Tuesday, 10 September 2013

How good is your council - results

Last week the Barnet Eye ran a survey of all Barnet Councillors - The good council test - Rate your council. We were trying to ascertain their commitment to good governance, value for money and high standards of behaviour.  Of the 63 Barnet Councillors,  we received a read receipt from 29, indicating they had bothered to read the survey.  Of those 8 actually bothered to send some sort of response.

The Lib Dem group faired best with 2 out of three responding, although Jack Cohens response stated that he never responded to online surveys. Cllr Palmer used the survey to draw attention to his efforts as chair of the audit committee to be inclusive towards the public and deal with the concerns of residents. The majority of other answers indicated a negative view of the behaviour of Barnet Council.

The rest of the responses were from Labour Councillors. All believed the council to be undemocratic and badly run, with all responses indicating a negative view of the council. Personally I find it appalling that our Conservative Councillors cannot between them muster a single response. One has to assume that they know they have nothing to shout about and are embarrassed. This blog gets over 40,000 page views a month. The majority of these visitors are people who are concerned about the place they live. When we last asked our readers, 35% of the readers identified themselves as Conservatives.

The Barnet Eye invites guest blogs from readers. We are more than happy to publish guest blogs from critics of our stance on issues. We do not edit these and so long as they are not libellous we publish them. No Conservative Councillor has aver even asked. Of the Barnet Conservative Councillors, only Robert Rams bothers to write a blog about Barnet and regularly engages with Twitter. Matthew Offord MP protects his tweets so only people he selects can see them. There is a massive problem with engagement in Barnet between the ruling administration and the public.

Please take a minute to look at the list and identify your councillors. Do you recognise them? Are you aware of anything they have done in the last three and a half years? Have they served their community? Have they protected the rights of the vulnerable? Have they blocked unsightly, unattractive and unwelcome planning proposals? Have they taken the time to ensure value for money for the taxpayer.

Some have at least tried. The Barnet Eye has praised Conservatives when they have done the right thing. Examples of this are Kate Salinger for breaking Party whip and declining to vote for a pay rise for councillors. We praised Robert Rams for his blog raising awareness of the issues associated with diabetes. We have praised Sury Khatri for his efforts to ask questions about One Barnet. There are many other examples. On the Labour side, Kath McGuirk, Barry Rawlings, Alan Schneiderman, Andreas Ioannedis and Pauline Coakley Webb have particularly caught the eye for involvement in community campaigns. For the Lib Dems, Jack Cohen and the Palmers have been exemplary local councillors. The Barnet Eye does not belong to any party or represent any particular view. Whilst we are left of centre on social issues and provision of public services, we would class ourself as right of centre in issues relating to small business. We believe small business is vital to a vibrant economy. We would like to see deregulation of many areas affecting small business (specifically companies with less than 30 people on the payroll). Our views on transparancy are in line with the stated view of senior conservatives (although we see scant evidence of any commitment to implement them). We would like to see the highest standards of behaviour in politics. We believe that it is necessary to draw a balance so that people can benefit from the efforts of hard work, but those in need, or who are vulnerable have a safety net to ensure they have a decent quality of life. We do not believe that the poor, vulnerable and disturbed should sleep on the streets and rely on charity handouts for basic shelter and sustainance.  We would hope that in a civilised society this is not seen as an extreme or controversal view.

 Here are the full results of the survey. Please note that "didn't read" means didn't return a read response. It is possible that councillors chose not to send a read response. As we specifically stated we would publish the results, we assume that if they did read the survey and wanted to be identified as such they would let us know. 


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Monday, 9 September 2013

Blasphemy Special - The right to free speech

Lets get the week off to a good start. One of the liveliest debates of recent times on this blog was when I covered and inadvertently misrepresented the Archbishop of Athieism Richard Dawkins. Mr Dawkins has the rather annoying habit on twitter of not posting replies to his subjects, just leaving comments, so when I saw a comment he'd posted, I took it out of context. This provoked what I found to be a rather interesting debate with a few people on the subject of belief and the belief in the lack of belief.

Anyway, this morning I noticed another rather odd tweet from Mr Dawkins




Not being familiar with Mr Dawkins use of the term "flying spaghetti monster" for God, I was intrigued. Anyway, I followed the link and found that the story which concerned Mr Dawkins was the indictment and possible imprisonment of four bloggers who made derogatory comments about Islam.

It made me pause for thought about my views on blasphemy. Technically the four are not on blasphemy charges. Blasphemy is insulting God. The four bloggers are held on charges of insulting Islam, which as best I understand it is a wholly differenjt thing. Islam is a man made institution, which aims to preserve and propogate the teachings of the prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him). Anyone who doubts this, should consider how many different branches of Islam there are and see how these different factions view each other (factionalism is not unique to Islam, I hasten to add). Now my own personal view is that any institution should be able to take criticism, especially one which claims to have authority from God. As a member of the Roman Catholic church, I have witnessed only too well how the inability to engage with critics has nearly destroyed the moral authority of the church to all but ardent believers. Any institution which uses its power to silence critics and hide scandals is pretty much doomed. The Catholic church has paid a heavy price for hushing up and hiding the scandal of paedophile priests. In this case, the church initially used every lever to suppress and discredit victims, the very people the church should stand up for. It entered a state of denial and behaved in the most appalling way imaginable. People who had suffered terrible abuse were treated as the guilty party and all manner of lies an innuendo were spread. The trouble is that you cannot suppress the truth.

