Brian Gordon saves Mill Hill from hordes of sex crazed perverts !!!!

Barnet's very own caped crusader Brian Gordon has won a famous victory for the the right thinking people. He was very worried that posters promoting pills to cure erectile dysfunction would transform the citizens of the Borough into sex made perverts. He said :-

"There should be an understanding that certain things are indecent. This poster, talking about longer lasting sex in such a prominent way, vulgarises and cheapens something that should be seen as sacred. There is no question that such a poster can pervert the minds of many right-thinking people, including particular children, who are very impressionable." 

The Hendon Times reports that he's won the battle and we can all sleep soundly (not much chance of any other action now) in our beds at night. I agree with Councillor Gordon that these posters are not suitable for public sites, where children may see them. Whilst I thoroughly agree with Councillor Gordon about the undesirability of these posters being seen by children, he certainly seems to have widened the issue considerably.

I'm rather interested by his comments that the poster cheapens something which should be seen as sacred. I am wondering if this announcement signals a shift in policys of Barnet Council towards a more puritanical stance on sex and personal relations. I wonder if Mike Freer and Brian Coleman will be reprising the Tories attacks on the gay community with Section 28 like legislation in the run up to the next election? This policy was very popular in Tory circles during the reign of Margaret Thatcher, who is a hero to both Brian Coleman and Mike Freer. These policies were at their height presumably about the time Freer and Coleman first joined the Tories, so one has to suspect that they agreed with them in some way.

Will Barnet Council be bringing in policies which favour married couples over those living in sin, to protect the sanctity of the sexual act? I wonder if Brian Gordon could possibly give us a few examples of "right thinking people" who've been perverted by posters such as this, so we can judge for ourselves how damaging these posters are?

Councillor Brian Gordon is assistant cabinet member for policy and performance. I wonder what direction policy will be going in future on the subject of the "sanctity of sexual relations". It's clear from his protest that he's less concerned with performance than policy in such issues.

I'd suggest that Councillor Gordon lays down a few proposals at the next Council meeting. It seems that he could liven the session up no end.

Brian Gordon is spot on !

There are some Barnet Conservatives that I quite like. They seem to me to be quite sensible. One who has impressed me is Councillor Brian Gordon. He chairs the Hendon Residents Forums and he doesn't do a bad job. He's in the press complaining about a large billboard poster for a product which improves sexual performance.

I've got three children and to be completely honest, the poster appalls me. Many children on buses see the poster on the way to school. I'm not a prude, but this is a wholly inappropriate poster. I agree with Councillor Gordon that children should not see this sort of thing on their way to school. Well done Brian.

Planet Earth to George Osborne

George Osborne really hasn't got a clue, has he? He has a plan. He's going to reassess all of the people on incapacity benefit and cut it for those found to be malingers. Billions will be saved as the lazy are found out and have their benefits chopped.

There's just one problem with his plan. The system is not designed to get people back to work. Doctors are not encouraged to get people into rehabilitation schemes and people are penalised for trying to get better. As a result, everyone plays the game.

George's plan may save a few quid but the concept that all of the recipients of Invalidity benefit will turn up at the doctors and say "I'm better, cut my benefits", is quite frankly bonkers.

As to the plan to freeze the pay of public sector workers. Does this apply to Councillors allowances. Anyone on over £18,000 a year will have their pay frozen. He talks of public servants earning more than the Prime Minister. What about people such as Tory Melvin Cohen who's just been awarded a £7,500 allowance for a few hours work attending meetings. I'm all for cutting a few taxes, but the the Tories should get their own house in order first and sort out the greedy councillors who stack up allowances like alcholics stack up drinks at the bar.

Marks and Spencers Wasabi Coated Almonds

I love y'all, even those of you who don't love me !!!!!!! The purpose of this blog is to try and make life better for everyone in Barnet. Sometimes we do this by campaigning for or against specific policies, sometimes we do this by exposing the behaviour of politicians we think are behaving rather badly. We also like to bring you the odd clip of music or music video, the odd picture of something we think may tickle your funnybone. Sometimes we do lists of things we like about the area.

