How Much? Barnet Council wasting money on staff to post pointless tweets & Facebook posts

Yesterday, I wrote this blog about how Barnet Council, who have just had a £55 Million baleout from the Government are wasting your money. I didn't post it as Tuesday is food blog day. Today, just as I was about to post it. To my amazement, I saw this post

Don’t forget to bring your photo ID if you are voting at a polling station in the Finchley Church End by-election on Thursday 6 March 2025.

If a voter does not have suitable voter ID, they can apply for one here https://t.co/qt1M4alvde by Wednesday 26 February 2025 at 5pm.

— Barnet Council (@BarnetCouncil) February 25, 2025

Now, for once, it was a useful, sensible tweet, with an important message that directly affects Barnet voters in the forthcoming Barnet By Election. All good? Well not really. Anyone who knows anything about Social media (such as Barnet Council's paid staff) should know that a single post is nowhere near enough. They should have been tweeting this message out ever since the Byelection was announced. They should have been asking us to retweet it and let our friends know. I would have amplified this message more if I'd seen it earlier. What is shocking is that our local parties have not retweeted it. Anyway, on with the text I'd written. I think this rather amplifies the point though........

On Monday,  Barnet Council posted this tweet. A council that has just applied for a £55 Bale out wants to give away money for a Festival of Architecture. I am sorry to say, but if I was going to pick any London Borough to celebrate in the London Festival of Architecture, Barnet would be the last one. The list of buildings of note that we've lost in the last 20 years is something beyond comprehension. A few iconic ones? The National Institute for Medical Research (replaced with a bad Barratts knock off copy). The National Newspaper Library in Mill Hill. Countless interesting pubs,  houses, shops etc have been gutted, demolished and ruined. And the new buildings. Anonymous, dull structures in Colindale, etc. 

So this is what they tweeted. 

Last chance to apply for the Community Fund! Applications close TOMORROW. Grants of £250 to £500 available for your event at the London Festival of Architecture. https://t.co/sM7WgSXHR3 #LFA2025 #VoicesInArchitecture #LFAFestivalVoices #LFA2025Voices pic.twitter.com/G7fCp0WBwl

— Barnet Council (@BarnetCouncil) February 24, 2025

This was also posted to Facebook. .

It's bad enough that they are doling money out, but they are paying staff to do this. As best I could see, this was the only social media post on Monday. 

I've been monitoring Barnet Council tweets etc for a while. I was interested to find out how much effort they were putting into their tweeting and what sort of response they were getting. FYI when I looked on Monday, the tweet above had around 300 views and no engagement. I sent an FoI request and got this answer

Thank you for your request received on 9 January 2025, for the following information: 1. Details of the number of members of staff engaged on maintaining Barnet Council social media accounts 2. The average number of hours that these members of staff spend per day on social media accounts for the last month where figures are readily available 3. If available, the time spent by platform 4. Any targets etc that staff may have for numbers of posts etc We have processed this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. 

Response I am writing to inform you that we have searched our records and although we hold some of the information requested, some of the information you requested is not held by London Borough of Barnet. We have provided answers to your request below. 

1. Details of the number of members of staff engaged on maintaining Barnet Council social media accounts 1 X News & Social Media Manager, 2 X News & Social Media Officers 

2. The average number of hours that these members of staff spend per day on social media accounts for the last month where figures are readily available Rotates between the team 2-3 hours per working day for the individual on duty 

3. If available, the time spent by platform Information not recorded 

4. Any targets etc that staff may have for numbers of posts etc No targets for posts; annual evaluation assesses posts' performance with reach and engagement metrics

So to produce these tweets etc takes 2-3 hours a day. There is no monitoring of what the staff do and no targets. I wrote to Barry Rawlings, leader of the council and the Tory opposition leader, Peter Zinkin. I got no response from Cllr Rawlings. 

Here is the email I sent.

Dear Councillors

 

FYI  - Do you think this is a sensible usage of council resources? Are you happy with the way the success of engagement is being evaluated.

