Why should I pay my Council Tax?

According to an article in the Edgware Times yesterday, Barnet Council has allocated a £107,000 budget for the Leader Listens programs. How important does Council Leader Mike Freer consider this program to be? Well in the same budget he's raising the cost of burying dead children by 9% raising less than £5,000 and adding £100 to the cost of funerals for bereaved parents - so it's more important than that. He's cutting the wardens from Sheltered Accomodation saving hundreds of thousands of pounds, so it's more important than that as well.

In the past, I've always criticised people who withhold their taxes, on the grounds that we've elected the regime democratically and the services are universally available to everyone. You may not like the product of democracy, but things are openly discussed, votes are cast and that's the end of the matter. PAY YOUR TAX.

I am now in the position where I am seriously considering withholding my Council Tax. As I said, we all voted in the Council election, but what happened next? Well Brian Salinger was the Leader of the Tories. He lead them into the election and secured an increased majority. Immediately after the election, he was deposed by the Tory group and they elected Mike Freer as leader. He is now imposing a manifesto which is completely different to the one Salinger set out. Millions are spent on Consultants to draw up mass privatisations under the Future Shape scheme. Hundreds of thousands are being spent on Social media schemes. How can we square this with the concept of "no taxation without representation"? I could possibly understand this palace coup if Salinger's program had failed after a couple of years and they needed to repair the damage(as Freer's is currently), but they'd stood shoulder to shoulder with him on the hustings shortly before they knifed him. Don't get me wrong, I don't like Salinger, but if I have to have someone I don't like at least they should be the bloke who is elected.

Even though I am deeply suspicious of what happened in Freer's Palace Coup at Barnet, that alone was not enough to make me consider withholding my council tax. What has happened in the last few days has. As I stated in the first paragraph, The Barnet Council Taxpayer (ie me) is funding the Leader Listens program. Now whilst I think that this program is a waste of cash at times when it could be spent on better things, that is not enough to make me withhold my tax.

What has convinced me that I should withhold my Tax are the comments made by Mike Freer on a Podcast this week. Here is what Mike Freer had to say :-

Interviewer: "How do you deal with the comments, the responses back? Sometimes they can be a little bit direct or off topic."

MF "There's a couple of ways of handling it. If someone is clearly trying to be provocative, it depends on what their motivation is, erm... I have a group of followers what I call the 'one handed bloggers' erm, I'll leave it to your own imagination what the other hand is doing. But it is largely because they are seeking to attack the Council's record, now that fine if it is a genuine resident, but when you have got two or three people who are just following a vendetta, I now ignore them so I moderate them out. If it is a genuine resident who's got a beef - great! it allows me to respond directly and I do respond, Dominic does not do my responses i do them all myself and if clearly something comes through for moderation I will sometime say "no, I know this person, it is just an axe to grind - we will not respond". But most people get a fairly blunt response...

So there you go. Anyone who has followed this blog will note that I've mentioned many times that Mike Freer won't post my comments on the Council Funded Leaderlistens.com website. What are his grounds? Well, I've got a copy of every comment I've ever posted. The only grounds for not posting are that they disagree with his policies. As such, I am funding a council service which I am excluded from using. Freer has said this in black and white. Not only that, but he clearly suggests that I sit masturbating in front of my children, because as you will see my blogs are usually written at times when the kids are in the front room where we have our computer.

I don't mind people calling me names. I'm a big boy, I post uncomplimentary blogs about political figures, so I expect a bit of flack. If Freer was posting on blogspot as in his capacity as a private individual, fine. I do object to paying him to call me a W****r via a council funded medium. I object to being excluded from using the Leaderlistens.com service on political grounds as Freer clearly states. Why on earth should I pay to be insulted and excluded from a Council service just because I am a public critic of Mike Freer? Mike Freer believes this service is more important than wardens for the elderly or child burial, yet I am excluded from it.

Click Here for Mike Freer's leaderlistens.com Website where he links to his podcast.

Click HERE for Mike Freer's Podcast.

Dangerous Drivers in Barnet

One of my favourite local blogs is Dennis Signy's blog on the Edgware Times. Dennis is always witty and always worth a read. His latest blog mentions a local character called Jimmy Cardash, who in the 50's & 60's had a reputation as a bit of what we now call a boy racer. My dad used to run a crash repairer in Mill Hill called MacMetals and used to mention one of his best customers of that name who had a reputation for speeding.

