Rog T to Stand for SNP in Finchley against Mike Freer

I wrote this blog for The Finchley Times last year. Maybe the SNP will change their mind.

http://www.times-series.co.uk/search/3661228.Vote_Rog_T_in_Fincherley__cut_your_Tax_with_the_SNP/

Here's what I said then. It probably makes even more sense now !

Vote Rog T in Fincherley, cut your Tax with the SNP

By Roger Tichborne »

Do you like being robbed? I don't. Of all the stealth taxes, the one I hate most is the £4 parking charge for Barnet General hospital. Being both fit & tight fisted, I always park half a mile away and walk up the hill. I make a point of having a pint of the most expensive beer I can later, as this is still cheaper. I always say "This one's on Barnet General". I like to call this tax the "Little old Lady tax" as they don't have the option of the hike up the hill when they park. What can be done?

Over the past few weeks I've been surveying the National press. It seems that if you live in Scotland the SNP (who are now in power) have abolished hospital parking charges. Finding this quite interesting, I decided to investigate the rest of their program. My niece went to Edinburgh University. She had to get a student loan to pay for her education. All of her friends born north of the border received a grant. As to other SNP policies? Here's a few. Remove business rates from 120,000 small businesses and cuts for a further 30,000.
Replace council tax with a local income tax, with a rate set at 3p.
Cut red tape and widen access to public sector contracts for small businesses.
Substantial" investment in rail infrastructure and additional steps to tackle congestion.
Give patients legally binding waiting times.
Presumption against" centralising core hospital services and protect access to local healthcare.
Direct elections to health boards.
Phase out prescription charges.
Annual health checks and individual health plans for school pupils with a doubling in the number of school nurses.
School-based dental service.
Free school meals, starting with youngest children.
Two hours of physical education per week for every pupil and free access to council swimming pools.
More police on local streets.
More information for communities on dangerous paedophiles in their area.
Tougher controls on the sale of alcohol to those under the legal age to drink.
Taskforce to tackle organised crime.
Emphasis on tough community punishments to end short-term prison sentences.
Now looking through the program, I was suddenly struck by the fact that I agree with all of this. It is far more in line with what I want than anything being proposed by the three main parties in England. The only issue is how will the SNP pay for their program? The answer is simple, they don't. When I was researching my blog on the Olympics, I found that London subsidised the rest of the country to the tune of £22 Billion a year. Of this about £6 Billion goes to Scotland. We are paying for all of these fantastic policies, but we don't see the benefits.
If the SNP get their way and get independance, then presumably we'd have £6 Billion to make London a better place. £6 Billion would pay for a lot of free parking at Barnet Hospital. The "Little Old Lady Tax" could be abolished. My kids could get a grant to go to Uni. It seems to me that the best possible thing for London would be for us to give the SNP their wish.
What do you think? Should I join the SNP and stand in the next Election? I asked a friend of mine for an election Motto and he suggested I stand for Finchley. The slogan would make a good rap tune "Vote Rog T in Fincherly, cut your Tax with the SNP". Mind you another mate suggested that "Vote SNP and send Gordon Brown home" may get more votes.
The bad news is that I rang the SNP to ask if I could join and stand for them in Finchley and they told me to get lost !!!!

Mike Freer is a Banker

Council's up and down the country are counting the cost of the Credit Crunch. Many have put money into Icelandic banks offering high rates of interest, which have gone broke. A report in the Edgware Times says that Barnet council has possibly lost nearly £30 Million pounds. Given that we had a 40% tax increase when the Tories took power in 2002 to plug a £10 million hole in the reserves, they claimed the previous administration had left, this has huge consequences for us Council Tax payers. Council Leader Mike Freer, who until recently worked for Barclays Bank, said this about the problem "No council could have reasonably foreseen the collapse of Iceland's banks in what once were safe deposits."

Is Mr Freer's statement correct? Well it appears that on 1st April a credit rating agency called Fitch issued a "rating watch negative" warning for three Icelandic banks. The full details of this are available from Sky News. Now I don't know about you, but if I was spending £30 Million I'd check out where it was going. I'd expect the council finance department to use a few credit rating agencies.