A few observations. The council's twitter feed has a following of approx 35K accounts. Many will be news organisations etc. This represents less than 10% of Barnets population. As best I can tell, posts get an average of around 300 view, which is less than 0.1 of the population. The recent Holocaust memorial being an outlier with 11K views, but still only acheived 11 likes and 4 retweets. 

 

To me, this looks like a very ineffective use of resources.

Here is Councillor Zinkins response (that i it in it's entirity)

as you say almost a complete waste of time

Regards

Cllr Peter Zinkin

I have long found Councillor Zinkin to be one of the more sensible and approachable Tory members. Although brief, his response does seem to confirm this assessment. 

These officers also post on the Barnet Council website. The news section has 1-2 posts a week on average. They also produce a weekly newsletter called Barnet First, which allededly has 45,000 subscribers. This means approx 15% of the people who live in the Borough subscribe. Most of the stories appear in several editions and are generally a rehash of the stories in the news section. You can see the newsletters here and sign up (I'd urge all Barnet residents to do this, you are paying for it!).

Given that there are a full time team of two staff and a manager doing all this, I can only say that it is appalling. The home page is as bland and dull as possible. There are no previews of what is in the newsletters on the homepage, which is also difficult to find. The actual Newsletters are laid out in the most boring way possible. There is no attempt at all to engage with the audience, no "What's in this edition" at the top. No thought given to what might encourage readers to read the whole thing. 

To sum up. I'm all for engagement with the public. I'm all for putting information out there on social media. What I am not all for is wasting taxpayers money in a totally incompetent way. Do it properly or don't do it. On Monday, I wrote a slightly tongue in cheek blog about Elon Musk and DOGE. I am sure Mr Musk would have something to say about this, if he were interested in Barnet. 

Don't believe everything you read on Twitter, Facebook and the rest of the Internet

 Who is the hardest working person you know? I know a few, but possibly my good friend Mr Chowdrey, who runs the Mill Hill Tandoori restaurant. He's not a young man, he opened his first Indian restaurant after arriving from Bangladesh in 1973. Any night when you go in, whether it's -3 or 30 degrees, he's in the kitchen, preparing food, keeping the place running. He's usually there until midnight and you'll see him from noon, getting things shipshape. I've known him since he took over the Mill Hill Tandoori in 1977. They do the best onion bhaji's I know, as well as a a brilliant Tandoori salmon. On a Saturday, we'll often get a takeaway and the leftover dhal, brinjal bhaji and rice will be my lunch on Monday. A few years ago, he was telling me he was thinking of retiring. He was in his mid 60's at the time. I asked him what he planned to do. He looked at me in horror and said "I've not thought about that". He then said "I don't think I could sit around the house all day". He's worked hard all his life. Running a small business is a mission, a passion and an all consuming obsession. 

Why do I mention this? Well today, a very toxic, hard right account, which claims to be the voice of Mill Hill posted this obnoxious comment "Seems Muslims live on welfare benefits and never work in London. How ?" As Mr Chowdrey is a friend (when I was undergoing cancer treatment, he was sending me curries over free of charge to cheer me up and I will often nip in for a chat when he's not in the kitchen) I simply cannot allow this foolish man, who, unlike Mr Chowdrey, has ample time on his hands to spend all day posting right wing bile on the Internet, to go unchallenged. Another good friend locally, who also happens to be a Muslim is Romel Miah, who runs the Day of the Raj takeaway in Mill Hill East. Romels family have run restaurants in Mill Hill since 1987 and won the LBC Indian Restaurant of the year. Romel is another hard worker. He's always supported Mill Hill events and charities, giving free curries as prizes etc in raffles and putting ads in programmes. In what is a supreme irony, I happen to know that the person who posted the revolting comment is a bit of a scammer. He took a lot of money from Romel, allegedly to pay for an advert in a "Mill Hill Guide" that was supposed to be delivered all over Mill Hill. Romel, being a public minded soul had paid the scammer as he believed he was supporting a local good cause. Sadly the guide never appeared. When challenged, the scammer posted up a very sub standard 'online' guide. None were delivered as agreed in the contract. 