On the subject of speeding, one of the things my dad would always do (after the M1 opened to London) when a new sports car turned up for repair. Once they had finished the job, He'd get his stopwatch, start it, hurtle out of Bunns Lane, up Flower Lane, up the A41 to Edgware, Up the M1 to Watford, turn around and come back. As he reentered Bunns Lane works, he'd stop the stopwatch and if it was a new record, he'd chalk up the car, the date and the time on the wall of the workshop.

Occasionally a passing Police car would get the number of the car (they'd not have a chance of getting near, as my Father would drive like a maniac). A familiar scenario was the irate customer appearing with a speeding ticket. They'd say that it was disgusting that he'd taken the car and broken the speed limit. My dad would always ask "You have a sports car, can you honestly say you'll never break the speed limit?" He'd then explain that he'd asked one of his workmen to take the car for a spin to ensure that it was safe to drive following the repair, and as such it was prudent to check it's performance at speed. He'd tell the customer to explain this to the police. My dad would then claim to have a rotten memory and not be able to recall who tested the car. Once he got a visit from the plod to take him to task over this practice. The visit ended with the copper taking a newly repaired Jensen Interceptor for a spin.

Fast forward to 2008. I doubt that my Dad's run would be possible these days with the congestion, traffic lights, speed cameras etc. The laws regarding speed limits in this country is ridiculous. The speed limits for motorways were devised in the 1960's when cars were far heavier, brakes were inferior, cornering was far worse. As a result, wheras 70 mph is completely inappropriate for empty motorways, narrow slow roads are far more dangerous for pedestrians, as cars can travel far more quickly on winding roads. Boy racers treat roads like a formula one track. A typical case in point is Partingdale Lane, reopened at the cost of £1 Million by Barnet Council under Brian Coleman. I use the road regularly as it is a convenient rat run from the Ridgeway to Finchley. The speed at which vehicles travel down this road is ridiculous. Barnet put pinch points in the road and a completely ignored 20mph limit. From what I've seen, the pinch points are even worse than two way traffic. Cars actually accelerate through them to beat oncoming traffic. On Saturday, I saw some pedestrians forced into a hedge by a car refusing to slow down. If you look at the picture at the top of the page, ask yourself where the pedestrians go when two inconsiderate drivers pass each other (which happens all the time). This is taken on one of the wider, straighter sections of the Lane.

Another case in point is the no entry onto Mill Hill Broadway from Goodwyn Avenue. Councillor Matthew Offord revealed over a year ago that over 300 illegal turns were being made per day. When asked what Barnet planned to do about this, his reponse was "Nothing". When asked if this would change if someone was killed, he replied "It might".

Is it any wonder that Barnet is bucking the trend of decreasing road safety under this administration. Community safety chief Brian Coleman was banned from driving for speeding recently (accumilating the points whilst holding the Cabinet Transport portfolio). I'm not anti car, just pro road safety. I'd allow speed limits of 90mph on Motorways between 10pm and 6am. This would encourage drivers to make long journeys at less busy times, reducing congestion & CO2 emissions. As to suburban roads and traffic offence hotspots, I'd rigorously enforce speed limits where there is a safety issue. Drivers would soon get the message. How many millions are spent on looking after disabled victims of accidents. This is the hidden cost that is never mentioned.

2009 Barnet Eye - No1 Hypocrite award

The Barnet Eye Badge of Dishonour

Here are the nominations for this prestigious award. As it's my blog, I've picked the nominees, but YOU can pick the winner via our on line poll.
The rules for nomination are very simple -

1. To qualify, the nominee had to have featured in a blog in Barnet Eye where they have clearly been shown to be a complete hypocrite.
2. There actions must have had the potential to have some direct impact on me living in Mill Hill in the London Borough of Barnet.
3. Their actions must be so repugnant as to make supporters of their own party hold their nose as they vote

And the nominations are (click on their name for the associated story which earned the nomination) :-

Michael Witney Freer (Leader of Barnet Council)












His Lordshit Peter Mandelson (If you've never heard of him you are reading the wrong blog)









Brian Coleman GLA member for Barnet and Camden







Just a quick note about Barnet Eye for any new readers. This blog features all aspects of life, politics and music. Generally if a politician's name turns up here it is because, in my humble opinion, they are up to no good in some way shape or form. The poll is completely anonymous and is purely set up to wind up these rather unpleasant characters. You can only vote once. All the winner of the award will receive is the personal satisfaction of knowing they've upset the most Barnet Eye readers.