Today, in our mission to make the life of people living in Barnet better, we tell you about Marks and Spencers Wasabi Coated almonds. My good lady wife was feeling rather miserable (no surprise there, you may think, given that she's married to me). I thought I'd cheer her up. Now she's not a big lover of choccies, so my trip around Marks and Spencers in Mill Hill was getting rather frustrating. The I spied a tin of Wasabi coated almonds. Now my beloved does like nuts (again no surprise I hear you titter). She also loves wasabi. I'd not tried these before but they are absolultely fantastic.

Now I'm not saying this because M&S have bunged me a load of dosh, or for any other reason than to say you really should try them. They are a great nibble to munch on as you have a glass of wine and read the paper. I'd suggest you go and get a rather nice bottle of wine, a tin of these fantastic nuts and buy the Ham & High on Thursday. Sit down, relax, put your feet up. You see I was having a chat with them today about an article they are running following an interview with Brian Coleman, the only Mayor of Barnet ever to be found guilty of breaching the Standards code whilst in office.

It's the Ham & High's story, they did all of the hard work, so like the rather lovely wasabi Almonds, I'm not going to spoil it by telling you what he has to say. Let's just say that for those of us who are appreciate a good Brian Coleman story, this one promises to be a cracker. Of course the Barnet Eye will be giving the article a good review and throwing our own insight into it in due course, but trust me - whether you love or hate the Marmite Mayor - I'm absolutely sure when you read what he has to say you'll be glad you did.

Oh and if you are Mr Marks or Mr Spencer, feel free to send around a few more tins of the nuts for the plug ! And if I were you I'd do wasabi Macadamia nuts as well !

Picture : Boris contemplates the latest outpourings from the bloke he appointed to run London's Fire and emegency service.

Conservative Party Conference - actions speak louder than words

If you want to know what the Conservative Party really stands for, forget David Cameron and the
conference. Look at Barnet Council, where they are entrenched in power.

* Huge Financial mismanagement (Iceland)
* Massive increases in fiscal debt.
* Secrecy culture (closed session cabinet decisions)
* No respect for voters/taxpayers
* Schemes for stealth taxes (Barnet Bond)
* Botched public works projects with huge cost overruns (Aerodrome Road)
* Anti democratic behaviour (electing new leader 2 weeks after the election)
* Massive rises in taxes
* Huge rises in Councillor allowances
* Cuts to Sheltered Housing wardens
* Huge amounts spent on consultants who deliver nothing

Leader Mike Freer is now standing for Parliament. His former deputy Matthew Offord is also standing. The Tories cannot pretend that this is nothing to do with them.

How the hell do you justify this?

Saw this story in the Hendon Times. It seems like the residents of rabbit hutch developments in Barnet's safety needs are being totally neglected. Mike Freer, Leader of Barnet Council wants to build tens of thousands more rabbit hutch flats in the Borough. These are predominantly for people who don't live here already.

Rubbish flats for desperate people. That's not a slogan I'd go over the trenches for.

Richard Barnbrook and Dyslexia

I wasn't going to post this, but if I don't it will be rather like catching syphillis and not getting some penecillin. It would eat me from the inside. Richard Barnbrook, London's GLA member has used the excuse of his dyslexia for making a Youtube video full of porkies about murders in his London Borough. When he was found out and suspended, he blamed the fact that it was noisy, he's dyslexic and he got confused.

I'm dyslexic. I play in a punk rock band. Does that make me get all confused and start making up porkies? No of course it doesn't. Most people don't understand what it's like being dyslexic.It never occurred to me that a scalliwag might chose to hide behind it in this manner, but as Barnbrook has, we really should examine his claims a bit more carefully. I tried to explain how dyslexia works (for me) in THIS BLOG. I asked my wife if she understood my condition any better after reading it. She said no.

