The Barnet Tories - Imploding and scraping the barrel at the same time!

Just when I thought Barnet politics couldn't get anymore depressing, the Barnet Tories prove me well and truly wrong. The Finchley and Golders Green Conservatives have just announced that they've elected disgraced, convicted woman beater Brian Coleman as their deputy chairman.

Coleman was thrown out of the Tories over a decade ago for vicious assault on local cafe owner Helen Michael, on Finchley High Street. Coleman was then a senior member of the Barnet Tory administration. Helen Michael had noticed he was illegally parked and using the ATM and started filming him. Coleman attacked her, injuring her wrist and bruising her breasts. Coleman denied the assault, claiming he was "set up". However, when the CCTV footage was played in court, he was damned both as a thug and a liar. He said at the time "That is not how I remember the events" when confronted with the evidence. He changed his innocent plea to guilty shortly before the start of the trial, in the hope of getting a lighter sentence in the face of incontrovertable evidence. He was convicted of "Assault with beating".  Helen Michael suffered anxiety attacks after the attack and eventually moved he business to Oakleigh Park Station, where she felt more safe and secure. Helen called me immediately after the assault and I was absolutely mortified to see the state she was in. Immediately after the assault, Coleman drove to Barnet Police station and claimed she had assaulted him. Luckily there was a CCTV camera that exposed his lies. This is all a matter of public record.

The CCTV footage is here. Is this really a man who demostrates the standards we want to see in public life?

Of course, it is up to the Barnet Tories to elect who they like as their deputy chair, but for the rest of us, seeing a man who is happy to assault women in the street and then lie about it, to try and get himself off the hook, being afforded a senior role in a local political party is sickening.

I have no idea whether it is connected with Colemans elevation, but yesterday, Coleman posted the following tweet.

It seems the former leader of the Barnet Tories and council leader between 2018 and 2022 has defected to Reform. Councillor Dan Thomas sits for the Tories in Church End. There was no love lost between Coleman and Thomas. After Coleman was convicted of assaulting Helen Michael, Thomas privately phoned me to express his utter disgust with Coleman and to assure me that Coleman was finished in the Barnet Tories. He revealed that he'd actually made a complaint to Barnet Council's standards body about Colemans behaviour. Myself and Dan Thomas were not on good terms and I was quite surprised to receive a call, but it became clear to me that he was actually pleased that the Tories had an excucse to boot Coleman out. 

There are a new generation of Tory Councillors and other wannabees, who probably don't know the full story about Brian Coleman. They are probably unaware of the scale of the assault. He has probably told them that she was a lefty agitator. She is not. She was a staunch Conservative until Brian Coleman's tenure as Borough Parking Officer. Coleman abolished pay and display completely. This lead to a huge drop in takings for many local high street businesses (and was reversed once Coleman was booted out). After Coleman was booted out, Helen returned to the Tory fold and was a keen advocate for Boris Johnson. If you check out Helen's twitter, you will see that she is anything but a lefty!

The Barnet Tories have now lost their former leader Dan Thomas and former Mayor Mark Shooter to Reform. It is pretty clear that the party is imploding. I cannot see how scraping the barrel and bringing convicted felons in to run the party will help this. But hey ho, what do I know. When Coleman stepped away from public life, this blog forgot about him. He's back and his actions will be under intense scrutiny and we will use our platform (which is massive) to ensure that the people of Barnet know what the Tories think is acceptable. 

I suppose I should say a few words about Dan Thomas. Firstly here is what his colleague Mark Shooter, a fellow Barnet Tory defector to reform said......

Cllr Mark Shooter, Reform UK Barnet Chairman, said:
I am delighted to welcome Cllr Dan Thomas into the newly formed Reform UK Barnet Group. Dan brings with him over 20 years of experience in local government and previously served as Leader of Barnet Council, giving him a wealth… pic.twitter.com/6JyYpi09lD

— REFORM UK (BARNET) (@ReformUKBarnet) June 30, 2025

Dan Thomas organised a palace coup in the Barnet Tories shortly after former leader Richard Cornelius won a stunning victory in the 2018 council elections. Barnet had been tipped by all to swing to Labour, but the Tories made huge gains and had one of the largest Tory majorities ever. The thanks Richard, who was a very decent man, got from Dan Thomas was a knife in the back. Thomas came in with a plan. He wanted to make Barnet the place where big property developments happen. In 2020, he launched huge plans for redevelopments in various areas. His pet project was the Edgware Redevelopment, which was enable by the SPD passed under his regime in 2021, which gave Ballymore the green light for the current plans. Thomas was politically inept. To ensure his coup worked. he ousted long time, hard working councillors such as Joan Scannell in Edgware and replaced them with development friendly lackies. The inevitable happened. In 2022, Labour swept the board. Thomas stepped down and has moved to the West Country, still claiming his juicy councillor allowance. 

Mark Shooter may well welcome Dan Thomas into Reform. All I can really say is that I hope Thomas does for Reform's electoral prospects, what he did for The Barnet Tories. If he gets in anywhere, they can expect monster developments to start appearing. I am sure that there are plenty of nice leafy streets in the west country that will benefit from 32 storey skyscrapers!