This resulted in a very public online spat between the two. The scammer changed his Twitter handle several times to try and hide the audit trail. From that day, the scammer started posting islamaphobic content. Sadly, the police have refused to do anything, despite some highly inflammatory and provocotive content, of which, this is just the latest example. Most of the scammers Mill Hill followers have become totally alienated and his posts get 20-30 views usually, mostly from hard right accounts. 

Sadly, some people seem to be taken in by such individuals. The modus operandi of this particular character involves a lot of retweeting, with comments, of extreme right wing posts. This is a clear attempt to get more followers. I would not care, if they weren't pretending to be a Mill Hill Community account. Given all of the activities of this account and the individual who runs the account, I cannot understand the lack of police interest. Why would they ignore such things, given that they know of his past? It bemuses me.

But it is a useful illustration of the what goes on with Twitter etc. If I wasn't sadly aware of the full history of this account and the individual who runs it, I may be taken in. Normally I ignore it, but it is a useful illustration of the sheer idiotic nature of such people and how they are poisonous, dangerous and there is usually a back story. The irony of one of the dodgiest, laziest people I am aware of posting such things about other people is instructive. I'm not a fool, I know that there are good and bad in all communities. However a walk down the Mill Hill Broadway will show you people of all faiths and none running businesses, working in shops etc. We do not need divisive fools posting blatent lies, that our own eyes can confirm are total tosh on the internet.

And I have deliberately not posted the name of the account. The less oxygen such morons get, the better. 

That's all. 

Social Media is so 2022! Has the greed of Twitter/Facebook/youtube/etc destroyed their business

 Lets start by saying, I enjoy writing a blog. I've been doing it for over 15 years now, and 99% of the time it is something I enjoy. When I started it, I didn't have a Twitter account or Facebook account. I didn't use Facebook to promote my Facebook account and only opened a Twitter account as people kept nagging me, saying that it would make it easier to know when I posted a new blog. At first you could only post short messages on Twitter, which was wonderful. We didn't have to put up with lengthy posts, by people who really didn't have much to say. You'd see the tweets of people you followed and they'd appear in Time order. Facebook was pretty much the same. I found Facebook to be good for catching up with friends and getting back in touch with ones who I'd lost contact with. At some point, and I cant be bothered to check when, Facebook decided that they knew better than me what I wanted to look at. At first, this was just ordering posts so I saw certain freinds posts and others I had to look for. Then I started getting adverts and 'sponsored posts', now all I seem to see is sponsored posts and old posts from friends, most of which I've seen already. If I look through my friends list and randomly click on someone, I find all manner of posts that I've not seen. It seems beyond the wit of Facebook to understand that I want to see posts from all my friends and I don't want to see a load of spam. It is interesting that you can report spam, but Facebook are the biggest spammers of the lot. 

Then there is Twitter. It has gone completely bonkers since Elon Musk took over. It defaults to "For you", which is what Mr Musk thinks you want to see. I was confused initially when Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg posts started appearing. If I wanted to see their bilge, I'd follow them. I am sure some people feel the same about my tweets showing up on their timeline. It is also starting to clog up with ads. Mr Musk claims that he needed to do all of this to stop it losing money. Given that he staged a hostile takeover, I rather resent the fact that he is whinging about the state of the company. If he didn't do his due diligence, is it really fair to inflict this on us? It used to be that sometimes I'd get cross with people on Twitter, now it's Twitter itself that is the problem. 

The bottom line with this is that I am absolutely fed up to the teeth with Social Media. There is little of interest. Most of the people I want to interact with have almost given up posting. For almost a decade, I've done a feature called "The Tweets of the Week in the London Borough of Barnet". I used to enjoy putting a collection of great tweets together and sharing them. The feature works best when those who's tweets are selected retweet the feature. That way, their followers get to see a selection of other interesting tweets, and hopefully all will grow their real follower base. Over recent weeks, there has been a noticeable decline in Tweeters bothering. Sometimes, they will retweet days or even weeks later. This tells me that there is a growing disconnect with Twitter. There seems to be a marked decline in views and engagements. It is a bit hard to tell as the analytics only go back a year for views. I know that far, far less people are clicking throuygh from Twitter these days. Probably 75% less than a decade ago. Now this may be because my blogs are boring, but the direct hits are pretty constant. 