I've developed what we call coping strategies for my dyslexia, which is why I have ended up writing blogs. My use of grammar is terrible. I put apostrophes in all the wrong places. I sometimes write complete gobbledegook, which I try and catch by proof reading (if I'm unsure I ask my wife who is a linguist).

In this blog in the Telegraph, Barnbrook says that if he read out his statement, it would come out as unintelligible gibbereish. In this he's actually probably quite right. When I was kid I got completely traumatised by having to do a reading at church. I did it and thought I'd done well, then got clobbered by my dad for taking the piss. They'd all sat through an unintelligible string of words, sentences read backwards etc. I don't think taking the piss out of Barnbrook for saying the following is fair :-

Statement of Richard Barnbrook to be verbally delivered at the hearing

Before you hear what I say, I would like to make a clear point that due to my dyslexia there will be difficulties in reading this out.

He's actually right in this. No one would tolerate the lampooning of someone with a wooden leg for walking funny, so this isn't something to beat him up for.

Later in the blog, however he says this :-

I have tried very hard throughout my life to overcome my dyslexia and I have excelled in spite of it. I have refused to let it hold me back. I am not the sort of person to wallow in self pity and I have always got on with the job no matter what. I do not feel that that I should be penalised for what was in effect an unintentional mistake which occurred due to my disability.

This is where Richard descends into scalliwagery. He's a professional politician, working for a large political party. If he has problems with dyslexia, he has a duty to mitigate it. He made a Youtube video. Now I know a bit about making videos, films etc. I had an acting career as a child and appeared in many TV commercials. You don't just turn up with a camera and spout "I love Heinz Beanz". You script it, you work out what you have to say. I'd assume that if you are a politician you also check your facts. This wasn't an off the cuff session, it was a promotional video for a campaign.

If Richard Barnbrook is telling us he makes videos for his campaigns, off the cuff, with no pre planning, no scripts and no checking of facts, this isn't dyslexia, it's being a total fool. I'm sorry to say that having seen the video and knowing what the lies were in it, there is no way that any of this could be attributed to Dyslexia. If I wrote a blog and I said in it "Jack Cohen the Leader of the Liberal Democrats in Barnet is from Planet Zob" and Jack Cohen challenged me to prove it, saying "Oh, I'm dyslexic, I meant to say he came from Childs Hill" would not wash. I might get way with saying "Liberal child Jack Cohen comes from Democrat Hill", but no form of Dyslexia I know involves substituting one set of facts for a completely different and bogus set of facts.

Dyslexics have enough to cope with, without people like Barnbrook using it as a fig leaf for their dishonesty. Assuming Barnbrook actually writes his blog, I'd say his dyslexia is in the same region of the spectrum as mine.
Let me give you an example of how much dyslexia affects the truth and honesty of what people may say. Brian Coleman's lawyers poured over every page of this blog, checked every stat and they couldn't find a single decent example of a lie or untruth to use in there defence. I'm not a professional politician and I don't have paid assistants. For Barnbrook to use dyslexia as a defence for telling porkies is repulsive.

I wouldn't wipe my bum on the Daily Telegraph if I was caught short in a field of Thistles

Imagine my surprise. A cursory trawl  of my favourite blogs, took me, via The Tory Troll blog, to the Daily Telegraph website. The Daily Telegraph has given Mr Richard Barnbrook, BNP Councillor (currently suspended for telling porkies), GLA member (recently censured for telling porkies) and general all round **** his own blog.

The picture on the right is lifted from this blog. Barnbrook is promoting his anti knife campaign. Whilst no sane Londoner would think knives are anything other than terrible, I'd also guess that most people would be horrified to learn that Barnbrook MADE UP a pile of porkies for a video he made to promote his campaing. The Telegrapgh calls him Councillor Richard Barnbrook, but this is actually not strictly true at the moment as he was suspended for this despicable behaviour.