If there are any dodgy characters which you feel deserve a nomination for next year, post a link to the appropriate story in the comments. If it affects Barnet either as a local or national story and I feel like it, they too could be on the list for next year.

Oh and please tell your friends about this poll. The more votes we get, the louder the message we send !

The mad one handed blogger of Barnet !

Click HERE to find out what Mike Freer thinks of the Barnet Eye and it's author !

Listening to this is the best laugh I've had all year, Mike is clearly a David Brent like master of unintentional satire. Send it to all of your friends. The best quote, 7 mins 20 seconds in.

"If you get upset by negative comments then (a) you shouldn't be in politics but (b) you know just don't do it because you will have the nutters out there who will want to have a pop at you and that's part and parcel of doing it, but 99% of people seem genuinely pleased that someone is taking the effort to do a bit of social networking, but you will always get one or two who will try and hog it and you just have to try and freeze them out so that your normal residents get access to you."

Another great moment

"There's a couple of ways of handling it. If someone is clearly trying to be provocative, it depends on what their motivation is, erm... I have a group of followers what I call the 'one handed bloggers' erm, I'l leave it to your own imagination what the other hand is doing. But it is largely because they are seeking to attack the Council's record, now that fine if it is a genuine resident, but when you have got two or three people who are just following a vendetta, I now ignore them so I moderate them out. If it is a genuine resident who's got a beef - great! it allows me to respond directly and I do respond, Dominic does not do my responses i do them all myself and if clearly something comes through for moderation I will sometime say "no, I know this person, it is just an axe to grind - we will not respond". But most people get a fairly blunt response..."

Now as you can see Mr Freer states he moderates all the comments himself. Strangely enough this wasn't what Barnet Council told me in a response to a Freedom of Information response on Tuesday 16th December. Here's what they said :-

-----
3. As the blog is a publically funded information service, who is responsible for applying the editorial policy. Is it a paid council official, the Council Leader himself or some unpaid third party? If it is an unpaid third party, what authorisation do they have to edit Council taxpayer's comments and on the basis of what guidelines.

Response: The Social Media Manager in accordance with the terms and conditions as outlined above.
-----


Now as he's not moderated comments from Me, David Miller or Richard Logue on Leaderlistens.com, by his maths there should be 297 "genuinely sycophantic" comments on his site - where are they?

Anyway Mike thanks for recording this. It makes it all seem worthwhile. By the way if any otherone handed bloggers, nutters or other malcontents are reading this, please feel free to leave a comment here. Unless it breaks the law or uses naughty words, you can say what you like about me, Mike Freer, the price of fish or whatever.


Here's a copy of some correspondance I received from Councillor Freer on this very subject recently. I've edited it as the contents is copyright of the great leaders office

Dear Pot,

.........
.........
.........

Yours Sincerely

The Kettle

Religion in Barnet

Last year at the Mill Hill Music Festival Jazz Weekend, I got into conversation with Ex Edgware Times Editor and blogger Dennis Signy regarding "Mullah Permits" being issued to religious leaders in Barnet. All the years Dennis has spent in newspapers have taught him to spot a dodgy scheme from a mile off and this was certainly one he didn't like. In our discussions we concluded that the permits were a blatent attempt by the ruling party to curry favour with the religious establishment in Barnet. A trip to Mike Freer's Finchley Conservatives gallery shows pictures taken with Orthodox Rabbi's, Swami's, outside Mosques and by the wailing wall and other religious sites in the Holy Land. His Leaderlistens.com blog also details his meeting with Roman Catholics at the St Edward the Confessor Church in Finchley.

