It is now a week since the local elections, and all parties in Barnet are now beginning to adjust to the new reality of political life in this borough.

Or not.

In the last few days we have seen the Tories in a state of shock, uncharacteristically silent, unable to comprehend the reasons for the loss of so many of their councillors, and unable to see that their failure to predict such consequences is proof itself of the fundamental problems that have driven their party to the brink of disaster.

They didn't see it coming, in short, because they didn't look. And their ability to remain happily out of touch with reality, has reached its logical conclusion: not to know when they had made the fatal error of alienating their own electoral guarantors, the residents naturally inclined to vote for them, whose support they took for granted, and overlooked in the rush to impose their half baked policies in the course of the last four years.

Not that Mrs Angry is inclined to help the Barnet Tories analyse what went so awfully wrong, but for the record, it might help if they sat in the corner thinking very hard about their attitude of contempt for the views of residents, and asked themselves why they felt obliged to act with such Stalinist zeal to silence all debate with residents, to avoid real consultation with them, to allow Tory councillors like Brian Coleman and Robert Rams to treat residents with such rudeness at council meetings - and to continue in imposing their most unpopular policies regardless of widespread protest, and an uprising of activism in this borough on an unprecedented scale, and one which brought the focus of media attention not just nationwide, but across the world.

I mean, really, when it becomes a common place occurrence for the borough to be visited by film crews from Japan, or Australia, or Germany, and documentaries are made on just one of the political issues tearing your community apart - did you never stop to think, Tory councillors of Broken Barnet, hang on - this is all getting out of hand? Maybe ... just maybe we've got this wrong? Maybe we are going to be in a spot of trouble, on polling day?

The result of their arrogance, and ineptitude, is that their control of the council has all but disappeared, and hangs in the balance.

We are just one by election away from the Tories losing all authority, and the introduction of the new committee system means that they will need to exercise a regime of the most stringent party discipline, and eternal vigilence, to ensure their own members turn up to all meetings. This will be an impossible challenge for the Tories, Mrs Angry cheerfully predicts.

At the election count, she asked one young Tory member why he had stood again for council, when his poor attendance record was so poor, and widely criticised. He maintained that he had made a promise to 'improve' his record of attendance, patchy because of work commitments, but said he thought that actually, going to meetings was not the only part of being a councillor which mattered, helping constituents was just as important. True, but for the next four years, being at meetings is going to be crucial, not optional.

In truth, what is left of the Barnet Tory party, after the election, is a most peculiar creature, hard to define.

So many of the members that were most characteristic of the previous administration have left us, thank God.

Consider the loss of the man they dare not name, no longer a Tory by the time of the election, but the dark power behind the throne throughout most of the administration, yes, it's him, Brian Coleman, the malign influence which worked its destructive power over the leadership of the party, and led to its downfall: without his totemic presence in the chamber, what strange synergy there will be, in this new administration.

Let's be clear: the Tory party has accomplished the sell out of our council services to Capita, and got it through an election campaign for two reasons. First of all because of the complete failure of the Labour party to oppose the programme - more of this later - and second: the privatisation has only just begun to become established, and only the first signs of fundamental change have begun to become apparent to residents. That is not going to hold out much longer, which is why it is vital for the new intake of opposition members to start as they mean to go on, and get a grip of contract scrutiny.

This week after the election, in fact on the first morning back after a Bank Holiday weekend, it was almost impossible, as Mrs Angry found, over the course of 14 phone calls in one hour, to reach the council by phone. The new Capita call centre could not cope with the number of calls it was receiving.

The way that Capita addresses the shortfall in the number of lines it provides, is to set up 'this number is not recognised' messages, or simply saying 'the line is busy'. This brilliant wheeze - dismissed at the beginning of the contract as teething problems - means that not all calls are logged - if they were the performance statistics would tell the truth, that at times residents cannot access information about their council services.

These failings to respond to calls will not be recorded as failures to respond: they will simply not appear in the data, thus enabling KPIs to be flunked, as indeed they are, as Mr Mustard will tell you, in the course of the NSL contract.

This is how your councillors, of both parties, have the wool pulled over their eyes about performance, and are able to remain at contract scrutiny committees, nodding as senior officers and Capita representatives assure them everything is just fine and dandy.

It is not.

And just bear in mind that where large outsourcing contracts like these have ended, it has often been based on dissatisfaction with call centre performance, as we are now seeing in Birmingham. Contrary to what some are saying, it is possible to escape contracts, if the contractors are proven to be failing to provide the services paid for.

You, councillors of Broken Barnet, are being fooled. No more excuses, please: do your job, and challenge contractors not only on the performance statistics, but how they actually compile those statistics. It takes a bit of effort, doing this, but -hello - that's what you have been elected to do.

Over the last four years, I have sat and watched Labour councillors on committees fail to challenge the most appalling blunders by both Tory members and senior officers, open opportunities for political profit, and, for f*ck;s sake, to do what the people of this borough deserve, stand up for them, and do the right thing, on their behalf.

I'm not prepared to do the same again, in silence.

In the previous administration countless opportunities were lost, by a failure in courage, in strategy, and most of all in leadership. This cannot continue.

The Judicial Review of One Barnet is the most worrying example. The reason this failed, of course, was not because the merits of the argument of the claimant: Judge Underhill ruled that Barnet had breached the statutory duty to consult residents about the privatisation of services. The Judicial Review failed because it was made too late.

Why was it made too late? Because legal action was not instigated by Labour when it should have been, early on in the process. Legal advice was not taken by Labour, until - it was too late. This was an unforgiveable error in judgement.

Having lost the JR, what then? During the election campaign, we had a series of question times at different parts of the borough. Mrs Angry took part in the first one, and sat in fury as the Labour leader refused to commit the party, if successfully elected, to attempt to exit from the Capita contracts. This also infuriated the majority of residents in the audience.

Now safely back in opposition, where some Labour members feel so much more comfortable, we hear reassurances that the party will 'fight to ensure that One Barnet is not selling residents short'.

Let's hope that the new intake of more challenging and more radically minded councillors will do just that, and not succumb to the culture of complacency and impotence that has too often prevailed in place of any rigorous process of opposition.

And there are some really, really good new Labour members: at last, some young women, bright, passionate and determined: Reema Patel, Amy Trevethan, and Rebecca Challice. Equally promising are Devra Kay, Kitty Lyons (previously a councillor until 2006), and Kathy Levine, joined by Ammar Naqvi - a very able and welcome candidate, Adam Langleben, who works for Andrew Dismore, Paul Edwards, who used to be involved in union politics in Barnet, with Mrs Angry, a long time ago, the inimitable Alon Or Bach, who stood against Sarah Sackman for the Finchley and Golders Green PPC contest, Phil Cohen, Tim Roberts, and Laurie Williams.

In an article here the local Times, the Labour leader Alison Moore is quoted as saying that this latest electoral defeat for Labour was in fact nothing of the sort, that the results were 'positive for the party' ... she says - I think absolutely it was a success.

If this had been a campaign fought in the context of proportional representation, yes, perhaps. Notably where the candidates won surprising victories, it was largely because acitivists in those areas defied the predictions of the leadership group and did their own thing.

And as far as Mrs Angry is aware, the result in Barnet must be judged on the basis of first past the post, and - winning control. So, no: not a success, another failure. A failure resulting in a stronger party, but still: a failure.

There was every chance of doing this, of winning control, after the calamitous Tory administration of the last four years.

Let's say it again: the Tories lost this election, and then so did Labour.

Why? Because of the same misjudgement that failed to challenge them effectively in opposition, and something else too.

In the Times article the headline reads: I still have the backing of members. In the article itself the leader actually states: I still have the confidence of many members ...

In fact the Labour party is in schism, beneath a veneer of unity, between the more - sorry to say - conservative members, and those more radical in approach, who want a new and more challenging form of opposition.

It has been so, in truth, for many years, with all criticism dismissed as supporting one faction or another, personalised, polarised.

This failure to be inclusive of a range of views, and to allow the same attitudes to prevail without any review, is how an opposition becomes institutionalised, neutralised, too comfortable as part of an establishment.

The division in the party is such a waste of energy, and a real weakness, and yet it is set to continue because some of those who might make a challenge for leadership are too scared of disadvantaging themselves, should they fail, and in the handout of offices, and others feel that everything is just wonderful, and anyone who says it is not is disloyal, and mean.

What is happening in Barnet is, in its way, a reflection of the faultlines within the national party. A disconnection between the voters, who see only weakness, and lack of conviction, with an establishment that runs on its own momentum, fuelled by an empty tank, right up until the moment of electoral failure.

Four more years of this, then?

No: there won't be, because new leader or not, the councillors arriving in the Town Hall mark a new course, one of change, which will build a new momentum.

The Tories in Barnet are in meltdown: in total disarray. Cornelius is the counterpart of his Labour rival, in fact: rather fatally for his party, he lacks leadership, or political instinct, and no doubt, sooner or later will be challenged, presumably by deputy leader Daniel Thomas.

The Tories only began to realise what was on the cards for them, in truth, in the last days of the campaign. The party which had ignored all criticism, all demands for a real dialogue with voters, all attempts at consultation, suddenly realised they were about to be handed the results of the ultimate form of consultation, in the course of the democratic process, when even their normally loyal supporters told them where to get off.

Then, so desperate were they to hold on to Hale, they resorted to such tactics as asking David Cameron to phone voters in that ward, to invite them to support their local Tory candidates. And yet, after a very long count, despite - or perhaps because of - Cameron's help, it became clear just how close they came to losing all three seats, rather than one. Boroughwide, their supporters, all those residents and traders they provoked into a 40 % turnout on polling day, came out in strength to punish them for the parking fiasco, and every other cockup they have created in the last few years.

Look at their major losses: Rams, the two Tambourides - and good riddance to all three - and a real struggle to hold on to so many wards. The old epicentre of Tory influence in Chipping Barnet has blown: things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. The heartlands of Conservative power, in the cradle of Thatcherism, all crumbling. Who would have thought it?

Me, and quite a few others, in fact, those of us who bothered to look carefully at what was happening, and why.

You can imagine how popular Mrs Angry is with the old guard in the Labour party at the moment, for daring to raise these issues in public: facing accusations of disloyalty, and being unkind, washing dirty linen in public. Oh dear.

Don't give the Tories something to make political capital from, they are saying.

Friends, you've been doing that for the last four years, without my assistance. Now is the chance to put an end to it.

The Tories in Barnet are now in no position to make capital out of anything: they are trashed, discredited, floundering about with no leadership of their own, no direction. Richard Cornelius is standing by, smiling politely, like the chief steward of the Titanic, handing out glasses of sherry to passengers, as they wander towards the lifeboats.

There are no lifeboats. The ship is going down, and we are all going down with it.

And to those people who don't want to hear it, let me say this: there is a need to address these issues honestly, and openly, and now, when it really matters. That is the mark of a healthy relationship: this is what should mark the difference between us, and the quivering, cowardly Tories, who have followed their own leadership blindly over the edge of the electoral abyss.

It might be in the interests of some to shut down all dissent, and carry on as normal, but it is not in the interests of the party, or those residents who have placed their trust in elected members to form an effective, fighting opposition, and protect them from the onslaught of Tory policies, nationally and locally, that are driving them into poverty, and then seeing them gerrymandered out of this borough, a process which is set to continue in the new administration.

Next year we have a general election.

As you will see from this piece in the Ham & High , the fight between Tory MP Mike Freer and the brilliant Sarah Sackman has already begun. The party must be in a state of unity, and it must have a new approach to campaigning: painful honesty now, and a few more members putting party interest before personal comfort, or ambition -and Labour will be unstoppable.

After the humiliating losses for the Tories in the Barnet areas, predicted by the more radical of us amongst the party, it should be said, and dismissed by many - all three constituencies in this borough are now up for grabs.

Let's start here working towards that, here and now, but let's start by being clear about who we are, where we are, and where we need to go.

Question time at Friern Barnet Library - the library shut by Barnet Tories, as part of their war against culture, in this borough, but re-opened by occupiers, and returned to the people of Friern Barnet to enjoy, as intended by those who opened the library, with funding from the Carnegie Foundation, in 1934.

