One Barnet bidders Serco's MD takes Brian Coleman to lunch

You'll never guess what. I just happened to be researching the very latest installment of the Brian Coleman Free Dinner register, which is officially the most popular series of blogs ever to grace the Barnet blogging scene when, guess what? My old friend Mrs Angry had the audacity to pop up a nice shiny new blog all about outsourcing in Barnet. Well I'm always keen to see what the competition are up to, so I pootled off for a mosey.

( http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.com/2011/09/one-barnet-up-for-sale-welcome-to-house.html )

Now sadly for once, dear old Mrs Angry is not quite as up to speed as she could be on the subject of Brian Colemans views on OneBarnet. She is labouring under the misapprension that our beloved Councillor Brian Coleman who is also a £53 Grand a year GLA member and the £25 grand a year chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning authority wants to stick a spanner in the works of the One Barnet program. Now maybe beloved Brian may find it useful to give the impression that he's agnositic on One Barnet, but a quick look at the LFEPA gifts and hospitality register (The Brian Coleman Free dinner register as it's known in these parts), show that the last entry is this :-


31/08/2011 Lunch at Livebait, 43 The Cut, London SE1 8LF. Estimated value: £30.00.Jeroen Weimar - MD, Serco Group plc

(You can see the whole register here - http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/gh_brian_coleman.asp )

Now I've no idea what they discussed. For all I know, they spent the whole of their lunchtime discussing whether Torres is a good signing for Chelsea, but the fact of the matter is that Serco are bidding for hundreds of millions of pounds worth of business in Barnet and their boss is taking a senior Barnet Cabinet member out for a cosy lunch. Now if I was Jeroen Weimar and my company was bidding for such a massive contract and I've got one of Barnets most senior politicians eating lunch, I'd say "Well Brian, is this OneBarnet project a go'er or not". Given that he clearly thought our Brian was worth having lunch with, and Serco Ltd havent pulled out, it seems fair to conclude that any negativity attributed towards OneBarnet from Brian is purely for public consumption.

One has to conclude that if Coleman seriously wanted to scupper One Barnet (at least with Serco) he had the ideal opportunity. As Serco are still participating in an exercise which clearly will cost them a fair bit of money, we have to conclude that Brian didn't advise Mr Weimar to grab a bargepole and run.

It seems to me that a reassessment of the role of Brian Coleman and Council Leader Richard Cornelius in the One Barnet fiasco is highly called for by the assorted blogs of Barnet. Have we been spun a line? Well if we have, I suspect that some people may regret it sooner rather than later

The One Barnet pledge

As you know, Barnet Council is planning to outsource huge swathes of Council functions. There are two massive contracts. One is worth £750 Million and the other is worth £250 Million. These contracts are likely to be copper bottomed, guaranteed profits +. Anyone familiar with the situation in previous Barnet Council contracts - Catalyst got another £9 Million because they weren't making enough money. Aerodrome Road Bridge contractors got another £11 million, will know how this will go. When I back a horse, I check it's form. Barnet has form with contracts and contractors.

Now this blog most certainly doesn't give financial advice. It does however occur to us that in the event these contracts are placed, it would be a rather good thing to have as many shareholders in Barnet as possible, who could attend. Maybe we should set up a pledge on pledgebank to get 500 small investers from Barnet, who are prepared to attend the shareholders AGM and hold the companys to account.

I believe that in a capitalist democracy, small shareholders should get organised and make sure companies behave honestly and responsibly. I think it would be a great thing if the companies bidding knew we'd be joining them at their next AGM, should they win.

This blog has referrred to the OneBarnet project as the "Toxic One Barnet project". I suspect that the private companies bidding may find that they too may suffer from the Toxic Shock Syndrome associated with it.

It's a beautiful day today !!!!

Today may well be the last beautiful Sunday this year so get out and enjoy it. I'm off to take the doggy over Arrandene after lunch. Here is probably the best song ever written for such days. This is Moby Grape from 1968.

Cannabis farming in Barnet

The story on the Barnet Times website receiving the most hits and getting the most comments right now is concerning a police raid on a "massive cannabis factory in Hendon" -

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/topstories/9267025.Police_uncover__colossal__cannabis_crop_in_Hendon/?ref=mc

Now I'm not going to discuss the rights and wrongs of the "war on drugs" here. The thing I am interested in is how safe is the skunk weed grown in these establishments? Most of the users, when asked, would say "It's safe, innit, it's just a natural herb". Is the correct? Well lets look at how these factories grow the product. They use hydroponic systems (this means the plants are grown in water, with nutrients and insecticides derectly fed in. This encourages rapid growth. The biggest problem for such intensive setups is an insect known as the red spider mite. Many a hippy has had their day ruined, when their "vegetable patch" has been invaded by these nasty critters.

