Hendon Constituency special - How not to increase your majority as a local MP

I live in the Hendon ward. Since I've been old enough to vote, I've had four MP's. Two have been Tory. The first was Sir John Gorst. He was a mate of my Dad, who was also a Tory. Although I disagreed with his politics, he always struck me as a decent constituency MP. I knew many people he helped in the course of his casework. The next was Andrew Dismore. I have to be honest and say I couldn't stand Dismore and he is one of the reasons I left the Labour party. He arranged for me to be banned from party membership in the most dishonest and devious manner in 2011. However I cannot fault his work ethic and despite my personal feelings, I can honestly say he was a good MP. He built up a large personal vote on the back of this and nearly retained his seat when Labour were swept from power in 2010, only losing by 103 votes. To this day, I believe he lost because he stupidly alienated Lib Dem voters in Mill Hill, who he put a leaflet out attacking. Previously they had voted Labour to keep the Tories out. Dismore was trying to shore up the Labour vote, but his leaflet was really counter productive. A classic example of shooting yourself in the foot. He was replaced by Matthew Offord. Offord was a bit of a strange character. I can't say I got on with him, but he was crafty enough to know who he had to be in bed with locally if he wanted to win. He was very popular with a whole raft of groups that normally gave the Tories a wide berth. The seat transformed from safe Labour in 2005, to marginal in 2010 and relatively safe Tory until Boris Johnson destroyed the Tories credibility. If you want to know how to build a local following and a strong core vote, Matthew Offord is a great case study. Offord realised that the Tories were on a hiding to nothing and decide to jack it in in 2024. 

His Tory replacement Ameet Jogia seemed to me to be a very lacklustre candidate. I suspected that no one really wanted the job of getting walloped by Labour. His opponent was David Pinto-Duschinsky. He always seemed to me to be a decent, steady, if rather undynamic character. The assumption was that of the three seats in Barnet (Hendon, Finchley and Golders Green and Chipping Barnet), Hendon was the biggest target for Labour, the others looked a bit more elusive. As expected, Labour won a landslide, but whereas the other seats delivered four figure majorities for Labour, Hendon became the most marginal seat in the country, with Jogia losing by fifteen votes.

It was pretty clear to me that if Matthew Offord had stood, he'd have won. My assumption as to the closeness of the result was down to the complete lack of campaigning nous that Barnet Labour have traditionally shown. Of course they will point to the stunning council results in 2022, but this was a perfect storm for the Tories nationally. Of course, they took it as a vindication of their brilliant campaign. It wasn't. The Tories had replaced a wily leader in Richard Cornelius, who defied all expectations in 2018 to keep Barnet blue, with an inept and disengaged replacement in Dan Thomas. Thomas alienated many of the hard working backroom campaigners, who simply downed tools.

As Labour assumed Hendon was in the bag, they threw resources at FGG and Barnet, neglecting Hendon. It nearly went very wrong. Both the Tories and Labour, to me drew the wrong lessons. The Tores thought they had a brilliant candidate. Labour thought they had enacted stunning coup across Barnet. The truth is that in Hendon the turnout was 55%, in Finchley it was 63% and in Chipping Barnet it was 65%. In Hendon, the lack of effort meant 10% fewer voters turned out. In short, neither man excited the voters.

A year on, we are starting to be able to assess the relative merits of the new MP in Hendon. As someone who got in by the thinnest of margins, there are certain things I'd expect to be taken as read, to build local profile. Things like getting behind popular campaigns, ensuring all casework is done properly, being seen as on the side of the voters. So how has Mr Pinto-Duschinsky doing?

I have to say, the signs aren't good. At the start of August, I wrote to him. I got no reply. I'd almost forgotten, when I got this email today

Dear Roger

Many thanks for your recent email. It is good of you to take time to get in touch.
 
Please be assured that my team and I read every one of the many hundreds of emails we receive each week. We also track the mix of issues raised by constituents, and regularly review how the views of residents should shape my activities locally and in Parliament.

