Just been listening to Mayor of Barnet, Brian Coleman on LBC 97.3 talking to Ken Livingstone. At the end of the interview, Ken asked Brian whether he thought Bertha Joseph, the Conservative Councillor for Brent, who has been suspended for six months, for spending charitable donations on expensive ball gowns, should be sacked by Boris Johnson from the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority.
Councillor Coleman made it clear that he had no problem with Councillor Joseph continuing in this role, despite the serious issues with her judgement. She gets paid a hefty allowance for this job, courtesy of Boris Johnson. Coleman is the chairman of this committee. Colemans retort to Ken was "We've all have our bills to pay with these standards cases". Indeed.
If you asked me to point you in the direction of a good blog by an elected politician, you may be rather surprised to know that I'd point you at the blog by the Leader of the London Conservatives on the GLA, Roger Evans AM. Rogers blog is interesting, factual and funny and he has a genuine love of blogging. As such he even makes Leftie Guardian blogger Dave Hills blogroll. Like all of us, Roger gets it wrong occasionally and unlike many politicians, usually puts his hand up. I am sorry to say that, for the best reasons in the world, he got it horribly wrong in his latest blog. This is all about the opening of a new Fire station in Harold Hill. It has some nice pictures and a bit of the history, all well and good. Sadly though, Roger neglected to mention the fact that the opening of the station had made the news on ITV's London Tonight.
What I found amazing is that there is not a single mention of Brian Coleman in Roger Evans blog. Given that he's the chairman of the LEFPA which commissioned the station and accompanied Boris and Roger, why can this be? The truth is that it's because he is a huge embarrassment. Whether Roger Evans has been ordered by Conservative Central Office to airbrush Colemans name out of all blogs, or whether he rather wisely has decided to impose a Pravda like policy of ignoring Coleman, I don't know. What I do know is that only Brian Coleman could make the opening of a new firestation into a "bad news day" for the Tories.
It is clear that the brave firemen who risk their lives on a daily basis cannot stand Coleman. They turned up en mass to let him know their feelings. Coleman places sensible and decent colleagues in an impossible situation. If they mention him it damages their reputation by association. If they ignore him, they show themselves to be Stalinist airbrush merchants.
There is a simple solution. Boris should sack him immediately and spare us all the spectacle of his smug mug on the telly in future.
As reported in this blog a couple of days ago, the Mayor of Barnet Brian Coleman is Chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. Now there are many things Brian Coleman does in this job, eat lots of expensive dinners and run up huge taxi bills being among his favourite. One thing he seems totally incapable of doing is formulating sensible cost saving policies. Whilst he kicks brave firemen where it hurts, by planning to remove beds from stations, where they can keep fresh and relax after stressfull rescues, he treats his mates in the business and property world totally different.
Never fear, Brian Coleman has a plan. He clearly formulated it after a rather good lunch, (probably at the expense of a shoddy Landlord ????) given the complete stupidty of what he's saying. What is Mayor Coleman's masterplan to save London from all this waste - I quote here from the Standard :-
Mr Coleman said: "Each call takes up the time of a fire engine and crew, and the knock on effect is a reduction in capacity to attend emergency incidents, carry out community safety work and provide essential training for firefighters." He said a charge of £260 would now be made on the 10th lift release at the same building within a 12 month period and for all subsequent non-emergency lift releases.
So lets get this right, he waits until the 10th time a building has had someone trapped and then charges £40 less than the cost of the callout? This is total madness. Why should the public subsidise these shoddy Landlords and businesses? If, as Coleman says, it diverts the Firemen from essential work, then the charge should be punitive. I'd say that it should be "Three strikes and you're out". Basically let them off the first time. The second time charge £600 for the two visits and the third time charge them £600 and condemn the lift until an independent engineers report is produced, confirming that the lift is in full working order.
That will save a fortune for Londoners. With all the savings, Coleman could retain a few beds in stations. It is interesting to note that Barnet Council plans to go down the EasyCouncil route, with services being charged for. If Barnet apply Colemanomics to the project where you make a loss of 17.5% on all transactions, then the Council's finances will be in even worse shape than they are now.
My advice to Brian Coleman, knock the free dinners on the head, buy economics for dummies and if you are going to indulge in charging people for services they get for free, charge those who deserve to be charged and can afford it - such as shoddy Landlords who can't be bothered to service their lifts properly. As to why Boris employs a man who hasn't the financial acumen to run a Whelk stall in this most important of London posts, heaven only knows.
********* Update ***********
Many thanks to Sharko, the business analyst for pointing out the following things which I missed in my all to hasty summary.
1. The move won't save the £366,000 I mention above, because this is the sum spent on the first 10 callouts.
2. A new computer system will be required to administer this system of charges. Sharko estimates that this would cost a minimum of £50,000 assuming they already have a billing system.
