Tweet from Hendon Labour candidate exposes failure of Sadiq Khan's management of TFL

Nothing irritates me more than people claiming that putting sticking plasters over deep wounds caused by incompetence are huge victories. We are seeing plenty of this at the moment with the government claiming that they are doing a great job, by simply returing the economy to where it was before they lost control of it. If we are all worse off than we were when they were elected, they have failed. This is becoming endemic in UK politics. People claiming they are marvellous because they have had something to do with things just running as they should. 

When I looked at Twitter this morning, the first tweet I saw was one from the Labour candidate David Pinto-Duschinsky. Don't get me wrong, I quite like David. He strikes me as a decent enough chap, but I was gobsmacked that he was silly enough to post a boastful tweet, which probably seemed clever enough when posted, but simply showed that the Labour Mayor is failing massively with his management of TFL. This is what David posted

Thanks to our lobbying, @anne_clarke and I have secured a replacement bus service for Colindale.

The Deputy Mayor has just confirmed that TfL will lay on a free shuttle-the NL6-between Colindale station & Hendon Central during the station closure. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/mqYQOEJ49b

— David Pinto-Duschinsky 🇺🇦 (@DavidPintoD) May 21, 2024

I read the attached letter, and I was horrified. The closure of Colindale Station has been planned for years. TFL was created to manage London's roads, buses, tubes and trains. It's brief is to get Londoners around as efficiently as possible. When any station, road or rail line is undergoing a planned closure, the first thing that TFL planners should do is to plan alternative arrangements, to minimise the impact on people who use the services. What Mr P-D is claiming is that without hard work by himself and Anne Clarke, TFL, which is run by Sadiq Khan, would not have made proper arrangements for a station used by 5.5 million people a year5.5 million people a year. That is an absolutely shocking claim. 

I've no doubt that David D-P and Anne Clarke are decent, hard working politicians. However there are only two possibilities here. The first is that their friend, Labour Mayor is completely incompetent in his management of TFL or alternatively, TFL was doing it's job perfectly well and David and Anne were trying to hoodwink us into thinking they'd done lots of hard work on something which the non political TFL staff had in hand and had dealt with. 

So what is it? Is Sadiq Khan incompetent or is David Pinto-Duschinsky a bit of a bullshitter? Although I'm no fan of the local Tories, I do hope they make hay on this issue. It might serve as a lesson to our local political types that the people of the Borough of Barnet are not mugs. 

BTW The picture I used is from David P-D's latest leaflet. It pictures David walking past Greggs on Mill Hill Broadway with former Conservative councillor Sury Khatri. In the leaflet David states "I work in the private sector and goverment experienceto really deliver for you and get things done in our community". I was intrigued. I had a look at his Linkedin profile Linkedin profile (as any diligent blogger does). The only job he has listed is at a business consultancy called EY-Parthenon, where he has worked since 2021. I am not entirely sure that if I only had three years of business experience that I felt comfortable putting on my Linkedin profile, I'd make such a claim. On his 'My promises to you' section of the leaflet, number 4 states "I'll work had every day to earn your trust and show that Labour has changed". I am sorry to say that his recent Tweet has done nothing to convince me that this is true. 

Brian Coleman endorses his successor Anne Clarke as Prime Minister material!

It's not often that this blog agrees with former Mayor of Barnet and former GLA member Brian Coleman. However, we've never denied that he has brilliant (if sometimes feral) political instincts and is a great strategic judge of character of politicians. This was demonstrated by his take down of Boris Johnson when he was campaigning to be leader (which of course he won). Brian rightly predicted that Boris would be a disaster and correctly identified all of the character traits that would eventually lead to the undoing of Boris (and possibly the Conservatives). 

Over the last six months, Brian Coleman has been labelling his succsessor Anne Clarke, who is on the GLA member for Barnet and Camden (Brian was the GLA rep 2002-2014 until his bad behaviour saw voters tire of his behaviour and a 20,000 majority became a 20,000 loss), as "The Cricklewood housewife".

There's me just to the left of the Cricklewood Housewife !

— Brian Coleman (@BrianColeman251) November 22, 2021

Many had assumed (me included) that this was simply a misogynistic jibe, directed at Anne to undermine her. However, anyone who knows Brian knows that he's a man who studies political history and understands the nuances of Tory politics better than anyone. They will also know that he is a massive fan of Margaret Thatcher (the feeling was not mutual, according to my mum, who knew Maggie and had been urged by her to stand for Parliament in the 1970's, when the two worked together for a local charity. Maggie told my mum Parliament was full of useless men and it needed more competent women, even though my Mum would have stood for Labour). 

Over the weekend, I was discussing Brian's jibe with a friend and he said "You know that isn't an insult from Brian, it is a recognition of talent". I thought he was taking the mickey, so he said "If you don't believe me, google 'Finchley Housewife' " . This morning my wife reminded me of the conversation, so I did a quick google. 

The first article to pop up was from the Times in 2004. When I read it I was astounded.  The article states:

I first filmed her in 1975 when she challenged Ted Heath for the Tory leadership. Heath’s people dismissed her as the Finchley housewife, and Heath himself claimed she wanted to turn the Tories into a “middle-class preservation society”.

I raised this charge with her and asked whether she, seen as being a middle-class woman from the south, could win back lost Tory votes in the industrial north. “But it wasn’t I who lost those votes,” she replied. “It was Mr Heath. And he is a middle-class Conservative gentleman from the south of England.”

When I read this, I realised there was no way Brian would use the term 'housewife' as a cheap put down. He worshipped Thatcher and despised Heath. Brian Coleman, better than anyone, knew Thatcher drew strength from the jibe. When I saw his tweet, I originally thought he was simply being a plonker. When I read the article, I realised he was startstruck and the tweet was the best compliment he could pay Anne. I suspect that secretly, he may even had voted for her in the GLA elections (although of course he'd deny it). 

Anne is a friend and although we are members of different parties, I rate her. It hadn't occur to me that Brian rated her even more highly than I di and see's her as the first Labour female Prime Minister. He's not a man who would not be aware of Maggie's nickname from the Heathites. As he's not become a Heathite, it can only be the highest compliment Brian could pay a female opponent.  

Maybe it's taken a pandemic for me and Brian to see eye to eye on something!

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