As well as responding to email correspondence, we are working hard each week on helping constituents with individual local issues, speaking and asking questions in Parliament, arranging and attending events locally, and pushing for improvements to the lives of Hendon residents. Over the past year alone, we have worked on over 8,000 cases to try to help local residents.
 
I am very grateful for you sharing your views on this important issue. Your mail has been read, categorised and logged and will inform the work we do and the decisions I take.
 
Please let me know if you would like to receive a more detailed answer. I would be delighted to reply in more depth if you’d find that helpful. Simply reply to this email and let me and the team know and we will aim to reply to you within three-four weeks.
 
Thank you so much again for getting in touch.
 
With all my best wishes,
 
David

David Pinto-Duschinsky MP
Member of Parliament for Hendon

So there you go. It would have been better if he hadn't bothered. IMHO it is worse to get nothing than to get a patronising fob off. He says "Please let me know if you would like to receive a more detailed answer" you do not have to be the Brain of Britain to figure out that I wouldn't have contacted him unless I wanted a proper answer. When I looked today, his website had out of date surgery information on.

click for more readable version

Now there are three possibilities regarding his non answer email. The first is he knows I am a Barnet blogger and I am not particularly sympathetic to Barnet Labour, so he's decided to annoy me, so he can tell all his mates what a jolly jape it is to try and annoy me. The second is that he replies to everyone like that, and can't really be bothered to do too much work. The third is that he suspects that the email I sent was setting a trap to make him look bad and thought a non reply would be the safest option. Well for his information, I don't need to set traps for local politicians. They are perfectly capable of being useless without my help. I raised a serious point and wanted a serious answer. As far as I am aware, people don't write to MP's for the fun of it. I've written to him once since he was elected. 

Mr Pinto-Duschinsky seems keen on Facebook to promote all of the work he's doing. This is a recent post from him

David Pinto-Duschinsky MP, Member of Parliament for HendonMill Hill

ernodStopsmielff8084gt9539ef2tm45 c619aa b:pi535r480Sch61 te ·

Mill Hill East station users: I know you’ve put up with travel disruption and reduced tube services for far, far too long.

Having raised this repeatedly with TfL, I’m happy to say some safety-critical work has now been carried out and services should be back to normal. That means trains running up to every 12 minutes at peak times.

I'll keep pressing TfL to improve transport connectivity at Mill Hill East, and across our constituency. Email me at david.pintoduschinsky.mp@parliament.uk with any issues and I'll do all I can to help.

Now this all sounds very good, doesn't it. Just what a good, hard working MP does.However, there is one small point missing. TFL is run by the Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has been in charge since 2016. There is no mention of this in his post. The people of Hendon are not stupid.

I had a look through his Facebook page. Lots of turning up at local faith groups, praising the local council, knocking on doors (mostly in safe Labour areas). Very little about campaigns, successful casework, etc. I can see almost no engagement with difficult local issues that actually improve the lives of locals. My concern when he was selected was that Labour wanted a nodding dog MP in what they thought would be an easy win. They didn't want someone who might be a bit difficult and independently minded. For all my reservations about former Tory MP's Gorst and Offord, they were at least their own man. Dismore would give proper responses and would proactively ensure that correspondence was answered in a way that displayed a degree of interest. 

There is a long time to go before the next election. I have no idea at all as to how it will go, but it is clear to me that unless our local MP ups his game and starts responding properly to people, he will be shown the door at the first opportunity. 

Local Politics Special - Hendon Conservatives - Happy days are here again?

Matthew Offord MP with friends

In the second of our series on the local political scene in the London Borough of Barnet, we look at the Hendon Conservatives. Yesterday we had a look at the Labour party and the failings of the local organisation, which I believe contributed to its catastrophic failure in the local election. Today we seek to understand why the Hendon Conservatives are just so successful at the ballot box.

The success of the Hendon Conservatives is extraordinary. To truly understand this, lets not start with Hendon, lets start with Neighbouring Enfield North. In many ways, this seat is rather like Hendon. A sleepy suburb, that was Labour for the Blair years and reverted to Tory in 2010. Here are the results in 2010.