And, as usual, the magic powers which surround and protect the people's library worked their influence, that night, energised by the faultlines which underlie our troubled borough.

Mrs Angry was keen to attend, because there was an interesting array of candidates due to take part, including Tory 'leader' Richard Cornelius, and veteran councillor and silver fox, the handle bar moustachioed councillor John Hart, both of whom are almost certainly guaranteed to make ill advised comments whenever let loose in public.

And Mrs Angry had a question ready for them, carefully prepared, hidden at the back of her notebook.

Also present was the Labour leader, Alison Moore, who arrived wearing her trademark red jacket - which perhaps she should have retained throughout the meeting, so as to avoid confusion.

There could not have been a better time to find Richard Cornelius and his colleague exposed to public scrutiny, of course.

After a week of absolute farce, in which the new Mayor faces calls to resign because of his questionable business activitities, including the matter of a lease pre-signed by Councillor John Hart, another councillor has been referred to the Monitoring Officer for investigation of his expenditure on his own ward, and the council committee system has been found to be unlawful, you might think that Councillor Cornelius and Councillor John Hart might be a little shy of turning up at all.

Not a bit of it.

Cornelius arrived early, perfectly relaxed and his usual affable self, his Mr Punch like grin primed, and at the ready.

At the door a man was holding a bucket, collecting contributions for the library that Mr Punch had closed, and put up for sale.

The Tory leader, a member for the very affluent area of Totteridge, and the owner of a Hatton Garden jewellery business, peered suspiciously at the bucket, and seemed unsure how much to give.

From each, according to his means, suggested Mrs Angry, keen to help, and keen to convert Cllr Cornelius - or any other party leaders present - to the cause he fears so much ... the evil of Socialism.

She also told him she had a question ready, and one which he would enjoy.

This was not entirely true, to be fair, as we shall see.

His smile tightened, and became a little more fixed than it had been on arrival.

Apart from the Chair, Barbara Jacobson, the other member of the panel was an interesting man called Aubrey Rose, CBE: a fromer lawyer and human rights activist, who has been involved in many causes legal, environmental, humanitarian: the first jewish commissioner at the Commission for Racial Equality, serving on the Board of Deputies for British Jews for 50 years.

On the far right, announced the Chair, is Richard Cornelius. We knew that already, but laughed anyway.

And then the questions.

The first resident wanted to know, how did the panel see the future of Barnet politics affecting the poor, homeless, elderly, and how can we enjoy our borough when so many others are not in a position to do so?

Richard Cornelius responded that Barnet is 'a nice place for people to live' . He thought that in terms of the political situation the close result means that 'we must work together'. He seemed pretty cheerful about the future, but then: 'I am an optimist', he said.

Labour leader Alison Moore agreed. All the funding cuts meant we have 'a huge challenge' ahead of us, but ... Barnet is a borough we all love to live in.

Everything is a huge challenge, it seems, to the Labour leader.

The issue, she said, to Mrs Angry's bemusement, was 'how we as politicians hold the ring, collectively ...'

Mrs Angry has an aversion to idiotic PR terminology of this nature, but what did it mean?

According to a helpful definition, it means: to oversee a situation while attempting to remain uninvolved in it.

Ah: I'm with you.Yep. Makes sense now.

John Hart wondered, does party politics affect this? He was part of the problem, being already old. In the past, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when he was a boy, people didn't live as long.

Mrs Angry, mindful of his views on the repugnant idea of 'handouts' to disabled children, wondered what might be about to emerge from Cllr Hart as a solution to the burden of too many old people. Being one himself, of course, may have induced to him to a more liberal view than he might otherwise have expressed.

Although we live in a less spiritual age, he told us, we care for the old. It is a fact. He didn't think it was a party political issue.

Aubrey Rose said he was not a member of any political party, although he had been a member of all three, at some point. He was 'delighted' to hear the common approach, and yes: Barnet was a marvellous place to live.

Oh dear. Mrs Angry was getting very fidgety, by now.

A resident whose late husband depended on support given by the now notorious 'Your Choice Barnet' venture, pointed out, with polite but clear impatience, that in her experience, Barnet was not quite so marvellous for those, for example, with disabilities.

And Mrs Angry pointed out, unable to remain silent much longer - always a difficulty in these circumstances- that all the members of the panel were clearly comfortably placed in life and very probably, therefore, did find Barnet a lovely place to live, but they appeared to be rather complacent about the fact that for many people in the borough, life is less than lovely - those living in West Hendon, Strawberry Vale, Dollis Valley, and Colindale - forgotten people of this borough - the invisible people.

Quite some time later, clearly after he had been brooding about this point, Cornelius blurted out that Barnet was merely 'average' in the ranking of areas of social deprivation.

Being merely average is ok, it seems: except for the fact that Barnet Tories refuse to acknowledge the existance of this problem, as it simply does not register with them as something of any significance. They close their eyes to it. It spoils the image of the 'successful suburb', the leafy borough.

Why worry about the people who live there, the ones who rely in foodbanks, and pay housing benefits to landlords who set their rents at the London Housing Allowance level, who work on zero hours contracts, who live in areas where the roads are not fixed, and the pavements not lavished with care, whose tenancies are from month to month, whose children don't know if they will be at the same school in a year's time, whose quality of life is defined by want, and need, and worry, whose life expectancies are lower than those who live in Totteridge, and Hampstead Garden Suburb - they are never going to vote Tory, are they?

The Labour leader remembered she was a Labour leader, and talked about 'those who struggle to lead good lives' and 'a real challenge'. She referred fleetingly to the theoretical concepts of 'principles' and 'moral obligation'.

Burble burble. Then John Hart was off again, rewriting history - a habit common to quite a few Tory councillors at the moment, as we were to see later. He thought we could do more for ourselves, so as not to be a burden on the NHS.

He mentioned his childhood in Sheffield, which was privileged in the sense of having an inside loo. Families were closer then. Family members, daughters and daughters in law, looked after sick or elderly members. A woman's role, of course, thought Mrs Angry. But ... people didn't live as long. Nowadays ... who would look after him, when his time came? He seemed to think the NHS would do the job.

A woman in the audience suggested that John Hart had forgotten his history, and reminded him that the NHS was created for people who couldn't afford to pay for care.

New councillor for West Hendon Devra Kay reminded him of something else he had forgotten: or perhaps was unaware of: that the care he may rely on, sooner, rather than later, was private care, not the NHS: and why, she asked, did he think Your Choice Barnet care workers are thinking of going on strike?

He appeared non plussed by all these issues. Clearly there is a large difference between the way in which Cllr Hart sees the world, through the filter of his own preconceptions, and a mind living in the distant past - and the way things are now. Despite the impression given by his sprightly appearance, he is a man in his eighties, and clearly he is not going to adjust his somewhat trenchant views, at this stage in his life.

Up stood Green party activist Poppy, delivering a blistering address to the panel on the assumption they were making about the demands of austerity. Austerity was a choice, she said, not a force of nature, like a tsunami. There are alternatives: plug the tax loopholes; dump Trident; increase funding to local government.

Question time organiser Keith reminded us of Napoleon Bonaparte's observation: Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.

Quite.

Blogger Mr Reasonable, who sat behind Mrs Angry, sighing, and groaning, as he does throughout most Barnet meetings said 'it's always about the money' ... he told us he had been dealing that week with members of a major financial institution in the city, who made it clear that within the square mile there was so much money available - trillions of pounds of the stuff looking to be invested - practically limitless resources.

Instead of spending so much money on housing benefit, why not invest in house building?

There is a real need for social housing, as we know (especially, interjected Poppy, to the general amusement of the audience, with so many rogue landlords around).

Aubrey Rose endorsed this idea. He referred to the case of the Barnet Spires development, and seemed to be under the rather naive impression that the new owners were acting only on behalf of a philanthropic motivation, rather than for business reasons.

A nice thought, but of course the new owners are a hugely wealthy but deeply private family company which is also behind the development of Gateway House, in Finchley Central, which hopes to get planning permission from Barnet Council in a eyewateringly profitable plan which will see no affordable housing, on the basis of offering a new library we do not need, thus enabling our Tory masters to close and flog another purpose built library that is perfectly suited to its purpose.

Why can we not encourage a philanthropic interest by developers in the idea of social housing, and accommodating the needs of those without a million quid to spend on a penthouse flat, and for whom living in this borough is not as nice, and lovely, as the Tories want us to believe?

And on this theme Mrs Angry asked Richard Cornelius why his administration did nothing for the needs of those who are less well placed in life. He denied this was the case. She reminded him of the statement of his housing spokesperson, Cllr Tom Davey, that they wanted only the 'well off' to live in this borough, and that he was happy to see the development in West Hendon, which will see so many social tenants and leaseholders ejected from their homes, replaced by 'Russian oligarchs'.

Next question was from a resident who is involved in the community library in Friern Barnet: the building you're seated in, as he reminded the panel: what did councillors think about the possibility of a ten year lease for the library - or being re-incorporated into the public library system?

Aubrey Rose thought the community library was a remarkable example of what grassroots activism could achieve. He thought a ten year lease was a good idea, as that would enable the library to bid for lottery funding.

Oh: Richard Cornelius now says they are 'pushing on an open door, as regards asking for a longer lease'. Marvellous news, and what a change in tone, now that Robert Rams is no longer here to delight us with his war of attrition on the cultural life of Broken Barnet.

Except: uh oh - Richard Cornelius also says that he wants Friern Barnet Library 'to be a model' for the future ...

Readers: if the alarm bells are not ringing in your head now, they should be.

Have no doubt what the Tory councillors are about to do.

They are going to try to get rid of other libraries, and either shut them, or give them to community groups to run.

Why? Under the guise of encouraging 'big society' ideas, and getting people to 'help themselves', they will liberate several potential property assets to flog, and divest themselves of the need to run a proper library system.

You might think that sounds ok.

It is not ok.

It means, as the volunteer librarian at Friern Barnet pointed out, a further devaluation of the role of professional input, and the principle of a public library system.

A library without librarians is just a book club. You wouldn't want your children to go to a school run by untrained volunteers, would you: so why encourage them to use a library with no professional organisation?

Mrs Angry was angry.

She pointed out that the only reason we were all sat in the 'community' library was because it had been liberated by occupiers, and the plot by Cornelius and his cronies to flog the building for development had been foiled.

She reminded everyone that once upon a time Barnet had one of the best library services in the country - including in terms of value for money - and that not only were the Tories undermining the role of professional librarianship, as demonstrated by the closure and plundering of Church Farmhouse Museum, they clearly had no understanding of the value of heritage, the arts, or literature: they were cultural philistines.

John Hart said he was old enough to remember lending libraries, such as those run by Boots. Probably old enough to remember the circulating libraries used by Jane Austen, thought Mrs Angry: here we go - the good old days ... yes, his father had run one, and he had worked in it, becoming, he said, a librarian at the age of 14.

No, muttered Mrs Angry, you were a 14 year old boy lending books, and you were not a librarian .... he resented the implication that the Tories were uncultured. He was, he said, an artsy craftsy person. Mrs Angry considered the requirement by William Morris, that all objects should be useful, or beautiful: which is Councillor John Hart?

Time for Mrs Angry's question.

I grew up in an era when a public figure, a politician, or a public servant, would as a matter of honour, offer their resignation, for the benefit of the party or service that employed them, should matters arise that brought their judgement into question.

Where do the members of the panel think that the point occurs, when resignation becomes necessary?

Cllr Cornelius refused to pressure his former colleague Brian Coleman to resign, at the time of his assault of a female resident not so long ago. He refuses to accept that the Mayor should stand down, despite the controversy over his activities as a landlord. Does Cllr Cornelius not think the time has come to admit that the current catastrophic state of the council is his responsibility as leader, and offer his own resignation?

Behind her Mrs Angry thought she could hear the sound of a fellow blogger laughing, almost as if he thought the suggestion might have relevance to a wider range of the members of the panel than might be understood.