In the case of the four bloggers in Dhaka, the state and the religious authorities are looking to impose draconian sentences to suppress expressions of free speech. If you belong to a religious congregation, theoretically every other religious or athieist viewpoint is blasphemous, sacreligious and insulting. If we followed this through to its logical conclusion, we'd all be locked up. The only way any of us can get by is to agree to differ and respect each others right to express ourselves. There are people who I know who post highly offensive comments on twitter and facebook. If it upsets me, I don't follow them. If someone else retweets them, so I see it, I ignore it. If you find this blog offensive, the stop reading it. Simple as that. Any institution that cannot take criticism, in my opinion is deeply flawed and is probably hiding something.

Let us now consider blasphemy. Blasphemy is the insulting of God, not his institutions on earth. How do I feel about this. Well I tend to think God is a big boy (excuse the genderisation). When Richard Dawkins calls God "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" it is surely blasphemy of the most henious kind. I do however believe this is and issue for Mr Dawkins to resolve with God. It is no one elses business. Mr Dawkins clearly feels that God doesn't exist, so he can say what he likes. I tend to think he has every right to do so. If any belief I had was so flimsy that I'd be insulted or hurt by Mr Dawkins, then perhaps it is me who has the problem.

In the Catholic tradition, we were brought up to believe in Judgement day, when all of the lost souls would be cast into Hell. My teachers told me that murderers, thieves, adulterers and blasphemers would be tossed into a burning furnace, tormented forever by fiery Jack. This was my incentive to be a good boy and eat my greens. Is Mr Dawkins as cupable as Adolf Hitler, because he assembled all of the information before him and decided that if there was a God, he was a winged Sphagetti Monster? I really don't know, but I suppose I'd be a tad disappointed if this was the case. I had this conversation with an acquaintance who is a fundamentalist. She informed me that Dawkins was worse than Hitler, because he was actively seeking to turn people against God by use of logic and reason. I was shocked by this proposition. I believe that anyone with faith should have good reasons to have faith and should have logically arrived at their conclusion. I have found that with ideological athieists, it is virtually impossible to explain the benefits of faith and organised religion. The benefits of community and quiet reflection, the urging to do acts of charity and the sense of mission to make the world a better place are concepts that they cannot understand in a religious context. I respect all viewpoints. I don't dislike people who have views I consider odd or strange, I wouldn't insult someone for this.

Where I do draw the line is when other people expect me to conform to their religious viewpoint. This could be  the religious right fundamentalist or the Athieist or the Judge in Dhaka who feels my blog should follow his ideology.

I stand with anyone who believes in the right to religious freedom, freedom of expression, the freedom to blaspheme and the freedom to insult if we think this is necessary and called for. If you are a religious person, then use the example of the way you live your life as the riposte to people who insult you. There are two possible outcomes for blasphemers, either Richard Dawkins is right and absolutely nothing will happen, because when they die, that is it. If that is the case, they are not blasphemers and so there is no price to pay. The other alternative is that there is a God and that God will act as they see fit towards the blasphemers, in which case it really is none of our business anyway. I am personally a highly superstitious person. I must confess that blasphemy does make me feel uneasy (a result of my upbringing), as I think that it is never wise to take risks with the unknown. I have a friend who calls such superstitions "Fire Insurance". I personally can't understand why anyone would want to insult other peoples beliefs or take a chance (however small) with such matters, but I guess that most of you will just put this down to superstition and ignorance. 

The bottom line is that I am pleased we live in a society where people have the freedom to blaspheme and insult, but I wish people would not use that right unless they think it is absolutely necessary.
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Sunday, 8 September 2013

Barnet Conservatives, sexism and misogyny

Yesterday I saw the following tweet from Louise Burfitt-Dons




As the Tories at the GLA have a state sponsored spin doctor, I immediately asked Louise if she supported this arrangement. I then decided to look at what she had to say on other issues. 