The question I ask myself as I peruse these sites is "Why are local politicians so keen to be photographed with faith leaders?" Is it because they have a deep long term interest in spiritual enlightenment or is it because they think they'll get a few votes? Now it is clearly right and proper for Mike Freer to engage with all parts of the community in Barnet - Hindu's, Catholics, Jews, Muslims etc. What bothers me is that whilst he's happy to have the smiley pictures on the website, he seems far less inclined to tell us where he stands on certain issues which are central to the faith debate.

If someone says "I don't do religion" then thats fine but if their website is plastered with its surely the very least they owe us is to explain their views.

I'd like to know what Mike had to say about the following subjects:-

With the Roman Catholics - Does Mike support the current Abortion Laws?
With the Muslims - What are Mike's views on Sharia law?
With Jewish Leaders - What are his views on Israel?
With the Hindu's - What are Mike's views on arranged marriages?

If you are going to play the religion card so openly on your websites then I think you have to come out and tell us what you think on controversial issues. For all I know Mike has views with which I totally agree on all of these subjects, but there's nothing on the site to go with the smiling pictures.

An even worse example is on Matthew Offords Hendon Conservatives website and I it found quite upsetting in a religious context. There is this picture of Offord on the Gallery page with the following caption :-

Matthew at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp with Conservative Shadow Minister Rt Hon. Francis Maude MP

I don't know about you, but I find this photo used in this context highly distasteful. If the picture was of him somberly laying a wreath with a caption such as "Councillor Offord pays his respects to the untold millions who perished here under Nazi tyranny", it would be appropriate, but two politicians standing together, smirking in the snow, as if they're standing in front of a normal tourist sight with no mention of the significance of the terrible place is, to my mind awful. Matthew Offord seems to be saying "I'm getting my picture taken with a bigwig at a tourist attraction". It's not a crime, but it shows extremely poor judgement.

I must confess that I am sick to death of pictures of Barnet Politicians in churches, Mosques and Synogogues. I don't mind if they are believers and are there for a good reason but I'm sick of all the sucking up to the religious vote. Given that they clearly think there's votes to be had in the practice, I doubt it will stop any time soon. Can I suggest that if any candidate turns up on your doorstep and in any way tries to use religion to get your vote, ask them a difficult faith related question. If you don't like their answer tell them where to go.

I'm of the opinion that religious worship is something that is private and personal. I see no harm in people saying they have taken a stand because of their faith, but this is something entirely different. If they want to impress us do it by example not with these pictures.

Leader Listens? Well he can't even be bothered to turn up !

If you were the leader of Barnet Council and you decided to start a program called Leader Listens and you promoted this as a chance for regular people to engage directly with the council leader, and you only had to fit around one visit a month in, would you bother to turn up? Well it seems that if the meeting is in Burnt Oak and your name is Mike Freer, the answer is clearly NO. You send your bagman - Matthew Offord - (check Leader Listens for full details and video of this charade).

Now as the scheme is Mike Freer's baby, you think he'd be able to plan the meetings so that he could be there. The sessions aren't called Leader and Deputy Listen. They are not called "A bloke from the Council Listens" they are not even called "Leader Listens if he can be bothered to turn up". The sessions are quite clearly called "Leader Listens". Now if I'd put off a hot date or given up a pre Christmas night out with the boys to engage with Council Leader Mike Freer and he sent a lackey along, I'd feel pretty cheated. You see if the Leader is there, you know he's heard what you have to say. If you tell Deputy Dawg what is troubling you, our great leader can say "Oh, Matthew in the middle was very naughty and forgot to tell me".

So what is it about Burnt Oak which means that Mike can't be bothered to go? I put this question to the Burnt Oak Society of Jedi Knights and after 3 days meditation on this issue they suggested the following possible options:-

a) Mike Freer is a snob and wouldn't be seen dead in a working class area such as Burnt Oak.
b) Mike Freer got a better offer and went somewhere else
c) Matthew Offord did the session as Burnt Oak is in the constituency he's standing in for Parliament.