	Conservative	Nick de Bois	18,804	42.3	-0.8
	Labour	Joan Ryan	17,112	38.5	-2.3
	Liberal Democrat	Paul Smith	5,403	12.2	+0.7
	BNP	Tony Avery	1,228	2.8	+0.2
	UKIP	Madge Jones	938	2.1	+0.3
	Green	Bill Linton	489	1.1	+1.1
	Christian	Anthony Williams	161	0.4	+0.4
	English Democrats	Raquel Weald	131	0.3	+0.3
	Workers Revolutionary	Anna Athow	96	0.2	+0.2
	Independent	Gonul Daniels	91	0.2	+0.2
Majority			1,692	3.8
Turnout			44,453	67.1	+6.8

 In 2010 Tory candidate Nick deBois turned around a Labour majority of a couple of thousand to take the seat. The Lib Dems had a decent chunk of the votes, wheras UKIP & The BNP took a 3,000 odd chunk of hard right voters. With similar demographics to Hendon, we should expect a similar pattern in 2015.  Lets look what actually happened.

	Labour	Joan Ryan[6]	20,172	43.7	+5.2
	Conservative	Nick de Bois	19,086	41.4	-0.9
	UKIP	Deborah Cairns	4,133	9.0	+6.8
	Green	David Flint [7]	1,303	2.8	+1.7
	Liberal Democrat	Cara Jenkinson	1,059	2.3	-9.9
	Christian Peoples	Yemi Awolola[8]	207	0.4	N/A
	TUSC	Joe Simpson[9]	177	0.4	N/A

As you can see, Labour turned it around and Joan Ryan stormed back in. What is interesting is how the Lib Dem vote in Enfield seems to have decided to back Ryan. Perhaps rather interestingly, the hard righ vote almost doubled, with the BNP voters defecting to UKIP.


Now lets compare this with Hendon. As you can see, Matthew Offord squeezed out Andrew Dismore with a tiny 106 majority.

	Conservative	Matthew Offord	19,635	42.3	+5.2
	Labour	Andrew Dismore	19,529	42.1	−3.0
	Liberal Democrat	Matthew Harris	5,734	12.4	−1.7
	UKIP	Robin Lambert	958	2.1	+0.5
	Green	Andrew Newby	518	1.1	−0.7
Majority			106	0.2
Turnout			46,374	58.8

Looking at neighbouring Enfield North, you may expect Dismore to have stormed back. What actually happened?

	Conservative	Matthew Offord	24,328	49.0	+6.7
	Labour	Andrew Dismore	20,604	41.5	-0.6
	UKIP	Raymond Shamash	2,595	5.2	+3.2
	Liberal Democrat	Alasdair Hill	1,088	2.2	-10.2
	Green	Ben Samuel	1,015	2	+0.9
Majority			3,724	7.5
Turnout			49,630	66.5

As with Enfield North, the hard right vote more than doubled. But look where the Lib Dem vote went. With the rise in turnout, none of it went to Dismore. Basically, the Tories hoovered up just about every spare vote to keep Dismore out.

So why the huge difference. If you didn't know Enfield, and were only familiar with Hendon, you may say "Well Dismore had all those problems with his expenses, so people didn't like him". In actual fact, Joan Ryan had the biggest expenses bill of any MP and a far worse record on this than Dismore.

In short, there can only be two possible explanations for the different outcome. Either Barnet Labour are particularly bad at campaigning or the Barnet Conservatives are particularly good. Well if you look at the figures, this shows that both of these propositions can be demonstrated to be true.

The turnout went up from 46,374 to 49,630. Basically if this rise had been equally distributed between the candidates, Dismore would have got 20,900 and Offord 21,013. As you can see, Dismore actually got less than this and Offord over 3,000 more. In short, whilst Dismore lost votes, Offord piled them on. However the Barnet Labour party choose to look at this, it is a monumental failure.