3. The system will require administration so you'd need a couple of extra staff to chase up payments etc - he esimates £50,000 per annum.
4. There is no incentive for Landords to improve. If the cost of getting someone out is £300 then by doing it for £250, Coleman is undercutting the private sector (especially if the first 9 visits are free). Coleman may actually get up a higher take up once Landlords do the maths.
5. Sharko being Sharko asked the question - How much would it cost of the service was outsourced to a private supplier. If Brian Coleman wishes to Email me (yes he does know my email address !) I can put him in touch with Sharko.
If I were Boris Johnson, I'd sack Coleman and employ Sharko today. Real savings and better service ! You know it makes sense !
***** Update - Thanks to Don't call me Dave for the clip
As regular readers will no doubt be aware, the disgraced Mayor of Barnet, the only Mayor in the history of Barnet to have been found guilty of breaching the Standards Code whilst in office, has a second job, Courtesy of Boris Johnson. He's the Head of London's fire services. Regular readers of this column will know that Brian Coleman is currently using this job to push through changes to the working conditions. These are basically mean, penny pinching measures designed to make the job more unpleasant for these brave men and women.
You'll doubtless be pleased to know that it isn't all work for Mayor Coleman at the LEFPA, he gets the opportunity to do what we all know he's best at - Yup, there's a whole swathe of dinners not covered in the GLA list of Free dinners. Here's three Bitesized chunks from the Fire Brigades hospitality register. I've got a little game for you. Count how many Free dinners Brian Coleman has whilst doing his job, then count up everyone elses. Who do you think guzzled more Posh Nosh - Big Bad Brian or the rest of them put together. And here's an even better conundrum did he nosh more before or after Boris promoted him.
Here's tasty Bite number one :-
Yup so Far Brian Coleman 6 - The rest 2 (April to July 2009)
Now lets try Bite Number two :-
Yup it was tighter in this period July 2008 - April 2009, but Good old Mayor Coleman squeezed it through beating the rest of the world by the odd dinner 6-5.
And now for our third big tasty dollop of dinners :-
Yup, a stunning victory for Brian Coleman. Even in the pre Boris era, he trounced the rest of the world 13-7. When it comes to guzzling dinners at someone elses expense, there is no one who can touch our very own Mayor Coleman.
Now of course the Barnet Eye in no way implies that there is anything in anyway untoward about all of these dinners being scoffed. I mean if people want to treat Brian Coleman to a slap up dinner it's their business. I just wonder how many more Free Dinner registers there are with dinners we don't know about lurking around out there. And for Gods sake please, someone, give him a free Gym membership, I'm getting really worried about the state of our esteemed Mayor's arteries with all of these dinners.
And you may like a peek at this as well - http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/Documents/brian_coleman_expenses.pdf - Mr Colemans on-line fire brigade expenses.I notice that unlike the rest of us, Mayor Coleman gets Boris to pay his congestion charge. Nice work if you can get it !!!!!
The depths to which Brian Coleman will sink to have his wicked way never cease to amaze me. Boris Johnson appointed Coleman as chair of the London Emergency Fire Planning Authority as one of his first acts as Mayor. Coleman is hellbent on imposing a whole new structure of penny pinching cuts on the brave men and women who keep us safe in our beds at night. Measures such as removing beds from Firestations, so officers on nightshift can't sleep are typical of this disgusting Tory attack on the bravest public servants of all (would you enter a building which was on fire and may collapse?).
There are 17 members of this panel. To push through the measures, Coleman needs a majority. There are currently 9 Tories on it. That means he has just enough. The only problem is that two of those members are currently serving bans from office as Councillors. Normally this would preclude their membership of such a panel, but we all know what Coleman thinks of the rules. It is truly amazing that Boris Johnson has picked a panel of Tories, who three out of 9 have been found guilty of breaches of the the stanndards code in the last couple of months. What does this tell you about the Clean Administration" Boris wanted to run.
It even appears that one of this motley crew tendered her resignation in shame, only for Brian Coleman to refuse it, because he needs her. Brian Coleman thinks the rules don't apply to him. He thinks the rules don't apply to his Tory mates on the committee. As to the rest of us? Well it appears that he thinks they apply to other Barnet Councillors, as he's the only Councillor to report a Councillor from another party.
Are there any decent Tories left in the Barnet Conservative party? Are there any decent Conservatives left in London? Surely, no one can think this sleazy crew are the right people to be running something as important as the Fire Service. I urge ALL Conservatives, for their own good and the good of all London, to contact Boris Johnson and David Cameron to get them to remove this bunch of chancers. This whole episode is a stain on Boris, a stain on Cameron and a stain on London. Our brave Firemen deserve better.
Click here to read the FULL STORY in the Evening Standard :-