So lets explore these options.

a) Well if this is true it's terrible. The voters of Burnt Oak deserve the same treatment as everyone else.

b) There is no mention in the minutes of an apology from Freer, so we can assume he either hadn't had a better offer or he is too bad mannered to offer an apology. Not the standard of behaviour we'd like from a council leader.

c) It seems to me that Freer and Offord have form on this. I attended the Mill Hill Leader listens session (again in Hendon Constituency). Offord took this session as well. If Offord and Freer are divvying up the sessions according to who's constituency they are in, I'd say that could be an abuse of public funds to gain an electoral advantage. Candidates are not allowed to abuse their position to gain an unfair advantage. As opposition councillors candidates are excluded from these meetings on the grounds that the purpose is engagement with the Council leader, use of the forum for party political advantage would clearly be deemed "out of order".

The only way to clear this up is for Mike Freer to post an explanation as to why Offord took the Burnt Oak and Mill Hill Sessions and he took the Finchley and Golders Green sessions (in his constituency).

The only crumb of comfort I would take from this, if I were an opposition candidate is that from what I saw of Offord at the Mill Hill Leader Listens session, he is completely useless.

I raised 3 points with him

1) The fact that the council had failed to chop down a tree on their property which was damaging my mothers flat. A week later they dispatched a team and chopped the wrong tree down.

2) Illegal turns onto Mill Hill Broadway from Goodwyn Avenue. Offord confirmed that this had been monitored and that 300 offences a day were occurring. I asked what he intended to do and he said nothing. I asked if this would change if someone got run over. He said "It might then".

3) Improvements to Bunns Lane Car Park. Offord said he would investigate this and report back to me. I'm still waiting. It must be a very thorough investigation, having taken over a year.


So there you go. If you live in Hendon Constituency, you don't get the Leader Mike Freer - he can't be bothered. You get Captain Useless - Matthew Offord. I just hope that the voters in Finchley, Golders Green and Hendon see through this charade.

Mandleson looses the plot

When was the last time someone said to you "It would be really great if they privatised the Post Office"? If anyone has ever said that to you, were they anything other than an Uber-Thatcherite? The reason I as is because of the bizarre comments by Peter Mandleson in The Observer.

Mandleson reportedly said that "The Party would be kicked out of office if it retreated and showed itself to be tired and afraid of making a decision". Well Mr Mandleson, I'm sorry to say that Labour will be kicked out of office for imposing stupid and unpopular policies. In their Thatcherite pomp, the Tories sold privatisations as they funded tax cuts and were seen as a way of making a quick buck. The Post office privatisation will achieve neither of these politically useful goals. Any extra revenues raised in the next year, will merely be shovelled down the black hole which the bank bailout has created.

Labour has about a year before the election must be held. The only thing that might save them would be to come up with a few genuinely popular policies and rush them through Parliament. Put the Tories in a corner where they either back them or lose votes. Given that there is no cash to splash, what could catch the public imagination. Here's a few suggestions. If Mandleson pushed these policies, he might actually achieve the public admiration he craves :-

a) MP's to take a 5% pay cut.
b) Full on-line access to all MP's expenses.
c) Limit all expenses to genuine out of pocket costs.
d) Ban ALL sale of playing fields for redevelopment
e) Force councils to publish full details of all council house waiting lists (not names or addresses) and the way points are allocated to achieve one.
f) Allocate seats to members of the public (elected by common vote) on all state ownbed companies.
g) Have complete transparency on all public sector pensions (including recently Nationalised (or semi nationalised) banks - give the public a veto on excessive awards

So what would you prefer Labour to implement - Post Office Privatisation or my list above? Which do you think would be better for the Country? To be completely honest, although I'm a lifelong Labour Member, I am so disgusted with Mandleson's Post Office plan, that I'd probably vote for any non Racist Party which scrapped PO privatisation and adopted my plan above.

Barnet Eye weekly round up

A few blogs to check out (or not ***)
There is a great blog on Barnet Council Watch today about Leo Boland's leaving do,a sking the question - who is paying? Is it the Mayor or is it the Taxpayer?

Another thing which will interest the statto's out there is the Iain Dale blog talking about how many hits he's been getting. Iain is probably the number one Tory blogger and he's pretty established (Given that I've only been on Blogspot since October and the blog is mostly about Barnet and London, I must say I'm certainly pleased wih my number of hits).

Tory Troll does a great blog on Brian Coleman's latest round of excesses. It's a fairly left leaning blog.

GLA Tory Roger Evans CITY HALL blog has an interesting round up of business at GLA members question time.