Councillor Cornelius denied that he had failed to condemn the actions of his former fellow councillor. The record, of course, speaks for itself, and no amount of rewriting history can undo the abject cowardice of the Tories when it came to Coleman, and in particular the assault of Helen Michael.

His answer, as to whether the Mayor or he should resign, he said, red with indignation, was - NO, and - NO.

Aubrey Rose, clearly shocked, in the course of the evening's discussions, by the level of hostility in the room to our Tory councillors, but making the only possible conclusion that an intelligent observer could come to, remarked at this point, in his careful way, that 'there is really a feeling of deep concern as to the conduct of the council' ... that there was 'a feeling that the council really hasn't cared ...' that there was 'a gap between the council and the people' ...

The Labour leader thought residents had an absolute right to have a properly run council, that listens and responds. The events of the last few weeks since the election had been a pretty shambolic process, including the mess up in governance, and the rubbish IT provision from Crapita to new councillors. As to resignation, she said, we all had our own code of honour.

And?

And nothing.

Poppy then dragged another elephant into the room, and brought up an issue which might well suggest the need for resignation: the involvement of Councillor John Hart in the pre-signing of a lease that one of the Mayor's tenants alleges she was pressured to sign, late at night, without having read the rest of the document.

Oh, here we go, muttered Hart.

No comment, he said. The matter was under investigation.

But then, rather foolishly, he did comment: he referred to his actions as 'a silly lapse' which he regretted - but claimed he had merely 'helped a friend'.

It was an astonishing, and rather damning admission, from his own point of view.

Mrs Angry suggested at this point that in her opinion, he should have been asked to resign after the remark he made in regard to the cutting of funding to Mapledown School, for vital respite care for disabled children. He had dismissed this vital support for exhausted parents as 'handouts'.

Hart claimed he had no recollection of ever saying any such thing. Mrs Angry told him she had been present at the meeting at which he had said it.

If I said it, he stated, I am sorry.

Cllr Devra Kay now spoke. She referred to what has become known as the 'indecent proposal' made by Barnet Tories to the Labour leadership, at the beginning of the new administration, at the farcical Annual Meeting, a proposal that reportedly threatened the removal of certain allowances if Labour would not agree to a pairing agreement that the Tories wanted.

Richard Cornelius claimed now that such an offer was only in regard to any members that were ill.

Cllr Kay refused to accept this, and asked her party leader to clarify the point: what was the offer? Was it really only about members who might be ill, or was it broader than that, which is what Labour members had been led to believe? It was an uncompromisingly direct question, and the leaders of both parties were on the spot.

Alison Moore appeared uncomfortable, as indeed did the Tory leader. She said something about it being for members who were unable to turn up.

In other words, it seems that the arrangement had been a broad one, that would enable Tory councillors to retain their majority when they thought they might be in danger because a member was away, or had another commitment - or could not be bothered to attend.

A rather more conservative minded member of the audience tried to suggest that the pairing agreement was perfectly acceptable and even democratic- Mrs Angry disagreed, and pointed out that what counted, according to the Tory view of matters, was winning by numbers: the majority won.

If their members could not be bothered to turn up - then the truly democratic conclusion was that the other side should take the majority - and that really was democracy in action.

As for the debacle which followed this cack handed suggestion, and the ruthless way in which the Tories then voted to move the date of the September full council meeting to the day of the leader's speech during the Labour conference: that was pretty shabby, wasn't it, suggested Mrs Angry, to Richard Cornelius?

In his typically disingenuous way, he had the grace to look embarrassed, and quietly agreed, and even admitted that it needed 'to be adjusted' - a pretty sensational admission, after the previously intransigent position his party had taken.

A couple more questions. Parking: the usual complaints. Round and round we go, with this subject, and nothing is ever done to resolve it.

Somehow in the course of this issue, Councillor John Hart ended by hurling an obscure Spanish proverb at Mrs Angry - something about her being a bull in a field.

No hablo espanol, replied Mrs Angry, who spent all her Spanish lessons at school misbehaving, and provoking the wrath of the hapless teacher, poor Senora Lee, and being moved a record 25 times in one term for her efforts. Try French, she suggested, regretting the words as soon as they left her mouth. Richard Cornelius tittered.

A last question from a resident on an issue of immense importance: the fate of the failing Your Choice Barnet care service. Was it destined to be handed over to Crapita, when it completely collapses?

Aubrey Rose confessed to the audience that he was prejudiced against outsourcing. Another reasonable response from a reasonable man, and Mrs Angry hoped that Cornelius would take his measured, but clearly critical position on the issues debated during the evening as a warning that it was not just 'the usual suspects' who feel so alienated from the Tory administration, and its agenda for the borough.

We waited to hear from the Labour leader what the opposition party would do about the appalling state of YCB, whose workers are now facing a 9.5 % cut in their already pitiful wages - wages which do not even include being paid for travelling between the very vulnerable clients who depend on their care.

Her reply, expressed in tones that made it clear that such a possibility was highly unlikely, was that it would be, yes - 'a challenge' to bring Your Choice Barnet back in house. A member of the audience corrects her when she says that the enterprise was 'arguably' underfunded, and only then does she retract her qualification. And then she concludes:

Bringing YCB back in house wasnot necessarily a magic wand ...*

A magic wand.

*(Mrs Angry's hearing is dodgy and she originally misheard this as not necessarily what we want. Not that this phrase makes the statement any better).See below for update.

It is hard to explain the impact of this feeble response on those present.

Members of the audience whose relatives are users of YCB looked on in horror.

It was truly an excruciating moment for any Labour party member to witness: yet another failure in leadership - and a betrayal, accidental or not, of the families who are at the mercy of this catastrophic venture, and the workers who are being so ruthlessly exploited by a subsidised failure kept on life support for reasons of political expediency.

Where was the anger, on their behalf? Where the opposition to the Tory agenda of profit before compassion, ideology before need? Why, yet again, do we hear what effectively is an endorsement of the status quo, an acceptance of defeat, complicity with the failings of the ruling administration?

Is it now Labour group policy not to press for the return of YCB to direct control? When was that decision taken, and on what basis? Is it the view of the majority of Labour councillors?

What about the unions, and the effect on negotiations over industrial action over the pay cuts?

Two family members of YCB users spoke in fury of the impact of the rapidly deteriorating service, to little avail. Cornelius at least had the grace to look uncomfortable, especially when, after he claimed staff were not paid the lowest wages, Mrs Angry asked if he would be prepared to undertake such a job, seeing to the personal care of such dependent people, on such a level of pay.

He said quietly that he would not choose such work. Mrs Angry pointed out that no one chooses to take a job with such poor rates of pay, and that if he had had a parent at the mercy of employees so demoralised by such conditions, he might feel differently, and that such low pay and the reliance on agency staff inevitably poses the risk of another Winterbourne View.

Cornelius' discomfort at least suggested an element of troubled conscience. And after all, one expects the Tories to defend their own cock ups. But what excuse can there be for the leader of the opposition, who demonstrates such equivocation when called on to defend the rights of those who bear the burden of impact from the mess the Tories created? What alternative can there be to rescuing the disaster that is Your Choice Barnet from further collapse?

Not so long ago the Labour group allowed themselves to be persuaded to endorse a Task and Finish group which whitewashed the whole YCB fiasco. Now the leader is apparently refusing to contemplate the need to take the most obvious course of action: to take a failing enterprise back in house, protect the needs of the vulnerable users who rely on these services, and crucially at this moment, to fight for a decent level of wage for the workers who deliver them.

But is this view, expressed on Friday, actually party policy? If so, does the rest of the group know that, and were they involved in any debate over the matter?

What is curious is that at a Residents Forum last week, and after a truly appalling speech by a senior officer seeking to justify the cut in wages to staff, Labour councillor Alon Or Bach had said the party does think the council should consider taking YCB back in house.

And indeed this view was the subject of a motion submitted to council in April last year by the deputy leader, Barry Rawlings.

This apparent contradiction in policy is significant - it represents something that is happening within the Labour group now that the party is returned to a much stronger level of representation on the council: a growing schism between those who support the old way of doing things, and those who want to see a new direction, and a more radical, combative approach, once based on policies that defend the principles of social justice, and challenge rather than endorse the Conservative agenda of what we heard last week must include a 'sustainable market place of care'.

Mrs Angry's question about resignation was not only aimed at the Tory councillors.

And as the democracy, as the system works now, is about winning control through majorities, not about forming a consensus.

Labour lost the election: it should have won.

If the party had campaigned in a more focused and better directed way, it would have won.

Failure is not good enough: there is too much at stake - the people of this borough deserve an opposition which fights, not conciliates.

An opposition which opposes, not endorses, the Tory agenda.

It's not good enough to say, well, we don't think we can really get out of the Capita contracts, so we won't bother to try.

It's not good enough to tell families dependent on a sinking service for care support that market forces are the only effective option for the future, and to tell the workers you are going to stand by and do nothing.

It's not good enough to support the Tory budget, and the shameful tax cut, and then witter on about 'fairness commissions'.

Whether or not there is a leadership challenge within the Labour group, one thing is clear: the way in which the group works in opposition can and must adapt and evolve.

As even Richard Cornelius commented, at the end of the discussion: 'that's the nature of life - things change ...'

Things change: things fall apart.

Question time came to an end.

This is the kind of meeting, said the Chair, in conclusion, that proves the value of democracy.

The trouble is, thought Mrs Angry, stuffing her notebook in her bag, furiously, and heading for the exit, that democracy means different things to different people, doesn't it?

*Update: the Labour leader's apparent equivocation over the Your Choice Barnet fiasco, and whether or not it should be brought back in house has caused a good deal of controversy and Labour councillors have been given a statement on the group's position which, we are pleased to see, is far more robust in its position, and contains no references to magic wands: Mrs Angry's emphasis in red:

The agreed Labour group position is that if the YCB business plan continues to fail, YCB should be brought back in house in order to protect the service. At the moment YCB are currently in negotiation with staff and the unions to find savings of £400k that would not mean pay cuts of 10% and a deteriorating service. The Labour Group supports these negotiations.

Barnet Tories had a real problem, in the run up to the recent election.

What could they put in their manifesto?

What could they use as encouragement for the residents of Broken Barnet to run to the polling stations, on May 22nd, and beg them to form another Conservative administration?

What had they achieved, over the last four years, other than preside over a sequence of unfortunate events, as a result of their catastrophic agenda of policies?

They could not talk about the mass privatisation of services, the handing over of every council function that was not already nailed down or protected; could not mention Capita, or One Barnet, for fear of giving the game away to those residents who have not cottoned on to what has been happening to their borough and local democracy.

Coy references to 'a change programme' took the place, therefore, of any overt mention of the massive outsourcing of our services: but what was left to brag about? Nothing. A dilemma then. Still: they had one trick up their sleeve.

They pride themselves, the Barnet Tories, on their ideological resistance to the principle of taxation. Except, of course, in the form of punitive levels for the poor, as in the bedroom tax.

They become almost hysterical at the thought of the millionaire residents of Totteridge, or the arms dealers and pornographers of Bishops Avenue, being obliged to cough up a bit more in the form of mansion taxes, but of course they should not be expected to pay their fair share of costs which have nothing to do with them, such as healthcare, education, and other indulgences that the lower orders seem to think they have a right to enjoy.

Here in Barnet, they think, despite the continuing reduction in funding from central government, and the devastation on local services that this inevitably causes, we must deprive those services of even more money by cutting our own way of raising revenue, that is to say via council tax. Why? Because ... we don't like the idea of tax, and because we think everyone thinks the same.

Everyone does not think the same, of course, and most decent people understand very well that their local tax supports vital services, and don't want tax cuts that will have a direct impact on such funding.

But Barnet Tories are incapable of empathising with such philanthropism, of course, and therefore, in order to make their electoral chances more favourable, chose this year not only to freeze council tax again, but to go a step further, and cut it, by one per cent. This their leader Richard Cornelius described as a 'gesture', acknowledging the benefit in real terms was negligable: a few pence a week, pointless, and merely symbolic. A gesture, as it turned out, of contempt for those unlucky enough to have to pay the cost of this pre-election bribe.