You may be intrigued by this blog entry - an apology to Dagenham and Barking Council and the GLA. Now personally, if I was Barnbrook, I'd have called it an apology to the people who placed their faith in me with their vote. What is it with people like Barnbrook. They are caught out, but they just can't say they are wrong.

Elsewhere in his blog he says the following :-

I, Richard Barnbrook am going to be Barking’s next MP! I’m the candidate for the British National Party, which is the only Party that has the guts to tell it like it is. 

This is a bit rich coming from a man just suspended for telling porkies. His explanation for being one of London's greatest Porkiemeisters?

There were about 4 consecutive takes of this recording and what with my dyslexia and ambient background noise, I became confused. The video was posted on my blog by one of my aides on the same day. It was therefore equivalent to a live recording because it was not edited. Unfortunately, it wasn’t taken down by my aides when it should have been, once it was realised that it contained inaccuracies.

 Like Richard Barnbrook, I'm dyslexic. It's quite simple. If you are doing something important, something in the public domain, you check your facts. If you are a representative of a Political party, you have assistants, paid for by the public purse. Is he so stupid that, knowing he was dyslexic, knowing he "got confused", that he allowed "an aide" to post it? As I've said before and I'll doubtless say again. Richard Barnbrook and the BNP claim that they are different and honest. The facts show them to be otherwise.


As to the Daily Telegraph hosting this man's blog. Do they believe that it is the job of respected papers to host the blatherings of such a dishonest and clearly stupid man? What purpose is served by a giving a platform to a man who cannot tell the truth and promotes racial tensions? I wouldn't buy the Daily Telegraph. I wouldn't even wipe my bum on it if I was caught short in a field of Thistles.

Brian Coleman and Richard Barnbrook

As it's saturday, I thought I'd put the spotlight on London's two disgraced assembly members. Both of these rather naughty chappies have been found guilty of failing to discharge their duties in an appropriate manner. Both of them appear to have told a few porkies along the way.

Here's an example of Colemans porkies. This is one he told about me attending Residents forum meetings in Barnet. There are 18 of these a year in Barnet. I've been to 3 in my life. Coleman said this to a standards investigator in an interview (see clipping below from his witness statement). He was trying to portray me as an obsessive opponent. For the record, the last meeting I went to was to complain about the state of the youth football pitches at Burnt Oak leisure centre. The deputy mayor was there and he agreed to take a look and do something. (you can find a few more examples of Colemanporks by clicking HERE)

And here's a what naughty old BNP Barnbrook's been up to :-

http://torytroll.blogspot.com/2009/09/richard-barnbrook-suspended-for-murder.html

Earlier in the year, I was rather surprised to read this report in Totally Jewish, detailing how Brian Coleman had boycotted a holocaust memorial service, arranged by the GLA. The reason for the boycott? The organisers felt that seating Barnbrook who's BNP leader has in the past denied the holocaust, should not be seated at the front with victims of the holocaust. To me the concept of even allowing a senior politician from the party which is Britains version of the Nazi party to attend a holocaust memorial is repugnant, let alone allowing him to sit at the front. Brian Coleman saw things different. He boycotted the service to stand up for Barnbrook's right as an elected BNP member to attend and sit at the front. Here's the full story.

http://www.totallyjewish.com/news/world/c-11069/shoah-memorial-day-marred-by-disputes/

Whilst there are a few big differences between Brian Coleman and Richard Barnbrook, it seems to me that there is one rather big similarity. They can, shall we say, be rather economical with the truth when it suits them. My dear old dad used to often say "If a man cannot be trusted in small things, how can you trust them in big things".

I don't believe that there is any place in public life for people who have been shown to be completely untrustworthy. I don't care whether they are BNP, Tory Lib-dem or Labour, if you can't trust them they shouldn't be doing the job. There are lots of Tory councillors in Barnet, who I think are honest and trustworthy, even if I disagree with them. John Hart, Fiona Bulmer, Andrew Harper to name a few, are people who strike me as honest and decent - there are plenty of others.