The gangs who run commercial operations have a simple solution to this. They use "systemic insecticides" to kill the buggers. Systemic insecticides are fed in with the nutrients in the watering system and make the plants poisonous to the mite. That way crop yeilds are assured. There is one downside. They are also bad for humans and persistent. You can't legally use them to grow vegetables for this reason. Illegal cannabis farms work under no such constraints and the people who run them have no interest in the long term health of their customers. When you smoke weed grown by such organisations, you've no idea what it contains.

What is my greatest concern is that the police and the authorities have no interest in raising public awareness of this issue. I've raised it on a few occasions only to be told a) Information is not collated on the techniques used to grow illegal crops and b)  It is not the job of the police to raise peoples awareness of health issues. I've also discussed it with doctors who tell me it's not the job of the medical profession to make drugs policy.

So while all of these departments bury their heads in the sand, millions of people, many of them young, are exposing themselves to chemicals that are carcinogenic, can potentially cause liver, kidney and pulmonary failure and are banned for use with products consumed by humans. You may ask what my solution would be. Well firstly I'd make the police log all chemicals associated with industrial production of cannabis. Anyone supplying cannabis containing dangerous levels of chemicals should be charged for offences which reflect the risk they contain. If Marks and Spencers were caught knowingly supplying tomatoes which had a massive health risk from system chemicals, those responsible would face all manner of serious charges.

Perhaps the most upsetting thing is that when I've raised this issue with people who are smokers, they invariably say "Oh no, I get the gear from my mate and it's proper gear, all grown organically" when it clearly isn't. It takes a while for the effects of ingesting such drugs to take effect. Many users will give up long before their lungs start to show the effects. Many don't tell their doctors that they are using or have used such drugs. Many doctors are not even aware of the risks. At some point, the penny will drop and it will be far too late for todays crop of habitual users.

I'd like to see a health awareness campaign, detailing the risks to be rolled out. I'd like to see the police photographing the chemicals and doctors explaining the effects. I'd like to destroy the myth that industrially cultivated cannabis is "organic", it isn't. It's grown by people with no reason to care about anything other than making a quick profit. They have absolutely no reason to care about their customers, because being in an illegal industry, they could get closed down at any time. I do care about the people who don't realise what they are doing to themselves. If you like to smoke weed, or you think your children do, please make sure they are aware of this risk. Many young people boldly say "Dying doesn't bother me". What they don't realise is that living with lung diseases is often what happens first. Sometimes people spend years carting around bottles of oxygen, due to issues with their lungs. I worry that this will become a lot more common in the years to come.

Fighting Cancer - why it is important

There are many reasons I write a blog. Strange as it may seem, probably the most important one is to try and make the world a little bit better. I'm an advocate of the "Think global, act local" school of thought, which is why I generally concentrate my efforts on Barnet. I realised that it would be extremely hard for a blogger to have much impact on national issues, but it would be relatively easy to have a big impact on local issues. This blog is not about the issues we normally cover. It is about something, in many ways far more important. As I write this, there are families all over Barnet struggling to cope with the effects of cancer. One of these families is that of Councillor Lynne Hillan, until recently the leader of Barnet Council. She is one of many victims of cancer in Barnet. Whilst we may have views on peoples politics, I'd sincerely hope that everyone in Barnet thinks it's a tragedy when anyone has to retire due to illness.

Let me share with you the horrible role cancer has played in my life and why I am trying my hardest to promote the Shine London Nighttime Marathon being staged for Cancer Research UK

I first became aware of cancer when I was eight years old. At the time I was a successful child model. I'd been the star of several very well known TV adverts, including Heinz Beans, Cadburys chocolate, Galaxy Chocolate, Lucozade and Dream Topping. I think I'm the only Barnet blogger who has been photogrpahed by David Bailey. My career came to an abrupt halt when my mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1970. When it was diagnosed, she was told that her chances of living more than 3 years were 5%. Fortunately, she did survive and made a complete recovery from a total gastrectomy.  In 1984, her consultant, Phillip King, told her that she was the only person he was aware of who survived for more than 5 years after the procedure she underwent. It was a huge cloud over our lives in my formative years. When my father broke the news to us, it was the only time in my life I ever saw him cry. Sadly my mothers resilience in the face of the disease gave me a completely false belief that the disease could easily be triumphed.