*** Probably the most revolting Blog entry I've seen this week was BNP blogger Simon Darby. Avoid this with food). He has a load of pictures of a World War II themed fund raising event. The irony of the fact that the whole point of the second world war was to defeat Nazi and Fascist ideology seems to have missed the BNP. I know quite a few vets and none of them support the BNP. The ones I know would find this shameful and disgusting. My dear old dad who was a bomber pilot would have probably thrown a Mills bomb in there had he still been around.

Lastly a blog I usually give a wide berth to, but I thought it deserved a comment. Guido Fawkes comments on the Jonah like effect his visits have to sporting teams. Now I would have thought that as a Scotsman, this would soon be picked up on in his Bonny homeland and the more England games he goes to the more votes he'll get. I suspect that this may be the reason for the resurgence of Labour in SNP seats.

Anyway I hope you've all had a lovely weekend and have a great week.

P.S - I thought I'd just mention a slight change of policy. I used to studiously avoid linking to BNP supporting sites, but I've come to the conclusion that the more people see what the numpties are really like, the better. I trust anyone reading this blog to be intelligent enough to form their own views. The more I see of their blogs, the more delusional it seems they are.

With friends like this

We all need friends, don't we. You know what it's like. There's an important game on the telly, say the league cup final, so you ask them to come around and have a couple of beers and watch the match. Nice pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Anyway, when the match finishes one of them says "Hey, can I just borrow your laptop to check my email?". You reply "Sure, I'll get u another beer". Anyway you come back and they say "Cheers".

Anyway later that evening you happen to think to yourself "Hang on, I've left the worlds biggest wind up merchant alone with my laptop for five minutes". Hey presto, you find that you've sent a mail to a few mates, offering to buy them all a few beers and a curry to celebrate an unexpected windfall.

Be warned, the modern world can be a dangerous place and no I haven't won the lottery !

Barnet's got talent !!!!! The Barnet Beat weekend

As some of my readers may know, I run a music rehearsal and recording studio in Mill Hill. Barnet Youth services organised the "Barnet Beat Weekend" this weekend. We were pleased to take part and we staged an open day, with various activities taking places for free at the studios. Amongst the main activities, we had Sound Skool doing a DJ skills workshop, Rock United doing one of their Rock School's and Drumsense showing off their program.

For the Sound Skool sessions, teenagers came down and were able to try Beat matching, Scratching and drop mixing. For Rock United, musicians came down, were schooled in the art of playing in a band and finished off recording a song. Drumsense explained the various programs they have on offer. We had over 50 teenagers turn up for the various activities during the day. They all seemed to enjoy the activities and it was great to see so many young people engaged in positive activities.

The program was organised by Barnet Youth Services, although we put our own program together. Lloyd Gee who organises Barnet Youth Services came down to check out the activities at the studio and told me what was going on elsewhere in the Borough.

I would say that generally Education and Youth services are one area Barnet does pretty well. The Beat Weekend had all sorts of activities at a whole host of venues. I don't know what arrangements other providers had with Barnet, but we funded all of our activities ourselves, so we weren't "being subsides" at all. I would like to see a far greater emphasis on sports and arts for young people. One of the reasons I run my business is specifically to encourage young people to participate in useful activities. I was explaining to Lloyd that many of the facilities we provide for young people we run at a loss (these being partially subsidised by other activities at the studio). In the long run I believe that these pay off as once young people become engaged with music, they stay with it and as they can afford to use other services.

I'm in a lucky position that it's my own business and I can make the rules. Nothing is more rewarding than seeing how young people can develop and flourish, when given the opportunity. Two of our customers have developed their careers at our studio and gone on to huge international acclaim. Both Kate Nash and Amy Winehouse used our facilities before they had deals. One of the best feelings was seeing Amy Winehouse on Top of the Pops for the first time, playing a guitar she'd bought from our shop the week before. Kate still uses our facilities and I think she enjoys the down to earth atmosphere we provide.

We've got a couple of other up and coming artists at the moment who I fully expect to be talked about in the same breath as Amy and Kate in a few years time. Maybe a few of the people who took part in the Barnet Beat weekend will get a taste for music or find a previously hidden talent. I sincerely hope so.