Stalinism at the Finchley Conservatives - it would break Lady Thatchers heart

Some people are just plain ungrateful. Whilst looking at a few local websites yesterday, I happened to notice that the Finchley and Golders Green Conservatives were running a poll on their website. Sadly as that particular websites primary use is to cure insomnia, their poll had only had 12 people casting a vote. Now as the Barnet eye gets thousands of hits I thought I'd help them out. I carefully checked the page to see if "only Conservatives need apply". Nope, in true democratic style anyone could vote. The two questions which interested me were "which party will you vote for" and "who would be the best Prime Minister". Now even before I publicised it, taking into account the person who set it up had probably voted, The Tories were not winning on either count for the popular public vote. As a good neighbourly act, I posted a little blog asking all of my thousands of readers to take a little trip over and vote.

Now as you may recall, David Cameron made a direct appeal to Lib Dem voters to check out the Conservatives and their policies. You would think that in light of this, the local Conservatives would be over the moon at a Local Lib Dem Council candidate urging readers of his blog to visit the Conservatives website and cast votes in their polls. You would think that they'd think their website was so superbly marvellous that Lib dems would instantly see the light and jump on the "Cam Train".

Sadly, as we've often said here, the local Conservatives have rather Stalinist tendencies. In Stalins time in the Soviet Union, elections were held. Everyone had to vote but there was only one candidate, so Uncle Joe always got the "right answer". In those days, the great Conservative Prime Minister, Winston Churchill used to deride this anti-democratic behaviour. He was a stalwart fighter of rigged polls, bogus elections and dodgy practices. He knew democracy was the way. A former MP for Finchley, Lady Thatcher, lead the fight against the USSR and played a major role in transforming the country into a democracy. As the most famous person, let alone politician ever to be associated with Finchley, Thatcher hated rigged polls with a passion.

Cut forward to the Finchley Conservatives in the year 2010. What happened when their little poll, which didn't say "Only Conservatives need vote" started to receive a popular vote from the readers of the Barnet Eye (many of whom happen to be Conservatives). They removed the poll from their website. What does this tell us about the Finchely Conservatives? Are the current mob the true successors to that champion of democracy, Lady Thatcher? Do they have the backbone for a fight for their principles? One would rather hope that having put their polls up, they'd have at least sent an email around to their activists and tried to rally to the cause. I wonder what David Cameron and the Conservative Central Headquarters would make of this cowardice? It is a sad indictment of the level of support in a key marginal,which David Cameron visited not too long ago.

Lady Thatcher had a way of describing cowardly opponents who used to scurry away when she waved her handbag at them "Too Frit" she pronounced. I rather hope that she hasn't been looking too closely at what her Tory successors have been up to. I wouldn't want to upset the poor old dear, it would break her heart.

Parking Charges : Barnets Tories exposed as Unconservative !

There is a rather interesting article in todays Daily Express where Tory Local Government Chief Caroline Spelman hit out at Council Chiefs and pledged to  "Stop families and local shops being hit with aggressive parking fines, unfair parking charges and cuts to the number of peak parking spaces". Ms Spelman went on to say :-

Stressed out drivers now have to run a guantlet of unfair parking fines, soaring parking charges and a lack of parking spaces

Ms Spelman continued

Conservatives will call off Labours war on the motorist and work to provide more parking spaces to help small shops prosper in local high streets and assist mums struggling with their family shop

As I read this my jaw dropped to the floor. My first thought was "Does Ms Spelman live in Barnet?". As regular readers of this blog will know, Conservative Barnet Council makes more money from parking than any other local authority. Less than two weeks ago I was at a Leader Listens business breakfast with Councillor Andrew Harper, deputy Leader of Barnet Council. I suggested that introducing a "Free for an hour" parking scheme in Barnets Town Centres would be a massive boost for businesses, help hard pressed motorists and be environmentally friendly as people would use local shops more and make fewer trips to out of town shopping centres where there is free parking.

The suggestion was universally approved by all of the owners of small businesses who were present. What was Councillor Harpers response? He said that the Christmas Free after Three scheme had cost the council £100,000 in lost revenue and any changes would only be made if the council could afford it. That is the biggest problem with the Conservatives. Where they have no power they make fine promises. Where they can make a difference, they don't want to know. How on earth can you believe a single word Ms Spelman says about parking, when the Tories flagship, way of the future Easycouncil, which David Cameron was so keen to support with a visit to Hendon last year, are the worst offenders?

