Here we go again

So this Tuesday night I got on the 125 bus, I have sold my car and made my way to Hendon Town Hall as is my want to the Annual Meeting (NOT the Annual General Meeting as the Council Press Office called it ) of Barnet Council .I think this may be my thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Council having been every year since 1993 except of course the year Brian Salinger was elected Mayor . The Town Hall was looking tired especially as the spring bedding has died and the Summer bedding has not been planted yet which was something I used to insist on .

One of the bright young Conservative Councillors came up to me and asked if I was going to write a blog this year which I was not planning to do but as they say by popular demand here we go .

The retiring Mayor Councillor Alison Moore has actually been a very good Mayor outside the Chamber . Inside the Chamber whilst chairing meetings she has been a bit too partisan according to one or two Conservative Councillors. She has of course led the Borough over the Platinum Jubilee, the death of the Queen and the Coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla as well as doing the endless round of visits that all Mayors do and all this she has done with due dignity, grace and in a friendly and approachable manner . I will personally always be grateful to her for sparing the time to attend my late Mother's funeral last June . 

Alison has been ably supported by former Councillor Helen Gordon as her Mayoress . Helen had a "reputation" twenty five years ago as a fierce, determined and a firebrand and was universally disliked by the then Conservative Group, and a significant number of Council Officers and rumour had it by a number of her own side but twenty years off the Council has mellowed her and she has behaved as a complete softee as Mayoress and frankly I have been impressed !

In my role on the Executive Committee of the London Mayors Association I see all the 32 Borough Mayors in action at London wide events including the Annual LMA Dinner , the Civic Service in Westminster Abbey and the Mayors walk from Whittington's cat statue to Mansion House . Alison has behaved impeccably and not tried to turn  any occasion into a "selfie" opportunity ( yes Mayor of Lambeth I am thinking of you ) . I am delighted to say that Alison Moore thought it was totally inappropriate when some Mayors thought they should petition the King and ask for an invitation to the Coronation ! 

The London Mayors Association is by the way a non Party Political members organisation for men and women who have been Mayor of a London Borough which organises social events and has increasingly become the guardian of the Civic Mayoralty which is under attack in many of our Boroughs . In fact next Saturday the LMA will undertake its annual "Mayors Training Day " for all the new Mayors (yes Mayors get trained these days !) and in my address I have had to add a section about Mayors taking selfies and that it is not appropriate for the Mayor to ask the King for a kiss during a Royal visit . 

Anyway back to Tuesday night . The big news was the Councillors robes had been cleaned and repaired and the majority of Conservative Councillors looked very smart . I was particularly taken by Councillor Shuey Gordon who told me he was wearing the robe worn by his late Father Councillor Brian Gordon . I am sure the much missed Brian would have been very pleased . Looking tanned and fit was Councillor David Longstaff who had recently returned from the West Indies where he had married his partner of twenty nine years and his Mayoress Gillian who was seated on the back row of the Chamber with a selection of other former Mayors and Mayoresses . Although quite why former Mayor Reuben Thompstone though it necessary to force his nine year old son to sit through the ceremony was beyond me . 

I was seated for a change in the body of the Chamber between the redoubtable Past Mayor Agnes Slocombe and and the senior Past Mayoress on parade (1993/94) Mrs Shelia Lyon now approaching 89. I suspect Shelia and I were the only people in the Chamber who had any clear memories of Mrs Mary Goodman a Past Mayoress who the Mayor announced had died and for whom Councillor Richard Cornelius got up and paid tribute . Nobody realised that the story Richard told about Mary was a mangled version of a Coleman anecdote about another long forgotton Mayoress.....................

Councillor Kath McGuirk disgracefully overlooked for appointment to the Cabinet in her eyes anyway , paid tribute to former East Finchley Labour Councillor and indeed Labour Leader John Davies who retired from Barnet before some members of the new Cabinet were born . Kath reminded us that he fought Mrs Thatcher in the General Election of 1987 and how furious Mrs T was that the declaration was not till half past three in the morning . I was told when she heard David Dimbleby on the BBC saying "Mrs Thatcher is on her way back to Downing Street " she yelled at the TV in the Mayor's Parlour " No I am not I am still stuck here at the Town Hall ! " Barnet counts were ever thus ..............

The new Mayor, Councillor Nagus Narenthira was duly elected and installed and, except that she appears to be a enthusiastic paid up member of the Andrew Dismore appreciation society I suspect she will be fine .

