Watch the banned Iceland Xmas Ad now!

As consumers we have power. Christmas is coming, we will be filling our shopping trolleys with goodies for the festival. As consumers, we have the power to choose which companies we spend our money with. All of the major chains will be producing Xmas commercials. As far as I am aware, only one has been banned. Why? Because it's message is too political. Whilst it is OK to promote alcohol, sugary snacks and products which are destroying the planet, woe betide any retailer who tries to do the right thing. This advert has been banned. There are two things you can do, if you think this is a message that is important. The first is you can share this. The second is that you can boycott all products made with Palm Oil. I will be looking in Iceland first for the products that we need this Xmas. I am sure they are not perfect, but they deserver plaudits for at least trying.


I was curious as to what the other main retailers were doing. Here is what my research told me

Marks and Spencers - committed to removing non sustainable Palm Oil from products by 2020 - 5/10 - Not good enough. Maybe we should start shopping there again in 2020?

Waitrose - Have a page of corporate gobbledegook and excuses which are beyond an idiot like me's comprehension - 0/10 - Very disappointing indeed. Sadly I won't be spending my cash in Waitrose.

Tescos - Committed to removing non sustainable Palm Oil products by 2020 - 5/10 - As with M&S not good enough, but at least it is readable

ASDA  - Like Waitrose we get a page of gobbledegook - 0/10 - Sorry ASDA, we won't be spending any cash with you this Xmas (or any other time soon)

Sainsburys - Committed to sustainable Palm Oil supplies by 2020 - 5/10 - Yet another not working hard enough.

Lidl - 100% of Palm Oil comes from Sustainable Sources - 10/10 - Well done to LIDL.

COOP - 100% of Palm Oil is sustainable (I Think) - 9/10 - This was a conundrum. I am not 100% sure what the policy actually said. It seemed to imply that the Palm Oil in COOP products are 100% sustainable and that they are working to ensure that best practice is followed. If this is the case it would be 10/10, but they really should employ copy writers who can spell out in plain English what they are trying to do.

Morrisons - Yet more indecipherable corporate gobbledegook, which gives no indication of the actual usage and date for phasing out in plain English - 0/10

I must say I wonder who the majority of these retailers aim this information at. I am really not sure what some of them are doing. I will be more than happy to update this blogs with any plain English text that clearly states what they are doing. It is not enough to simply write a web page of platitudes that sound nice. This is a story we will follow.

We think it is disgusting that Iceland are banned from advertising their corporate responsibility. What do you think?

David Cameron upsets Hendon Blue Rinse brigade

There was a story in yesterdays Evening Standard which made me chuckle. It seems that the President of the Hendon Conservative Party Mrs Elizabeth Sparrow, aged 70 was featured in the famous 1979 "Labour isn't working" Poster campaign when she responded to a call to party activists to turn up at a location to be photo's as part of a "queue of people". She wasn't told that the queue she was going to be photo'd in was a "dole queue" and she would be depicted as a "benefit scrounger" on posters up and down the land (Amusingly, if you look closely at the picture, they are a "dole queue" all dressed up in their Sunday best, not a hoodie in sight - no 1979 punks, skinheads, goths or rastas). Now that David Cameron has rehired Maurice Saatchi, creator of the original poster in a last desperate attempt to revive his flagging campaign, Mrs Sparrow can keep silent no longer. She told the Evening Standard that she did not like “distasteful” electioneering. She said: “It's all spin, and in a way that's what advertising is.”

No doubt we'll soon be seeing truthful election leaflets from Mrs Sparrows association, detailing how the Barnet Tories lost millions in Iceland, how their candidate presided over a the Aerodrome Road fiasco which cost Barnet Taxpayers £11 Million and how they are abolishing sheltered Housing wardens against the wishes of 85% of the elderly and vulnerable people they consulted. Mrs Sparrow is always welcome to write a guest blog here telling us the truth about what a cock up her party have presided over in Barnet.