Even more irritating is the barrage of notifications for Tweets that are of no interest. I only want notifications if I am tagged, retweeted or liked. Twitters algorythms are absolutely useless at predicting what tweets I want to see.

Oh and finally a word about Youtube. They've put a feature on where you can't see videos if you have an ad blocker. I think Youtube are massive piss takers as they put ads on my videos, but don't pay me anything from the ads. That was why I put the ad blocker on. I also get ridiculous notifications. I know these companies need to earn money, but they don't seem to have any understanding of the fact that they if they make their platforms too money orientated at the expense of user experience, users will use the platforms less. 

All in all, it seems to me that in the dash to wring every last bit of advertising cash out of mugs who pay to advertise on these platforms, they have totally alienated their customer base. I am not saying there isn't good stuff out there, as there is, but I rarely look at either platform now, unless I am completely bored or have just posted a blog. 

Urgent - Please beware of this Internet/Instagram/Facebook/Paypal/Twitter Scam

One of the things we do is try and keep the readers of the Barnet Eye safe. When we learn of Internet Scammers, we tell you how to stop yourself getting scammed. Yesterday, one of my engineers at the Studios, who makes a living selling beats he has created, was contacted via Instagram by a supposed potential customer. The customer claimed to want to buy a track which was being sold for £249. The buyer asked for my engineer to send him a Paypal Invoice, a perfectly normal way of paying. Once the invoice was sent, he recieved a message saying that my engineer would have received a confirmation code from Paypal and this was required to complete payment. My engineer checked his phone and sure enough there was a confirmation code. As he is a savvy guy, he also noted that the confirmation said "Do not share this code". It became apparent that the supposed buyer had tried to access my engineers account, presumably to do a password reset. 

The only time you will ever receive a paypal confirmation code, is when you have tried to access Paypal. If you have not and you receive a code, someone else is trying to hack you. Never reveal a confirmation code to anyone. It is for you and only you. My engineer did some research and found articles on Reditt that this particular scammer has been active for a year, several people have been scammed and both Instagram and Paypal have done nothing. I found another example of this scam documented on the unbanster.com site. 

Thus far, my engineer has had no response from Instagram or Paypal about this fraud. When will these social media platforms start taking these issues seriously. Users who commit fraud are clearly no asset to the brand. So finally, a reminder. Do not share confirmation codes. 

The weekend has been lovely with no social media

When it was announced that football was going to have a social media blackout as part of the campaign to stop online abuse, I thought that the only morally correct thing to do was to support it. As someone who has been on the end of a concerted trolling campaign for a period of two years, I have a degree of sympathy for anyone who has had to put up with it. After finding that both the social media platforms and the police are completely useless when it comes to dealing with these matters, despite death threats, threats against my business and threats against my wife and family, I had a long chat with a friend who is works as a professional social media guru, advising blue chip companies. He was kind enough to do some research and pointed out a few things that made me see sense. 

The troll was getting zero engagement for his posts against me. In actual fact, his efforts were simply making his accounts look like the work of an obsessive with a grudge, undermining his credibility when it came to him posting about other matters close to his heart. This is obvious to anyone who follows these accounts and most people would figure out for themselves what was going on. It was also clear that there were almost no followers for the account that were genuine accounts, as the troll had a penchant for 'follow back' accounts and spambots. His advice was to block any accounts, under no circumstances respond and advise everyone I know to do the same. He said "Don't bother looking at the accounts, as all it will do is irritate you. No one else is looking at them, so why get upset at someone ranting in an echo chamber". 

From a personal perspective, this worked like a dream. Sadly a few people I know didn't take my advice and still engage and get very upset. A local restaurant owner was also targetted. Being a Muslim, he was outraged at recent Islamaphobic attacks. He has taken such attacks very personally and feels that he shouldn't have to put up with this. He is outraged that Twitter does nothing. I share his outrage that such attacks, which are clearly illegal under English Law are tolerated. The accounts are not even removed, let alone reported to the authorities. 