The Leader of the Council (yes still) Councillor Barry Rawlings announced his Cabinet who all seem to have bizarre and meaningless job titles along the lines  of Cabinet Member for Apple Pie and Motherhood. As Councillor Longstaff pointed out the words "Children" , "Education" and "Safeguarding" appear in nobody's job title .  The new Labour Members have merrily voted for the Cabinet system like Turkeys voting for Christmas and have consigned themselves to 3 years of powerlessness on the back benches . Do not say you were not warned ......

Barry's speech on the achievements of the last year was mercifully short (rather like the list of achievements ) and appeared to consist of setting up a Citizens Assembly on climate change and er that is it . Quite what happened to the promised Autumn rebate on Council Tax promised in his speech last year nobody asked but we all know the Officers persuaded him to quietly drop it . 

Well done to Councillor Tony Vourou on being appointed Deputy Mayor . Tony is a fixture on the Barnet Political scene with friends across the Political Parties and rather proves that persistence pays off. Mystery surrounds the Deputy Lieutenant who made a song and a dance of leaving the Chamber early but still managed to be at the buffet afterwards apparently he does not like the Party Politics which creeps into the latter stages of the meeting . I suspect Her Majesty the Queen hated various bits of successive Queens speeches at the opening of Parliament but that is the job . 

Anyway the meeting lasted an hour and twenty minutes and then we all adjourned for the buffet where a good time was had by all and the real business of the evening was done . 

 There was a long list five or six of Labour apologies and one Conservative which if you cannot be bothered to attend the Annual Meeting is a sure sign you are pissed off and that old war horse John Marshall told me he was not attending the Annual Meeting as he hated them when he served on the Council and was blowed if he was attending now he did not  have to (an attitude adopted by a few ex Mayors ) . So as I boarded my 125 bus I thought do I miss it ? You decide reader ! 

Life at the top!

There are many weird and wonderful traditions on Barnet Council some of which have been in place since the Council was set up in 1965 others which have "developed" over the years and most of which add to the efficient running of the Council or the gaiety of Civic life or both.

One tradition that used to exist was that the immediate past Chief Executive's official portrait was hung in the corridor outside the Chief Executive's office. Leo Boland ended this tradition in 2001 when he ordered the removal of Max Caller's portrait from the Town Hall on the grounds (quite rightly) that Officers on the whole should remain anonymous and it is elected  members who should take all the glory.

Max Caller was the Chief Executive of Barnet Council when I was first elected and therefore I have judged all subsequent Chief Executives of the various public bodies I have served on against him.

Before Mr Caller, Barnet had a Town Clerk, a lawyer who was a semi God like figure to staff and indeed Councillors. The two previous Town Clerks, Mr Williams and Mr Bennett, I don't even think their wives addressed them by their Christian names, still have there names painted on certain old statutory notices in parks and allotments with the phrase "by Order of the Town Clerk" etc... etc... and in their day it was by order !

Max Caller was not a solicitor in fact he was an extremely accomplished engineer who made his name in Barnet as an efficient Borough Engineer (a title now sadly replaced by some meaningless Assistant Director post ) and was the first to use the title "Chief Executive" because in those days the title "Town Clerk" needed a legal qualification . However he made up for this by wearing the Town Clerk's wig and gown on every possible civic occasion. Mr Caller whose post Barnet career took him to Hackney and briefly Haringey and earned him a CBE is now running the Local Government Boundary Commission and last time I saw him (inevitably at a funeral) was busy deciding the fate of the Councillors of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea who unwisely have requested a re-drawing of Ward Boundaries .

In the days before e-mail Councillors wrote letters to Officers about constituents issues and no matter how trivial the matter a Councillor always received a reply signed by Mr Caller in his distinctive green ink. Woe betide an Officer who was dealing with a member and did not keep the Chief Executive in the loop! Some considered Max a control freak I thought he just had a huge capacity for hard work, a knowledge of the Council second to none, an understanding of the pressures on Politicians, a first class brain, an ability to serve whomsoever the electorate had given him to work with and a remarkable attention to detail. So, what if he supposedly occasionally lost his temper, he never did with me and indeed was always willing to guide and encourage new Councillors. He did however drive Politicians of all Parties mad (from Lady Thatcher downwards) by his inability to finish an election count before the Western Isles constituency. Sadly this is another Barnet tradition which still exists!

Max was succeeded by the modernising Leo Boland (no wig and gown for him) whose expertise on strategy and policy development meant some of the attention to service delivery  detail shown by Mr Caller and important to most councillors and the public was left to others. Leo was a Chief Executive for the post 2000 Local Government Act, which created the dreadful Cabinet system era whereas, under Mr Caller Councillors of all Parties who phoned the Chief Executive were put through under Mr Boland the Chief Executive would "phone you back when his meeting had finished".