If you want to let Barnet Council know what you think about their "Parking Tax" (because in reality thats what it is), please sign this petition to allow shoppers in Mill Hill Broadway one hours free parking

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/support-free-parking-in-mill-hill-broadway.html

By the way, if you are wondering where Caroline Spelman got the idea for raising the issue of Parking Charges, you would be amazed how many times this blog has been viewed by Conservative Central Headquarters (CCHQ) in the last month. If Caroline Spelman or David Cameron really want to get hold of some decent policies for local Government, they are welcome to EMAIL ME BY CLICKING HERE and I'll send them a copy of the Mill Hill Lib Dem manifesto, which we've been working on. From what I've been hearing on the doorsteps, it seems to be rather popular round here. As to parkling charges, Id suggest that if the local Tories don't want to listen to me, then maybe they should listen to their own front bench spokesperson, who has been rather keen to nick my ideas.

******** Update **********
Alex Hayes from the Edgware Times emailed me to point out that Barnet Council doesn't collect the most money from parking charges. The title it holds is the largest increase in revenue collected from parking charges in the last year.  Is that any better? Make up your own mind

Cowardly Cameron takes the 5th on superdatabases

The last resort of crooks and cheats is the right to silence. Whilst it is a fundamental principle that no one should have to incriminate themselves, the rest of us can draw conclusions as to why they chose to say nothing.

On the 3rd February, a promenant local Conservative had a full page article in the Guardian, detailing amongst other things the benefits of "Superdatabases" linking health, police and local authority databases. I felt that this was a huge threat to our civil liberties and along with other comments about allocating gatekeepers to the families identified as the "300 most expensive to the Borough", I felt that it was a matter requiring urgent clarification at the highest levels of the Conservative party. As such I sent Mr David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party an email requesting clarification. Does he agree with the concept of local Authorities such as Barnet implementing "Superdatabases"? Does he agree with his own candidates comments?

The email was sent on the 3rd February. I have not received a reply from Mr Cameron. I have written to many MP's on many subjects over the years. I have always received a reply. You may say "Oh well, Cameron is busy, he hasn't got time to respond to every email". This is complete nonsense. Mr Cameron has an office, staffed up specifically so that he can reply. If it is a trivial matter it will be delegated to one of his staff. If it is a serious matter he should reply himself. If he thinks the email is frivalous, he would respond to say so. He has the whole of the Conservative Central Office apparatus to help him.

Well I still have no idea what Mr Cameron thinks of Superdatabases. What I do know is that he is quite clearly a cowardly man who ducks important questions. Does anyone really want a coward who cannot even comment on whether big brother databases are desirable or not running the country. I can only assume that Mr Cameron is fully supportive of his candidates position on this matter, but knows it won't wash with the more enlightened libertarian Conservatives who make up the backbone of his party.

If we end up with a Conservative Government and they introduce a big brother state, where Councils can take over your life because you cost them too much money, don't say I didn't warn you. Mind you, given Governments record with IT projects, it is more likely just to be a few more tens of billions of pounds down the drain, that is the only solace I can take.

Tories rattled as Guido loses the plot

There was an intriguiging post on the Guido Fawkes blog. It details how the Conservative party have become rather rattled at the Lib Dems sniffing around some of their candidates expenses claims as local councillors.


To quote Guido -

The holier than now Liberals are attempting to drag candidates into the expenses scandal before they are even MPs. Doing it covertly through personal email addresses even though an FOI request is an FOI request wherever it comes from.

Cowley Street better hope CCHQ don’t retaliate with some FOI requests concerning their PPCs and intriguing leaflet printing financing.

 
Well you know what. I think it's rather good that Councillors expenses are being investigated (all Councillors). I'd rather like them to all be available on-line for all to see. If the Lib-Dems are doing this, maybe a few dodgy Tory candidates will be weeded out. I'd be quite happy to see the Tories do the same to Lib Dems (or Labour) Councillors if they've been fiddling their expenses. I may have got this wrong, but it seems to me that Guido's post is some sort of veiled threat "Don't poke around our expenses and we won't poke around your leaflet printing financing". If that is Guido's intention, I think he's losing the plot. Letting dodgy politicians get away with fiddling, dodgy accounting or anything else which involves public money is despicable. If Guido thinks it's OK, then he has lost all credibility as an independent blogger.
 
I wonder if the Lib Dems have posted one of these requests for the Hendon Conservative PPC and the Finchley and Golders Green Conservative PPC, who are both Barnet Councillors, for the last 4 years expenses. I sincerely hope so. If nothing comes up, then that would reassure everyone very much and we'd all be very happy. I'd happily post the info here, whatever the result.