For this blog, we are concerned with the Tories. Perhaps the conclusion you'd have drawn was that the Hendon Tories were a super slick organisation to do so well, in the face of a London wide swing to Labour. I am friendly with maany of the local Conservative councillors and activists and I have to report that this is not the view I have formed. In the run up to the election, I was told time and time again that they expected Dismore to wipe the floor with Offord at the polls. The opinion polls also told the same story. Even Matthew Offord joked with me at the Mill Hill hustings that he'd be able to attend a few concerts for the Mill Hill Music Festival as he'd have a bit of time on his hands.

In actual fact, I think the expectation of failure was Matthews biggest assett. This may sound odd, bit in 2010 he expected to win and was rather arrogant and nasty. He would get tetchy at times and I have to admit I found him rather unpleasant on occasion. At the count, when it actually looked for a while like Dismore would win, we saw the worst of his character.

Fast forward to 2015. With no expectation of winning, we saw a different Matthew Offord. He was quite huumble and quite funny. He put a Tory rosette on his dog and he happily chatted to anyone who wanted to listen. At the Mill Hill hustings, I thought he did rather well. Having said that, being a bit more relaxed doesn't win votes.

Where I think Offord scored well was in the under the radar campaignbing he was doing. In Burnt Oak, he's made a massive effort to befriend the Gurkha/Nepalese community. I have had a few conversations with them and their organisation and they love Matthew. He has also got very close to the Evangelical Christian community. With his implacable opposition to same sex marriage, he built strong alliances, especially with the African members of this community. Whilst for liberal North Londoners, Offords stance may not be appealing, to the fundamental Christian community it is a huge vote winner. Many of the members of these congregations are typically Labour supporting people on low incomes with strong moral values. They saw Matthew as a huge ally and a very moral person. Another area where Matthews stance has gone down very well is in the religious orthodox Jewish community. Wheras in neighbouring Finchley and Golders Green, Mike Freer blew a fuse over claims that Labour canvassers were using his open gay lifestyle to turn religious Jews against him, in Hendon Matthew Offord was able to claim with pride "I voted against gay marriage" to these voters.

Whilst Matthew Offords stance may be unappealing to liberal minded voters, it certainly had a galvanising effect on those who hold strong religious views.  Even for more liberal minded members of the local Jewish community, Offord was able to display cast iron credentials for supporting Israel, a very important factor in the Hendon electoral equation. Another area where Offord scored heavily was in the Cypriot community, with his implacable support for the struggle of Greek Cypriots. There are several other groups that Matthew has courted over a long period, including the local Iranian community. Over his five years in Westminster, Matthew has built up a strong personal vote in all of these areas.

It is also clear from the demographics that Matthew hoovered up a large number of former Lib Dem voters (whilst Dismore actually seems to have put them off). Having stood for the Lib Dems in 2010 council elections, I know many of the local supporters. Whilst Dismore was seen by many as an enemy for his ritual attacks on the party at local and national level, Offord was always extremely courteous about his coalition partners and claimed that he was very comfortable working with them in Parliament. You do not have to be a genius to work out which appoach was more likely to succeed.

And what about the local Conservative association? As I said, I was surprised at how lukewarm they seemed to be about the campaign. I cannot believe how few leaflets I've had and we didn't get a knock on the door a single time. I didn't see any Conservative street stalls at weekends in Mill Hill. I was quite disappointed by this as I always enjoy having a chat with the activists and finding out how the campaign is going. In fact the only street stall I saw was the UKIP one. It  may well be I was just out at the wrong time, but in years gone by, you couldn't miss them.

The Tories are pretty good at telephone canvassing and staging micro events to drum up support. Local activists have spent long hours cold calling people and explaining how the SNP will ruin Hendon if Dismore won. Personally I find it hard to believe that such calls would be anything more than an extreme annoyance. I hate any form of cold call, even when Laithwaites ring up to give me free wine, but I am sure the Tories have done their homework on this subject.

So where does this leave the Hendon Torys? Well I would say that they are in pretty good place right now. Offord has moved his seat from being top of the target list to a fairly comfortable majority. He has confounded his critics both in and outside the party and unlike the last election, where there was a cloud of electoral impropriety, following allegations from Andrew Dismore, this time he's won, fair and square.