However Leo's wide knowledge of Local Government thinking and ability to interpret "New Labour" Government policy direction lead the Council to fundamentally examine how it was going to do business in the future. The disadvantage is that constant reorganisations seemed to promote the Marxist theory of revolutionary chaos and Councillors often had no idea who was responsible for certain services from one week to the next. Traditional Council  Officers (nicknamed men in cardigans by the Chief Executive) departed in droves with their pay-offs and pensions. Mr Boland was a Chief Executive who could deliver change and hence I was a passionate supporter of his appointment as Boris Johnson's Chief Executive at City Hall in 2009, an appointment that sadly ended in tears, but that is a story for my forthcoming book.

Following Mr Boland came Nick Walkley. I did not serve on the Appointment panel , I do not think the then Leader trusted me to make the "right" decision and there was some disquiet amongst the ruling Group who perceived the new Chief Executive as far too close to the thinking of the Labour Government, he had spent a year on secondment at the Department of Communities and Local Government and far too susceptible to whatever Local Government fad was in favour that week, whatever did happen to "Total Place". Some less Charitable Conservative Councillors considered him the then Leaders "puppy" no doubt as a result of his habit of nodding his head enthusiastically during the Leaders speeches, but as he also did it during my speeches and indeed during virtually all members speeches I put it down to an in built politeness to elected members. I was however dubious that car owning Barnet could have a Chief Executive who did not drive !

But Mr Walkley proved to have balls and a surprising respect for Civic Life. His insistence that Council Directors should escort Councillors at Remembrance Day wreath laying ceremonies across the Borough and should fork out of their own pockets for tickets to the Mayor's Charity Dinner was a welcome change.

However it was clear that despite his strength of character and the most disgraceful and personalised abuse by the sad , mad and the thoroughly nasty (and supposedly angry) , all was not well in the State of Denmark, (I am fond of my Shakespeare) and the shock amongst Councillors at his sudden departure and for Haringey of all places is palpable. Perhaps they are old fashioned but some Councillors apparently think that for 200,000 a year a certain amount of loyalty to the Borough would not have been out of place. 

Having been appointed by an Administration lead by a radical and reforming Conservative Leader (Mike Freer) there is a theory that Mr Walkley was not as comfortable with a more traditional Conservative Leader determined not to throw out the baby with the bathwater who is more relaxed with Government at all levels doing less and achieving more .

Somehow I do not think Mr Walkley's portrait will be appearing on the wall of the Town Hall soon................

As for the future, does the Borough need a Chief Executive? After Leo Boland left City Hall the post was abolished, where Boris leads, Barnet should follow. On the other hand Max Caller is always open to a new challenge, green ink and all !

We still have his portrait in the attic I believe!

Well done thou good and faithful servant

Much is being written in the press over the laborious selection process being undertaken by the Church of England to select a new Archbishop of Canterbury. Apparently the Commission dealing with the appointment spent three days last week locked away at a secret location interviewing potential candidates, whom according to Ladbrokes include the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London, Durham, Norwich, Coventry and Liverpool .  

The current Archbishop, Rowan Williams is retiring having had quite enough over the last ten years. I have to admit I am not a fan. He has managed to lead the Church of England and the wider worldwide Anglican Community precisely nowhere and leaves behind a legacy of division and in the United Kingdom increasing irrelevance. On Gay clergy and women Bishops no decision. On so called “gay marriage” abdicating the Opposition to the Archbishop of York and the Roman Catholic Church and on Church unity no progress. I shall also not forget in a hurry his slightly off taste joke about sheep and the Welsh at one particular Lord Mayor’s Banquet!

Clearly an intelligent man he will no doubt enjoy his retirement in Academia.

Of the contenders to take over in my view the most outstanding character is the Bishop of London , Rt Rev Richard Chartres, he is head and shoulders (literally) above other candidates. However the rumours in the press he is considered too conservative, with a small “c” and also upsets the politically correct lobby by declining to ordain women, I know however how supportive he is of the excellent women clergy who serve in his Diocese and he manages to combine traditional Church of England views (popular in the pews) without any form of bigotry. Reportedly close to the Royal family, especially Prince Charles, he rescued St Paul’s Cathedral from the disaster that threatened to engulf it last year when the “Occupy London“ rabble of the great unwashed, some of whom seem to have decamped to the former Friern Barnet Library, caused the resignation of the Dean and half the Chapter. Over the years I have been grateful for his support and advice and the way he values those who serve our City in Local Government.