Within a short while of the tax cut being announced, it was revealed that Mapledown School, a secondary school for children with complex and profound needs, was to lose funding for its vital respite care schemes, which support children after school and during holidays.

This devastating cut, and the impact it would have on the children and their families, was dismissed by both Tory leader Richard Cornelius and education spokesperson Reuben Thompstone, in whose ward the school is located, but who had never visited it.

Cornelius commented, about his plan to deprive Mapledown of funding at the same time as giving his council tax cut gesture: I think the average person in the street thinks this is fair.

Reuben Thompstone suggested that parents should be 'more creative' in the ways they find funding, and that the school could use its own reserves. At a meeting, Tory Councillor John Hart dismissed the funding as 'handouts'.

Exhausted parents came with their children to a council meeting to explain exactly why comments about creative fundraising were so offensive. The headteacher reminded Thompstone that the school was not allowed to use their reserves in the way he had recommended and that he had already raised a large amount of funding himself.

Widespread criticism of the cuts finally forced the Tories into a reluctant retreat, and won back the vitally needed respite funding - at least for now. But then it emerged that there may be other schools or charitable concerns that have also been the victims of the Tory axe - ten service providers, in fact. They had not had the same focus of publicity for the case of Mapledown, and for them the cuts still applied.

Oakleigh School is the feeder school for Mapledown, and addresses the needs of children from the age of two to eleven: children with a range of profound and complex physical and learning disabilities. No children in the borough could possibly be more vulnerable and dependent than these, yet Barnet Tories had seen fit to impose petty cuts in the funding which provides holiday respite care through its OOPS scheme.

Last night saw the first meeting of the new Children, Education, Libraries and Safeguarding committee, where the cuts to Oakfield were due to be debated.

Before the meeting, parents, children and supporters gathered outside the Town Hall. One woman stood patiently, protectively, behind her crying son, like a madonna and child, a latterday pietà.

As you looked on you could only reflect on the absolute villainy of the Tory's action in cutting the funding - how could they even think of taking away any support from these families?

Once inside the committee room, the seats in the public gallery quickly filled, and the councillors and officers took their place at the table. Mrs Angry noted one of the new co-opted members as the man who had been headmaster of St Theresa's primary school, tasked with the almost impossible job of educating her children - the lovely Denis Carey: a valuable addition to the committee, being a man of the utmost integrity and wisdom: qualities, alas which were demonstrably missing from some of the elected members present.

The ineffable Reuben Thompstone, a young councillor whose robust frame somehow exudes the sort of pomposity more usual in a much older man, is the chair of this committee.

To remind us that he was the chair of this committee, he clearly felt the need to exert his authority.

If we can get a bit of quiet, he demanded.

That might seem like a reasonable request, just before a meeting.

In a roomful of young children in wheelchairs, children with multiple disabilities, who are in distress, crying, wailing, twisting in their seats, calling out, banging the floor - this is not, was not, a reasonable request.

It was a really badly judged thing to say.

To say it once, in the circumstances, was bad enough.

To say it again, was simply appalling.

A bit more quiet, he commanded, having acknowledged, graciously, that some might have difficulty in complying with this order.

Not sure, Cllr Thompstone, how you expected the mums and dads of Oakleigh to keep their children quiet, so that the entire room could enjoy the sound of your voice, as you yourself so clearly do.

Some of the children are heavily medicated, and sedated. Some of the children are on the autistic spectrum, and live in a world of infinite confusion, which causes them to become upset, and try to express their feelings without language, by making noise.

Perhaps you might consider, if you find their behaviour challenging, quite how difficult it is to deal with, night and day, all year round - especially with no respite care, in holiday periods?

Mrs Angry had guessed that, forewarned as they were of the visit to the town hall by the families of Oakleigh, and fearful of more negative publicity, just before the delayed election in Colindale, our Tory strategists would have something up their rapidly unravelling sleeve aimed at deflecting the further avalanche of opprobrium that was going to descend on their horrible heads, should they insist on going ahead with the cut.

Thompstone, as predicted, moved quickly to try to defuse the inevitable emotional impact of parents coming to the table and pleading for councillors to restore the funding. He submitted a motion that would give back some of the money: enough to pay for this summer's scheme. He claimed he was doing this because he now realised that parents had not had enought time to take the cuts into account, whereas, as one parent claimed later:

Ms Charles also disputed Mr Thompstone's claims that parents had not understood the impact of the cuts. She added that OOPS had made repeated attempts to obtain a contract with the council, but had been met with opposition by the council officers.

She said: “It is simply not the case. The people at short-breaks are well aware of that. There have been heated discussions for two years regarding the contract.”

In fact it is quite obvious that the Tories were merely backtracking on a mindlessly cruel decision simply because they were caught out, and publicly shamed. But what they have approved, now, is only a partial reprieve: £21,000 of the £38,000 needed for the schemes. There is also promised the ominous threat of a more general review of overall funding.

Perhaps Thompstone and his Tory colleagues hoped that would be the end of it, and they could drop the item, and move on. Not bloody likely.

Sarah Sackman, a local barrister who - thank God - is standing as the Labour candidate in Finchley and Golders Green, against Mike Freer, in 2015, has been a staunch advocate for the children at both Mapledown and Oakleigh schools, and had submitted questions to the meeting. She now addressed the committee. You might think that the local MP would naturally undertake such a role - but that is not the sort of thing he does, is it? And next year you can choose between him, and the sort of person who cares enough to make the effort.

Although welcoming the restoration of the lost funding, Sarah pointed out it was unfortunate that it had had to take such a concerted effort to achieve this end.

These parents had had to fight for every bit of support they had. We should be there to support these people, and these children. The council had to do better, to avoid the huge amount of distress caused by their actions.

At this point the Chair cut her off, as she was over what is now a preposterous three minute limit for such public contributions. Our Tory councillors are not awfully keen on the idea of engagement, or consultation, or democracy, and too long an opportunity for criticism from an uncensored source is of course too dangerous a risk to contemplate.

Fortunately, for the purpose of restoring some sort of democratic involvement within the limitations of this meeting, a Labour councillor came to the rescue. Anne Hutton invited Sarah to continue with her comments.

She did continue. She made the point that what was happening here in Barnet is actually counter to what is happening nationally, where we are seeing funding for such schemes increased, not slashed. We must protect the most vulnerable children, surely?

Mr White, parent of a child at Oakleigh, spoke next.

He reminded the committee that OOPS needs long term funding, and explained why, from his own perspective.

Many of the children at Oakleigh, and Mapledown, he said, with courageous honesty, were almost impossible to manage.

OOPS provides the only opportunity for families to find a skilled and dedicated standard of care, from staff who know their children, children who know the staff, and who can benefit, through the scheme, from being in a safe and stimulating environment.

Many of these children, he said, were not mobile, and many have very, very challenging behavioural difficulties.

He talked about his son, who is eight and a half, and is 'non verbal'.

He works for the BBC. He used to work five days a week. Then it was four, then three, then two - and now he struggles to do one.

OOPS helps him to keep going, to contribute in some way to society. Without it, he would be dependent on benefits, and the taxpayer, at an enormous cost. This was not the way forward.

I implore you, he said, to ensure that the funding of OOPS continues.

At this point, Mrs Angry felt a terrible sense of shame. Why should a man of his articulacy, and in his position, be reduced to having to implore a bunch of self satisfied, disinterested Tory councillors for what clearly should be his, and his son's, by absolute right?

New Labour councillor Ammar Naqvi commented that his contribution had been very poignant. He wondered what Mr White thought of the proposed further cuts: were they acceptable?

No, was the emphatic response. It was incumbant on the council to provide the more vulnerable members of society with the support they need.

Another father sat at the table. His son has autism. He pointed out that many parents and children could not attend the meeting as the time was way past their bedtime: such children are generally exhausted, by this time.

He explained that having a child with such complex disabilities might be understood by any parent as going back to the time when your child was a baby. Except that that time, with such a child, goes on and on and on. So the respite offered by OOPS and similar schemes was like 'a pearl in the life of parents like these'. It gave them the chance to recharge properly.

And then it was time for Rose.

Rose and her partner Ross had been sitting next to Mrs Angry.

Mrs Angry had read Rose's story in the local paper, and been humbled by her dedication to her two disabled grandchildren, for whom she cares, as their mother is too unwell.

Can you possibly imagine what it is like, to be the carer for two children with such complex, distressing disabilities: children whose lives will be limited by their illness, and have no outcome other than the most bleak?

Rose was determined that the councillors who had wanted to remove the funding for her grandchildren's respite care to understand exactly what impact such a move would have.

She began by explaining the level of medication her sixteen year old grandson Ben relied upon: some fifteen different types of drugs. What were these for? To try to relieve the pain and distress his deteriorating condition caused him. The seizures to which he was prone - sometimes 80 a day. The thrashing about, scoliosis, neuropathic pain, difficulty in breathing, an inability to swallow, constant infections.

His sister, Sophie, only seven years old, suffering from worsening epilepsy, no longer mobile, continent, or able to feed -

Reuben Thompstone interrupts this pitiful, painful description, crassly, stupidly, telling her she has only a short time left to speak.

She continues, increasingly distressed, speaking of the more joyful moments of her time with Sophie, when she takes you by the hand, she said ... at this point her partner turned to Mrs Angry and said he wanted to comfort her, would it be alright? Yes, yes - go and sit next to her. He did so, and sat silently as she said, speaking with unbearable candour, straight to the heart of anyone with any semblance of humanity:

I love my children, more than you can understand, and I want to look after them at home, before they die, which is inevitable ...

Unbelievably, Thompstone interrupted her again, to the disgust of almost everyone in the room.

The heartbreak, she told us, is too difficult to describe.

She explained that she was always one inch away from the end of her tether: who could blame her?

And her message to the councillors was this: with knowledge, comes understanding - and responsibility. She rejected the insulting pretence that the temporary reprieve over funding was due to an administrative error, and referring to the UN charter on the rights of the child, she said:

I urge you to give our children the respect and dignity they deserve.

After she had returned to her seat, Labour's veteran councillor Agnes Slocombe angrily demanded to know why it was that we always take so much from those who have so little.

Because those people don't have a voice, said one of the parents.

If it had not been for the tactful intervention of Labour councillors Rebecca Challice, Anne Hutton, and Ammar Naqvi, Rose would not have been able to make the speech that she made, on behalf not just herself and her two grandchildren, but all of those who benefit from the vital support schemes that this money has always funded.

Apart from the rudeness and insensitivity of the Chair, none of the members of the Tory group who imposed these cuts, in order to make savings necessitated by a pathetic 23 pence a week tax bonus, had the courage to speak to any of the parents who sat at the table. They sat in evident discomfort, silently listening, their body language speaking eloquently of their unease. Perhaps they thought of their own children, or grandchildren, and had the glimmerings of an understanding about what they had done, and what they will probably do again, as long as they think no one much will notice.

This is the real face of the Barnet Tory group: they vote for these proposals, and then withdraw them if there is protest, but sit silently by when brought face to face with the victims of their policies in action.

The money they are making in savings, and the further savings - the 'haircuts' that Kate Kennally later so efficiently explained, including those being proposed for childrens' services: this pales into insignificance when compared to the funds squandered on the consultation fees alone for the implementation of the privatisation contracts - contracts that give us a modest amount of pocket money, and allow Capita to give all the rest to their shareholders.

In the upside down world of Broken Barnet, run by our Tory councillors, this is how things are, where the rights of disabled children, by definition the most vulnerable of all residents of our community, take second place to the best interests of private enterprise.

It's no wonder that the Chair of this meeting didn't want to hear the noise made by the children of Oakleigh School, or listen to the stories their parents had to tell. People with a voice are so much more difficult to ignore, aren't they?

The parents and teachers of these schools are heroic, truly admirable people.

Who could be more worthy of respect - and who could make some of our elected representatives look any less worthy?

Last Thursday was the day of the Colindale election, an event delayed by the untimely death of the Green party candidate, and taking place more than a month after the rest of the borough went to the polls.