Shortly after my mother recovered, a friend of my parents developed a similar condition. We were invited around to see him. He gave me a fantastic fishing rod and explained "I won't be needing this now, so you can have it". Six months later he was dead.  My godmother succumbed to lung cancer shortly after. The lady who used to clean our house (who I always thought of as my de facto grandma), Mrs O'Keefe passed away, riddled with the disease. All of these before I left school. In my twenties, both of my mums brothers died of Cancer, within six months of each other. My best friend and the bass player in my band's dad developed lung cancer. He was lucky, he only lost his lung. His wife died of Lung cancer several years later. In 2001 my business partner at the studio, who was married with three children under 7 contracted pancreatic cancer. When he was first diagnosed he was 6'6" and 22 stone. Eight months later, he was 12 stone. He was still 6'6" if he stood on his left leg, but if he stood on his right leg, he was only 5'6" as it had been amputated below the knee. His eldest son has never really got over losing his dad. Three years ago my mother in law contracted lung cancer. She was told in January 2008 and died in March. In her final days, I went to see her. She was crying. She told me she'd had a dream that she was well and she was having a lovely time. She'd then woken up and realised she was not well at all, she was dying. It was a truly heartbreaking moment.

And here we are today. Please do something for me. Click on the play button, for this clip. Shut your eyes and listen to the tune and think (pray if that's your thing) of all your friends and family who you may have lost to Cancer. Then read on.


This piece of music was written by my great friend and former bassplayer in my band Paul Hircombe. Paul is a truly talented musician. He was planning to get married & sort himself out, having had a torrid time in the last few years. In April, he had just been offered a job and was about to start, when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer (as mentioned above his parents both had brushes with the disease). Paul is 46 and is currently undergoing his last bout of chemo. God willing, he will have the tumour removed, if it has shrunk sufficiently, in October. Paul has over the years helped me organise dozens of gigs for Cancer charities. We usually do an annual gig for MacMillan Cancer relief. We've even had Kate Nash on the bill (her mum Marie, who is a good friend of mine had a brush herself a few years back, fortunately she's OK).

So what do you do when something attacks your friends, family and loved ones? Well I believe in fighting back. That is why my good lady wife, Clare, has decided to do the Shine nightime walking marathon in aid of Cancer Research UK. I'd love to be the person who invented a cure for cancer, but I'm too thick. I'm not too thick to help raise cash for those that can. If you can spare anything at all, be it  £1, £2, £5, £10, £20, £30 or £50 please donate something by clicking this link.

http://www.sponsormetoshine.org/claretichborne

We are extremely lucky to live in an age where we have scientists who can develop vaccines and cures for diseases such as cancer. Whether they do it today, tomorrow or in a hundred years time, will largely be dictated by how much people such as you and I can raise. If we all give generously and do our best to raise funds, then the day a cure is found moves closer. This means less people will lose their mums, dads, sons, daughters and friends. You may or may not like me, you may or may not like my blog. What I am sure of is that you don't like the effects of Cancer. I urge you to sponsor this appeal as generously as you can.

There is more info here about the event - http://shine.cancerresearchuk.org/events/london

Thanks to everyone who has helped out so far. With the gift aid top up, it stands at £347.99 as of now (Sat 24th Spetember at 7.30) - Our target is to get this up to £500 by next Saturday when Clare does the marathon. Please help.

Name that Tory !!! Win a pot noodle !!!! - The Barnet Eye weekly competition

A friend said something last night, which caused me to pause and think. They casually mentioned that my blog is rather scathing of "all the Barnet Tory Councillors". I can understand why that may be the impression, but it's far from the truth. Firstly there are plenty of Conservative Councillors we've never insulted. Some of these, for the very good reason that they are actually invisible. I had a quick browse through the list of Conservative Councillors and sure enough, there are a few I've never heard of at all. I have a quick test for you. Can you name this Barnet politician?



Can you name this Barnet Councillor?

 Nope, it's not a young Ed Balls. It is a Barnet Conservative Councillor. A free Pot noodle for the first commenter to correctly identify the man. He's never been insulted by this  blog and I doubt he ever will be. I must say that given the antics of some of his more high profile colleagues, his low profile and lack of silly proclamations is a refreshing change.