It is always a special experience to attend worship at St Paul’s Cathedral and last week I attended Evensong with a congregation made up of the City faithful and curious tourists and a number of family, friends and parishioners of the Rev Adrian Benjamin whose last service at St Paul’s as a serving Prebendary it was . I am not totally sure quite what a “prebendary” does in the Church of England except St Paul’s has 24 and it is a sort of honour to those clergy who have been passed over (or could not stand Church of England Politics and declined) higher Church Office. I know Adrian has enjoyed his role at the Cathedral and, never one to miss an opportunity to preach the message, last autumn held a service on the steps of St Paul ’s for the protesters and apparently made £300 in the Offertory!

At the reception held after Evensong in a City Bank the Bishop of London spoke of Adrian ’s remarkable 37 years as Vicar of All Saints and his wider service to the London Diocese. The Bishop recalled the remarkable production of The Passion that Adrian undertook through the streets of Oakleigh and Whetstone in 2003, which similar to a Hollywood epic, involved hundreds of people, horses, Roman Centurions and  the Bishop suddenly appearing out of a window from above a shop in Oakleigh Road North to address the throng. I seem to recall that I played the role of Pontius Pilot (typecast as usual) in the playground of Sacred Heart School .

Indeed this event was recalled again on Sunday when hundreds or worshippers lead by the Deputy Lieutenant, Theresa Villiers MP and the Leader of the Council packed into All Saints Church and the Hall afterwards to pay tribute to Adrian as he retired as Vicar of All Saints .Representatives of other Churches were joined by members of the Jain Community, the Jewish Community , the Bangladeshi Community. He has become a Barnet institution serving as Mayor’s Chaplain to the late John Tiplady, conducting the weddings and funerals of numerous Councillors and involving himself in Community activity in the true meaning of evangelism. Never one to hide his Membership of the Conservative Party and his strong support for Margaret Thatcher, Hartley Booth, Sir Sydney Chapman and Theresa Villiers. His daughter is now a serving Conservative Borough Councillor in Surrey.  Indeed Adrian was always prepared to fight the good fight against those who would damage the Community, extreme evangelicals, “Guardian” readers, Labour Politicians, opponents of Church Schools amongst others.

When the chips were down Adrian was there, he is no fair weather friend or clergyman who dispenses warm words and takes no action

I know the whole Community in Whetstone and his many friends across Barnet wish him and his wonderful wife Martine a happy retirement!

Now come to think of it is it too late to reopen the candidates list for the next Archbishop of Canterbury ?

A Horse, a horse! My Kingdom for a horse!

One of the delights of living in London is the Annual Lord Mayor’s Show held each November.

It marks the installation of the Lord Mayor of London and involves a procession of thousands, part military parade, part carnival, part Civic event. Unlike the other 31 London Borough Mayors plus one Lord Mayor who take office in May each year, the Lord Mayor of London has chilly and often wet early November to contend with.

The traditions around the Lord Mayor of London have lasted for centuries and involve the City Corporation (the equivalent of Barnet Council!) , the City Livery Companies and the over 30,000  Freemen of the City of London . However the role of the City has changed over the last couple of decades as it has refocused itself as a spokesman and supporter of the banks and business institutions that provide so many jobs and so much revenue for UK plc. In fact the Lord Mayor spends up to a third of his year of office touring the world and lobbying for British business, a job that the Mayor of London would simply not have the time to do.  In recent years I have seen first how hard Lord Mayors have worked and sometimes for scant reward. The disgraceful and small minded decision of the Gordon Brown Government to withhold the traditional Knighthood from the excellent Alderman Ian Luder (who accepted a CBE) and Alderman Nicholas Anstee (who reportedly declined an OBE) was somewhat reversed by the award by the coalition of a Knighthood to Finchley resident Alderman Michael Bear after his year of office in 2011.

This year’s Diamond Jubilee would have been a complete non event without the full role played (and indeed funded) by the City Corporation and the Special honours list issued last week thanked many involved in the arrangements including the excellent Paul Double, the City Remembrancer, a unique local government post, part Chief Lobbyist, part Head of protocol, part Political Advisor, but all round Mr Fix It. On certain occasions Paul is required to wear the traditional uniform involving tights and lots of lace but as a former Town Clerk of the Corporation (Chief Executive in Barnet terms) said to me “ wouldn’t you for £150,000 a year ? “

I was thinking of the changing role of the City (and the sniping at it by some left wing Politicians over the years) as I enjoyed dinner of Smoked haddock and chive crushed potato fishcake, followed by beef and chocolate and raspberry brownies with my Livery Company (The Farriers) the other evening at Vintners Hall following the traditional ceremony and Church Service for the Installation of the Master of the Company for the coming year. This year the honour of being  Master of the Worshipful Company of Farriers falls upon Major General Sir Evelyn Webb-Carter, KCVO, OBE,DL who after a distinguished military career (ending up as General Officer Commanding London District) has just retired as Controller of the Army Benevolent Fund .

