Weakness

Just a few words on the subject. What is weaknesss in a person? Is it to be prepared to listen to wise council to  avoid rash decisions? Is it to avoid making rash decisions when people irritate you? Is it to try and see the other side of the story? Is it to try and make the best decision once all of the facts are available, rather than to jump in and burn bridges before the truth is known. If all of those things are a sign of weakness, then I am proud to say I am a very weak person.

Who says weak leaders are such a bad thing?

One of  Theresa May and the Conservatives main charges against Jeremy Corbyn is that hes a "weak leader". May claims she needs a strong mandate to negotiate a good Brexit deal and she needs to do this from a position of strength. What is interesting is that no one seems to be challengig the basic premise that strong leaders are a good thing. I see no clear evidence to support this, certainly not in peacetime and in relation to complex, civilised negotiations. There is a stack of evidence to show that nations do better with weak leadership and government by consensus. This rather inconvenient fact is one of the most overlooked. There are dozens of examples and stacks of evidence that if you want your country to do well, you have weak leaders and political systems that involve bargaining and horse trading. Look at the USA. The founding fathers built so many checks and balances into place that it is virtually impossible for the president to do anything. Donald Trump is finding this out in rather short order. You can win the President Election, become the most powerful man on the planet, but you can't make the judge pass your travel ban, or make your congress pass your healthcare bill.  President Obama spent years getting the legislation through. Has this stopped the States becoming the richest and most powerful nation on the planet? Nope. The 20th Century was an American century. Over the course of the century, America faced down a whole host of all powerful leaders, Hitler, Hirohito, Stalin, Mao to name but a few.

The USA is not alone in benefitting from weak government. Who is the most powerful European leader? Surely Angela Merkel. She has lead a coalition government since 2005. Has the German economy floundered and have the German people suffered? Not as far as I can see. At the same time, we have Vladimir Putin in Russia. Here we have a strong man who has little effective opposition. Has this meant the Russian economy done well? No, it is in dire straights, propped up by Russia's massive natural resources. Have they done well in negotiaitions on difficult issues? No, Russia suffers sanctions.

In Belgium, there was a lengthy period where there was no government at all. Did the economy grind to a halt? Nope, in fact it went from strength to strength. As to the EU negotiations. If Theresa May thinks having a pliant parliament is an assett, she knows nothing about negotiations. If the EU think she has control of Parliament, they will be able to dictate terms. She'd be in a far stronger position if she could say "Well there is no point suggesting that because I'd never get it through Parliament". One of the oldest tricks in the book when negotiating is the "Fred says" tactic. This is based on the idea that if you are negotiationg you say "Well I'd love to sign up, but Fred would never agree to that". In this case Parliament is "Fred". Theresa May says no deal is better than a bad deal. This is a ridiculous thing to say. If I was negotiating, the first thing I'd say is that the only deal we will do is a good one and it is in everyones interests to do it. Theresa May seems to think that saying "If you don't give us what we want we'll walk away" is a good negotiating stance. It is not.  A good negotiating stance is one where you have the strength to know that no one would walk away from the table, because that would be insane. If Theresa May gets the 100 seat majority she wants, she will have no joker in the back pocket. She can't play the difficult Parliament card at all. If we don't have the cards to say "you'd be insane to walk away from the table" Then we should take a different tack.

Of course the election was nothing to do with Brexit. It was all to do with the Tories trying to grab a few more years, as Labour is perceived to be weak right now. May sems to think that a big majority silences the awkward squad. It does nothing of the sort. Tony Blair had massive majorities, but all it did was mean that there are more MP's who felt overlooked, more scope for personal rebellions, as MP's know that they can vote agaings their party, with no ramifications, it has nothing to lose and no discipline. If Blair had a 10 seat majority, he'd have had to tread carefully and would probably not have made the awful mistakes that trashed his legacy. But with the massive numbers, he need not worry about the awkward squad. Now, one of them, Jeremy Corbyn is the party leader. Blairs huge majority gave rise to the stresses and splits that created the state of Modern Labour.