In solidarity with him, with the premiership footballers who make my life a pleasure and my football club, I've had a social media media blackout. I've not looked at Twitter or Facebook (apart from one post about my cousin who passed away that her sister mentioned in a phonecall). And guess what? I've not missed it all.  The faux outrage of Twitter is not something worth the bother. Of course there are some great tweeters, I normally feature their work on a Sunday, but so much of twitter is horrible. I follow Manchester City and it seems that any post by the club invariably is followed by hundreds of tweets from 'supporters' of rival clubs spewing vitriol on the team. It is not just City, every team seems to have the same thing. Normally I just filter it out. As for Politics, just about every tweet is banal. On a Sunday, I normally read the Sunday Times before I get up. This has interesting articles, which are properly researched. There is value. Where is the value in reading a Tweet that says "Boris is corrupt" or "Keir Starmer is a Tory!" or the like. What is even more worrying is when such tweets get dozens of retweets, just because the Tweeter has a profile. 

I honestly wonder if twitter has changed a single mind. What I've observed is that people congeal into groups of like minded people. They all follow each other and stoke each others prejudices. Accounts that support #Brexit are followed by Brexiteers who all wholeheartedly agree with every word they say. The same is true of remainers/rejoiners. People spend their lives composing 256 word pearls of wisdom so all of their mates can say how marvellous they are. In truth, Twitter is a narcissist dream. I didn't realise how much I dislike so much of it, until I stopped looking at it for a couple of days. I suspect that when I start using it again on Tuesday, I will have a massive cull of people I follow. They have every right to their views, but I genuinely don't want idiotic drivel that is not funny in my world.

I just want to reiterate though that there are some wonderful tweeters and twitter does have its uses, such as Samuel Levy who we regularly feature with his tweets of widlife and Mark Amies and the Mill Hill Historical Society's excellent historical tweets. I also thoroughly enjoy the people I follow on our studio account, which is 99% music content and altogether far more pleasant. When I used to work in central London, Twitter was actually quite useful when there was travel disruption, incidents with crime and terrorism etc. You could instalntly learn where to avoid. With terrorist events, you'd hear helicopters, and a quick check of Twitter would tell you all you needed to know, generally my policy was get as far away from any incident as quickly as possible. Since I now work full time in Mill Hill, hopefully that is not something I'll need any time soon. If Twitter won't detox itself, then maybe we should do it for them with a mass unfollow. 

As for Facebook, this is more complicated. There is less interaction with people who have nothing much to say but say it very loudly. I'm not friends with anyone I don't like, but it seems that there is more and more paid content and for reasons I can't fathom, interesting post from friends don't seem to appear (the one I mentioned above about my cousing being a case in point. It required a good old hunt, even though I follow my cousin). My timeline is filled with unfunny paid clips, as well as clips of snakes (which I have a phobia of) eating various things and adverts for pies. It seems that every second or third post is paid content. I get that Facebook has to pay its way, but it is so completely full of rubbish I'm not interested in, that it is actually irritating. Facebook is the worlds best spying platform. People put their whole life on it, then rant that Bill Gates is using a vaccine to implant a microchip in them to spy on them. It really is all quite bonkers. 

What is quite interesting was the number of people who looked at my blog for this Saturday, where I hadn't cross posted it on social media. This was roughly the same as the previous Saturday. 

When the Election campaign in Edgware is done and dusted, I am very minded to take a complete break from Twitter and Facebook. I won't close the accounts down, I'll just ignore them as much as possible. If and when my studio staff can come back to work and I can take some time off, I am very tempted to go on a retreat somewhere very far away and properly chill out. 

This break has made me realise that checking Facebook and Twitter before you've had your first cup of tea is a silly thing to do. I suspect that when the pandemic is over and we have real lives to live, they will reap the whirlwind they've sown with all of this rubbish we are bombareded with. I lived for 40 odd years very happily without social media. We all did. 

 

I think that the pandemic has put all this in sharp focus. Whilst there has been nothing else to do and no other way to keep in touch, it has been useful, but as I realised last night, at the Claddagh Ring as the third pint went down, sitting under the heater with friends, real life is much more fun than a digital one. 

And before you ask, yes the blog will continue. I enjoy writing it and it seems a few people enjoy reading it. Have a great Sunday.  Here is my 'cheer me up' Playlist, if you need a boost!

