Brian Coleman, Anti Semitism, hypocrisy and lies

A Jewish friend of mine said to me only the other week that if you scratch the surface of some of the polite middle classes living in Barnet you find the anti-semitism just below the surface, sometime they try and dress it up as anti-Zionism which they do not consider the same as anti-semitism but you cannot dispute the fact that those who want the State of Israel to disappear inevitable want the Jewish people to disappear as well.

 This is a quote from a blog by Brian Coleman on Monday. Many people withing the Jewish community in Barnet believe that Mr Coleman is an unwavering supporter of their interests and an unflagging and determined enemy of anti semitism. Mr Jonathan Hoffman of the Zionist league was a stalwart supporter of Mr Coleman throughout his battle with the Barnet Standards committee. Mr Coleman also mentioned this in his blog. He said

Veolia which is involved with excellent new light transit system in Jerusalem which is transforming public transport in that city whilst preserving the historic environment has been a particular target for attack but it is not the only business doing legitimate trade with Israel that has been targeted.The attempts to intimidate me over the North London Waste Authority procurement contract, which have included a series of politically motivated complaints to the Standards Board and an attempt to have me arrested at Camden town hall have just made me more determined to resist this new form of anti-semitism.

Mr Coleman failed to mention that the standards complaint was raised by Mr Rony Cohen, who is both Jewish and Israeli and who's wife had both holocaust survivors and victims in her family. Brian Coleman knows this only too well, as does anyone who has read the details of the standards complaint. In short Mr Coleman is alleging that Israeli Jews are not entitled to an opinion over the way their own country conducts his business, whilst he, who is neither Israeli or Jewish can say what he likes. In my book, by declaring that Mr Cohen is not allowed to have an opinion on the matter, Mr Coleman is clearly behaving in a most anti democratic and anti semitic way. If I were to say a black person is not allowed to hold a view, due to the colour of their skin, no one would deny this is racist, so why has no one challenged Coleman for his revolting and totalitarian view.

For the record, I personally do not support the issue of a boycott of Veolia. I actually agree with Mr Coleman on this issue, but I fully respect Mr Cohen and his genuinely held views. Whilst the issue is complex, on balance I do not think a boycott of Veolia is justified. There are many companies that deal with all manner of regimes, which are not subject to boycotts, especially the banks and oil companies. I think that building a transport system is not, by any stretch of the imagination on a par with some of the activities of other companies.

Mr Coleman is the worst type of politician. He is a hypocrite who gives large on certain issues when it suits him, but turns a blind eye or even worse, colludes when the mood suits him. I know this because that is how this blog came into existence. For those of you who are unfamiliar, I used to write a blog for the Hendon Times, but I got sacked from that. What for? I wrote a blog criticising Barnet Council for posting a video on You Tube which featured a Nazi sympathiser promoting, in crude terms, anti semitism in Barnet.

You may think that a so called champion of the Jewish Community such as Brian Coleman would have been the first person to back my campaign to have the video removed? Sadly, not only did Coleman say nothing at all about the video and take no action at all, he even put pressure on the Hendon Times to silence me. The then editor of the Hendon Times, Phil Crowther confirmed to me that this was the reason for closing down my blog. In his words "I can't afford for the paper to have a PCC complaint, because you've upset Brian Coleman". He explained that this would take two weeks of his time and he considered my blog to not be worth the hassle.

At the time, Brian Coleman was the cabinet member for community safety and community engagement. As such the presence of the video on the Barnet Council website was directly under his jurisdiction.  The video was only removed, when his boss, Mike Freer intervened.

I asked Jonathan Hoffman of his views on Coleman not supporting my campaign. His sole comment was "I was not aware of this issue". It seems that the whole of the Coleman clique develops miopia on the issue of the video. Brian Coleman tried to allege that his criticism of me in the standards case in 2009 was based on the fact I was an anti semite. He made this allegation on the Vanessa Feltz Show on BBC London 94.9. I immediately phoned Vanessa and drew her attention to the relevant blogs. The BBC then went to great lengths to distance themselves from Colemans libellous comments.