The Times article says that Barnet council's deposits were of nearly £30 million and were on Fixed Term investments. Now personally, I don't think that it's the council's job to invest my money. Clearly they need to have emergency reserves and money in the bank to pay the bills and wages, but "Fixed Term Investments"? Susie Squire, at the TaxPayers alliance said of this "The taxpayers of Barnet will be shocked to find out that their hard-earned money has been risked in this way. If Barnet Council had enough money to stash millions in savings accounts, they should have been making tax cuts. At a time when everyone is tightening their belts, relieving the financial burden on ordinary families should have been the priority – this money could have made a big difference to people in Barnet." Not an unreasonable point.

How did Mr Freer, the expert banker, the leader of Barnet Council respond? (Rather arrogantly for a man who's actions have just lost £30 Million) like this "The TaxPayers' Alliance has little grasp of reality when it comes to the complex nature of local authority finances, and their knee jerk reactionary comments are unhelpful and misleading. The council has not ‘stashed’ millions of pounds away. We carefully and prudently profile what will be spent on capital projects and what is not immediately needed is invested to ensure that taxpayers of the borough receive the best value. By following such practice, the council has generated additional income that has reduced the burden on the taxpayers of the borough."

So Mr Freer is saying that they carefully work out how much tax they need to charge you, then charge you even more tax to put into accounts with health warnings from credit rating agencies. One interesting fact I turned up whilst researching this blog was that Brighton and Hove Council took all of their money out of the Icelandic Banks last year. A spokesperson for the council said it suspended transactions with Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander about a year ago over concerns about Iceland's banks expanding too rapidly. Now I would have thought that of all the councils in Britain, as the Leader of Barnet Council had many years of experience in Banking, Barnet council would have been far better placed to foresee this.

When Freer sat down with the finance officer to discuss these major investments, surely he should have said "This is a large sum of money, the returns are very high, what is the risk?" This is called due diligence. Mike Freer as council leader has a duty of care to look after our cash prudently. He is an expert in the field of banking, so he should be able to know how to perform a risk assessment. When you are dealing with Council reserves, you have to be careful. There are two possibilities regarding the money. Firstly it was money set aside for allocated expenditure later in the year, in which case it should have been in minimal risk accounts, albiet on lower rates of interest. The other option is that we have been overly taxed so Mr Freer and the council could have a punt with our money. Whichever of these is true, Mr Freer has shown he is not a competent council leader, is reckless with taxpayers money. He is clearly not up to the job of being the MP for Finchley, Margaret Thatchers old seat.

If his stock in trade was being a dustman, we could possibly excuse his financial naivity, but he's a banker. He should know. Even my friend Geoff who is a dustman knows that if have a flutter, sometimes you lose.

Barnet Council's incompetance puts Nazi propoganda on YouTube

Before I start writing new blogs there is just one bit of unfinished business to attend to regarding my former life as a blogger on the Times. I'm posting here the blog which lead to the parting of the ways so you can make up your own minds as to whether I'm a sensationalist heading off the end of the pier, a naive fool or whatever. The bits between the dotted lines are the exact unedited title & text as screenscraped when I set it up. It was removed around 10am on Monday.

Sorry I don't have any of the 4 comments saved. The bit after the dotted line is an update on what's happened since.

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Barnet Council using your taxes to promote Nazi ideology
12:06pm Saturday 4th October 2008

Comments (0) Have your say »

By Roger Tichborne »

“I know it's mainly a Jewish area so a lot of the Jewish people have got things, but for the normal German people...there is nothing really for them..”

If I told you that this quote came from a Nazi propaganda radio broadcast in the 1930's, used to whip up hatred against Jewish people, you probably wouldn't
be too surprised. If I told you to change the word German to British and that the quote was posted on YouTube by Barnet council, what would you think then?


David Miller, who runs the Barnet Council watch website, saw this and complained to Barnet Council. Mr Dominic Campbell, the council’s Social Media Manager
replied: “While we understand your concerns, the views expressed are those of the resident and not those of Barnet Council and as such we do not intend to
take any action at this point.”