Barnet Councils biggest pothole

Wanna know where all the cash went to resurface Barnets roads? Look no further - latest estimate £18 million.According to the Conservative Leader of Barnet Council, Councillor Lynne Hillan, it would be a bad thing if Barnet Council became too "risk averse".Yep maybe they should just go down to the casino and win it all back !

I'm Mike Freer - get me out of here !

It's back. The series we all love and watch, but don't admit. I'm a celebrity is back on our screens. It is a pure example of democracy in action. You see a whole bunch of people from a stack of different backgrounds and once you've got to know their personality, you have the opportunity to get rid of them.

Sadly for most of us, we don't apply the same principles when we vote. Truly obnoxious people, who we would cross the road to avoid in normal life, get our vote because they are standing for the party we associate ourselves with. How dumb is that? Why do you vote Tory/Lab/Lib-Dem? Is it in expectation that they'll really make your life better? or is it because at some point, for the most obscure of reasons you decided that they were your party come hell or high water?

My kids love I'm a celebrity (that's my excuse). It is required viewing. As I watched it last night, a bizarre thought struck me. The show is sponsored by "Iceland". At every commercial break, we got a nice ad promoting the wares of Iceland. I suddenly thought "Hang on a second, what about all of that dosh, £27.4 Million quid of it, that Barnet Council lost? Leader of Barnet Council, Mike Freer, promised us regular updates" Can you remember the last "regular" update? I know the bloke who was trying to get it back, left the council. Who is trying to get our cash back now? How much interest have we lost?

I seem to recall that Leader of Barnet Council Mike Freer got several thousand pounds in "responsibility allowances" for looking after the cash, but it was council officers who got the boot. It is over a year since Mike Freer announced "The cash is not lost, it's just resting".

Well as we all love I'm a celebrity and we all love Iceland, The Barnet Eye will be keeping everyone up to date on the matter over the next couple of weeks.

Don't forget that the bloke who lost all the cash (or who at least got a stonking great allowance for looking after it is) - Mike Freer, Leader of Barnet Council, is standing for Election in Finchley and Golders Green in May. Now, if like me you wouldn't trust Mike to put the cat out without losing it, I suspect that when you you see his name on the ballot form, you'll quote Sir Alan Sugar on that other unmissable reality show, The Apprentice and say "You're Fired".

Mike Freer is Gordon Brown's evil twin !

One of my best mates is a quite senior Tory in South London. I've known him for a long time and we often meet up for a couple of beers and a curry. Generally we don't discuss politics, preferring to chat about beer, football & Uma Thurman. However as you can probably guess about a mate of Rog T he rather enjoys the opportunity to wind me up and will occasionally send me one of his masterpieces to try and ruin my weekend. I just received his latest effort. He asked me if I could think of any amendments to it. I was happy to oblige !

10 Reasons why Gordon Brown Mike Freer should resign today

1. He wasn't the Leader at the last election

2. He plotted behind the scenes to depose the man who the country Barnet elected

3. He has used his leadership to promote a raft of people who clearly aren't up to the job

4. When the country went into recession Barnet Council lost £27.4 Million in Iceland he took no responsibilty whatsoever despite being Prime Minister Council Leader and Cabinet Member for resource management, with a £3,000 responsibility allowance

5. He is happy to tolerate a Cabinet full of people who have gorged themselves on expenses allowances

6. He has promoted people such as Peter Mandleson Brian Coleman despite a long history of scandals

7. He never apologises for his mistakes

8. He is the architect of shameful policies which have destroyed peoples pensions will destroy the Sheltered Housing system and threaten the wellbeing of the Great Britains Barnets elderly

9. He has become a laughing stock, which is bad for Britain Barnet

10. He has completely lost touch with the voters

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

Uncanny isn't it ! I don't need to write blogs anymore. I just get my Tory mates to send me their stuff & I change a couple of names and places.

How much dosh has Mike Freer lost in Iceland?

It seems that Mike Freer and his Mates (Mates is a brand of condom designed to keep a dick separate from nasty things and stop unplanned events further down the line, as well as being a slang word for a friend) are still spinning the old porkie that he's lost no money in Iceland.