Anyway if you can name that Tory, you will win a free Pot Noodle at North West London's finest music studios.

The Friday Joke - 23/9/2011 - Today is Councillor Robert Rams day in Barnet

Q: What is the difference between Councillor Robert Ramsbottom and International Rescue?

A: International Rescue have "Brains"

 

Barnet Council - Toxic OneBarnet legal advice from Trowers and Hamlins

Follow up on this blog - 
http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2011/09/barnet-council-exclusive-expert-legal.html

This document is an extract from specialist legal advice produced for Barnet Council by legal firm Trowers an Hamlin. It was not intended for public distribution. The Toxic One Barnet project is the right wing Tories mad scheme to outsource all of it's functions to large corporations. This document highlights the risks. I am amazed that Barnet Council have persisted with this scheme in light of this. I wonder if CEO Nick Walkley read this. If he has, I do wonder if he understood it.

As you can see they can hand over vast sums to private companies, but they retain all the risk, as any other entity is not legally recognised. For matters pertaining to Environmental Health, the authority is ultimately responsible. A whole new layer of bureaucracy will be needed, just to ensure the company does their job. the Local Authority will have to pick up the tab for this bureaucracy. It is also clear that the lawyers are rubbing their hands.

I had intended to do far more on this document, but life has got in the way. Expect more at the weekend and next week.

Barnet Council - Job advert for a freedom of information officer

If ever Barnet Council needed someone urgently to do a job, it's now. That is why the Barnet Eye is reproducing this advert from this weeks Edgware and Mill Hill Press, page 46, completely free of charge. Click on the advert for a more readable version. It's the one in the middle. We'd also be more than happy to carry adverts for a new CEO and Deputy CEO when we move into the post One Barnet era.

And why may you ask, is his blog so keen to see Barnet Council sort out it's freedom of information requests and what evidence do we have that the system isn't working and is in a complete mess. Well read this response from Barnet Council to Labour GLA candidate Andrew Dismore on the subject. It is a total disgrace.

Etz Chaim Latest - Open letter from the governors to the Mill Hill Action Group

Etz Chaim Jewish Primary School,

 

Dear Mr Coleman and the Mill Hill Action Group,

On the 5^th September 2011, we received a copy of your letter indicating your intention to start judicial review proceedings against the London Borough of Barnet. The decision you wish to review is their consideration of our planning application in light of the Equalities Act 2010 and in particular your concerns regarding the elderly and disabled in the community. We confirm that the School is an interested party but not formerly a party to litigation.

The timeframe and the manner in which the London Borough of Barnet respond to your letter is a matter for them.

As a direct result of your letter the Trustees have been reluctantly forced to retain legal representation and this letter should not be considered as a formal response to the contents of your letter.

This open letter in sent in good faith to be a constructive bridge building exercise. Throughout all of your literature and discussions with us you have repeated that you recognise the need for extra school places in the Mill Hill and support the School just not the location as set out in your slogan ‘Yes to Education, No to Location.’

The Garden Centre and the Aquatic Centre have now closed. Wyevale Garden Centre took the commercial decision to sell the site to us. We have been aware as to how unpopular, Wyevale’s decision to close and sell the site has been for many local residents.

As from 3^rd October 2011 the School Trust will be moving onto the site in preparation for developing it in readiness for September 2012. The School will not (and cannot under the terms of the contract it has signed with the Secretary of State sell the lease.

Any legal action that you bring against Barnet will directly threaten 80 local children’s education next year, something you have previously declared you do not seek to do.

As direct result of your actions you have already forced the local authority to use public money on litigation as opposed to public services.

At present it appears that your remaining motivation is simply to delay the opening of the main site.

You are aware as are the wider community that our planning application included opening up the site for some community use beyond the education of children.

We hope that you will now take a moment to consider withdrawing the threat of litigation and communicate this without delay to the London Borough of Barnet and to us. If you wish to explore what Barnet, the community and the School can deliver together then we would welcome a dialogue with you.

Whatever you decide to do, as we approach the Jewish New Year next week, we wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year.

The Trustees and Governors of Etz Chaim Jewish Primary School

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This letter has been reproduced in full and without editing. The Barnet Eye will be happy to publish any response from the Action Group. The Barnet Eye is happy to publish any such communications from any groups in Barnet which are relevant to local issues, as long as they are legal, decent and address a genuine local issue.