The Worshipful Company of Farriers is not just some sort of City dining Club, like I suspect some Livery Companies are, and along with its’ charitable activities and support for our armed forces (especially those involving horses) actually plays a major role in the training, registration and standards of the Farriering business, many working farriers are Liverymen of the Company and numerous women belong also as Liverymen. A company that goes back to 1356 still has a role 650 years later.

In his address Sir Evelyn outlined plans for his year of office including the Company’s participation in the Lord Mayor’s Show where the Major General (a fine horseman)  will lead the Farriers float through the City streets with me and 50 other Liverymen dressed apparently in Hessian tabards (not sackcloth and ashes).

To the surprise of many, the Master also announced he would be writing a blog detailing his activities during his year of office.  

Who says the City of London is stuck in the past?

“Tomorrow in Jerusalem “

Last Thursday evening I attended a packed meeting in Hendon organised by the three Barnet Borough MPs, Matthew Offord, Mike Freer and Theresa Villiers to allow residents to hear and then question the Foreign Office Minister with responsibility for the Middle East Alistair Burt MP. Mr Burt is very familiar with North London having started his political career as a Councillor on the London Borough of Haringey in the days of the loony left. I suspect the Middle East is a piece of cake compared to morass of 1980s Haringey politics but I do not envy him either job.

 

Over nearly two hours Burt explained the current Government’s policy on the Middle East and answered a couple of dozen questions from a well informed and not exclusively Jewish audience. Burt came across as a Minister in full command of his brief and as reasonable, controlled and informed. As a former member of the Conservative Friends of Israel (an organisation he had to resign from when appointed a Minister) he approached the subject of the Middle East from a position of a long term supporter of the State of Israel

 

As a loyal Conservative I support the vast majority of the Government’s policy (except some of the daft stuff proposed by the Lib Dems) but on the issue of dealing with Israel even I wish our Government would throw off some of the shackles imposed by the traditionally Arabist minded civil servants and be a little more supportive. In particular it is high time that the British Government recognised that so called East Jerusalem is not occupied territory but is part of one city and that city is the legitimate capital city of the State of Israel. It is obvious that Israel will never surrender any part of Jerusalem, and neither should it. Just as Germans never accepted the division of Berlin and Cypriots will not accept the division of the city of Nicosia, to somehow suggest that the Biblical holy city of Jerusalem should have some sort of barrier built through it like Belfast at the height of “the Troubles” beggars’ belief.

 

Likewise the Minister maintained that the building by Israel of settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan was somehow an obstacle to Peace.  Anyone who has visited Israel is struck by a number of things but the first is the size of the Country. Israel is tiny; and with an increasing population has a need to expand to provide the promised home for all Jews; hence the settlements built on unused vacant land on the West Bank.

 

The main blockage to peace is not the settlements but the failure of Israel ’s neighbours, Egypt excepted, to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. This leads us on to the demonisation of Israel across the Islamic World and Alistair Burt was strong in his condemnation of this demonisation.

 

Of course here in the United Kingdom we have substantial experience of the demonisation of Israel, most notoriously by the Guardian newspaper and the anti-Israel bias of the BBC. The former BBC Middle East correspondent, the vile, Orla Guerin was quite rightly subject to formal complaint from the Israeli Government and was finally replaced by the more rounded reporting of veteran Jeremy Bowen after a visit to Israel by the BBC Director General Mark Thompson. The antics of the former Labour Mayor of London Ken Livingstone showed that on the left hatred of Israel still exists. Livingstone’s claim that he was not anti-semitic just anti-Zionist appeared not to be believed by many within and without the Jewish Community.

 

Of course whereas now we have the demonisation of the State of Israel, in the 1930s we had the demonisation of the Jewish people. Across Europe the far right and in the Soviet Union, the far left whipped their peoples into a frenzy of anti-semitism the like of which had not been seen since the Middle Ages, which lead to the Holocaust and the murder of six million Jews.  In the UK despite the activities of Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts Britain escaped the worst excesses of anti-semitism and the Jewish community flourished and prospered. However it was not just Mosley in the East End stirring up anti-semitism amongst the white working class, in 1930s Britain there was a deep seated underlying hatred of Jews amongst some sections of the upper and professional classes. After the war when Britons learnt of the appalling nature of the Holocaust, anti-semitism was not in the slightest bit fashionable or indeed acceptable in polite society, but it never disappeared.