That is however, not the full story. As Offord has shown time and time again, he is what might be described as hard right. At the Mill Hill Hustings, the UKIP candidate praised him for his stalwart opposition to the EU. If there is a referendum in 2017, Offord will be at odds with his leader on this issue. I do wonder how this will play with his Cypriot friends? It is all very well pulling out of the EU, but this will give the UK zero influence in regards to a future Turkish membership of the EU. I think once the local Cypriot community wake up to this fact, they may take a rather different view of Matthew and the local Tories. Then there is the issue of same sex marriage. Whilst the vote is done and dusted and most have accepted it, I do wonder whether this will eventually become an albatross around his local colleagues neck. It is no secret that many of the more liberal minded members of the local Tory associations would have nothing to do with Offord or his campaign, preferring to support the more liberal minded Freer's campaign.  I am reliably informed that Freer would have been less than gutted if Offord had lost, as the two have fallen out massively over the issue.

I am intrigued to see how Offord behaves in the new parliament. The only conclusion that he can possibly draw is that the local electorate likes his approach and behaviour. I am sure it won't have excaped Offords notice that his share of the vote went up, whilst Freer's went down in Finchley & Golders Green. I fully expect this to result in Matthew becoming even more outspoken on controversial issues. What will also be intriguing will be to see how many of Matthews friends in the various communities he's courted will start popping up in the Hendon Conservative Association as officers and council candidates.

I should imagine that Matthew probably awakes this morning with a bit of a sore head. He is a maverick and I fully expect to see more examples of his rather interesting views. I predict interesting times ahead for Matthew and his association. Whatever you may think of Matthew Offord, his achievement at the ballot box was stunning and he deserves a degree of respect for that, even if like me you have no truck with his politics.

Hendon Tory Candidate Offord claims he can represent "Humans in Hendon better because he isn't one!"

The Barnet Eye has learned from usually reliable sources (down at the Bridge Pub in Mill Hill) that as part of his campiagn to secure human rights for dogs, Former Hendon Conservative MP Matthew Offord has got his Jack Russell terrier Max to take his place as Conservative Candidate for Hendon. It appears that Boris Johnson (Pictured with Max) was so impressed with Max's ability to woo the crowds that he has persuaded Matthew to step aside and let Max run as candidate.

Usually reliable sources have informed the Barnet Eye that Max was unsure at first, until he heard Mike Freer's explanation of how Non Jews can represent Jews in Parliament far better than Jewish people. After a long chat with Boris, Mike and Matthew, Max was won over.

His spokesperson said "After listening to Mike Freer's impeccable logic, Max realised that it was best for the people of Hendon if they were represented by a non human. As everyone knows, people trust dogs far more than politicians and they are recognised for the qualities of loyalty, faithfulness and doggedness". Max was also able to explain that he has massively improved Matthew's fitness, ensuring that rather than sit around drinking and eating cakes, he gets Matthew off his ever growing posterior and out for some walkies.

Max also explained that dogs exemplify "true Tory values". Unlike Socialists who are driven by the rather bizarre concept of "communal good", dogs will do anything for a nice treat. Max is on the liberal wing of the Conservative party, believing that if he wants to lick his testicles in public, why should anyone have the right to stop him.

Max explained that wheras Socialists believe in equality and fairness, dogs follow the Conservative mantra of following the pack leader and the biggest doggie gets the biggest dinner! Like his owner Matthew, Max is not a supporter of Same Sex Marriage, explaining "why should I want to get married when there are so many nice chair legs out there?"

The Barnet Eye approached Mike Freer for a quote about whether his logic applied to dogs representing humans in Parliament, but he seemed a tad unwilling to respond. A spokesperson who may be close to Mike replied "whilst at first Mike was sceptical about Max's abilities to represent the people of Hendon, on balance he felt that he'd be a more sensible candidate than Matthew".

The Barnet Eye was able to speak to Max in Mill Hill Broadway today and asked how the campaign has been going. Max replied "Rough".

The Barnet Eye has spoken to contacts within the Labour Campaign about the sudden change of Tory Candidate. An unofficial spokesperson for Andrew Dismore stated that it was worrying because unlike his owner, Max had charm and charisma and people like dogs.

