Guest Blog - Ten Reasons to Vote Conservative in the Brunswick Park By Election -By Lew Knee

By Lew Knee,

As many Barnet bloggers have been slavishly following the Maoist-Trotskyite "No Cuts, No Change" line, I thought that a bit of balance should be brought into the debate. I have asked Mr Titbum at the Barnet Eye for the opportunity to add some balance to the debate and list the positive reasons for voting Conservative in Barnet.

1. Better Parking Policies. If like me you have a large Jaguar car, lots of money and a mobile phone, there are now loads of places to park easily all over the Borough. Formerly full car parks are now an oasis of calm.

2.  No Road Humps. If like me, you love hurtling around the backstreets of Barnet, in you Jag at 90mph, great little ratruns such as Uphill Road are now a joy to zoom up. Stupid local campaigners say that people like me are a danger to children, but as a firm believer in Darwinism, I believe that if a child doesn't look before the cross the road, that is their business.

3. Less services for old people. If like me you live in a mansion and have a few million in the bank, why should you have to pay for services for old people who didn't bother to save up. My parents worked very hard all their life to ensure they left me a decent inheritence. If the old people's parents didn't bother to do the same, it's their fault.

4. Less services for young people. If, like me, you hate children, especially other peoples, why should you have to pay for them? If you want children fine, just don't expect people like me to pay for their education and hobbies.

5. Better allowances for Senior Councillors. My friends in the Conservative Party voted themselves a huge increase in allowances in 2010, weeks after the election. Now they have no excuse not to stand their round at the Golf Club!

6. The One Barnet Program. Barnet Council want to flog off all of their assets to companies like BT and Capita. As a large shareholder in both companies, this means I'll get lots of lovely dividends and these will be copper bottomed and guaranteed. I'll also make a whacking profit if I flog the shares off.

7. Metpro Security Ltd. As someone who has a large mansion and needs a degree of private security, it was great when Barnet Council used to bankroll Metpro. This meant I was able to have my own "fast response team" to keep me safe at night. If you have need for a security protection service, the last thing you want is one which follows SIA guidelines and has CRB checked staff. I want people who can deal with "problems" in a proper manner, if you know what I mean.

8. Pinkham Way Incinerator. Lets face it, we all produce tons of rubbish a year. This has to be disposed of. It has to be got rid of somewhere and Pinkham Way is the cheapest spot for Barnet. So what if a few NIMBY's don't like it. It is quite laughable that a former sewage works is being touted as some sort of nature reserve. I remember when the smell of fresh turds used to blow in the window on the morning breeze. So what if a few people might get cancer because of the emissions, we all have to die sometime.

9. Friern Barnet Library Closure. Who wants libraries. I agree with Robert Rams. If Burnt Oak library was turned into a Starbucks, the locals would love it. Burnt Oak would go up market. If people want books, as Robert Rams said, they should buy them from Tesco's. The only books I ever buy are those on the Top Shelf. No one would want to borrow those when I've finished with them.

10. Solidarity with Brian Coleman. Contrary to popular myth, Brian Coleman is a lovely man. He dotes on his mum and is much loved by all his friends. So what if he's rude to a few Trots who annoy him? So what if he likes being driven around in a taxi at public expense. Why do you think people become councillors? I don't want a bunch of nobody busybodies, who see it as a mission for the public good. I want people like me to do the job. People who know how to enjoy themselves and people who think "Bugger the poor, it's their own fault".

VOTE X CONSERVATIVE !!! 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lew Knee (not his real name) is a dedicated follower of the Barnet Eye.

Guest blogs are always welcome at the Barnet Eye. Send via the link in the sidebar.

Finchley and Golders Green MP advocates being lazy as a lifestyle!

Ask anyone which Prime Minister was the biggest workaholic and they will probably tell you that it was Margaret Thatcher, who took great pride in getting by on three hours sleep. A close runner up would be Gordon "I saved the world" Brown. Whatever you may or may not think of these two and I must confess to being a fan of neither, I was rather surprised and a tad amused by the successor to Lady Thatcher's constituency, Mike Freer coming out on twitter as am advocate of being a lazy git and a slob. I wonder how her Ladyship will view her successors comments. Those of us who were blogging in the days of Mike Freer's leadership will be amused to see him slagging off of his political mentor, Gordon Brown. Freer was a big fan of Brown's stealth taxes, Stalinist tendencies and like Brown could be very thin skinned in the face of criticism.

I must say that since Mike has become an MP, he does seem to have become nicer for the opportunity to put his feet up and chill out a bit. Let's hope Brian Coleman will also become nicer for his voter imposed rest.At times he even seems to have developed a sense of humour. I suppose if Matthew Offord MP is your best buddy, you jolly well need one.

Here's Mike's tweet.

Mike Freer MP ‏@mikefreermp

Brown was total workaholic +we know how successful that was! Import that the PM is able to relax.

Bloggers letter to Councillor Richard Cornelius - The Empire Strikes Back !