The reason I seek to highlight these two individuals, Conservative Coleman and BNP Barnbrook is this. The BNP use Brian Coleman as an example of a politician who behaves badly. They say, "we are different, we are clean. Vote for us and sweep the likes of Coleman away". As you can see, Barnbrook shows that the BNP are a completely dishonest bunch. A couple of Tory Councillors have let me know that privately they are appalled by Brian Coleman's behaviour. That is the difference. Coleman is a bad apple in the barrel. The BNP is a barrel full of bad apples. If you don't want to vote Tory because of Brian Coleman, don't vote for a mob that are 10 times worse.

Are Israel and Saudi Arabia conspiring to start world war III?

Over the weekend I read possibly the most scary story I've seen for years.  If you believe the Daily Express, the Saudi Arabian government and the Israeli government are conspiring to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The internet is full of stories of conspiracies, usually put about by raving anti semites. Generally they are best given a wide birth, but as this story appears on the website of a respectable British newspaper which is pro Israeli, it deserves greater scrutiny and discussion.

Whilst I can see that both Israel and Saudi Arabia would both be keen to stop the Iranian plan to develop nuclear weapons in it's tracks (what sane person wouldn't), is it possible or even conceivable that they would work together on such an attack? However deep the Shiite/Sunni division may be, there is a deep antipathy towards Israel in the Arab world. The Saudi regime is not a democratically elected regime, it has a deep distrust of it's own people and a network of secret religious police who maintain the regime. Would this rather repugnant regime survive the outcry following such an attack?  I personally doubt it. In military and political terms, such an attack makes perfect sense for Israel. The Israeli's simply cannot let Iran under it's present rulers develop a nuclear bomb. If the Saudi's came in on the attack, it may castrate a deadly threat in the short term, but I suspect that  it will finish off the Saudi regime. What then? However bad I think the Saudi regime may be, we may well end up with an even worse regime, leading an Islamic Jihad and controlling the worlds oil supply. The west will have no choice but to go to war again, this time against the greater Arab nation. In short this could be the start of world war three. I'd say that the best way forward for the Arab people would be for the west to support progressive and democratic forces in these countries. The situation in Iran is a reaction to imperialist interference by both Great Britain and America of decades if not centuries. Do we want to have a similar problem in Saudi Arabia?

So what would I suggest. If I was involved in the security of Israel, I'd give the Saudi regime the widest berth possible. I suspect that sooner or later, we'll wake up to find that the Israeli air force has done the west's dirty work. I suspect that the best reaction possible for the world would be for the Saudi's to explode in mock outrage and then let us all forget about it. I'd suggest that the sooner this plant is bombed, the better, as there will be less nuclear fallout.

As far as I'm concerned the regime in Iran is illegitamate, corrupt and despicable. They cannot possibly be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. I just hope that whoever takes out the plants developing the weapons makes sure that they do it in such a way as to not start World War III.

Oh and for anyone who claims that the program is purely for civil power. If this was true, then the plants would have been opened up to universal inspection, without conditions. A party of Swedish (or suchlike) diplomats would have been despatched and they would have reported to the world that the program was purely civil.

I'd like a world free of nuclear weapons, if we can't have that, then I'd at the very least like to see regimes such as Iran denied the right to use them. I heard someone saying "Israel's had them for years, Iran needs them to defend themselves". This is the biggest lie of all. Whatever you may or may not think of Israel, there has never been any suggestion that they have a) threatened to use their weapons b) Sought to destroy any of their neighbours with nuclear weapons.

Whatever you think of Israel, Iran or any of the many issues which make this a very complex issue, the bottom line is that if the third world war is likely to start anywhere, any time soon, it's here. That is why all people of good intention should do everything in their power to diffuse this situation. We must all work to stop the proliferation of nuclear technology and we should all work to try and get the leaders of Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and all of the other powers in the region to act in the interests of the people who live there. I can't see any easy answers to these problems, but I passionately believe that Nuclear weapons are not in anyones interest.