private contractors making huge profits at the expense of the Barnet Council taxpayer. 

One other highly commendable campaign he has launched is one to stop Tottenham Hotspur fans using the term "Yid" as a badge of pride, recognising the large Jewish contingent within the Tottenham Hotspur support. Oddly enough, given this campaign, as an Arsenal season ticket holder, he has been unusually silent about the anti semitic chants levelled at Spurs fans, by Arsenal supporters. I have wondered if Robert, like me, is registered as deaf and so cannot actually hear the vile anti semitic abuse that his fellow supports shout on a weekly basis. Maybe his comment about "seeing people talking" gives us a hint.

Whilst I agree with Robert that it would be far better for football fans to refrain completely from religious based chants, I would suggest he starts his campaign with his fellow supporters, where the real problem lies. Roberts latest twitter seems to imply that his biggest problem with Spurs fans being proud of the clubs Jewish links is that he's an Arsenal fan and he's Jewish. For some reason he objects to Spurs fans showing solidarity with the Jewish community.

because it is not Jews who are reclaiming it, spurs fans are, and whilst some jews are Spurs fans, not all and do not speak for me 

I find that Robert at times is a little inconsistent on his approach to how anti semitism should best be dealt with.  When I was writing a blog on the Hendon Times, I posted many a blog which were critical of Barnet Council. Robert was Brian Colemans press secretary at the GLA. The last blog I posted was a blog which criticised Barnet Council for posting an interview on YouTube with a local BNP sympathiser, making anti semitic statements. As I had previously been critical in that Blog of Roberts boss, Councillor Coleman, a complaint was made to the Barnet Times editor about the tone of my blog and I was sacked. Several people told me that Coleman and Rams boasted that they'd ended my blogging career using the fact I'd been forthright about the Councils behaviour as a pretext to exert pressure.

You can read the offending blog, republished as the second blog on this site (with some other comments). http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/barnet-councils-incompetance-puts-nazi.html  - The Jewish Chronicle picked up the story and the then leader of the Council, Mike Freer had the video pulled. To this day, I have never had an apology from Councillor Robert Rams or any other Tory for their behaviour over the issue. They saw my blog as an excuse to silence me, not to remove a deeply offensive video, posted by The London Borough of Barnet, from Youtube. What does that tell you?

What confuses me with Councillor Rams is that whilst I have no doubt that he deplores anti semitism, he was clearly quite chuffed that I got sacked by the Barnet Times for stridently opposing it. It is the same with the chants by the Spurs fans. He clearly finds these objectionable, whilst ignoring completely the bad behaviour of his fellow supporters at Arsenal. The trouble for Robert is that until he addresses the blind spots in his vision, he cannot be taken seriously. 

An apology on his blog for his part in what happened with the YouTube video in 2008 would be a good start. It is long overdue. As I said, it's not that I don't like Robert Rams, I just find it impossible to take anything he says at face value whilst he is so singularly unprepared to take responsibilty for his actions. 

1 comment:

Morris Hickey said...

During this last week I have received a further pompous email from the tedious little prick. Oh how I wait for him to take a metaphorical tumble.