I thought we'd do a bit of analysis on the situation (on the back of a cigarrette packet).



a) What Mike has definately lost - if he'd invested the £27.4 Million in banks which hadn't gone bust, at the same rate of interest, he'd have £913,333 in the kitty in interest. Whatever happens, that is gone - that is the figure as of today. Every day that the money is frozen figure goes up by £6,005.00

b) What Mike will optimistically won't get back - The most optimistic figure is 80% (and this is the most optimistic by a country mile) = £5.48 Million lost (along with with the interest on top) - I believe the Council have set a 25% probability on this being the likely settlement.

c) What Mike has realistically lost - The consensus is less than 50% will come back - So probably more than £13.7 Million. I believe that the Council have set a 65% probability of this being the likely settlement.

d) What Mike Could lose - The lot - £27.4 Million + interest - if it all goes wrong for Barnet.
I believe that the Council have set a 10% probability on this being the likely outcome.

e) The costs of dealing with the fiasco - accountants etc, travel to Iceland, staff, expert advice - a little birdy told me that the cost is well above £150,000 - but I've no idea if that figure is true. Former Councillor Richard Weider confirmed to me that the average cost of these consultants is well above £1,000 a day.

However you look at it, the figures are huge. Has Mike apologised for this? Nope. Has he even admitted there will be a loss. Nope.

Mike and his Mates, know my email address. If they dispute any of these figures, then they can email me their revised and more accurate figures and I'll put them up here. If anyone from the Council want's to use this blog or any other blog to give us an honest council estimate of the situation, then fine. The claim that "Nothing" has been lost is a porkie. This information isn't commercially sensitive, it's not as if there is any competition in collecting council tax. We pay it, the we elect the council, but they have told us nothing, given us no figures and just indulged in Damian McBride style spin. The figures I quote above are back of the fag packet estimates based on information in the public domain. They may be wrong, but until the council come clean they are the best figures I've got.

Now let me just clarify one last thing. The source figures I've used are partially based on information given to me by someone very close to the matter at the council in a conversation. I trust that person and believe the information to be accurate, but there have been comments that the Council are deliberately leaking porkies to blogs - If it is wrong then I'd be more than happy to post the correct figures.

Oh and always make sure you've got your Mates close at hand. It is just as important to be safe with your sexual health as it is for the Head of Resources at the Council to Be Safe with our money. I recall Mrs Thatcher's AIDS campaign. Let's hope that what we're being told isn't the tip of the Iceberg !

Mike Freer - What is Leadership?

	leader • noun 1 a person or thing that leads. 2 a person or thing that is the most successful or advanced in a particular area. 3 the principal player in a music group. 4 Brit. a leading article in a newspaper. 5 (also Leader of the House) Brit. a member of the government officially responsible for initiating business in Parliament. 6 a short strip of non-functioning material at each end of a reel of film or recording tape for connection to the spool.

Definition

leadership
noun [U]
1 the set of characteristics that make a good leader:
What the company lacks is leadership.
He lacks leadership qualities/skills.

2 the position or fact of being the leader:
The group flourished under her firm leadership.
R&M gained market leadership (= sold more goods than other companies) by selling products that were of superior quality.

3 the leadership the person or people in charge of an organization:
There is growing discontent with the leadership.
The election for the leadership of the council will take place on Tuesday.


I thought before I started to analyse Mike Freer's statement today, about the lost Icelandic cash, I'd just check the dictionary definitions of Leader and Leadership. The definition of Leader is from the Oxford Dictionary and the Definition of Leadership is from the Cambridge version.

Let me just point you to a blog I did in October, when the Council had an emergency debate on the crisis.

http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2008/10/advisers-advise-leaders-lead-so-give.html

When it comes down to it, the issue in Barnet is Leadership. Yesterday Mike Freer issued the following statement :-

Despite previous assurances from Barnet Council Officers that correct treasury management controls were applied to Icelandic deposits, it has now come to light that in fact this was not the case. On Monday 9th March I was presented with a scrutiny working group report which makes clear that officers did not in fact follow the correct procedures despite having repeatedly told me both verbally and in writing that they had done so.