Colindale has returned three Labour councillors: Zakia Zubairi, Nagus Narenthira, and Gill Sergeant. Returned three Labour councillors with a 68% share of the vote, a swing of ten per cent, and seeing the Tories beaten to humiliating level of only 15% - close to the UKIP share of 10%.

This ward has traditionally been a Labour stronghold, but Colindale is one of those areas that have been targeted in the insidious Tory plantation strategy, via a housing policy in which so called 'regeneration' schemes see areas of social housing and rental accommodation for low income families replaced and dominated by private development schemes.

Beaufort Park - whose quota of affordable housing was removed by the Tories last year - and similar developments are changing the face of areas like this.

The Peel Centre, a former police HQ is also due for development - and of course the Brent Cross Cricklewood plan, that will transform the neighbouring area, is going to be massive in terms of transformation of the western side of the borough.

The result in the long term on the political and electoral landscape will be hugely significant.

In Colindale and West Hendon these schemes are having - and will continue to have - a devastating impact on the local communities.

The faux regeneration might be seen as some as designed to remove the sense of community, as part of a strategy of social engineering.

Call it gerrymandering, if you like, or social cleansing: whether deliberate and politically motivated or not, the effect is the same.

In line with the Barnet Tory wish for only the 'well off' who are not 'dependent on council services', the poorest residents are being pushed out of these areas, and out of the borough.

The demographic representation of wards like these is rapidly changing, but the process is not complete, and in the interim period, the time of change, life is becoming increasingly difficult for those who remain in the parts of the borough which are being prepared for development, or which simply do not register as a priority for support from our Tory councillors.

Yes, we are talking about the interesting case of the Highways expenditure, a matter now under investigation by the Monitoring Officer of Barnet Council.

On the way to the polling station, on Thursday, as the story featured above, published in the current edition of Private Eye suggests, voters in Colindale ward may well have noticed that the streets and pavements in their ward are curiously ill maintained.

If they tripped up on a loose paving stone, or stood forlornly at the edge of a pot hole filled road, wishing there was a safe crossing point, they may just have wondered why this was so - why their pavements, and their roads are in such a state.

They might have wondered why their local council has not addressed these problems - and left the roads and pavements in such a state.

Clearly we live in an age of austerity, and tightening belts, cuts in budgets.

We are so strapped for cash, apparently, that our Tory councillors must deprive disabled children of their after school and holiday respite care, in order to pay for such necessities as their pre-election 23 pence a week tax cut.

Maintaining the highways of Broken Barnet, the road surfaces and pavements, therefore, might be expected to take a low priority, at the moment.

Well: yes, and - no.

Yes, if you live in a Labour held ward.

No, if you are in a Tory ward.

If you live in Golders Green, a Tory ward represented by the Cabinet member who had the last word on the allocation of funds for highways - kercching! Well done. Your pavements are likely to be crack free, lovingly and recently installed, and the surface of your road as smooth as silk.

Oh: unless you live in the further extremes of the ward, the NW2 side, where there is a certain amount of social housing, and where poor people live, who are likely to vote Labour.

These uncomfortable truths have been well documented, in various posts on this blog, and indeed are the subject of a formal complaint by Labour (eventually).

But that is not the end of the story.

When Mrs Angry made the original FOI request for the breakdown of the Highways expenditure, only a partial response was given.

There was a refusal to supply the first two years of the former administration term's funding, on the clearly spurious grounds that such information was not available.

This data was important, as clearly we needed to see the full range of expenditure, and is necessary to verify Councillor Cohen's claims in regard to his own wards' needs.

An appeal was made contesting the withheld information.

When it came to the date when a response was due, an officer sent a statement that the authority needed another twenty days in which to respond.

By coincidence, this dragged the moment of disclosure right up to the time of the Colindale election. Wasn't that a surprise?

At last the response emerged.

The previous refusal, Mrs Angry was told, was certainly not as she suggested, due to political sensitivities, but due to 'mistakes and incorrect assumptions' made by another officer.

Mmm.

But how revealing is this response, with the previous two years expenditure.

Dean Cohen took over Cabinet responsibility for Environment in May 2012, after Brian Coleman's loss of his Assembly post sent his political career into freefall.

Cohen therefore had pretty much a free reign over spending for the last two years shown on this spreadsheet, as he altered the system of allocation from one of equal distribution to one by which he could have the last say in expenditure.

Now look at this written question, submitted to Full Council on the 21st January 2014 by former councillor Brian Coleman, in regard to spending in Golders Green ward: Mrs Angry's emphasis in glaring red -

Question 64 Councillor Brian Coleman

What is the average amount being spent in a Ward on pavement and highways repairs and renewals during the current financial year? How much has been spent or is planned to be spent in Golders Green Ward?

Answer by Councillor Dean Cohen

Approximately £800,000 is being spent in Golders Green ward in 2013/14. This is as a result of the lack of investment in previous years, for example in the years 2010/11 and 2011/12 Golders Green ward was awarded less than £20,000 in total. I asked officers specifically to work on a list based on need, not like previous years on an even split in constituencies.

Set aside the fact that he claims £800,000 was to be spent that year in Golders Green, whereas the total was more than £1 million - Dean Cohen has given several excuses for the disproportionate amount of money channelled into his own ward. Having a long road in it - that was one memorable reason, but he also has promoted the idea that such a large input was due to lack of funding, and here we see specifically he has claimed that only £20,000 in total was spent in the two years whose details have only just been released.

According to the new information, in those two years, a total of nearly £276,000 was spent.

Even if Councillor Cohen were to try to say now that there had been a typo, and the figure was £200,000, clearly that too would be wrong.

Mrs Angry has asked him to explain the apparently misleading information given to Full Council, and will update the post if and when he does. As of Monday, 10.00 am, he has not done so.

It is true to say that in the period where his former colleague Brian Coleman was responsible for Environment, Golders Green fared less well than other Tory wards, but in no way was it underfunded in the wider sense.

Golders Green Ward received more money in this period than Colindale, yet Colindale's underinvestment was followed by a sum less than £93,000 in the next year, and nothing at all last year, compared to Cohen's ward being given £564,000 in the next year, and more than a million in the final year - before the election.

Golders Green also benefited from some joint funding with neighbouring Childs Hill, which is fortunate for the then Libdem held ward, which, as you will see was given in two years the tiniest possible level of funding: £35,000 in the first year, and just under £41,000 the next.

Quite why Cllr Cohen felt it was necessary to stop joint funding to wards is rather puzzling.

Clearly to him the boundaries between wards are of some significance, and important to maintain when it comes to funding.

Interesting, incidentally, that in the first year, Totteridge, then Cabinet member Coleman's ward receives a whopping handout of nearly £425,000.

That this was at the time when there was supposed to be equal allocation suggests how influential a Cabinet member may be, in terms of arguing for higher funding, when it comes to their own wards.

Did the hugely affluent, leafy lanes of Totteridge really require such a high level of expenditure when Labour wards of Woodhouse, East Finchley and Coppetts, represented by Labour and rebel Tory Kate Salinger were given nothing?

Yes: just look at the figures for Labour stronghold, Woodhouse Ward.

For two years, no funding. At all.

East Finchley, the equally staunch Labour ward, represented by the group's leader Alison Moore: nothing at all in the first year.

Coppetts, which had two Labour councillors, and one maverick Tory, Kate Salinger, the only Tory to dare to defy Coleman that year over the allowance increase row, when he was whip - now defeated by a Labour candidate: no funding.

Of course there may be perfectly rational reasons for these curious decisions: we look forward to the explanations.

Broadly speaking, in the first two years, the funding was more widespread. Quite evidently, after there is a change in the Cabinet member, need was defined not so much in terms of equitable benefit, but on rather ill defined subjective criteria. And any safeguard that a commitment to equal allocation gave was lost.

Apart from an apparently anamolous degree of generosity to Burnt Oak, Tory wards have done particularly well in the total expenditure: but then clearly the 'needs' of the Tory wards were in some way deserving of more support - and their political status was purely coincidental.

What is most worrying is the level and proportion of funding in the year leading up to the elections, in May.

There is quite clearly an electoral advantage that will attach to a candidate who approves a million pounds worth of funding for his own ward in the form of high visibility expenditure: the very ground his constituents walk on, or the roads on which they drive their cars.

As Councillor Cohen comments in one of the emails to Highways officers included in a previous FOI request, a demand for such maintenance comes as a high priority in resident surveys, for obvious reasons.

Questions must be asked about the very high level of expenditure in marginal Hale ward: again, there is clearly a political advantage to incumbent Tory councillors if this area receives such a high level of maintenance in the run up to the election.

Equally in a Labour held area, it is reasonable to assume that a low level of expenditure will have an impact on the councillors' electoral prospects as constituents may become dissatisfied by the efforts made on their behalf by their representatives.

As it turned out, the delay in the election for Colindale meant that the issue of the lack of any budget for this ward was outed and voters informed by Labour in their election literature, so the policy of underfunding would appear to have backfired in this instance.

Who can tell, however, how it may have influenced voters elsewhere, especially in Hale, or Mill Hill?

It is clear to see that there is an urgent need for reform of the system of approval for any significant expenditure, to mitigate the risk that no political influence can be brought to bear - or the perception that it could be - on the final outcome.

Safeguards must be put in place that ensure the fairest possible allocation of funds, on the basis of real need, and not for any other reason, to prevent any perception, proven or not, of favouritism.

The Monitoring Officer is currently investigating the Labour Party's complaint about the Highways budget, Labour having first written to our external auditor, Grant Thornton: and Mrs Angry has updated the Monitoring Officer regarding the new information - but let's remind ourselves of the Labour group's statement:

Labour refers £4m highways allocations to auditors

Barnet’s Labour councillors have referred highways allocations worth £4m to the external auditors to investigate after discovering that no formal decision had been taken on which schemes were awarded money. The final decision over which schemes were progressed was delegated to the Cabinet Member for Environment whose own ward received the highest award of over £1m for 2013/14.

Leader of the Barnet Labour Group, Cllr Alison Moore said: “It’s hard not to be left with the perception that the process has been politically biased during an election year and given the sums of money involved there is clearly a public interest in this issue being investigated further. “Members of the public will not understand how an individual Cabinet Member can be directly involved in the allocation of resources to their own ward in this way with no real formal decision and no public scrutiny or challenge.”

Cllr Alan Schneiderman, Labour’s Environment Spokesperson said: “The whole thing is a scandal! Opposition councillors were just by-passed by the Cabinet Member and not even asked to submit schemes for consideration. Quite how they decided what roads to include is surprising when we can all see roads and pavements in a far worse state than those chosen to be repaired.”

Labour's complaint was specifically in regard to what has happened since the current Environment spokesperson took over, and detailed in the letter to the auditor are claims regarding the process of decision making regarding an extra £4 million agreed last year which they claim appears to have been spent on the wards he approved, without a fair system of consultation. See here the letter sent to Grant Thornton:

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/highways-of-despair-labour-report.html

On receipt of the evidence from this latest FOI response, it would seem clear, however, that the problem maybe even wider than first thought. Perhaps it is time to scrutinise any other ward based expenditure?

The scandalous matter of the Highways expenditure raises serious questions about the way in which tax payers money, in the form of budget allocation, is used in Barnet - is it for the benefit of all, or for the benefit of only those favoured by the ruling administration?

Yet again, in Broken Barnet, we find ourselves enmeshed in a culture of denial; denial of the needs of those without a voice, the forgotten residents of our borough.

The Tories, as always,retreat to the safety of their comfort zone: a place where all the people like them live, or, they think, aspire to live: the roads where the pavements are not cracked, and potholes are instantly filled.

If some live in less advantaged areas, it must be their fault, according to the philosophy of our Tory councillors, and these people should not be rewarded by, or even expect, the same level of investment as those who who live in the nicer parts of the borough.

Worse still, it would appear that those who vote to return a Conservative council are rewarded by a higher standard of service from their local authority.

This is the logical conclusion of the Easycouncil ideal, of course, so do thank Mike Freer, if he is your MP, and you object to a two tier scheme of funding for the pavements and roads of Broken Barnet.

Those who pay the most, who vote the right way - they get the better service: and this is your choice, they would argue. You have chosen to be poor, or old, or young, or disabled, and you must take the consequences.