I don't blame May for going for an election. She is a politician, her job is to do such things. She has had the albatross of not being elected around her neck. She needs authority and at the moment this is lacking. But what is required is a new manifesto, a new program of government and a set of coherant reasons for electing May. We've not had this and the evidence says that we need "Strong Leadership" is the mother of all red herrings.

Barnet Leadership Challenge - Tory Musical Chairs

Hot News reaches the Barnet Eye. It seems like the Mark Shooter campaign  is planning a big clearout of dead wood in the Barnet Tory machine.

As well as Shooter challenging Hillan, I hear Brian Schama is in the frame for role of Chairman, ousting Wendy Prentice. Kate Salinger looks a shoe in for the Deputy chairmanship. It looks like Maureen Braun might be on the receiving end of a plumb job from her fellow Hendon Councillor if he wins. We believe this role is likely to not be too strenuous as Maureen is reputed to not be too keen on work, but will deliver a decent allowance - I'm all for helping old ladies in distress, so this is clearly very gallant of Shooter.

Rather oddly, one chairman who isn't being challenged is Hale Councillor Hugh Rayner. Whilst denying he'd been knobbled by Shooter, Hugh did say he'd be happy to serve the people of Barnet in any way he could and wasn't too bothered who the leader was (such selflessness). Rumour reaches the Barnet Eye that dear old Hugh thinks Shooter may be able to reignite his ambition for a seat in parliament, which until recently he thought had long since gone. The good thing for many of the Tories on the edge of the regime is that the current palace coup offers many of them a rather unexpected leg up.

One other little gem reaches me apparently Brian Coleman may think Shooters campaign have identified a third member of Hillans cabinet who is knobbleable. Sadly my mole in the hole won't tell me who. Oh by the way, one little thing which may make you laugh. A report reaches the Barnet Eye that my favourite Jabba The Hut impersonator, Brian Coleman has not been himself today. Whilst he wasn't quite wondering around, Kenneth Williams style shouting "Infamy, Infamy, they've all got it in for me" he's most certainly not his usual happy, charming self. What could be the cause of his malaise? For all I know, it might because Mike Freer wouldn't give him a lift down the chip shop in his campervan, but he's not a happy bunnykins.

Barnet Leadership Challenge : Mark Shooter - The man who would be king

The best thing about running a music studio is that you never know who is going to walk in the door. It turns out that one of my customers knows Mr Mark Shooter of old, long before he even thought about becoming a councillor, from the days when Mr Shooters priority was making cash. I won't say how or where from, but he gave me a unique insight into what current Council Leader Lynne Hillan is up against.

Unlike just about every other Barnet Councillor, Mark Shooter is seriously rich. He made his money in a high risk area of the financial services market. Whilst the majority of commentators and newspaper articles give the impression that Mr Shooter is a new kid on the block, this isn't really the full picture. Like most political parties, being seriously wealthy opens doors that simply having been a councillor for Totteridge doesn't. Serious dosh opens doors that just being one of a few thousand smallfry councillors doesn't. Party grandees are always looking for such people and there is a long history of the people at the top courting such figures. Whilst the likes of Finchley MP Mike Freer scrabble around to get the party to buy him a 20 year old camper van for "monthly advice surgeries", the Mark Shooters of this world move in different circles. It is no secret that the Conservative Party isn't exactly flush with cash at the moment and rich guys who are interested in the party are few and far between. I asked my new found friend whether Mark Shooter is the type of bloke who would actually use his "influence and contacts" to further his career. The answer was telling "He'd certainly do it if he really wants the job and felt he had to". Which leads to the second question "Does he want the job".

The answer to this was a bit more complicated "It depends how much the lot in charge have pissed him off. The press suggested he's a stalking horse for someone else, but that really isn't Marks style". This leads us to the third question "Do you think he'll win?" The answer to this was also quite interesting "If he's serious about it, really wants to, I'm pretty sure he will". The final observation was most telling "You don't make the sort of money Mark has made by backing lost causes and picking losers"

I've emailed Mark Shooter a couple of times at the Council and am yet to receive a reply to my questions. In the unlikely event that he gets back in touch, I'll most certainly ask him if he's serious and if he's planning to splash the cash. In the meantime I'm starting to think I might mosey on down to Ladbrokes and see if they'll take a little flutter.

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