The lead officer responsible for this failure resigned his post prior to the scrutiny meeting on Monday 9th March and I have now written formally to the Chief Executive asking for a full investigation into how I as Leader of the Council was misled by officers in this matter.

An external investigation will be carried out to identify why our external auditors did not pick up these issues in their previous audit work. I would like however to reassure residents that at this point the Icelandic deposits remain frozen by the administrators of the two banks involved and discussions around the return of this money remain positive and ongoing.

Council Leader Freer is also the chairman of the Resource management committee. He gets a responsibility allowance for this. Now I ask this question - where was the leadership and where is the responsibility. Leadership is all about ensuring that those who work for you know what they are meant to be doing. They should know that when things go wrong, you as leader will immediately get to the bottom of things. I was at an Emergency Council meeting last year, where Mike Freer resisted calls for the Icelandic investments to be investigated externally. Five months have since been lost. Five months where incompetence has flourished. Did Mike Freer never think to ask his officers "Prove it, show me the evidence"?

Was the wrongdoing uncovered by the man who manages the resources? No. It was uncovered by the scrutiny committee. Freer could have lead this process, he could have set up a special audit when the problems came to light - after all £27.4 Million is a huge sum. He could have said to his Council Officers "Come clean now, because you are being investigated. If you don't you will be sacked with no pay for gross misconduct".

He did none of these things. When the Council was run by a Labour/Liberal administration, Mike Freer used to monster his opponents - "Where is the Leadership? Where does the Buck stop?". That was how he made his name. He was a ruthless tormentor of various Labour and Lib Dem Cabinet members. The Tories made Mike Freer leader as he claimed that he'd take responsibility. He claimed that the buck stopped with him. He claimed he was a tough Thatcherite Leader. You';ve read his statement. Where is the Leadership, where does the buck stop?

Mike Freer - it is high time you put into practise what you used to preach in opposition. Resign

Barnet Council Icelandic Investments - The smell of something rotten

There is a rather disturbing report in the Independent today regarding Barnet Council's Investments in Iceland (Click HERE to read).

It seems that the treasurer of the Conservative Party, Michael Spencer, runs Butlers, the Company that Barnet Council used to produce ratings of the banks where funds were invested. He also runs ICAP which according to the Independent is the company which brokered the deals, taking a commission on the loan. There are 468 local authorities in Britain. Of these, over 50% of those facing losses in Icelandic banks took advice from Butlers.

The article states that another organisation, Arlingclose advised no councils which have exposure to Iceland. Here is the top 10 Council's affected by the Icelandic collapse

Top 10 council investors in Icelandic banks

Council (Political control); Investments; Advisor; Brokers

1. Kent (Con); £50.3m; Butlers; ICAP, Martins, Tullett Prebon, Garban
2. Nottingham (Lab); £41.6m; Butlers; City Deposit, Martins, Sterling
3. Haringey (Lab); £37m; Sector; Martins, Tullett Prebon, Sterling
4. Norfolk (Con); £32.5m; Butlers; ICAP, Sterling
5. Dorset (Con); £28.1m; Butlers; ICAP, Tullett Prebon, Tradition
6. Hertfordshire (Con); £28m; Butlers; ICAP, Martins, Tullett Prebon, Sterling, Tradition
7. Barnet (Con); £27.4m; Butlers; ICAP
8. Somerset (No overall control); £25m; No advisor; ICAP, Sterling, Tradition, Tullett Prebon
9. Northumberland (No overall control); £23m; Sector; ICAP, Martins, Tullett Prebon
10 Surrey (Con); £20m; Butlers; Martins, Stirling, Tradition, Tullett Prebon

Given that all of the Conservative Councils with exposure to the problems used Butlers, and that it's owned by the Tories treasurer it is a rather disturbing pattern. All apart from Surrey also used ICAP. Now I know little about the functionings of the Tory Party or how much influence the treasurer has. I do know from the various organisations I've been associated with that everyone knows the treasurer as he holds the purse strings.