And if you don't have the means to afford any 'choice'?

Clear off.

Or, if necessary, we'll give you one way ticket out of here, to take you over the border into someone else's responsibility.

How ever did we get to this point: our borough run by such a cynical, decadent Tory administration - one for the few, and not the many?

With apologies to one famous former resident of Golders Green, music hall star Marie Lloyd - all together now:

Oh, Lady Porter, what did we do?

We wanted a democratically run local authority,

And we've ended up with you.

Yep. This is Broken Barnet: June 2014 - a Tory flagship council, and a model for local government.

Don't say you haven't been warned.

Lord Brittan on Geoffrey Dickens' dossier, now missing: As I recall, he came to my room at the Home Office with a substantial bundle of papers ...

Anyone who, like me, has had a Catholic upbringing, will understand the real horror of discovery, in recent years, of a tolerance, within the church and its schools, of the sexual and physical abuse of children entrusted to its care.

The revelations of the extent of this abuse continue to reverberate, both here and in Ireland, and has caused damage that is irreparable, to victims, of course, but also to the institutions involved.

Writing about the experience of psychological abuse of my own school here in Broken Barnet, still provokes a constant flow of visits, some of them from victims who continue to suffer, years later, from the unspoken traumas of their childhood and education.

Institutionalised abuse, whether psychological, or sexual, is a demon that preyed on not just the church, Catholic or Anglican, in children's homes, or schools, and it is one that is only just beginning to be confronted, and one whose power, even now, presents a formidable enemy.

To a child, the identity of an abuser, or the background of organisation that may or may not be behind it, is immaterial: anyone who has any knowledge of the impact on a child knows that the impact of his or her personal experience continues to be felt in adult life, acknowledged or not.

And the abuse of children by individuals with the protection of a celebrity status, or the defence accorded to those in a position of power, is a subject that until now has eluded all attempts to hold it accountable.

In the midst of the truly nauseating revelations about predatory celebrity paedophiles like Jimmy Savile, and Rolf Harris, one fact has emerged, or seems to have emerged, and at least seems to have been accepted as undeniably true, and widely promoted by the mainstream media.

This is the claim that their activities succeeded, ultimately, because despite their fame, and status, the sexual assaults committed by them went unchallenged because they were 'hidden in plain sight', that is to say took place openly, but in a way that denied and 'normalised' the nature of the behaviour. Not just their victims, we hear, were 'groomed' and duped, but the whole nation.

Is that so? Or is the truth more likely that the same media outlets, the papers and broadcasting channels now so keen to report and exploit these stories could very well have - should have - pursued lines of investigation into allegations regarding these individuals over the decades during which rumours were circulating, but no action against them was taken?

Because there certainly were rumours about both of them, , as I can recall from my own teenage years, on an anecdotal basis: stories about Savile hanging around Piccadilly Circus, picking up vulnerable youths with another Radio 1 DJ, stories about Harris having, as Vanessa Feltz puts it in a story today 'wandering hands': and a woman who told me once about an 'indecent proposal' he made to her when she was a young student working in a well known department store.

Were the News of the World and all the other tabloids too busy hacking the phones of missing schoolgirls, and adulterous ministers to bother investigating the sexual exploitation of children? Probably.

Were any other journalists trying to cover stories like these? Yes, but you might only read such stories in publications like Private Eye, solely prepared to report the unreportable, and now struggling to raise an almost lone voice of sanity (and yes, clearly one must exclude the Daily Mail here) to question the impact of legislation designed to create the emasculated 'free press' approved of by Hugh Grant, Steve Coogan, Hacked Off, and the mysterious 'Media Reform Coalition'.

This week has seen, at last, the emergence of another story about historic child abuse, a story which will blow the lid off what was described in a feature on James O'Brien's show on LBC last week by Exaro editor Mark Watts as 'almost beyond belief' and possibly 'the biggest post war political scandal in the UK'.

Really, you may be asking? Yes, really.

(In fact, Mrs Angry must confess to bending poor James O'Brien's ear about this issue at a lunch recently - being the only woman in London who could make a fair stab at out-talking a chat show host, she felt it was her duty ...)

Listen to the discussion here ...

Hard to explain the significance of what lies behind all this, without sounding the alarm bells that warn of yet another conspiracy theory. And if you spend any amount of time googling the subject, you will come across a certain amount of over imaginative speculation of the David Icke type, some of which, perhaps, may well, to indulge in one's own moment of conspiratorial madness, be deliberate misinformation, and an attempt to smear and detract from the truth.

And yet the truth, supported by evidence, and documentation, is itself so disturbing that it needs no embellishment or misinterpretation.

If you are surprised at the revelations now inching their way into the public domain about the lost files on child abuse submitted to Home Secretary Leon Brittan, and various other related stories, then that will be because until now, almost no one has reported them.

You might have heard about such stories in the past, again in Private Eye, or more recently if you have followed the patient, scrupulously careful and courageous articles published on the Exaro website, largely the work of our old friend, veteran investigative journalist David Hencke.

For the past eighteen months, Exaro -motto - 'holding power to account' - has raised the issue of the historic organised sexual abuse of children, usually young boys, by individuals who in some cases were high profile members of the establishment, and who appear to have eluded the course of justice by a sequence of failures by police and prosecuting procedures.

In contrast to the cluster of high profile trials of celebrities facing charges on alleged, and in some cases now proven, historic sexual abuse, a number of politicians and other well known names have not yet had to face any proceedings, and the investigations into their alleged crimes have been delayed, or simply been dropped, for no clear reason.

The mainstream media, the daily papers, the broadcast channels, have all failed to cover the story, despite the clear evidence suggesting a major coverup over decades since some of the events occurred.

Until this week.

A major breakthrough in the struggle to bring the issues into a wider focus came in the form of an exchange, ironically, in view of the background to much of this story, in the Margaret Thatcher room, at a meeting of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee.

You can watch the meeting here : from 16.49 onwards, see Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk, who has written a book about the appalling abuse of young boys by the late paedophile and Liberal member of parliament Cyril Smith, deliver a measured but powerful message to the committee on the questions raised by the failure properly to investigate allegations of child sexual abuse, then and now.

Explaining that he wanted to give a voice to the voiceless, the victims of such exploitation who have been overlooked for so long, Danczuk refers to politics as 'the last refuge of child sex abuse deniers' and talks about the coverup of allegations by individuals high up in the 'food chain': he refers to Elm Guest House, an extablishment in Barnes in which it is alleged young boys - some reportedly from a local childrens' home - were made available for the sexual gratification of a number of high profile men, some with political connections. More articles on this subject may be found here.

Danczuk also referred to something which has been a major factor in the breakthrough, after so much silence, of the issue as a mainstream story - the call for an inquiry into the historic cases, and an overarching investigation into the matter, an idea originally backed by seven MPs, in a cross party move, and promoted by Exaro. This rapidly took off as a campaign on twitter, and is a tribute to the power of social media as a conduit of grassroots activity. Over 140 MPs have now agreed to give their support to the call for an inquiry.

Mrs Angry thought she should do the right thing, and wrote to her MP, Conservative member for Finchley and Golders Green, Mike Freer.

She wrote as a constituent, emphasising this was a non party political matter, and hoping therefore that he would give his own support, commenting:

It is unfortunate that such an inquiry should be necessary at all, but it seems clear to me, from the number of wide ranging cases now being being uncovered, and being familiar with some of the appalling allegations made by victims and survivors that there is a pressing need for a wide ranging investigation into not only the allegations of organised abuse, but also the way in which previous inquiries appear to have been obstructed or even silenced.

As my MP I hope that you will agree that the proposal by MPs from all parties is one you should support, and I ask that you do all you can to press for this inquiry to be established as soon as possible.

Normally when Mrs Angry writes to Mike Freer, an emergency alarm and flashing lights activate in his office, and he sends a panicked, if somewhat tight lipped response almost immediately. This time, however: no, nothing, and after a few days she was obliged to send a reminder.

Dear Mr Freer,

I wonder if I might trouble you for a response to this request. I really cannot see how a serious issue like suspected wide scale child abuse would be in anyway party political, or controversial, and clearly those behind calls for an inquiry would benefit from the momentum of significant cross party support.

For victims, the sexual abuse experienced in childhood has a long lasting impact upon their physical and psychological well being even in their adult lives: to come forward and report what has happened takes enormous courage, and should be supported by those who are in a position to examine their allegations, or instigate investigations into such incidences.

A reply is in hand, was the rather terse reply.

And then:

Thank you for contacting me about historic allegations of child abuse.

I appreciate your concern about this issue. Child abuse is an abhorrent crime, no matter when, or where, it occurs. It is important that the Government is committed to tackling it, in whatever form it takes.

Both the historical cases of child abuse and recent cases of organised sexual exploitation raise a number of important issues for the Government, social services, the police, the criminal justice system and others. It is important that we learn lessons from these reviews of historic child abuse cases. That is why the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, Damian Green, is leading a National Group which will work across government to urgently address any missed opportunities to protect children and vulnerable people.

There are a number of inquiries taking place into historic child sex abuse cases, including criminal investigations. It is important we allow these to run their course before taking further action.

I join the Government in urging anyone with concerns or information to report them to the police. I am glad that the Government has made clear that if anyone has concerns about police handling of such complaints they should report them to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It is important that these authorities act on the information provided to them.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.

Oh, thought Mrs Angry. Rather disappointing. Still, for the first time ever, my MP has, rather touchingly, thanked me -twice - for taking the time to contact him.

Let's have another go:

Thank you for your response. I have to say that I find it disappointing, especially as I noted yesterday that during PMQs, David Cameron indicated that he was not entirely unsympathetic to the idea of an inquiry, should it be necessary.

I think it is clear, from everything I have read about the different investigations that are in place, that there is a need to have in place some overarching body that will look at the wider scope of these separate cases, and ensure that everything is being done to protect the best interests of victims, and prevent pressure being brought to bear from any quarter to obstruct the proper process of investigation.

It is simply not enough to say that individual cases where there may be concern about failures in the police investigations should be reported to the IPCC. This is dealing with the matter piecemeal, rather than addressing the real issues behind what may appears to be a determined resistance to follow lines of enquiry which may lead to sensitive areas others may wish to protect.

It takes enormous courage for victims to come forward and undergo further trauma caused by the revisiting of their experiences, and it seems to me that they are owed every form of assistance in order that they receive the justice that has been denied to them for so long.

More than 42 MPs have now shown their support for this campaign, and I hope that you will reconsider your own decision.

A semi literate reply in response:

There is a longstanding practice that overarching inquiries are not undertaken whilst existing inquiries - which may result in criminal prosecutions. This has been respected so as not to jeopardise any prosecutions. The most important thing for any victim is surely to see perpetrators prosecuted.

Undaunted, Mrs Angry lobbed another response back at him:

Thank you, but I think perhaps you are not familiar with the many instances where prosecutions are not going to be pursued because investigations are dropped, or evidence ignored, or lost.

Perhaps you are aware that Greater Manchester Police dropped their enquiries into the sexual abuse of boys by Cyril Smith.

Why? Clearly he is not alive and cannot be prosecuted, but the same applies to the case of Jimmy Savile. The allegations regarding Elm Guest House are deeply alarming, yet appear to be resulting in nothing but further delays and prevarications ...

An inquiry would not jeopardise prosecutions if correctly organised: it may actually help to ensure that prosecutions that would otherwise be avoided do actually take place.

No response, and then ... hello, Mrs Angry came across an article which had a variety of responses from MPs to constituents on this matter, and do you know, readers, she spotted one or two - including one from Andrew Lansley, no less - were exactly the same as the original one sent to her by Mike Freer. Back again, then:

Dear Mr Freer

I wrote to you last week about a matter I feel strongly about, on a personal basis, asking you as my MP to support a cross party call for an inquiry into a number of cases of historic child sexual abuse.

Rather naively, as it turned out, I thought that any reasonable person would support such an inquiry, if they are acquainted with the facts, and are familiar with the sequence of failure to pursue much of the evidence of these cases.