The good news is that when the Jewish Chronicle started taking an interest the council changed it's mind. Now I don't for one second think that the Council
is stuffed full of Nazi's or anti-semites, but I am really alarmed at the fact that this happened. It calls into question the professionalism, training and
competence of the Barnet Council media department. Let me explain why I don't think this mistake should have been made.

One of the things I do for a living is media consulatancy, mainly for musicians and bands. To ensure I could do this properly, I attended a course on
promotion using the internet. As part of the course we looked at the way political parties and pressure groups use the internet to promote ideas. One of
the more interesting and disturbing things, was the way far right organisations operate. Members are encouraged to post comments on stories where there is
a racial interest. They are given guidelines on how to leave messages which are within the law, but create an atmosphere of distrust of minority groups.
They are encouraged to have many different aliases and post multiple comments to create an impression of support.

We analysed examples of these postings and phrases such as "normal British people" are key signatures of such planted posts. One of the themes of the
course was cultural sensitivity with regards to race or religion. The rule one should apply when posting anything is that where there is the potential to
cause offence, don't do it. If you do, you will only damage your organisation or clients. If you specifically mention religion or race and there are any
negative overtones, you will offend people. This is not political correctness, it is common sense and good manners.

Why do I mention this? Because I am of the opinion that the Barnet Media department should be properly trained. If they are promoting Barnet Council,
they should be able to spot such statements as dangerous, devisive and offensive and not use them. I paid for a course so I could do my job professionally
and give the people paying my wages the best possible publicity I could. Do you think that sending the message out on YouTube, that Barnet is a hotbed of
Nazi sentiment is the best way to promote the borough?

To me it is just another example of Barnet Council not training it's staff to do their job.

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Well several things have happened. The Jewish Chronicle covered the story and got a nice quote from Mike Freer - Leader of Barnet Council - "While the comments will be edited out, it is interesting to note that it underlines the fact that in the borough the BNP can plug into sentiment that is not far below the surface. By picking up these comments (but obviously not publishing them) we can start to work on addressing the concerns that the BNP feed off."

I am surprised that the JC let this comment go unchallenged. I find Freer's comments quite bizarre. How do you address the concerns of anti semites? Surely what Freer should say is that the council should combat ignorance and prejudice and take every step possible to ensure that people with fascistic views are not given access to the media by the council.

The Barnet Press also covered the story. They quoted Jack Cohen, leader of the Lib-Dem's “I’ve watched the video and I’m appalled. I can’t believe the council has sanctioned it. It’s an outrage, it’s what I would expect from the BNP, not from a council with the largest Jewish population in the UK.” I must say that Councillor Cohen certainly seems to hit the nail on the head.

So there you go. You can draw your own conclusions. As far as I am aware David Miller has still to receive an apology for the offence he was caused.

Hello, Good Evening and Welcome

Welcome to the very first entry in my brand new blog. Some of you may know me from my now discontinued Blog on the Times Group of newspapers. Some of you may be wondering why my blog disappeared. Some of you have probably guessed why. Anyway just to clear it up and end all the speculation, the reason it went is that Phil Crowther (the Editor of the Times) and I had a different idea of what my blog should be doing. Phil felt I was far too sensationalist in my presentation of stories and that this threatened the journalistic integrity of the Times Group of Newspapers. He was worried that I may "fall off the end of the pier" with something I said and land the whole group in trouble. He said that he didn't want to censor me, but felt that I was out of control in what I was posting. He's the editor, it's his paper and his call. I have no issue with Phil or the call he's made. If my blog didn't fit his vision, then thats fine. Thanks Phil for letting me share my 60 blogs with your readers. It was great while it lasted.

As for me, I loved my blog on the Times. Many people contacted me and personally thanked me for various issues I covered. People would stop me in the street and tell me how much they agreed with me, or come into the shop and discuss things. In the coming entries here, I will continue with the same themes. I have lots of juicy issues to discuss and hopefully entertain you with. I hope that without the constraints I was previously working under I will be an even better read. By the way, as I am busy I will only be able to moderate comments at irregular intervals. I will put all of them up unless they are illegal.

This entry though is just a quick hello and welcome.