In all of the explanations of the whole sorry episode, Mike Freer has been consistent in one thing. This man who aspires to be a Tory MP has cited as his justification for the crisis that Butlers gave the banks a clean bill of health. He claims that when the loans were taken out, on his watch, that the advice was sound. Well I didn't realise it until I read the report, but that advice was provided by a company which received a commission for arranging that loan. A company owned by the treasurer of the Conservative Party. Did Mike Freer know that the people advising the council were owned by the Tories treasurer? Did he know that they were (presumably) receiving fat commissions for arranging these loans? Well Mike is a banker and he is Barnets top Tory so he should have had some idea. I think that as Mike Freer is also head of Barnet Council resource management portfolio, for which he receives a big fat responsibility allowance of several thousand pounds, he should have know quite a lot about all of this. He was paid to.

Mike sent one of the Council's senior officers to Iceland to try and get some of the money we've lost back. Has he sent anyone around to the Butlers head office to ask for some of the cash we paid for this rotten advice back? Has he sent anyone around to ICAP's offices to ask for a share of the fat commissions they were paid to arrange the loans? If Mike Freer gives me a letter of authorisation, I'll go and knock on Mr Michael Spencers door and ask for our money back on behalf of the people of Barnet - I'll do it for free. If you pay for something and it's not fit for purpose, then you are entitled to your money back under the sale of goods act. I assume that when Freer and his merry men asked Butlers and ICAP for advice they didn't say "Can you please help us find some dodgy institutions where we can lose £27.4 Million of taxpayers money".

Let me just remind you of what Mike Freer said on his blog about the Icelandic Investmenst (Click HERE for the full text). The BOLD ITALICS are my additions in light of todays revelations.

One burning question is why did we not withdraw our deposits when warnings were being sounded about Iceland? The simple answer is that each credit rating agency did not downgrade the banks with which we deposited our money until the end of September 2008. The terms of the deposits were of a fixed term nature which meant that we would have to negotiate the return of the funds before their maturity date. Advice given to the Council since the start of this crisis is that the banks would have refused to renegotiate or would have imposed massive penalties which would have seen a guaranteed loss to the Council, something which is not yet set in stone.

As you can see, Mike clearly stated that his credit rating agency didn't downgrade the Icelandic Banks status until September - way after other agencies mentioned in the Independent article


Nobody foresaw the collapse of the entire banking sector either in the United Kingdom or Iceland. Claims that Council’s saw this collapse coming are spurious, and after contacting a number of authorities including Brighton & Hove they have advised that they were lucky, and that their deposits simply matured and were paid back on the due date originally agreed with the banks. They did not make the conscious decision to withdraw and indeed, Icelandic banks remained on their approved list of banks for use well into 2008.

The independent article makes it quite clear that Councils using Butlers, were far more likely to be affected by the problems. It seems that Councils not advised by Butlers were much luckier than those which were. Who rates the ratings agencies.

I used to think that the Tories were the party with the business acumen. The more I find out about them, the less true it seems. Their treasurer owns a company which advised Councils to invest in Iceland, when other agencies were screaming "bail out" with a foghorn. Council Cabinet member Lynne Hillan ran a company which went bust owing tens of thousands to suppliers and the taxman. Matthew Offord boasted about arranging contractors for Aerodrome Road who've overrun by millions. Mike Freer thinks responsibilty means blaming everyone else.

Mike, I know you read this blog (especially when you are the star) so now's your chance to stand up for Barnet and get some money back. Who knows, you might even recover enough to cancel the rise in costs that you will be charging the parents of dead babies as described in your draft budget. I would hope that the fact that the owner of Butlers is a senior Tory will in no way deter Mike Freer from sticking up for the hard pressed taxpayers of Barnet. If you don't, I don't think I'll be alone in saying that something smells rotten at the heart of the Barnet Council.