To this day, I cannot understand how Brian Coleman allowed himself to put his personal dislike for me above his professed dislike of anti semitism, especially if it is as genuine as he claims. I would never consider compromising my personal principles in such a manner. Until the day that Brian Coleman issues a personal apology to the Jewish community of Barnet for not addressing the issue at the time, I will be deeply skeptical of whether his anti semitism is anything more than the skin deep polite middle class disdain that he describes in his blog.

The offending  blog which caused my demise at the Hendon Times is the second blog I wrote on this website. You can read it by clicking here - Barnet Council's incompetance puts Nazi propoganda...

If you don't believe me, have a look at David Miller's blog. David is Jewish and the son of Baroness Miller of Hendon. He is a one time chair of Chipping Barnet Conservative association.  Here is his blog - Offensive Video

He also posted this blog to welcome the start of this blog - Rog T Is Back!.

It is a free country, Brian Coleman is free to write whatever he likes. It is the duty of the rest of us to point out when his blog is, shall we say, not quite as accurate as it could be. 

Jonathan Hoffman pickets Miriam Margolyes at the Arts Depot

Leading Zionist campaigner Jonathan Hoffman staged a protest at the Arts Depot against actress Miriam Margoyles, for signing a letter criticising the Globe Theatre for inviting an Israeli Theatre company  Habima (The National Theatre of Israel) to give two performances of The Merchant of Venice as one of its 37 Shakespeare plays in 37 languages season. 


Former Mill Hill Tory council Candidate, Richard Millet reports on the incident in his blog. He also shows a short video clip of a local resident giving Mr Hoffman short shrift for his campaign -  http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/protests-outside-arts-depot-against-anti-israel-actor-miriam-margolyes/ - clearly offended by this attack on a "national treasure". Some of the comments are (to me at least) rather interesting. One commenter is deeply offended that Ms Margolyes boasted of "helping a soldier to Mastibate (sic)". What an easily offended bunch of people read Richards blog.

What I'm going to say next will probably sound like heresy to most of my friends on the liberal left in Barnet. I actually feel a bit sorry for Mr Hoffman. The last time he was in action protesting, I met him and had a chat. He was leading a pro Brian Coleman protest when Brian was done for breaching the standards code. On that occasion he had two other protestors with him. His protest failed and Coleman lost.

On this occasion it seems he only had Richard along for company. It appears that the sell out crowd largley ignored him and it seems they all went in to see the show. As someone who has been to a few protests, there is nothing more disheartening than when no one else turns up and everyone by and large ignores you. I was warned after I spoke to Mr Hoffman at the Coleman hearing, that he was a dangerous and shady individual. I have to say that a bloke standing outside a theatre handing out leaflets which are largely ignored, is in my book no threat to anyone. I always feel quite relieved when we see oddball protests, which we don't really understand. To me it is all part of the fun of living in a democracy. Earlier this week I blogged about how a Russian punk band called Pussy Riot had been jailed for writing an Anti Putin song. The more people  that we have on the streets like Mr Hoffman, the less likely we are to see that happen here.

We need people like Mr Hoffman (whether we agree with them or not) to make peaceful protests. It is part of a democracy. We should also not be surprised when people meet such protest with complete apathy, when people think the whole thing is a complete waste of time.

You may wonder what my views are on Miriam Margoyles, her criticisms of Israel and Mr Hoffmans response. As Ms Margolyes is, like Mr Hoffman, Jewish, my view is that I'll leave them to have their argument well alone. They both clearly feel quite passionate about it and totally disagree with each other. The last thing they need is people like myself who are ill informed about the issues to stick their oar in. I'm sure if you have an interest in Israel or Palestinian issues, you will already have made your mind up and this little incident will only reinforce whatever views you already had. Anyway, I'm sure that having offended everyone with my comments here, I'm off to help at the FCHS annual Garden Fete. Have a pleasant Sunday.