 

Locally there are still some who remember the great “Golf Club scandal“ of the early sixties when certain local Golf Club refused to admit Jewish Members, the late singer Frankie Vaughan being one of those blackballed. I was appalled a few years when discussing the Sternberg Centre planning application with a constituent from Squires Lane Finchley on the phone, to be told “these people are ruining Finchley“, when I asked “which people?” back came the reply “The Jews”. Some of the opposition to the development of the Etz Chaim Primary School in Mill Hill recently blatantly had nothing to do with planning issues and the antics of the so called Palestine Solidarity Campaign in disrupting cultural events, including last years Prom Concert by the Israeli Philharmonic and this years Edinburgh Festival reminds me of Nazi book burning. Attempts to intimidate politicians on the North London Waste Authority, whilst attracting some support from the left wing London Borough of Islington has failed to stop the Authority conducting a procurement process which includes the French owned company Veolia.

 

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.

 

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.      

 

Get a life!

As the quality of journalism of local newspapers declines and their readership falls through the floor in recent years a new phenomenon has appeared with the rise of the internet ; the local blogger.

It is now a rare occurrence for any professional journalist to be sitting in the gallery of a Council meeting and their place has been taken by the amateur and often obsessive “blogger”

Up and down the country individuals who have a particular axe to grind or have failed to be actually be elected to their local Council sit for hours listening to tedious committee meetings and then composing blogs which often have little relationship to the proceedings they have just witnessed.

The problem with bloggers in local government is that unlike the local press who still have to abide by the rules of the soon to be defunct Press Complaints Commission (although many local journalists openly flout it)

In Barnet we are particularly blessed with bloggers with a number writing several times a day about Barnet Council matters (is the Council really that interesting?). A number have taken to doing it anonymously by adopting silly names which in my view is rather on a par with sending poison pen letters or as Mike Freer put it “the one handed bloggers”. The signs of obsessive behaviour are clear to see, one blogger has viewed this blog over 200 times in less than a week. More worryingly as they become more and more obsessive their conspiracy theories become wilder and wilder and their grasp of reality becomes more tenuous. I did have a very good laugh earlier in the year when one blogger suggested that those of us involved in the organising of the borough’s celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee were part of some sort of “Masonic” conspiracy, for the record I am not a freemason. I do have to admit that there are several blog stories that have appeared that I know to be complete fiction from start to finish because I deliberately fed a pack of lies to either a Council officer or indeed a Councillor whom I suspected of leaking to the bloggers and sure enough the stories appeared.

Their attempts to personalise local politics (where to some extent the local newspapers have followed suit) has lead them to begin to indulge in bizarre activities. Councillors and senior professional officers of the Council have been followed, a black van has been reported suspiciously parked outside Councillors homes, officers of the Council have had their private residences photographed, and one female Council officer had her mobile phone number published, my 88 year old Mother was attacked in the street and one Council officer had to take their house off the market after inappropriate enquiries from bloggers.  Additionally there have been repeated acts of criminal damage on Conservative Party premises in the borough. Many Councillors of all parties no longer disclose their private addresses in order to protect their families.  In short bloggers rather than attempt to keep the wider community informed and involved, something all Councillors would welcome, have attempted to instigate a regime of intimidation just because they happen to politically disagree with the current Council administration. This is not unique to Barnet with the distinguished Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council Sir Merrick Cockell amongst others regularly being regularly the victim of appalling personal abuse.

Additionally as a lazy way of filling their blog they submit dozens and dozens of Freedom of Information requests on spurious matter which they then reveal as shocking exclusives on their blogs. Of course this is also a tactic employed by the Taxpayers Alliance which regularly reveals “shock horror” that Local Government spends money! In Barnet the hundreds of thousands of pounds spent dealing with FOI requests could have kept Friern Barnet Library open. Just a thought!

I am not worried about blogs that genuinely debate matters of political interest and indeed there are several that cover Barnet affairs from a socialist point of view with which I fundamentally disagree but I enjoy reading. Furthermore the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles’ idea about recruiting “armchair auditors“ is a positive move to enhance the power of the Internet and make local government more accountable. In Barnet some bloggers who think they act as the servant of the voters have actually developed bigger egos than us Councillors; the difference is they don’t have a democratic mandate to back it up and get highly offended if anyone criticises them. They can dish it out but they cannot take it.

One gets the feeling that some bloggers have fixated on Barnet Council and its’ officers and members in preference to obsessing over David Beckham or Simon Cowell.