Social media is dead!

#CameronMustGo - A hashtag that has been trending on twitter for ages, as part of an imaginative social media campaign co-ordinated by the Labour Party? Actually no, I believe it is the obituary of Twitter as a platform for social change. Whilst it may be fun for political anoraks and obsessives, what normal sane person would be influenced in any way, shape or form by a 140 character message of which 14 are a slogan, presumably thought up by a "media consultant" trying to help the Labour Party get with it. I've never been overly convinced of the power and influence of Twitter in the UK. Initially I couldn't be bothered with it at all. It was suggested to me that maybe it would help me let readers of this blog know that a new blog had been posted, so I succumbed. It didn't take too long to realise what a horrible place the TwitSphere was. A zone where cowardly Trolls roam, looking for ways to anonymously put the boot in to people they'd run a mile from in real life. As to the quality of political debate, it is dire. What tends to happen is you get a right wing nutcase and a left wing nutcase shouting at each other, not listening, until the less robust party triumphantly announces "I've blocked so and so and life is much better now!"

These Trolls sit there waiting for some poor unsuspecting mug to post something, usually about an issue they feel passionately about, and then leap. They use all manner of hectoring, fatuous arguments to support the unsupportable. When a perfectly reasonable retort is posted, it is simply ignored or the subject changed. Engageing with a Troll is time consuming and ultimately a complete waste of time. However annoying they may be, however tempting it may appear to try and reason with them, ultimately you'll never get those minutes of your life back. I doubt there will be anyone who says on their deathbed "I wish I'd spent more time arguing with Trolls on Twitter".

The net effect of the Trolls and their activities has been to transform Twitter into a forum where all we do is preach to converted. What twitter does well is to keep us informed when there is a disaster or a crisis. The 140 character format and the ability to post photo's is ideal for us to instantly know what has occurred. These days you tend to find out breaking news first from Twitter because a subject starts trending. Sadly even here the Trolls roam, often posting messages stating some minor celeb has died. This is met with swift denials.

As I look at Twitter, I ask "what is trending in London" right now. Here's the answer

• Foggy
• #Homeland
• #XFactorSemiFinal
• #UKChampionship
• Judd Trump
• #RememberMe
• #bbcsnooker
• Ronnie O'Sullivan
• Christmas

If this really is a summary of the most exciting things to discuss in London right now, then Lord help us all. In short, Twitter has simply degenerated into a noticeboard to discuss last nights telly and for Trolls to kick lumps out of each other. Is that really worth the trouble.

Then we have Facebook. It is nice to keep up with friends on Facebook, but whilst the instant messaging feature is useful, it has got more and more irritating, clogged up with adverts, sponsored posts, stupid games and reposts of jokes billed as "hilarious" which are mindnumbingly dull and amazing which are banal. In truth, just about the only videos I've looked at recently are ones of dogs doing stupid things, which mostly do what they say on the tin. If all Facebook is really about is recirculating funny dog videos, I'd suggest that it's days are numbered.

What about Youtube? As part of the Barnet Eye Advent calendar, I've spent the week trawling for interesting videos about our neighbourhood. Whilst there are some gems there, the amount of totally Banal crap you have to search through to find anything is truly depressing. As a little test, I searched for the most viewed video with the words "Mill Hill" in.



It is a video of how to drive around Apex Corner roundabout. Now clearly many people will want to know how to learn to drive, but is this really the most exciting thing to ever come out of Mill Hill? I think of all the forms of social Media, YouTube will be the most enduring, but it does seem to me that it's lost its glitter. I suspect that as it fills up with Birthdays and Bahmitzvah's itw ill be ever less seen as a serious place for social interaction and more simply viewed as a useful resource.

In some ways it is inevitable that internet fads come and go. Whatever happened to "friends reunited" and Myspace? Both were leading edge and both are now viewed rather like we view the dinosaurs.

I suppose in many ways Social media platforms are like religious cults. Initially they have explosive growth as the zealots who start them get the message out with zeal and fervour. People get swept up and congregations grow. Then all of a sudden, they find they are just part of the establishment and part of the furniture and the next generation of zealots find it all rather old hat and the cycle starts again.