Brian Coleman standards case - the aftermath and the cunning plan conspiracies

I was intrigued to see the deputy leader of the Zionist Federation, Jonathan Hoffman post an article on the Jewish Chronicle yesterday, following the Brian Coleman standards hearing. You can read this here :

http://www.thejc.com/blogs/jonathan-hoffman/brian-coleman-acquitted-disrepute-charge

I guess the question I have to ask myself is this. How exactly has Brian Coleman helped the causes which Mr Hoffman espouses, by failing to treat Barnet residents with respect? I have read the committee papers in full (I even posted them on this website a couple of months ago). I fully understand that Mr Hoffman does not like the case Dr Jago and Mr Cohen were making. I also understand that if they had made their comments to Mr Hoffman, he would have responded in far harsher tones. The point is that he is a private individual and has not signed up to the standards code of Barnet Council.

When we discussed the matter, Mr Hoffman suggested that the complainants were "baiting Brian Coleman" and seeking exactly the response they received. If this is the case, wasn't it an extraordinarily naive response from an experienced politician? Mr Hoffman suggested that there had been a concerted effort put into provoking Mr Coleman, purely to elicit such a response. Given that Mr Cohen and Dr Jago have won their case and managed to get Brian Colemans face plastered on all the papers for breaking the rules, surely this will only act as encouragement to similar campaigns in future? I daresay that I am the last person that Brian Coleman would ever listen to, but surely a few of his friends should take the time to explain the fact that when he behaves in this manner, he damages all of the causes he claims he supports?

Mr Hoffman asked me whether I thought Brian Coleman should stand idly by and let people send him emails which he found to be repulsive? That is actually a rather simple question to answer. He had a choice. he could have deleted them. This would have been the most effective course of action. If you get no response at all, then you'd soon conclude that it was pointless emailing someone. The point of view of the people winding him up would never have seen the light of day. If he really felt so strongly that he had to respond, he could have sent a perfectly polite response, detailing why he considered the people who were emailing him to be wrong headed. Surely as someone who is well acquainted with the background to the case (otherwise why get so upset) and a seasoned politician, knocking up a few sentences (which could be cut and pasted into numerous replies) would have sufficed. Had he said "Thank you for your email. I am sorry to say that I fundamentally disagree with you and have nothing more to say on the subject" would have sufficed. What would have happened then? Well for one thing, the arguments of those people he disagreed with, would not have received widespread coverage. If, as Coleman alleges, the emails were part of a campaign to elicit a response, the campaign would have failed. Just suppose Mr Cohen and Dr Jago had sat around cooking up a cunning plan to discredit Brian Coleman and his support for Israel, just what would they have done?

Cohen : "I have a cunning plan, lets send an email to Brian Coleman asking him to blacklist a company that does work in Israel, he'll get really cross and send a rude a reply and we can report him to the standards committee"

Jago : "Wow, that's a really cunning plan, he won't see that coming, I'll get all my mates to email him as well, then we can all report him"

Cohen : "Just think, he'll be all over the local papers an look really stupid"

Jago : "Ha Ha Ha, aren't we evil geniuses"

That seems to be the proposition Brian Coleman has come up with. Mr Hoffman explained that Brian Coleman had only sent his angry response after he'd received a hundred or so similar emails.  I've no idea what the truth of all of this is, but it seems that Coleman, Mr Hoffman and friends are all signed up to the cunning plan conspiracy theory. The sad thing is that none of them seem to accept that Brian Coleman was a tad silly falling for it.

Lets just hope that this time, Brian Coleman actually bothers to take up the training to stop him being tripped up by cunning plan conspiritors. I've no idea how much his boorish behaviour has cost the taxpayer, but please Brian, learn to behave.

Of course, maybe Brian Coleman had a cunning plan of his own? How would this go?

Brian Coleman : "I have a cunning plan, I'll send some rude email responses. Last time that got me on telly. They say all publicity is good publicity and God knows I need some at the moment with all of the parking cock ups I've made in Barnet"

Perish the thought. How much has it all cost the taxpayer?