My message to some bloggers, “Get a Life!“

Hold The Front Page

A small news item caught my attention this week; journalists working for Newsquest in Yorkshire are taking industrial action over the level of their pay.

Newsquest of course are the publishers of the Hendon Times Group of Newspapers amongst many other titles. As a company it is the product of a highly leveraged management buyout, in the 1990s, of the former Reed Group Newspapers financed by the well known US company KKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) who were well known prior to the recession for providing vast sums of cash to executives to often pay over the odds for established businesses most notoriously in the case of RJR Nabisco. There then followed a series of mergers, title swaps and aggressive acquisitions including the Westminster Press original owners of the Hendon Times series, that gave us roughly the Newsquest Group . 

Except in 1999 Newsquest was bought by the American Company Gannett media Group for the extraordinary inflated price in many peoples opinion of £922 million and additionally Gannett took on Newsquest's large debts. 

Further acquisitions continued including the well respected Richmond and Twickenham Times group of Newspapers bought from the Dimbleby family. Then along came the recession.

Newsquest like many other groups of local papers found their advertising revenue going through the floor and made dramatic job cuts, closed titles, changed papers from daily to weekly. It found it had a £65 million pound deficit on its staff pension scheme.

I was reflecting on this when I heard a slight flutter of my letter box and this weeks edition of the “Finchley and Hendon Times” drifted down on to my mat. I am indeed one of the apparently decreasing number of residents of Barnet that still receives this once august organ through my door albeit intermittently. Sadly the paper no longer arrives with a thud as its pagination has dramatically reduced in recent as advertisers desert it in droves for more effective forms of communication. Newsquest papers are not alone in racking up massive financial losses (although of course as a foreign owned private company they do not reveal detailed accounts), the once mighty “Hampstead and Highgate Express” now owned by Archant publishing have withdrawn from the industry wide Audit Bureau of Circulations and rumour has sells less than 3,000 copies a week and only attracts property advertising but they distribute free copies in St John’s Wood.  The Press Group (now privately owned by Sir Ray Tindle and his companies), which 40 years ago dominated local media and whose editor was often a household name in Barnet, is now an irrelevance received by fewer and fewer Barnet residents. When the Press Group journalists went on strike over pay some months ago I am not sure any of its readers noticed the difference. 

Sadly as the local papers profitability declined so did the quality of the “journalism”. Local Journalists came and went with such regularity that the Councillors had barely learnt their names before they quit, were sacked or simply made redundant. One began to get the feeling certain young ladies were hired for their assets which were not always above the neckline and others who barely had a GCSE in “media studies”.

Stories appeared on line with spelling mistakes and before any facts were checked. In one case involving me an incorrect story appeared reporting on a supposed incident third hand, long gone are the days when local journalists bother with any serious coverage of Council meetings. Most Councillors don’t return local journalists calls and even senior Councillors just leave it to the Council press office to explain an issue in words of one syllable in the vain hope that local journalists might just get the gist of an often complicated or potentially sensitive matter involving social services or childrens issues. Quite why the Hendon Times Group has felt the need to publish so many pictures of my 88 year old Mother I do not know, unless it is to encourage those individuals who aggressively swore at her in the street the other week or to make her more easily identifiable when she is on the bus to Sainsburys. (Note to editor if it is in order to intimidate me to stop further references to the Press Complaints Commission, it won’t work and if it is to intimate her, she did go through the Second World War………..

Occasionally an exited Barnet Council press officer will rush up excitedly and say “good news Councillor", “so and so is leaving from the local paper" only for them a few  weeks later to bemoan the fact that the replacement is even worse. 

Most hypocritically of all, editorials are published condemning the Council for cutting this or that in order to save the hard pressed taxpayers money and yet the “slash and burn” changes to pay and conditions undertaken by these journalists employers are far more severe than anything any public body has done. 

Increasingly householders have notices attached to the gate “no free papers, no pizza leaflets”, which just about sums up the state of our local papers

This week at St Brides, Fleet Street a memorial service takes place for Dennis Signey OBE, former Editor of the “Hendon Times“ ,distinguished sports journalist, huge figure in the community, friend and admirer of Lady Thatcher. Many in that congregation will be mourning the passing of decent, honest and truthful local journalism as well. 

Jobs for the Boys?

I have just returned from a well earned holiday in that most beautiful part of the Kingdom, Cornwall , to be precise the slightly isolated and upmarket town of St Mawes . My favourite Hotel in the whole of England , The Tresanton ,owned by Olga Polizzi ( Daughter of the late Lord Forte and Mother of Channel Five Hotel Inspector Alex) once again made me very welcome .

