Many apologies to my readers. I do try and post to this blog regularly and keep you up to speed with the news in Barnet. Sadly I also have work and a family to look after and I am hellishly busy at the moment.
Last Friday I went to see Matthew Offord at the meet the MP session he'd arranged at the Eversfield Community Centre. I was disappointed that the turnout was low. The audience was in good spirits. There were a few questions from "Colin". He's a local character and a barrister. He's a Tory and he wanted to know what Matthew could do to thwart UKIP. Matthew had a great solution. "Vote for me! That will thwart UKIP". He said that if you vote UKIP in Hendon, then you will get Labour. I am not sure how that is supposed to work. I always thought that if you got the most votes you won? I think Matthew thinks that there are only a couple of hundred UKIP voters and given that he won by 105 votes he needs them all to see off Andrew Dismore. I suspect that he is probably right. I suspect he'll need every UKIP vote plus most of the Lib Dem vote next time.
I made a few suggestions to him. Strangely he agreed with me and said they were far more sensible than anything on my blog. I suggested a disabled access at Mill Hill Broadway Station on Platform 4. He agreed that this was a good idea.
George Jones, a local resident asked him why he'd ignored the huge local campaign against the Etz Chaim school. Matthew said he'd ignored it because the campaigners used horrible tactics and there was an urgent need for the school. George wasn't too impressed.
Colin asked why Tories couldn't have their own Tory MP in Labour seats. Even Matthew was perplexed by this idea.
A nice Lib Dem council candidate asked him why he was so beastly to charities who wanted to do political lobbying. Matthew replied that he though charities should do charity work, not political lobbying.
A couple of other locals asked a few questions about other local issues and we all went home happy.
Whatever you think of Matthew Offord, I applaud him for making himself available. He did a pretty good job of answering questions and didnt' duck the hard ones. Sadly there weren't enough of them, but that ain't his fault, is it?
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