I do wonder when people will realise that the best way to keep in touch is to actually go and see your friends and family. As to the discussions we have with people we don't like, haven't we had enough of them already at School, work and with the pub bore?

The only question I really have is to ask what will replace the current rash of social illness we call social media companies.

A naughty German has been trying to interfere with Matthew Offord MP !

Oh dear, oh dear. Poor old MP for Hendon, Matthew Offord has been interfered with by a German hacker! Mr Offord reports of this violation on his fascinating website -

http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/newsshow.aspx?ref=29

I had to chuckle as  I read Mr Offords prose. He seems to be affecting Royal pretentions with his "My wife and I..." turn of phrase. Do you suppose he's bought a few corgi's?  I wonder what fascinating story we'll have next "I received a charming email from someone telling me I'd won £600 million pounds in the lottery" or the suchlike.

Mr Offord goes on to boast that he has 19,635 Facebook friends. Now I thought "My word, our Matthew has a lot of friends" so I checked his profile to see who all these people were -

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1015903303

Rather strangely, it only shows 419 friends on his profile ????? Where have the other 19,616 gone? I decided to have a look. Rather oddly, it seems that he isn't friends with some of his own councillors in Hendon. One wonders if Mr Offord "de-friended" them for their impudence in challing his mentor, Council Leader Lynne Hillan during the recent leadership scrap at the Town Hall.


I was rather impressed to see that Matthew is a member of the group "surfers against sewage". Whilst I hardly expected him to be a member of "surfers for sewage" it is good to see him standing up for green causes - hopefully not knee deep in the brown stuff. I bet he's glad he's no longer associated with his other "like" Barnet Council if he's not to keen on the concept of being swamped with S**T.

Anyway, the good news is that the naughty German who tried to interfere with Matthew failed, so he can go back to spending his days playing with Facebook with impunity.

Before we leave Matthews lovely site, it's worth checking his post about community Policing.

http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/newsshow.aspx?ref=28

In his discussion about Tory plans to cut community policing he says :-

“Past Labour MPs were already planning 20% cuts before the last General Election but they just hadn't told us where they would come from. So these cuts are Labour cuts. If Labour don't like what we're doing, they need to come up with an alternative plan beyond putting up the Council Tax or ‘taxing the bankers’. Both these options are a cop out by those who haven’t got a clue about the lives of real people in this constituency”.

The whole post is rather odd. He seems to be saying "don't blame us for the cuts, the other lot thought about doing it as well". Not exactly the most convincing line of arguement. I've thought about running away with Uma Thurman on many occasion, does that mean that if Matthew Offord does it, it's my fault (not that there's too much chance of that)?

Then he goes on to criticise Labour for plans to tax bankers? Didn't he listen to George Osborne's budget (or was he too plastered to care?). Anway, just to bring our MP up to speed, George Osborne introduced a Bank Levy tax at the last budget. Matt the Prat should check his own party policy before sounding off.  I suppose he must include himself in the description of people who don't have a clue about the real people in Hendon. If it wasn't for the fact that this useless idiot is meant to represent all of us in Hendon, it would be quite funny.

Jesus, Mary and Mohammed (peace be upon him) and Facebook

Aint religion a funny old thing? Now when I was growing up as a kid in a Roman Catholic household, I went to church every week and I went to St Vincents RC Primary School on the Ridgeway. We were taught that Jesus loves you and you've got to be nice to your neighbours. We were taught to turn the other cheek and we were taught that the early church members were led, singing hymns, to be eaten by lions in Roman auditoriums. I really couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't really want to be a member of such a marvellous religion.The first little doubt crept in when I was talking to my friend Suzi who lived up the road. I guess I was seven or eight at the time. Her family were Jewish and along with all of the other families in the road (of all denominations) we were in and out of her house and didn't give it any thought. One day she said a rather strange thing to me - "My dad said that the pope says that jews eat babies". She was rather concerned about this. I didn't really know too much about the Pope then. He was a bloke who lived in Rome and wore a funny hat. My parents used to say, if I was naughty the Pope would be cross. Anyway Suzi didn't really know who the Pope was, except that he was the top bloke in the Catholic church. She was worried by this. I promised to make some enquiries. I asked my Dad "Dad, if the Pope says something, is it true". My Dad replied "Yes, he's infallible". This was bad news indeed. Now it was quite clear that Suzi didn't eat babies (given that she was disturbed by the comment her Dad made). I was pretty sure her mum and dad didn't either, so why had the Pope said it?