UKIP were unable to confirm whether their latest candidate in Hendon has been replaced by this rather nice moggie, pictured with the UKIP national director of operations (left).

Lazy Tory MP update

On Sunday we revealed that my lazy local MP, Matthew Offord hadn't bothered to sign a single early day motion. I was contacted by a expert on transport who pointed out that Hendon constituency has a large population of commuters. In the past few years there have been huge issues with both Thameslink and the Northern Line. These local services have been under huge strain. There has been a proposal to alleviate the strain by building the Brent Cross Light Railway. The heart of this service would be in Hendon, it would add a station for the RAF museum and the large development there, linking it to Brent Cross. It would also connect the East and West branches of the Northern Line and give a huge boost to the local community.

My correspondent says that Mr Offord has offered no support on this matter and has no interest in the project. He has had nothing at all to say on the issue of the Brent Cross redevelopment and the transport issues surrounding this. Surely we need an MP who cares about the issues that affect his constituency and the real issues that affect the lives of his constituents?

Matthew Offord MP reselected by the Conservatives in Hendon

Many congratulations to Matthew Offord MP on his reselection as MP for Hendon. As the constituencies leading political blogger, I can honestly say Matthew has been a delight to work with. He has brough the people of Hendon endless minutes of fun with his "interesting" views on human rights for dogs, serving up soup to David Cameron, his "late night" encounter with the Tory chief whip, his efforts to wind his old boss Mike Freer MP up about Gay marriage and all of the other things he's done in the last three years which for some reason a have completely slipped my mind.

When he was Deputy Leader of Barnet Council, the Barnet Eye christened Matthew "Captain Useless". We have to concede that he has totally exceeded our expectations in this department. He is no Captain Useless, he is a Field Marshall ! I actually quite like Matthew and hope he really enjoys the next year and a half at Parliament. I would advise him to put his feet up, chill out and relax, but he needs no lecture from me on that matter.

Dr Who is alive and well and living in Hendon and enjoying the Thameslink service

No those of you who know me quite well will know I'm a Sci Fi buff. As such it gives me great pleasure to announce that I've uncovered an amazing fact. The most famous Timelord on the planet is alive and well and representing the people of Hendon in Parliament.

Yesterday I was in Marks and Spencers and a person who I've talked to over the years a few times whilst out campaigning on various local issues collared me. The gentlemen in question is a pugnatious character who has a low opinion of everyone involved in Politics and is more than happy to explain why at great length. He also has strong views on all manner of local issues. Like many people in Mill Hill he has become extremely disillusioned with the awful train service in Mill Hill, provided by First Capital Connect. Yesterday he was at his wits end about it and knowing I have taken an interest, he collard me. The conversation went as follows. Let's call him Adam (I've skipped the pleasantaries at the start).

Adam: "I am bloody well sick of this train service, First are an absolute joke. I thought the previous mob were bad, but this lot take the biscuit. Did you see that they've been voted the worst train company in the country".

Me: "Yes"

Adam: "What is that lazy git of an MP, Andrew Dismore doing about it? You never hear from him apart from when he wants your vote at the election, then you can't get away from him"

Me: "Erm, Andrew Dismore isn't the MP for Hendon. He lost in 2010"

Adam: "I thought he won the election last year?"

Me: "No, that was for the GLA, they don't run the trains, they just keep an eye on Boris"

Adam: "Oh, so who is our local MP then?"

Me: "It's Dr Matthew Offord"

Adam: "Doctor Who?"

At this I sniggered. I think the title quite suits Matthew. Given his activities to rescue the bumble bees of Barnet http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/news/matthew-creates-buzz-about-bee-decline and his action man training with the Royal Marines http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/news/matthew-graduates-armed-forces he clearly sees himself as bit of a Time Lord on the sly.

As with all good Time Lords, he has a trusted companion in the shape of Max the Jack Russell. He is fearless when faced with challenges such as diving on old wrecks http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/news/matthew-dives-inspect-wwii-wreck and it must be said that not a single Dalek has been spotted in Mill Hill since Dr Who took over from Andrew Dismore.

