A message to the Labour Party in Barnet

Dear Barnet Labour Party,

There is no nice way to say this. I am saying this because the people of Barnet desperately need you to change, probably more than any local Labour party anywhere in the UK. I know that this will make me no friends at all, but frankly I really don't care anymore. I am saying this because if no one says it and no one does anything, then it is a total betrayal of the people who have supported  you, the working people of Barnet. Every single Labour party member in Barnet should read this and ask themselves "How did we let this happen?"

You are a disgrace and you've let the people of Barnet down badly. Barnet Council is run by a completely useless Conservative administration. Not only have they shown themselves to be financially incompetent, but they have embarked on a war against the poor, the vulnerable, the weak and their own employees. This campaign is called Future Shape. If you are a member of the Barnet Labour party, you either know about this and have done sweet FA about it, which is a disgrace or you don't know about it which is even worse. This is a plan to completely privatise all council functions, sell off all of the councils assets and reduce the council down to a core of highly paid officials and councillors, who sit in Ivory towers allocating lucrative contracts to private companies. This will  relocate thousands of jobs out of Barnet, causing poverty and deprivation. Where have the stalls been on the high street to fight this? Where have the leaflets been explaining why it is vital for Labour to kick the Tories out of the Town Hall? Where have the activists been marching up and down the high streets saying to people "Do you agree with these policies, if not join us". What about Barnet Councils war on Sheltered Housing tenants? Have you been marching up and down the High Street saying "They can't get away with this" Have you been saying to everyone you know "We can beat this, but only if we get off our lazy fat arses and do something". Where have the stalls been? Where have the pickets been. Oh yes, I hear you say "Andrew Dismore and Alison Moore were at the front of the March against sheltered housing in Finchley last year". Trouble was that they had no part in the organisation, they just turned up and hijacked it. Did they make sure that there was a Labour stall out in the High Street building on that, reminding everyone, week after week? No, of course they didn't.

What election leaflets did we get from Labour. Lots and lots from Andrew Dismore telling us how marvellous he was. If these leaflets had said "only a vote for Labour will stop the sheltered housing cuts and only a vote for Labour will stop wholesale privatisation, which will bring poverty and unemployment to Barnet, in big, bold brassy letters, then maybe Mr Dismore would have got the 106 extra votes he needed in Hendon". I have  no doubt whatsoever that if the Labour party had started it's local campaign against the warden cuts and the future shape program last year, and got a stall out in every High Street in Barnet once a month for the last year, they would have followed the example of Brent,Harrow and Camden and taken control of the council. As it was they were all too lazy.

Oh, I hear them say, we didn't have the activists on the ground to do it. Of course you didn't because you only do that by the leadership getting off their arses, organising local meetings, working hard and saying "get out there and get us some activists". Work breeds success and the Barnet Labour party did none. I don't believe the lie that there was nobody interested. I attended a few meetings of the Barnet Community Campaign and there was huge interest in fighting these policies. The sad thing was that the local Lavbour party wasn't. All they were interested in doing was trying to save Andrew Dismores seat. The sad truth is that if they'd campaigned against the council, they'd have swept Dismore in on the backwash. Dismores campaign was built on sand. There were no solid foundations.

Andrew Dismore won because Labour and the Lib Dems controlled the Council and there was a healthy network of local activists. These people worked tirelessly at ground level to fight on local issues and this engaged local people. The key turning point for Andrew was Edgware general hospital, where a huge local campaign swept him into power. Sadly once he got there, local people and local politics were forgotten. That was why the council was lost and that's why it wasn't regained.

I received an email yesterday from Don't Call Me Dave. He's a Conservative who runs the Not The Barnet Times blog. It is shameful that he's done more to oppose future shape, the warden cuts and all of the other inept actions of the Barnet Conservatives than the entire Barnet Labour Party put together. All the Barnet Labour Party had to do to win was say "Read the Not The Barnet Times blog and see why you cannot vote Conservative. This blog is written by a leading Barnet Conservative". They had all of the ammunition they needed from a source of impeccable trustworthyness.

I know that many angry Labour members will say "Well you are in no position to talk, you jumped ship to the Lib Dems". I did this because I believed that the Lib Dems were the only realistic opponents of the Barnet Tories in Mill Hill ward and also because they seemed to understand the need to campaign locally. Sure we lost, but we worked our socks off. We were squeezed by a general election happening on the same day as the council election. We have issues to sort out and lessons to learn, but there is one big difference between Labour and the Lib Dems in London. Labour had a huge swing in most councils apart from Barnet. The Lib Dems didn't. If you are a Labour party member living in Barnet and you don't like what the Council is doing, then get out and get active. Dust down those tressel tables, get that photocopier going and start telling people why they need to kick the Tories out in Barnet Town Hall.  If you start now and you start to reengage with all those lost Labour voters at street level, by the time of the next election you might get there. There will be plenty of local issues for you to fight, given the policies of local and national government. This can only be done from the ground up.

Many people have asked me if I am going to be rejoining the Labour party, following the Lib Dem pact with the Tories. I have thought long and hard about this. As to the deal "I agree with Charles" - Charles Kennedy said he could never vote for such a pact. Having said that, I am Mill Hill through and through and the harsh reality is that only the local Lib Dems offer an alternative to the Tories in this ward. All of my reasons for quitting the Labour party still stand true. As I said to Dont Call Me Dave, the reason that the Tories won in Barnet is because no one believed that the local Labour Party had worked hard enough to prove it was a viable alternative.

