"Boris, Boris, wake up. Wake up Boris"
"Boris have a look at this, and this, and this, and this"
"It's fantastic. Four of our top GLA tories Roger Evans, James Cleverly, Kit Malthouse and Tony Arbour's expenses. Between these four a mere two taxi bills and one of those, for Tony Arbour is shared with Val Shawcross, Boris shall we call the Evening Standard and say what a virtuous bunch us Tories are"
Boris looks up at his new assistant with a dolefull, sad, world worn look "I'm afriad we can't possibly do that. You clearly haven't heard of our good friend Brian Coleman".
As regular readers will know, whilst the above four GLA Tories have managed 1 & 1/2 Taxi journeys between them at the public expense, Brian Coleman has managed rather more. Now you may think "Well if he's working hard, that is fine". We here at the Barnet Eye decided to have a closer look. Amongst the 37 taxi fares claimed on his GLA expenses (Click Here for the full list), these particularly caught my eye. I've put in a little cross reference against the Gifts and hospitality register to highlight exactly what events 2 of these 4 claims are for.
73.41 12/3/08 Taxi N2 & City Hall to Royal Albert Hall Sw7
81.07 12/3/08 Taxi Royal Albert hall to N2 & N3
40.02 15/3/08 Taxi N3 to Lords Cricket Ground NW8
15-MAR-08 Westminster Civic Dinner at Lord's Ground,
Marylebone, London NW8
58.77 15/3/08 Taxi Lords Cricket Ground to N2 & N3
62.40 29/3/08 Taxi N3 & N2 to Central London Synagogue
84.54 29/3/08 Taxi Central London Synagogue to N2 and N3
96.03 11/11/08 Taxi N2 & City Hall to Royal Albert Hall Sw7
11-NOV-08 Two tickets for Music for Youth Concert at the
Royal Albert Hall and refreshments
58.57 11/11/08 Taxi Royal Albert hall to N2 & N3
You may ask what is special about these journeys. Well it seems to me that not only are we paying for a Taxi for Brian Coleman, we are paying for one for a guest of his. You will notice that the journey back from all of these outings was to N2 & N3. It looks to me as if Brian's guest actually ran up more taxi fares at the public expense than several of the other top Tories put together. Maybe this is within the rules, maybe he's done nothing wrong, all I can say is that to me the whole thing stinks.
If you see Boris Johnson pass this message on from me "Wake up Boris, sack Brian Coleman before he fatally tarnishes your regime."
You are doing no favours whatsoever to the chaps listed above, who are completely blameless, yet are tarred by association. We in the London Borough of Barnet are lumbered with him for the time being. You can sack him at LFEPA any time you like. What are you waiting for?
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