Just like the TV Timelord, Matthew has that special telepathic power which means you forget all about him after you've met him. Like the TV timelord he also has special telepathic paper for his campaign leaflets, so you see just what you want to see. A great example of this was his campaign leaflet which said he was going to stop Kentish Town Football club building a pavillion for 50 people at Copthall Stadium. Locals thought this would spare them from traffic Chaos. What he concealed was the plans for a 15,000 seat Rugby stadium on the site. Of course locals realise that 15,000 Rugby fans will cause far less disturbance to Mill Hill than the 50 people turning up to see Non League Kentish Town play. The matchday CPZ has seen to that.

So having had his true identity rumbled. My conversation with Adam continued.

Me: Doctor Matthew Offord

Adam: Are you sure it's not Andrew Dismore? Is Offord Labour? They are a bunch of lazy sods.

Me: Yes, absolutely. And no he's a Tory.

Adam: Do you know what he's doing about this bloody rail service?

Me: Well he says on his website that he's pleased that the Improvements are on track (http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/news/investment-thameslink-line-continue)

Adam: What, is he an idiot? Does he actually use the service? Who is he again?

At that we parted company. It seems that Dr Who really has learned to swim like a fish in the sea of people without troubling them with recognition. It is telling that nearly three years after the election, Andrew Dismore still has far higher local recognition that Dr Who.

On the good Doctors site, there is a section called local issues

http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/local-issues-one-barnet

Interestingly, this has only one topic. The One Barnet project which the good Doctor has no power over as it is a local council issue and out of his jurisdiction. There is nothing about the following issues, which he could have a big say in

The NHS and local health provision
Transport issues, roads, Underground and Rail (such as Thameslink)
Overdevelopment and Green Belt policy
Education, Acadamies and Free Schools

Do any of these matter to you? Well they certainly don't seem to matter to Dr Who? do they. One other interesting fact. Adam voted for Dr Who last time. He said he wanted to see the back of Gordon Brown. I asked if he would vote for him again? His verdict? "If I bother to vote, yes I'll vote Conservative as I always do, but if what your saying is true about his attitude to Thameslink, I don't think I'll bother"

Matthew Offord has a wafer thin majority of 105 and the Tories do not have Gordon Brown to act as a Millstone around the Labour vote. If Dr Who is to survive, I suspect he needs to build up a strong personal vote. He has made a big pitch for the anti gay marriage vote in Hendon, but apart from that, it is hard to see where this support can be rustled up from.

Captain Useless Special - Who saved all the pies

MP for Hendon (AKA Captain Useless, Souperman, Matthew Leviticus - the scourge of gay couples and Roverman the ex officio minister for Dogs human rights) has claimed yet another famous victory. His campaign to save the pasty has paid dividends. George Osborne has crumbled in the face of Matthews ferocious campaign. Having made a name for himself, early in career by allegedly thumping one of the Tory whips (no one told Matthew that whips are meant to do the whipping) and hurtling around the world as part of the Parliamentary Armed Forces program, taking part in military operations and vanquishing drug dealers everywhere (except for Hendon). Matthew came out, strongly against the pasty tax on his website.

http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/newsshow.aspx?id=4&ref=158

It is believed that the brains behind Matthews highly popular revolt was his chief policy adviser and pet Jack Russell dog, Maximus. Max has on many occasions expressed his strong support for makers of sausage rolls and pasties. He is especially partial to a steak slice. The Barnet Eye contacted Max for a comment, but he was clearly feeling Ruff. Rumour has it that Max and his protoge Matthew may have been overdoing the celebrating of his famous victory. We hope Matthew gets better soon !

Matthew Offord MP

As most Hendon residents (who read this blog) will know, your local MP, Matthew Offord is on holiday in Belize. I think it is important to state that MP's, like everyone else, are allowed to go on holiday. If Matthew left before the riots broke out and only found out when it is impractical to get back, then we take no issue with him and hope he thoroughly enjoyed his break.