Does Brian Coleman still think blogging is a waste of time?

Today has been a good day. I started the day planning to write a blog about the "Swinging Vicar" mentioned in the Express this morning. As the day went on this changed to the great news that the Post Office will not need to close 3,000 outlets as they've kept the benefits payments contract. Then I noticed a remarkable thing. Something that have made the last six months blogging all worth it! In the stand off between Our glorious leader, Councillor Mike Freer and us Barnet Bloggers, Mike Freer has blinked !!!!!!!

I did my usual daily check of his Leader Listens blog (click HERE to see it in it's full glory) to see if Mike has published my comments yet. He hasn't, but the good news is that he's acknowledged (in a very Mike Freer sort of way) that us bloggers have been right about Council extravagance and he's finally doing something about it.

One of my favourite local blogs is the Barnet Council Watch blog, run by "Don't Call Me Dave" Miller. David sits at the opposite end of the political spectrum to myself. He's what I call a "sensible Tory" (I'm usually called a Swivel eyed Trotskyite by the local Tories). He opposes waste and wants to see the Council do a good job. He's become rather disenchanted with the way Barnet Council are doing things and he gives a pretty well informed commentary on the subject in his blog.

David likes to get to the bottom of things and has found that the best way in Barnet is via the Freedom of Information act. In America, right wing libertarians view their equivalent act as sacred. Anyone opposing FOI requests in America would be viewed as a dangerous leftist subversive. It is seem as part of a process of open and honest Government. In short the price we have to pay for democracy. Some recent comments seem to imply that our top councillors have a different view.

It looks to me as if David has won a rather big victory for us bloggers and the hard pressed Council Tax Payers of Barnet today, with his blogs and FOI requests. Earlier in the year, David forced the Council to reveal that Mike Freer had travelled Business class to the USA (Full details on David Blog HERE), at the taxpayers expense, for a Conference. The explanation was that "he needed to be fresh to get the most out of the meetings". What he didn't say was that he had travelled so as to have the Sunday to himself in San Francisco. This cost us thousands of pounds. Freer has never apologised for this excess. It seems that David has started to get through to Mr Freer that excessive waste in these times is not acceptable.

The acting Borough Finance Supremo has travelled to Iceland, to attend a creditors meeting of two Icelandic Banks which went bust, freezing £27.4 million of Taxpayers money. Now I fully support all efforts to get the Council's cash back and contrary to Mikes opening comments, see no useful purpose to be made criticising this trip.
In fact the final paragraph is probably the most sensible thing I've seen Mr Freer write for a very long time. He says "Be assured, Barnet and Kent will not be picking up the bill to represent every other local authority and the modest travel and accommodation expenses of both Clive and Lynda will be shared between all of the authorities affected. For the record, and to avoid a raft of Freedom of Information Requests, Clive travelled to Iceland using a budget airline and has accommodation in a 3* hotel at a cost of approximately £50 per night."

This seems to me to be a sea change in council policy. What would be even better would be a commitment from Freer that in future, this travel policy will be applied across the board. It is clear from the tone of Freer's blog, that he has started taking the criticism to heart. He has started to realise that we have a point. He has realised that people like myself and David Miller will uncover excessive waste and publicise it. I am sure he doesn't like it. The response boxes at the end of my blogs tell me this, but if it makes him do his job a bit better, then it is worth it.

In his Barnet Press column last week, Councillor Brian Coleman said that bloggers have 20/20 hindsight and achieve nothing useful. Well Brian - looks like your leader might be starting to take a different view. I certainly think that the green shoots of common sense have most certainly been nourished by the blogs of Barnet. I'm sure I'll get the usual raft of sneering comments from the FoF's but they'll make me laugh even more than usual this time !!!! In the words of that other darling of the Right, George Bush - "Bring 'em on"

I'm off to play 5 a side now. When I finish I'll have a celebratory Shandy to celebrate the first major victory of us Barnet Bloggers. I hope David has a rather large glass of his favourite tipple as the victory is his today.