This Hotel is the not sort of place where you are  likely to see guests with Tattoos or inappropriate body piercing and where over a fabulous dinner on the terrace overlooking the beautiful Falmouth Estuary you can peruse the other guests . Is that a Senior Director of Barnet Council with his family? Oh look an Officer from City Hall and her BAFTA winning TV scriptwriting husband!  And that was just Monday…………

The success of the Tresanton is the immense attention to detail by the staff and indeed whilst I was there by Olga Polizzi herself who made sure that standards were maintained. As Olga is a former Westminster City Councillor, and friend of Lady Thatcher, I would expect nothing less. The success that Olga and her brother, Sir Rocco Forte have made of their group of luxury hotels across the world (which sadly my budget does not extend to visiting) is testament to hard work , vision and no doubt the family genes.

However Olga is married to the distinguished writer and biographer William Shawcross, whose official biography of the late Queen Mother earned him a CVO and rave reviews and for those with long political memories is the son of the late Sir Hartley Shawcross, Attorney General in the Clement Attlee Government and Chief British Prosecutor at the Nuremburg War crime trial.  As Sir Hartley got older, and he lived to 101, he gradually moved to the right, as so many do, and acquired the nickname “Sir Shortly Floorcross”. Of course the Attlee family went all the way Clement’s son, the second Earl joining the SDP and the current Earl Attlee serving on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords as a Lord in Waiting (Government whip).

Hence I was not surprised to see that William Shawcross is the favoured candidate to take as Chairman (not “Chair” I hope) of the Charity Commission as a safe and sound pair of hands. The Charity Commission is one of those endless Quangos which seem to stagger on despite attempts by successive Conservative Governments to cull them. Perhaps as an incoming Chairman Mr Shawcross, who is a member of the Board of the Anglo Israel Society, can look at the so called “charitable activities” of Christian Aid and Oxfam amongst others with their anti State of Israel stance.

Another Quango is the Arts Council where the no doubt “Guardian” reading Dame Liz Forgan has not had her contract renewed and is being replaced by the more entrepreneurial Sir Peter Bazalgette.

These changes remind me of the American system where when the President goes his whole Administration goes with him. I think it is time we considered a similar system in the UK and that when there is a change of Government all the Senior Civil servants, ambassadors, High Commissioners, Chairman of Public Bodies go as well. There is something slightly creepy and not a little two faced about rows of Civil servants lined up by the Permanent Secretary to applaud an incoming Cabinet Minister when he arrives at his new Department when you know jolly well a couple of hours they were shedding tears at the departure of the last Secretary of State. It is useful to have endless Government appointments available to be filled by trusted supporters who perhaps it is advisable to send to the other side of the world as Ambassador to Mongolia or Governor of Pitcairn Island. Britain has always practised it to a limited extent, the former Home Secretary Lord Waddington made an excellent Governor of Bermuda (a post I have always rather fancied since we no longer appoint the Viceroy of India!)  And among those who have served as High Commissioner to Australia are Lord Carrington, ex Tory MP Sir Alistair Goodlad and ex Labour Ministers Baroness Liddell and Baroness Amos. The appointment of ex Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell as High Commissioner to Malawi never came about as the UK shut the High Commission down to save money.

In Local Government the practise of clearing out Officers who are seen as having been too partial to the last lot has been going on for decades. Often disguised as early retirement, ill health retirement or redundancy “due to reorganisation “, the departure is usually accompanied by a large cheque. It is an open secret that in 2002 when the Conservative Group took power in Barnet it discussed changing the  Chief Executive but decided against it on grounds of cost and the theory that that the individual had been diligent in implementing the Labour / Liberal Administration agenda and no doubt would do the same for us . He did.

Neighbouring Enfield did change the Chief Executive in 2002 and got into enormous trouble with the District Auditor and suffered the financial consequences. The press over the weekend reported that 400 Senior Council officers received severance payments last year of over £100,000 and anyone in Local Government could name those who left because they fell out with the Leader of the Council or the majority group or indeed both.

The principal of appointing your own senior officers was enshrined in the Greater London Act that created the Mayor and Assembly where 12 “Political Officers “ could be appointed by the Mayor without open advert . This lead to some rather suspect appointments by Ken Livingstone and indeed one or two by Boris Johnson but has meant that the men and woman at the top at City Hall whilst governed by Local Government terms and conditions are politically driven and owe their jobs to the Mayor ’s whim. The also have fixed term contracts which expire when the mayoralty ends.

As the election of Police Commissioners in the autumn makes it easier to remove incompetent Chief Constables perhaps it is time to consider the wholesale Politicisation of the Civil Service and Local Government in the interests of efficiency and democratic accountability.