I do have one suggestion for the local Labour Party, a parting gift. There is only one person in Barnet who has the skills, capability, knowledge and drive to get you back on the right track. If Alison Moore really is a leader she will lead a delegation around to her place and beg her to become the Barnet Labour party general secretary and not take no for an answer. Give her access to all your cash, all your campaigning resources and let her run the back room show. That person is Vicki Morris and if you do that you will win the Barnet Council back in four years time. If you don't ask her then you deserve oblivion. She knows how to campaign, how to work hard and how to fight.

Yvonne Hosssacks needs your support

Solicitor Yvonne Hossacks is being taken to court by several councils who want her struck off for trying to save the wardens. The reasons are

1) Improperly encouraging clients to court politicians and media
2) Not acting in the client’s best interests
3) Making too many time consuming and costly applications to the councils

All ridiculous, I hope you agree!

The Tribunal is on the 14th, 15th and 16th September at 3rd Floor, Gate House, 1 Farringdon Street EC4M 7NS.

There will be a protest at the court to support Yvonne each morning from 9-9.30am to let the court know how much we appreciate what she is doing for us.

Let me tell you something very important. Whatever I've done, what Yvonne does is a million times more important. Having sat in a Standards hearing listening to my reputation being trashed by a top lawyer, I can empathise with Yvonne Hossacks. The difference was that I won't be deprived of my livelyhood, it was just unpleasant. I've been too wrapped up in my own little world this week to give any thought to Yvonne (shame on me). I came out of the hearing feeling fairly battered and bruised and thinking "maybe everyone thinks I'm a dickhead" as bad things were said that I was not allowed to refute. Then the phone started ringing, then the texts started arriving and then I read the emails & the blogs.

All of that made me realise I was right to take on Coleman. That is why it is so important we support Yvonne, we need the strength of our friends to sustain us. She deserves support a million times more than I did.

Oh and a hat tip to Vicki Morris. I'm tired and braindead right now. This blog is largely just a reprint of her blog today. My brain is too shot to really write anything very creative about this. Thanks to Vicki and apologies to you.

What do the Edgware and Totterdige byelection results tell us

Reading the local press coverage of the Edgware and Totteridge council byelection results, made depressing reading for a Labour supporter such as myself at first glance. Both Tory candidates had much improved majorities on their predecessors. Departing Councillor Richard Weider notes in his blog that Darrel Yawitch is the most popular councillor in the borough ! Whilst Darrel may put this down to the fact that he's a much better looking guy than poor old Richard, I suspect that the performance of David Cameron is probably a more valid explanation. Since the departure of Tony Blair, Prime Ministers Questions have turned into a weekly bear bating session. Whilst even at his lowest, Blair could always be relied on to put in a good performance, Gordon Brown's only conceivable strategy I can discerne is to go for the sympathy vote. Ministers resign, back benchers queue up to stick the knife in. Every Conservative friend I have and I have quite a lot, were in a state of pre-orgasmic delight at the posibilty of voting. I knew that the Tories would get a big vote. Even those who are, shall we say, not too keen on the local Barnet party, felt duty bound to "send Gordon a message".

Darrel Yawitch and Alison Cornelius did very well. I should imagine they could sit back last night and have a glass or two of bubbly and think "job done". From what I've been told, as Tories candidates go, they are both decent and hard working. I doubt that this time next year, after the full elections, they will be back down to the jobcentre, especially as they are in extremely safe wards. They are both safe pairs of hands and I'm sure they will do a good job.

What can we deduce about the Labour vote? As both seats were firmly Tory with no prospect whatsoever of a Labour victory, especially in the current political climate, I fully expected a catastrophic slump in both seats. I had contacted both the Labour and Lib Dem leader on behalf of the Barnet Community Campaign to ask them to stand asside so that we could have put up a single issue "anti sheltered housing warden cut" candidate. Both refused, saying that it was party policy to stand a candidate. I may be wrong, but I honestly believe that such a candidate would have given both Alison and Darrel a run for their money. One thing I know for certain is that there would have been a willing flood of volunteers canvassing. As it is, friends tell me that virtually no leaflets were dropped in Totteridge or Edgware. It was a shamefully missed opportunity. Oh and if you were wondering, I was strongly asked to stand, but being a councillor really isn't my thing.

As the Lab/Lib's wouldn't stand aside, we took the view that their was no prospect of success, therefore it would damage the campaign. If the anti warden cut vote had a three way split, we'd fail and I would not sanction such a monumental effort being totally wasted.

Which takes us on to the Labour and Lib Dem vote. As I said I expected a collapse. As it was they did better in Totteridge than at the last election and about the same in Edgware. The same is true of the Lib Dems. I expected them to be wiped out. Given the state of the party nationally, the fact that the seats were safe and the low level of canvassing, I had no expectation whatsoever of anything other than abject failure. Why did so many turn out for such a hopeless cause? As far as I am concerned, it is because of the hated scheme to scrap wardens. This will never derail a Tory in a safe seat, but I suspect that had either seat been a marginal, we may have seen some rather different results.

In hindsight, I honestly wish that the Barnet Community Campaign had persuaded Vicki Morris to stand as candidate in Edgware. We will never know, but we could have then compared the results of Edgware with Totteridge and really know how well supported we were. As it was there was no real candidate of protest.