Brian Coleman suspended by the Conservative Party

There is an extraordinary report on the Times newspaper website, stating that Brian Coleman has been suspended by the national Conservative Party. The local Tories were due to vote on whether to keep him in the party yesterday evening. It seems that the national party ran out of patience and didn't trust the local mob to do the decent thing. The news was kept under wraps until the local meeting. It appears that the local vote was cancelled as a result.


http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/topstories/10016152.Brian_Coleman_suspended_from_national_Conservative_Party/

When I heard of this, I was reminded of the classic song "yesterdays papers" by the Rolling Stones. It seems that right now, no one wants Brian Coleman. He is very much yesterdays papers. There is a line in the third verse which says

"And all of these people just can't wait 
To fall right into their big mistake"

The sad truth is that when Brian Coleman was arrested for assault, this was the reaction of just about everyone I knew. It wasn't a shock, everyone just seemed to think it was a matter of time before something happened. It took two standards hearings, the "sad, mad and two old hags" comment, an arrest and a charge, and still the local Conservative party locally did nothing. In the end Cameron and Co had enough. I wonder what credibility is left now for Richard Cornelius and his merry men. If their own party can't trust them to make a decision about their own members, how on earth can anyone trust them to run the Borough.

Brian Coleman has brought the way Barnet is being run into sharp focus. Yesterday was yet another appalling day in Barnet politics for the Conservatives. As well as the local party in effect being declared unfit to administer itself by the national party, we had the undeifying spectacle of Councillor Robert Rams, Barnets libraries supremo, announcing that one year after stating that a landmark library would be opened at the Arts Depot, this wouldn't be happening because the rent was too high. I run several businesses and my family has run a commercial property business in Mill Hill since 1977. The very first thing you put on your business case, before anything else is added are the known costs. The biggest of these is usually the rent. The fact that Rams only found out it was too high, a year after the annoucement shows that he is totally unfit for the job. Rams and Coleman are close buddies. Coleman was GLA rep from 2000 to 2012 and Rams runs the Conservative office at the GLA.

I would suggest that if the Tories actually a few selected people who have a bit of experience in jobs where they were spending their own money, rather than taxpayers, and realised that the customer is king, maybe they would have avoided all of these pitfals. As it is, like lemmings in search of a cliff, if they fall off a cliff and survive, their first reaction is "I survived that, where can I find a bigger cliff to leap off".

Brian Coleman is most definately yesterdays man although it seems likely that he will still be in the papers for a few weeks. The Rolling Stones sang in verse 2 of "Yesterdays papers":

I'm living a life of constant change  
Every day means the turn of a page 
Yesterdays papers are such bad news  
Same thing applies to me and you

He could have sung this to his colleagues at the Tory group meeting. What none of them seems to have twigged is that what is bad for Brian Coleman is bad for the whole lot of them. To the people of Barnet, he is their figurehead and the fact that the national party had to step in to suspend him, shows that they must still support him. Shameful really.

(Coleman also made the ITV London Tonight news - http://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2012-10-30/coleman-suspended/ )

Stalinism at the Barnet Tory Bugle

The Edgware and Mill Hill Times. My local paper. I used to look forward to it popping through the door on a Thursday. In the 70's & 80's, back when Dennis Signy was the editor, it used to be a great local paper. It used to win awards. Being a muso, I especially liked the local music scene coverage. There was a column called, among other things, "Pop Round the Corner". I can still name the writers. Kevin Black - a gregarious Scot who used to write great reviews of my band, The False Dots (without ever turning up). Then there was Joy Bentley. I suspect she didn't much like the False Dots, but she still wrote nice things. Then there was the superstar - Clarence Mitchell. He went on to ITN and was last heard of working as PR consultant for Madeleine McCann's parents. Clarence actually used to turn up. He was also a very nice bloke.

There was also a guy called Bill Montgomery, who was the Barnet Council reporter. He would attend the most boring of meetings and find something to make it seem interesting. He'd make & break the careers of up and coming politicos with a well placed wry observation.

Fast forward to 2009. The paper has morphed into the Barnet Tory Bugle. I detailed this in a blog recently. Whilst the paper is happy to run overtly racist and anti Irish articles and letters, hagiographic peans to promenant local Barnet Cabinet members and verbatim Barnet press releases, it doesn't put letters from opponents of policies such as sheltered housing warden cuts on it's website. Strangely the Barnet Press is full of such letters.

For those of you with an interest in 20th Century history, you will recall that in Stalinist Russia, once someone fell foul of the regime, they became a non person. Artists would carefully airbrush every trace of them out of pictures. References in books would be removed. In short they would cease to exist. Well it seems that following my criticism of the Bugle, they've airbrushed me out. As you may recall, I used to write a blog for the Times, until their in house psychic deemed that at some point in the future, I may get them into trouble. My services were dispensed with, but the blogs remained. I put a link at the side here, so that if anyone was interested they could have a look. For my audacity to criticise them, they've zapped me, if you click the link, you'll see I've gone. Now you may think that this is just a tidy up, but Mike Freer's blog, which ended around the same time is still there. I'll tell you a funny story about Freer stopping his blog. He announced it at a council meeting. I mentioned this in a blog and a reporter from the Times emailed me to prove the allegation. I immediately emailed back with a link to the written answers, posted a week before on Barnets website. I've spoken to David Miller, author of Barnet Council Watch about the Times on a number of occasions and he says they are always moaning that he beats them to stories. I've also noticed that many stories are nicked, with no ackowledgement from the Tory Troll website.

I don't know if you've noticed how thin the Times has got recently. I suspect that this is due to advertisers deserting it. The Press meantime seems to get fatter by the week. I suspect that this is due to the more balanced coverage. I find it rather sad, to see the paper deteriorate by the week. One final twist of the knife from the Times to me. I typed my name "Tichborne" into the Times search engine, to see if any of my 61 blogs had escaped the cull. I found 3. The top one was

The Tragedy of Lady Thatcher - a personal view

This details my sympathy for the Thatcher family on a personal level, coping with their mums dementure.

The second was

The Big Match - Councillor Brian Gordon meets his nemesis !!!!!

Detailing how a local Tory Councillor had done an OK job chairing the Hendon Residents association meeting.

The Third was

Great Expectations (the male view) Part 2 - What's in a name?

Detailing my experiences naming my kids.

In short, anyone looking for my blogs would probably conclude I was a Tory childcare expert. Oh well, catch them while you can, I'm sure they'll be gone soon.

Well how does it feel to be Stalin'd??? In the words of the Rolling Stones

Who reads yesterdays papers, who wants yesterdays news
Who reads yesterdays papers, no one in the world.

I've no pretentions to be Shakespeare or Dickens, I find it rather funny.