You sent me - eventually - a response which informed me you thought any inquiry was unnecessary. I tried to engage you on the perfectly valid reasons why I thought this was misinformed - you failed to respond to my last email.

I now discover that the first response you sent me was not yours, but the words of someone else: it seems a stock answer is being sent by some MPs to constituents in the guise of a proper explanation, and I have seen several examples, including one sent in the name of Andrew Lansley.

I have to say I am really appalled by such a cavalier attitude from you, and find it insulting that you cannot be bothered to formulate your own views, and express them in your own words to a constituent, when dealing with a subject of such significance.

It is easy to succumb to the theory of conspiracy when dealing with cases of organised abuse on such a scale: one would hope that any organised resistance to a full and honest investigation of these matters was no longer possible, or likely. It seems that that may be a misguided view.

Please tell me who wrote the response you sent me last week, and explain why you and other MPs are giving the same answer, rather than addressing the issues raised by your constituents.

That was sent on the 17th June. No reply from Mr Freer, as yet. Of course our staunchly loyal Tory MP may have overlooked the email in the excitement of being appointed party Vice Chair, on the previous day, ie 16th June.

Back to the HOC committee. At around 17.11 pm, the footage shows that Simon Danczuk, after alluding to Elm Guest House, moves on to the subject of the 'Dickens Dossier', submitted to the Home Office in the 1980s, with allegations regarding paedophile activity that included individuals associated with government. This dossier, of course, is now 'missing'.

The Chair, Keith Vaz, had a question for Mr Danczuk: what year was this? In the mid eighties. And, he asked, apparently at a loss to remember - who was the Home Secretary?

Sir Leon Brittan, replied Mr Danzcuk.

Mr Vaz and Mr Danzcuk agreed that it would be 'useful' for Sir Leon Brittan to share his knowledge and understanding about what happened to the Dickens Dossier.

Tory MP Mark Reckless rather recklessly tried to throw a spanner in the works by attempting to suggest we should feel compassion for what he claimed were 'a number' of MPs who felt they had been 'bullied' into supporting the call for an inquiry. He also tried suggesting the inquiry would be too expensive, and merely an opportunity for lawyers to make money. His concern for the 'bullying' of unnamed MPs was notably not extended, in this discussion, to the suffering of the victims of abuse. In short, his performance was the voice of those in power, and in retreat, who would prefer this issue, and these people, to be silenced once more.

The day after this meeting, however, Leon Brittan issued a statement - or rather two - in which he remembered something that he had appeared previously to have forgotten, that is to say the submission to him by Geoffrey Dickens of the dossier in question, and its handling by his officials.

As I recall, he said, he came to my room at the Home Office with a substantial bundle of papers.

Those papers, apparently, have gone missing, or have been destroyed.

Since then, the story has moved at last to where it should have been - reported by the mainstream media, and in the public domain.

On Friday the Prime Minister was forced into trying to appear to respond to pressure by announcing a review of the events surrounding the 'loss' of the dossier. The words he used sounded curiously like the words in the response from Freer, above: platitudes meant to obstruct further questions, and stonewall any real investigation.

The signs are, of course, that no one any longer has faith in such 'reviews', and that Pandora's box, now open, may not be closed.

Public interest is growing, at a breathtaking pace, and of course, once an issue is found that is bound to sell a large number of newpapers, we may rest assured that nothing will stop the story being pursued to the utmost boundary of possibility.

In the meanwhile, let's remember that if it were not for the determination of an independent investigative website, and the momentum of a campaign fought via the virtual battlefields of social media, the horrible truths that lie within the lost pages of the Dickens dossier, and the even darker secrets that are yet to be revealed, would still remain buried under a cover of silence.

Nothing is more precious than the innocence of a child, and no one is more vulnerable than a child in care: it is time to give a voice to the voiceless, the children to whom a duty of care was ignored by society, and exploited with the complicity of those who held the ultimate responsibility for their well being.

A petition by Tom Watson, started only today, has already, at the time of writing, on Sunday, at 10.15 pm, has already received an absolutely astonishing current total of 48,118 signatures.

Tom Watson is the MP who first had the courage and integrity to begin the outing of this unmentionable subject: it is a fitting tribute to him that so many are supporting him today, in this way.

If you want to show your support, please write to your MP (even if it is Mike Freer), and ask them to press for an inquiry, and sign the petition:

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/david-cameron-and-theresa-may-establish-a-national-inquiry-into-allegations-of-organised-child-abuse#supporters

It is an honour to everich that is heer
That ye mowe have a suffisant pardoneer
T' assoille yow in contree as ye ryde,
For aventures whiche that may bityde.

It was always going to be an eventful evening.

And the extent to which the council was aware of this possibility was marked, as Mrs Angry observed, by the preparations made for the potential trouble that might ensue. Police at the Town Hall, overly heavy security inside, and an emergency committee room set up as an alternative venue, should any protest disrupt the meeting, and chase our quivering councillors into flight, down the corridor, away from their electors.

This was the second full council meeting of the new administration, with a new Mayor, Hugh Rayner, whose inauguration had been marked by a less than respectful response by the public and by a Labour opposition outraged by the now notorious 'indecent proposal' made by the Tory leader in a desperate attempt to protect his party's perilous control of the council.

The Cornelius proposal, whispered into the ear of the staunchly virtuous Labour leader Alison Moore, was that there should be a sort of twinning arrangement, parliamentary style, so that any Tory councillors on holiday, out to dinner, or wanting to stay at home washing their hair, could be excused attendance at meetings, without fear of causing the loss of a majority, and any crucial vote.

The Labour leader slapped Cllr Cornelius's hand, and told him to get lost. This rejection had consequences, however: the Tories punished Labour for this refisal to play their game by a petty sequence of measures, including the withdrawal of some expenses for opposition spokespersons, and most notably deciding to change the time of the September meeting to a date deliberately coinciding with the week of the Labour conference, and in fact on the very day of Ed Miliband's speech.

Short of travelling to and from Barnet - and abandoning poor Mrs Angry to the temptations of Manchester, unchaperoned, which would be unwise - this means there would be very few Labour councillors able to attend this meeting, which is of course their intention.

Such a tactic was pretty pathetic, and completely without precedent, as by convention meetings are never arranged for the week of any party conference.

All of this disagreeable, petty behaviour by the Tories, together with the mayhem caused by the complete shambles of the new and apparently unconstitutional committee system, created a tumultuous response in the council chamber and the public gallery, and Rayner lost his temper, demanding repeatedly that respect be shown, if not to him, to the office of Mayor. Ah.

Within days of this plea, the Mayor himself had managed to bring his office into a state of no little disrepute by the emergence of allegations connected to his business dealings as a landlord, and reported claims that he had failed to make the necessary declarations of interest at meetings in which housing issues were discussed. The outcry which ensued saw calls for the Mayor to step down, and an outpouring of criticism over his apparent activities and failings in regard to his declarations.

Assembly Member Andrew Dismore made a formal complaint to the Monitoring Officer, followed by a further submission with more evidence. We await the outcome with some unease: why is it, many are asking, that even though the allegations concern what is now a potentially criminal offence, ie the reported non declaration of a pecuniary interest, no referral has yet been made to the police?

When earlier this year, coincidentally just before the elections began, it was made known that a Labour councillor had been referred to the police for what eventually was proven to be a false allegation of 'taxdodging', there was clearly no hesitation in taking such an action, or announcing the development.

Here we have a much more serious matter, brought to the attention of the Monitoring Officer, Maryellen Salter, more than a month ago, yet apparently no referral has been made. There is even talk of the matter being presented to the group leaders' panel, a toothless body with no power to apply any sanctions, let alone deal with an issue of potential legal consequence.

Ms Salter is a busy woman at the moment: not only is there an investigation into the Mayor, there is another one focused on the very interesting issue of the disproportionate Highways expenditure, overseen by the Mayor's colleague Dean Cohen, who gave a million pounds to his own ward in the run up to the election, while Labour held wards received comparatively paltry amounts of funding, and Colindale nothing at all. The Labour group - eventually - followed up Mrs Angry's coverage of this scandalous state of affairs, and submitted a complaint, and here again we must ask - in view of the case that there may have been unlawful expenditure, will this matter be referred to the police?

Because clearly the police do take a close interest in Barnet issues. In the last week alone, Mrs Angry has observed a police ISP reading this post, about an attempt to lobby Hendon MP Matthew Offord:

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/whose-west-hendon-our-west-hendon-mp.html

And yesterday the Met was back again, reading up about Rayner, just before the meeting, or rather just before the protest which was due to take place outside the Town Hall, before the meeting began.

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/hugh-rayner-mayors-nightmare-continues.html

And protest is the word that links these two visits from the boys in blue, of course: our elected representatives may disport themselves in any way they think fit, but any expression of dissent by any residents will be likely to be under scrutiny.

Allegations of unlawful behaviour by elected representatives are not automatically the subject of investigation or scrutiny by the police, therefore, but lawful demonstrations by ordinary residents, expressing their democratic right to protest most certainly will be. Funny old world, isn't it?

And so back to the meeting, and the protest at the Town Hall, which moved inside - after the Mayor had slipped round the back rather than face them, leaving his wife and chaplain to leave the limo on their own - and up the stairs to the public gallery, closely followed by security staff.

The People's Mayor, Mr Shepherd, enters the public gallery

The Mayor entered the chamber. Mrs Angry noted with amusement that he had dispensed, for this occasion at least, with the pomp if not the pomposity that he had bragged about in his inaugural address: please take note, Daily Mail, because obviously a man's outfit, even in Broken Barnet, tells you all you need to know about their suitability for political office.

But - no velvet gown or frou-froued blouse, this time, and no fox furs: a sober black suit, suitably penitent for a man in his position, with only the Mayoral bling to accessorise his outfit. Perhaps a pair of cheery socks, or a raffish handkerchief well placed, in top pocket, would have lightened the effect. Something to think about, Mr Mayor, for next meeting. Oh. If there is one, of course.

As he entered, visibly flinching at the prospect of what might be to follow, members of the public in the gallery remained seated (as Mrs Angry always does) and held a silent protest, with a dignity sadly lacking from the other side of the glass wall that divides our elected representatives from the great unwashed they speak for. They held up posters allusing to rogue landlords, and to the fact that 86% of residents in a poll in the local press thought Rayner should resign.

At this point Mrs Angry noted a cameraman filming the protest: not one of the regulars who dutifully record our meetings. When asked who he was, he claimed he was from Al Jazeera English.

Bearing in mind the rather more significant, not to say abominable conflicts around the world, in Gaza and elsewhere, it seemed hard to believe they would be interested in the continuing saga of unrest here in Broken Barnet, but then ... it is an uprising, of sorts.

And apparently what is happening in West Hendon, some of whose campaigners were present last night, is of interest to this channel: and so it should - the social cleansing of vast swathes of outer London is a war that needs reporting, and an injustice that needs a resolution.

The Mayor looked ill at ease, right from the start. He took his place, and his chaplain, a female pastor gave the usual sort of address that we must endure at these otherwise God forsaken occasions. Mrs Angry tried hard not to listen, as the sight of so many Tory councillors bowing their knavish heads in prayer, just before launching into an agenda of villainous intent and socially divisive policies never fails to send her into a fit of near apoplexy. The general drift of the chaplain's address, it seemed, was to remind us to be obedient to the rule of authority, and our betters, who are charged with our protection on behalf of the Lord.

Well, f*ck that for a game of soldiers, thought the disobedient Mrs Angry, grabbing her notebook and pen, and preparing to chronicle the evening's performance.

And what a performance it was.

Any declarations of interest, asked the Mayor?

Oh, how we laughed.

Mr Shepherd, who some have suggested should be nominated as the People's Mayor, and what a brilliant idea that is, announced from the back of the public gallery that he had to declare an interest in the NHS, on account of his blood donations.

Fair enough.

A couple of sad announcements: the death of Cllr John Hart's wife, after a long illness, and also that of Lady Miller, the Tory peer - and mother of former Barnet blogger 'Don't Call me Dave'.

On to constitutional matters - yes, there is a constitution, even in Broken Barnet, although like the scriptures, it is open to a wide range of interpretation, and widely abused by all who practise its commands.