If, as he has said, he was assisting with counter terrorism, anti narcotics intelligence and hurricane preparations, then this is a commendable way to spend his break. A question was asked as to his experience for dealing with this, of the chair of the Hendon Conservatives, who helpfully replied that he's a member of the national geographic society. Again this is highly commendable.

As such, the Barnet Eye is looking forward to Matthew's return, when he will doubtlessly answer all of the questions posed about the trip. We then look forward to giving him a ringing endorsement for all of his hard work, on behalf of the people of the tropical haven of Belize.

There's a hurricane a' comin' - call for Captain Useless -Hendons Souperhero !!!!!!!

Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day Sun !

Why did I think of this as I read of the tropical antics of our very own Souperhero MP - Captain Useless AKA Matthew Offord. You too can read all about his escapades here :-

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/9194537.Hendon_MP__holiday_involves_counterterror_work/

Seem's like the good Captain is on a highly secret undercover mission to sort out the local drugs cartels in Belize, or at leas that's what he's told the press. He's also highly involved in undercover counter terrorism work. I do hope that the Belizian drug barons and terror overlords are not readers of the Hendon Times or his cover will be blown. He's also taken time out to advise the Belizian government on hurricane protection.

Now it may surprise you to know that the Prime Minister of Belize, Dean Burrows is an old family friend of the Tichborne family. He recently got in touch and said "Hey Rog, it's coming up to the Hurricane Season, being a tropical country, we have no experience of such events. Can you recommend an expert to help us?" I of course replied "Well our local MP, Captain Useless is a souperhero. He can fix anything. Get him over on holiday and he can fix your hurricanes, sort out your terrorism and your narcotics industry". Job done.

Of course, you do realise that I made up the last paragraph, don't  you? Just to prove that when it comes to spinning tall stories, we can all do it, if we really want.  Of course, you'd think with Captain Useless being an expert in combatting the narcotics industry, Burnt Oak, Graham Park and Hendon would be completely drug free, wouldn't you? I do know one thing though, given the previous record of Captain Useless, I'lll be buying some hurricane shutters and storm lamps ASAP. If he's in charge of hurricane planning in Hendon, what could possibly go wrong?

***************** Late Update ******************

Just got another call from my old mate Dean Burrows. He's rather cross

"Hey Rog, your hurricane expert you sent out here. I asked him what he'd recommend and hey said "Well the celery and tomato soup is pretty good, but my personal favourate is the brie and butter bean with a smidgeon of parmesan!" I replied "I'd stick with the celery and tomato if I were you".  

Barnet Eye round up - Burnt Oak Murder - What the hell is going on ?

Sorry if I upset anyone with what I am going to say here. I am just absolutely sick and disgusted by the fact that somebody was stabbed to death in Burnt Oak, a mile from my front door and no one seems to give a fuck.

First up lets see what our MP, Matthew Offord has to say on his Twitter feed. Over 24 hours later? Absolutely fuck all. What about the news on his website?
http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/news.aspx?id=4 - Nope the troglodytes of Burnt Oak are not worth mentioning to our esteemed MP, although the fact he met a famous sports person is.

What does the local paper have to say?
http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/9144135.Burnt_Oak_murder__premises_may_have_been_brothel/

Yeah lovely stuff, do they forget the bloke presumably had a family? A mum? A dad? Most sickening of all is the story at the bottom of the story -

Do you know the premises where the stabbing happened? Contact the newsdesk with any information by emailing tjones@london.newsquest.co.uk

Well I have a message for TJones at London.newsquest.co.uk - Fuck off and show some respect. The poor sod isn't even cold on the slab yet and you are looking for salacious stories of rumpy pumpy on the back of his death. You make me sick, trying to spice up the story to boost your circulation. Why don't you bug his families phones and see if you can dig up even more shit? Haven't you learned anything? Why don't you fuck off to News International where you seem to belong.

Does anyone care? I find the reaction truly horrible and disgusting. I'll be saying a prayer for the victim and his family and hoping that the papers see the error of their ways and lay off putting the boot in. Some hope