Louise is hoping to stand for the Conservative Party as a Euro MP candidate. You can read all about her views, they are quite interesting here http://www.louise4london.com/, I found her views on the role of feminism and women in the Conservative Party most interesting - http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/louise.html.  As I read this article, I was intrigued to speculate as to what Louise might think of her Tory colleagues in the London Borough of Barnet Capitaville. Louise might be rather surprised to find that Barnet is a hotbed of sexism and misogyny. Last year we had then senior Tory Brian Coleman call female members of the public "two old hags" during a council meeting. Coleman was not reprimanded, in fact most of his male colleagues chuckled at this sexist comment. Later in the year, Coleman beat up local businesswoman Helen Michael. He was not censured by the local party. The affair became so embarrassing that the national party stepped in and suspended his membership. Coleman subsequently pleaded guilty to the assault. Not a single word of apology from the local Conservatives to Ms Michael has been spoken. The sexism is not just limited to senior levels. Local Tory blogger Daniel Hope (a former Tory Councillor, deselected from Brunswick Park ward for his inability to work with Councillor Tambourides) left a highly sexist and patronising comment on Twitter



The "Psychic Babs" he refers to is Barbara Horn-Jacobson. Barbara is the media spokesperson for the Barnet Alliance for Public Services. Barbara is a well qualified professional project manager. Hope seeks to belittle her and patronise her in such a sexist manner as he clearly lacks the wit or intelligence to actually have a counter argument to her criticisms of the local Conservative group policies. Like many sexist trolls on the internet, if a woman makes a sensible argument, Hope responds with sexist insults, belittling the intended victim, in a manner designed purely to intimidate them into shutting up.

It will not come as much of a surprise that both Coleman and his old mate Hope have worked together to gang up on poor unsuspecting locals, spreading all manner of inaccurate gossip and distortions, here is one such example, where they have monstered the North Finchley town team (a group including many community minded local people, with no political affiliation).



In her article Louise says
The majority of conservative voters who happen to be women tend to be pragmatic, realistic, family-friendly, perspicacious, and - if you consider putting the needs of their husbands, children or dependent relatives ahead of their own gratification and ego if and when the time calls for it – super smart. In this way the MAHM The group Mothers at Home Matter, which wants the Government to tax families on the basis of household, rather than the individual, have a strong point. They need support.
This is a fine aspiration, but while Barnet male chauvenist Tories such as Coleman and Hope continue their playground level insults, surely no sensible female Tory would consider voting for them. Helen Michael, who Brian Coleman assaulted is a highly intelligent business woman, as well as a mother of two. If the Barnet Tories had an ounce of common sense, they would have listened to her views on parking in 2011, when she first started campaigning. Instead they followed Coleman, who to the best of my knowledge has never run a business and has little experience of working in the private sector. As a result the Barnet Tories lost a potentially massive vote winning asset.

Louise is spot on with her analysis. The Tory Party needs successful women to engage with them, support them and work for them. To do this, they will have to cast out the trolls and treat women with respect. Whilst Coleman was eventually booted out (following his conviction), there has been no action or apology from the party for the his misogynistic behaviour. There have been no tweets from Barnet Tories disassociating themselves from Daniel Hope and his sexist and patronising comments. Much as I disagree with many aspects of Conservative philosophy, I cannot imagine that it is good for democracy for the largest political party in the country to be such a hostile environment for successful women. In Barnet, it is worth pointing out that perhaps the most highly respected Conservative Councillor is Kate Salinger. She is recognised as having integrity and being honest and trustworthy. She makes a good case for why the Conservatives should listen to Louise. I would suggest that if Louise wants to succeed in her mission, she would do well to have a behind closed doors meeting with some of her dinosaur colleagues in Barnet and let them know why they need to start living in the 21st Century.

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Saturday, 7 September 2013

The Saturday List #42 - words where the meaning has changed

I was listening to the radio yesterday and I heard the term "tranny" to describe a transistor radio. It was the first time I'd heard that particular word, used in that way for years. I thought that "words where the meaning has changed" would be a good Saturday list. Feel free to add your own.


1. Tranny.

2. Gay

3. Wicked

4. Fit

5. Spam

6. Posted

7. Mincing

8. Cool

9. Creep

10. Resigned

The first book I read was 1984 by George Orwell. I found some of the concepts fascinating, but back in 1974, I found the Orwellian concept of "NEWSPEAK" ridiculous. On Thursday night I was having a conversation with some friends in the pub and one asked if I could remember the signs outside John Grooms building on the A41. There was a big sign saying "Cripples Crossing". John Grooms home was known as the "the Crippleage". Many words in common use in the 1970's have been deemed "not fit for purpose" and replaced with more neutral terms. Perhaps the reason that English has become the pre-eminent language of international business is because it is adaptable and we have no sacred cows. It will be interesting to see what words commonly in use today have disappeared or had their common meanings changed. If I went back to 1963 and said 

I awoke to turn on the Tranny. The lovely music made me feel so Gay but the news listed some Wicked events and deflated my mood. A Cabinet Minister has Resigned for telling lies to the House of Commons.  I saw my neighbour exercising in the garden. She is rather Fit, sadly though I am addicted to Spam and other less than healthy delights. I walked to the Post Office and Posted some notices. I then saw the Butcher. His shop is rather Cool. My pet Beagle would Creep in and nab the odd sausage whilst the Butcher is busy Mincing.

I doubt anyone would have sniggered or even batted an eyelid. How the world changes !

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