Last night Barnet Council debated the budget for the coming year. This blog was disgusted to learn that Barnet Council had banned the addition of names of any servicemen who have died since World War II from being added to local war memorials. This decision was taken by the Commercial manager of Barnet Council, purely on grounds of cost. Even more crass is the decision that even if the public raise the money, they will still not be allowed to have the names added.
Mill Hill Liberal Democrat Councillors decided that something had to be done and Wayne Casey proposed a budget amendment allocating £2,000 to cover the cost of adding the names of any brave servicemen to local war memorial. Just to give you some idea of what a small amount this is, several Conservative Councillors are chairmen of committees which meet for less than an hour a year. For this work they get an allowance greater than this. In other words, it is a pittance in council terms.
Leader of the Council Lynne Hillans excuse was that "The council had told the press that they were going to do something". She said that the amount was insufficient as it would "only cover the work and wouldn't cover the necessary research". What was the research required for? To "ensure that the name hadn't been added to another memorial somewhere else". Well so what. Just suppose your son is born and raised in Mill Hill. At age 18 he goes to Oxford University. He then joins the Army and is killed in Afghanistan. Oxford Unversity immediately add him to their war memorial. So what? Is Lynne Hillan saying that he shouldn't be commemorated in Mill Hill where his friends and family live?
The Borough has an archive. This already exists. Organisations such as the Royal British Legion are more than willing to substanciate any claims brought forward. Barnet Council can afford allowances of thousands of pounds to pay dimwit Tory Councillors to chair committees which meet once a year, but think that putting names of soldiers on war memorials is a "frivalous expense".
As to Lynne Hillans proposal that there is a single war memorial "somewhere in the Borough" for all of the servicemen who died post WWII. Barnet is a huge Borough. Heartless Hillan seems to think that the families of these brave men and women should have to trudge across the Borough to pay their respects, when there are perfectly good war memorials locally. As you drive around Barnet, you see roadside flowers all over the place, where families commemorate their loved ones killed by cars. It amazes me that as a mother, Lynne Hillan has no empathy for those people who might wish to do the same at their local war memorials, to celebrate the lives and sacrifices of their brave sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mums, dads, grandmas and grandads.
I stated before that if Barnet Council refused to do anything, I'd organise a march on the Town Hall to show our disgust at this. Barnet Tories had the chance and they chose to snub our servicemen.
On a personal note, you may wonder why this matters to me. My father was a bomber pilot in world war II. He was shot down over Ploesti in Romania in 1944, flying a Wellington Bomber. His best friend, Flt Officer Andrew "Spud" Murphy, rear gunner in his plane was killed. He is buried in a cemetry in Romania. His grave is immaculately maintained. Romania has the dignity and respectfulness to honour people who were bombing and and killing its citizens, recognising their bravery in the fight against fascism, whilst Barnet Council won't even spend less than half what it spent sending council officers to property development conferences in the South of France last year, to commemorate the Borough of Barnets finest. I was brought up to appreciate the sacrifice of our servicemen. It seems that the Conservative Leadership of Barnet Council were brought up with different standards.
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