Just in case you haven't been lucky enough to look at the comments left on the Hendon Times website about the story detailing the letters from Barnet bloggers to the Leader of Barnet Council, Richard Cornelius, I've decided to post some of them here. As they have been left by "anonymous" people, we can only speculate as to the identity of them. I find them quite hilarious. I hope you do to.

You can read the whole thing here :-
http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/9693210.Bloggers_send_Barnet_Council_a_list_of_demands/?ref=mr

Here are the highlights. I hope none of them blow a gasket, losing all that wonga must really, really hurt !

hunters999 says...
12:30am Wed 9 May 12

Why is this newspaper even reporting this Story. Who do these 5 imbeciles think they are? I seem to recall an even greater majority for the Tories at the council election 2 years ago.The leader of the Council will treat this letter with the respect it deserves. It will be placed in the Hendon Town Hall toilet

Boombastic says...
3:56pm Wed 9 May 12

Anyone else sense the development of a collective Messiah complex?

james smyth says...
11:43pm Wed 9 May 12

Just who on earth do these 5 idiots think they are?
They certainly have been reading far too many childrens books and its about time that they grew up.
Do they really honestly think that they have any crediability?
Do they really think that people will honestly take them seriously? We all know that Barnet council is a joke but even they cannot be so dumb to be taken in by this publicity stunt.
The Barnet Bloggers who blame others for wasting public money but think nothing of wasting it themselves!
says it all really........
Yes they all claim to have saved Barnet Tax payers thousands ......but have they?
Where is the proof of all their claims ....Hard proof that can be directly attributed to them!

Mr unreasonable and always looking for fault says...
7:51am Thu 10 May 12

Why does this newspaper think that the views of 5 individuals who write their views on the internet (that's all bloggers are after all) are a news worthy story?!!

Some of them are failed council candidates and are obviously trying to be political campaigners.

These are just a small bunch of vain people who think their views are interesting enough for others to read when the fact is the vast majority of the population couldn't care less what they think and what 'demands' they make of an elected council. At least councillors have a mandate - these bloggers don't, all they have are one-sided opinions.

They say they represent 'residents' - they don't, when were they elected to this position?! They say the election results were all about the council's policies - it wasn't, it was about the mayorality. They pick and choose which issues the election was about, how do they know - they're ametuer spin doctors and good luck to them if writing sad articles in the middle of the night pleases them!

What now for the Barnet Conservatives?

The King (of bling) is dead, long live the King.

As we all know, Brian Coleman has been sacked by the people of Barnet form his job at the GLA. Sadly the only real effect from this is that he will be £53,000 a year worse off. The GLA has no power and has no responsibility for anything. The power Coleman execises is tyhrough his role as Chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning committee, which is a job given to him by Boris. He is also on the North West London regional Waste Authority, again a Boris goody. It is up to Boris whether he wishes to keep Coleman in these roles, but he doesn't have to. It will be a good test of just how in touch Boris is with his core support to see how he jumps.

In Barnet, at present Brian Coleman is still in the cabinet and still in charge of Parking. It is pretty clear what Barnet thinks of Coleman. What is not so certain is what the Leader of the Council thinks of the opinion of the people of Barnet. By any measure, Coleman should be dumped. Keeping him is a slap in the face to the people of Barnet. The thing is, even if he goes, then what happens to his polices? These were the things that turned people against Coleman. the huge difference between the number of votes for Coleman and the Tory list, shows that people don't blame the Tories as such, just Coleman. This will change if he's replaced by a hapless lackey, who simply carries on.

The only option for Richard Cornelius, unless he wishes to commit Political Hari Kiri is to sack Coleman and wind back the parking policies. Has he got the cojones to do this? I sincerely hope so, but I doubt it. He should also look further. The man who implemented and developed the policies is Council CEO, Mr Quarter of a Million Quid a year Nick Walkley. Walkley is the real power in Barnet, he's been paid a kings ransom by the taxpayer, but all he has done is transform the Council into a laughing stock.

Richard Cornelius has some decisions to make. I believe these are easy decisions, because the impact of not doing them is crystal clear. The only reason that he could possibly refrain from taking them is moral cowardice. Leadership can be difficult, it can be painful. If you don't want to show Leadership, walk away and let someone take over who does. Barnet awaits.

Brian Coleman ex AM : A message that the Barnet Conservative Party cannot ignore

I didn't celebrate the demise of Brian Coleman's career as a member of the London Assembly. There was nothing to celebrate. Do you celebrate when you pull a painful splinter out of your finger? I am extremely proud of all of the groups and people in Barnet who worked together to get the message across, but all I felt was a sense of relief that Brian Coleman was no longer my assembly member. Let me share a little story with you about his replacement, Andrew Dismore. My former business partner died in 2001 of cancer. His wife was left with four children, one of whom is disabled. She was living in council provided accomodation. Barnet Council tried to evict her and get her to move to Norfolk. She contacted Andrew Dismore when he was MP for Hendon. He worked tirelessly to sort the problem out and she is still there today. A move would have uprooted her from her family and friends, ripped her children away from friends at school, whilst suffering a bereavement. In short Andrew Dismore did his job. I was reminded of this when a single mother, Sharada Osman contacted her London Assembly member, Brian Coleman,  for help with housing problems. Coleman dismissed her with an abrupt invitation to "live in the real world". It was typical of the man. Brian Coleman arrogantly believed that his bumptious, pomposity would carry him through. He believed that being a Conservative and being a loudmouth was enough in Barnet to guarantee another £53,000 a year term. He was wrong.