Anyway, we held another discussion on the subject. I lied "I asked my Dad and he said the Pope wasn't talking about your mum and dad, he was talking about someone else". Now Suzi was a bit worried, could it have been one of her uncles? Her Dad had clealry said it for a reason. There was someone in her family who her Dad didn't talk to. She said "I think I'd better ask my Dad who it is". The conference was adjourned for a couple of days. When it reconvened, she'd got the full facts. Her dad had been talking to a mate of his and made a flippant remark, not knowing she was in earshot. When he'd found out she'd heard and she'd been really upset, he was mortified. Although she was only a kid, he sat her down and explained how lies had been spread about Jewish people and one of these was that they hurt babies. He assured her that the modern Pope didn't think this, but in history there were some rather naughty popes who did bad things, especially to jewish folks. He said that now we all got on fine and were friends. He told her that lots of bad things happened in the past and we had to move on.

Anyway, Suzi duly reported this back to me. Now I was troubled by the fact that my Dad had said the Pope was infallible, but clearly there had been some naughty Popes if Suzi's Dad was telling the truth. Later I asked him "Dad, were there some Popes a few hundred years ago, who were bad people". Now my Dad was always pretty honest and this troubled him. He didn't really want to tell his eight year old son that there had been bad popes, but he didn't want to lie. "The Pope is only human, he can make mistakes. A few hundred years ago there were problems, but they changed the rules and now we've got a good pope". Well that sorted that out, but the whole incident planted a little seed of doubt. It's fair to say that as I learned more about the history of the Church, I realised that, yes there had been some naughty popes.

So what has this conversation from 40 years ago got to do with today? Well there is a massive row going on about a page on facebook called Lets Draw Mohammed. This has 200+ followers. In response an Everybody who is against Lets Draw Mohammed facebook page has sprung up. This has 9,500 + followers. This is an interesting conundrum. The supporters of the first of these pages are exercising their right to free speech. This is perfectly legal and is one of the reasons why Western Society is the choice of the vast majority of people who have a choice. However the supporters of this page are deliberately insulting 1 Billion + people. To a Muslim, this is a blasphemous and deliberate insult. Now most Muslims are actually pretty sensible about such matters. In the Islamic religion, it is blasphemous to show the image of any prophet. As Jesus is also recognised as a prophet, theoretically every Roman Catholic church is blaspheming against Islam, as every church will have images of Jesus. Muslims don't go around demanding churches are shut or starting facebook pages calling for a ban. The reason they have reacted against the Facebook page is because it is a deliberate insult. I once sat through a day in Hendon magistrates court. A Scotsman was up before the beak for punching a Policeman. He was lying on the ground in a state of inebriation when the copper kicked him and said "get up you drunken Scottish B*****d". The drunken Scottish B******d did just that and thumped him, immediately getting arrested. His defence was that if the officer had simply asked him to move along, he would have moved. As he insulted Scotland, he felt he had to thump him for the "Honour of Scotland". Both sides agreed on the facts of the case. I suspect that the magistrate was Scottish, as he said "normally I would impose a harsh custodial sentence for striking a police officer, but as I do understand how your National pride would have been insulted, I am only going to impose a £100 fine". The police were furious. The point is that if you deliberately set out to antagonise someone, bad things happen. We can all make silly comments that can have profound effects. My friends Dads comment to his friend was one such example. He not only worried the hell out of his daughter, but had the potential to cause bad feelings. When he realised she'd heard, he sensibly defused the situation. I can remember telling my Dad about the drunken Scotsman and his lucky escape from jail. My Dad laughed and said "Now there's a lesson for us all, if you don't want to get thumped, don't go around insulting people." With regards to the facebook pages, I rather think a few people have to grow up a little bit.