The main thing about the demise of Coleman is the message it sends to the Barnet Conservatives. They have been pursuing a hard right agenda since 2006, when Mike Freer organised a palace coup against the more sensible and measured leadership of Brian Salinger. Brian Coleman was the power behind the throne. Freer immediately embarked on what has become known as the One Barnet program. Freer was "engaged" by BT on a program called "Vital Vison" which is a tool BT use to indoctrinate dim councillors and other decision makers into thinking outsourcing (usually to BT) is the way of the future for Councils. The central plank of the One Barnet ideology is that Barnet Council is a business and lots of cash can be made out of it. In effect, we have paid to set up a system where our cash bankrolls the profits of huge companies and rather than providing services, the council has become a huge machine generating cash for multinational companies. The worst example of this are the changes to the parking regime. All of these have been geared to making the system as profitable as possible for the private contractors who now run Barnet. Pay and display was abolished because handling cash is not that profitable for private companies. Free parking bays in CPZ areas were abolished because there is no profit in these for the contractors. Charges were hiked so that there was plenty of fat and profit in the contract. Brian Coleman was the man who introduced these and he has paid for it with his GLA job.

The question is whether the rest of the Barnet Tories will get the message. The One Barnet program and it's many consequences have destroyed the local Conservative machine. We made a film "A Tale of Two Barnets" about the effects. We packed the Phoenix Cinema, the House of Commons and a few local venues. At the end of every screening, people would come up and say "I didn't realise it was this bad". In actual fact it is worse. Unless the local Conservatives start to listen, they will be slung out en masse in 2014. They have created a massive, grassroots campaign against their policies. A couple  sticking plaster policies will not fix the mess. The Brian Coleman vote was in effect a referendum on One Barnet. People were given a choice between it's architect, Brian Coleman or Andrew Dismore, a man who believes in listening to people, providing services for people not to fleece people. The result could not be more resounding.

I happen to believe that Richard Cornelius, Leader of Barnet Council is a decent man. He now has the option to sack Brian Coleman from the cabinet, bring in some fresh blood, call a halt to the One Barnet program, introduce sensible parking arrangements for the High Street and start listening to the people who voted him in. He needs to call Council CEO Nick Walkley into his office on Monday morning and say "Nick, you have failed the people of Barnet and they have spoken. You have transformed Barnet Council into a joke. You're fired!". 

In late 2009 I was asked to stand as a Council candidate in Mill Hill. In May 2010, I lost. Whilst many people would give up, I analysed the results. I talked to local people to try and work out how I could have got the message I wanted to tell over. I realised that the biggest mistake was to not allow enough time, not engage enough people and not make sure that everyone who voted knew what I stood for and what the other guys stood for. The next election was yesterdays GLA election. I worked tirelessly, via this blog, via the film and through networking with various local groups, to ensure that we made sure as many  people as possible knew what the issues were.

The next election is the May 2014 council election. The work to change the way things are done starts today. Richard Cornelius has a small window to change, an opportunity afforded by the demise of Brian Coleman. If he announces a reshuffle and a change of tack, then he may be the saviour of the Barnet Conservatives. If he decides that it's business as usual, he'll have two years of sensationally bad press headlines. He'll have more films and better films like "A Tale of Two Barnets". He will see protest marches, rallys, political stunts. He will then find that in May 2014, there will be no Conservative Councillors in Barnet. You may think that such a statement is ridiculous. Well Brian Coleman thought he was uuntouchable. He got trounced. The message could not be starker for Richard.

Congratulations to Andrew Dismore AM

Congratulations to Andrew Dismore AM. In all the celebrations for Brian Coleman's deletion from the payroll of the GLA, it is easy to forget that Andrew Dismore won the seat. From the moment Andrew was selected, I had no doubt he would win. Unlike previous Labour candidates in the Barnet and Camden seat, Andrew is a hard working candidate who is known for getting the job done. He achieve a 32% swing, which is a tribute to the attention to detail.

Many people have lent Andrew their vote for this election. Lib Dems, Greens and even Tories. For many, just getting rid of Coleman was payback enough. If Andrew wants to keep the seat in four years, he has to now repay that faith. I have no doubt that he will. Unlike Brian Coleman EX AM, Andrew will work for all his constituents. Unlike Coleman, he will not abuse people he disagrees with, will not use his expenses as a free taxi account and will not use his job to source an endless stream of free dinners.

Instead we will have an assembly member who will work hard, represent the people and I believe will make Barnet and Camden a better place.

Congratulations Andrew.