The high priests of governance had previously allowed the Tory councillors to make a complete cockup of the new committee system, and now had somehow to fix it.

How they have fixed it is as follows.

Identifying there is a problem, and taking the legal advice they should have had before they created the new system, and then finding it was unconstitutional, and then taking more legal advice which said although it was unconstitutional, it wasn't, and they could carry on until they changed the system to one which was.

Got that?

The issue of concern was around the proportionality of the committees. The solution to this, it seems, is to give a majority of one on all committees except where it really matters, ie Policy and Resources, for which they have insisted on having two.

The Labour leader complained, but the Tories couldn't give a shit, of course.

An argument broke out next about the date of the September meeting.

At the recent question time in Friern Barnet library, Mrs Angry had tackled the Tory leader about the date being moved to the Conference week, and suggested to him that it had been a pretty shabby thing to do. Rather to her surprise, he had had the grace to look ashamed, and nodded, and said that it needed adjustment.

Now here we were, at the meeting where the Tories were doing the opposite, and forcing through the date he had agreed was unfair. He squirmed in his seat, but voted with all his ghastly colleagues to support the motion.

Cornelius' gentlemanly act is the not the real deal, it seems: scratch him and he is like all the rest of the neo Thatcherites sitting in Hendon Town Hall - Brian Coleman in white gloves: just as ruthless, and just as lacking in any sense of fair play, but with slightly better table manners.

This regrettable tendency, so prevalent amongst the Barnet Tories, now reared its monstrous head in the most provocative manner, in the form of something that really, one might have thought was impossible: covering themselves in an even greater level of ignominy than they already displayed.

Try and imagine this.

You are the leader of the Conservative party in Barnet.

Your new Mayor, within weeks of taking office, is under investigation by the Monitoring Officer for alleged misbehaviour in his role as a private landlord, and for reportedly failing to declare a pecuniary interest at meetings in which housing matters have been discussed.

At the very next full council meeting, where there is a well placed motion from the opposition directed at licensing landlords, you persuade the same Monitoring Officer to overrule the requirement for councillors to make declarations of interest in relation to their business activities as, yes - as landlords.

You then sit back and wonder why there is an explosion of incandescent fury in the ranks of residents sitting in the public gallery.

Remember: this is Broken Barnet, and this is the way we do things here.

Whenever you think our Tory councillors could not act in any way more stupidly than they already have - hello: look, here they come with something new, something guaranteed to make them appear even more questionable, incompetent, and totally without any standard of propriety in public life.

It's the sort of thing which keeps people like me compelled to look on, in horror, a witness to what has been without a doubt the most awful, prolonged, slow motion dive into abject shame - and beyond.

In fact, such wilful misdirection of policy is almost a gift: it is the inversion of political instinct - a masterful display of low cunning gone terribly, spectacularly awry.

Yes. Our Tory councillors, facing an item from the opposition on the thorny subject how best to deal with rogue landlords, were faced with a problem. Many of them are themselves landlords, and therefore had interests which would preclude them from taking part in a vote. Or should do: you can never be sure, in Barnet, can you?

In fact, apart from the Mayor, these Tories have interests which would ordinarily prevent them from taking part in a debate on any housing issue: Zinkin, Salinger, Dean and Melvin Cohen, Hart and Davey.

Labour's Tim Roberts declared his interest, and left the chamber when he felt it appropriate, for which demonstration of transparency he received applause, from his colleagues, and from the public gallery.

But in order to make sure the dreaded fate they fear could not arise, that is to say, the passing of a proposal from opposition councillors that might benefit some of the most vulnerable residents in this borough, victims of unscrupulous landlords, the Tory group resorted to a desperate tactic.

They told the Monitoring Officer, their latterday Pardoner, to sanction a motion that gave them a dispensation to take part in the vote, without any obligation to make declarations of interest.

You will probably think that is pretty outrageous by any standard. In a council chamber presided over by a Mayor in trouble for his alleged behaviour as a landlord, and for reportedly failing to declare his interests in relation to his business activities - well - that pretty much surpasses anything they have ever done.

The howling and stamping of feet in the public gallery, and prolonged heckling was on an unprecedented scale, as residents and protestors were genuinely shocked at the extent to which the Tories are prepared to abandon any pretence at integrity, simply in order to win a political point.

But let's look more closely at the report from the Monitoring Officer which apparently has allowed our Tory councillors to avoid any obligation to be transparent and open when taking part in the decision making process of our local authority: is this dispensation even lawful?

http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/mgChooseDocPack.aspx?ID=7813

2.3 Council has not specifically delegated to a Committee or an Officer the
power to grant dispensations to Councillors or co-opted members in
accordance with section 33 of the Localism Act 2011. It has however been
assumed it is for Council to decide on dispensations in the absence of a
specific delegation. A dispensation allows Councillors or co-opted
members to be present, take part in debate and vote on any item in which
they have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest.

Please note the clause which states, my emphasis: it has however been assumed it is for Council to decide on dispensations in the absence of a specific delegation.

And please remember that this is the same council and the same Monitoring Officer, and the same Chief Executive that had assumed the new committee system was properly constituted, but was not - or may have been, we are not sure - and the process by which we arrived at this state of confusion is now, in consequence, the subject of an independent investigation by Claer Lloyd Jones, QC.

Can you really have a dispensation from the need to make declarations of interest, and does it not run counter to every one of the Nolan principles, let alone raise a grave risk of serious harm to the reputation of the authority?

Anyone who has had a Catholic upbringing will be familiar with the concept of dispensations in canon law, the loopholes which the church can use, if it wishes, to give favour to the powerful, similar to the indulgences that were once for sale to those whose behaviour would otherwise be considered a grave sin, and earn them an eternity in hell: a sort of medieval carbon offsetting of wickedness for the wealthy, if you like.

Dispensation, in the context of the elastic constitution of the Tory administration, here in Broken Barnet, would appear to be based on a similar need to expiate the transgressions of those with influence.

The ambiguity over the legal status of this dodgy get out clause makes it pretty clear that there is every reason to present a legal challenge, and one would imagine this is exactly the course of action that will be pursued.

Back to the meeting.

The furore caused by the truly astonishing vote by Tory councillors to give themselves a dispensation from obligation to declare interests ibecame so intense, in fact, that, as must have been predicted, the Mayor felt obliged to announce an adjournment.

Members poured out of the chamber, and residents from the gallery, and oh: Tory leader Cornelius ventured into the public gallery, in search of one of a small group of brave Tory party organisers who had sat there, one of them a shy young man in mysterious shades, who had run like the clappers earlier in the evening, when the man from Al Jazeera turned the camera on him. Wonder why?

Probably worrying about the prospects of his future career in Conservative politics, should any footage emerge proving any association with the open sore that is the Tory party in Broken Barnet.

Richard Cornelius, sadly for him, timed his entrance just as Mrs Angry was going through the doors, and therefore set himself up nicely for a prolonged and detailed expression of Mrs Angry's views on his regrettable behaviour.

No escape for the Tory leader: Mrs Angry - behind the door - tells him off

Mrs Angry remarked that she had thought he was a man of his word, and as he had admitted to her that the stunt his party had played over the conference week meeting was shabby, and needing putting right, he would do so. His face reddened, and he burbled on about it being impossible to find another date. He did not explain why he did not then cancel the meeting entirely.

And, said Mrs Angry: of all the things that you could do, when you have your own Mayor under investigation for apparently failing to declare his interests, why on earth have you done the one thing guaranteed to make yourselves look even more awful? More importantly, did he really think what they were doing was in line with the Nolan principles in public life? Yes, he said, unconvincingly, he thought it was.

Really? Let's remind ourselves of those principles, shall we?

Selflessness Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other benefits for themselves, their family or their friends.
Integrity Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.
Objectivity In carrying out public business, including making public appointments, awarding contracts, or recommending individuals for rewards and benefits, holders of public office should make choices on merit.
Accountability Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office.
Openness Holders of public office should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions that they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands it.
Honesty Holders of public office have a duty to declare any private interests relating to their public duties and to take steps to resolve any conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interest.
Leadership Holders of public office should promote and support these principles by leadership and example.

Looks as if they pretty well have broken every one, doesn't it?

What happened next was reminiscent of the bad old days of MetPro, and the rule of force in the Town Hall: Mrs Angry was invited to the Labour room for refreshments by a couple of the councillors, and also wanted to visit the loo. The way was barred by two security guards. Erm, I'm going to the ladies loo, said Mrs Angry. Go downstairs, they said, you're not going down that corridor.

Yes, I am, said Mrs Angry: I've been invited to the Labour room. Oh really? Which is it, they asked - going to the toilet, or going to the Labour room? How impertinent, she thought. *

Both, as it happens.

No: they barred the way.

I have been invited by Labour councillors, and if you don't believe me go and ask them, said Mrs Angry, who is in fact now a liaison officer to the group for her branch, and considers herself perfectly entitled to help herself to one of the party's wilting cucumber sandwiches and mini eclairs, should she choose - And so have I, said another Labour activist.

They gave in then, and Mrs Angry swept by with matronly disapproval, and soon rewarded their grudging permission, after grabbing said sandwich, by slipping out of the room, hurrying further down the corridor and taking covert photos of Committee Room 3, the operations room set out like Churchill's war time bunker, in preparation for invasion, with tables and chairs carefully labelled with placenames.

Emergency Ops Room, Hendon Town Hall

As she peered through the door, it became apparent that an officer was now setting up microphones, ready for an evacuated council meeting. Yes, this is an elected administration, in 2014, at war with its own electors.

Feeling only mildly like a heroine of the French resistance, returning to the village with important news: listen very carefully, I shall say this only once - she hurried to the gallery and informed the residents that their cowering councillors were about to make a run for it, should they continue to exercise their democratic rights to protest, with a few posters and the odd heckle. The residents in the gallery vowed to do their best to carry on exercising their democratic right to protest, with posters and heckling, and looked forward, with no little satisfaction, to the prospect of the Tory councillors fleeing down the corridor to their emergency ops room. As it turned out, however, this apocalyptic ending to the night's events was averted.

*Mrs Angry understands, by the way, that several Labour councillors fell foul of the heavy handed security that night, and were almost barred from parts of the Town Hall by security staff.

There was, after the meeting reconvened, a debate, of sorts, of an item from Cornelius on the subject of the 'savings context' of members' policy.

A few interesting points: Alison Moore reminded the Tory leader of some of the shameful choices his party made in order to make savings - cutting the funds to respite care for disabled children, for example.

Libdem Jack Cohen pointed out that in their budgets both Tories and Labour had proposed cuts in council tax - he had not. He alluded to the trap in which Barnet now finds itself, tied in to a ten year contract with Crapita, and already seeing service standards decline, and without the evidence of promised savings. Now we are in hock to them, he said, if we need to make greater savings, we cannot, the contracts do not allow us to do so. He told the story of a constituent who had written to Barnet officers about a problem and was perplexed on being answered by an employee who, it transpired, was not a Barnet employee, but belonged to Capita. When asked why he was responding to the resident, and not a council officer, he was told that now: 'Capita speaks for Barnet' ...

Deputy leader Dan Thomas, fresh from his recent honeymoon (yes, clearly Mrs Angry's heart, once more, is Broken ...) spoke to support Cornelius' item. Hmm, thought Mrs Angry, obviously not listening to his blatherings, but keen to provide this blog with more fashion notes: John Thomas, who sometimes writes a blog called True Blue Barnet, was wearing a most unusual Pale Blue jacket, rather like, as observed by Mr Gerrard Roots, the former curator of the Church Farmhouse Museum, who was sitting next to her and gleefully sharing the duty of heckling Tory councillors, rather like the uniform of a Thompson's tourist guide in perhaps Magaluf, or Ibiza.

Time for the opposition item on ... oh dear, the regulation of landlords. Awkward.

Labour's Ross Houston, who is the housing spokesperson, spoke eloquently on the subject he probably knows more about than anyone else in the chamber.

And then, oh dear, a pronouncement from the Mayor that could only result in a reaction of deep dismay by all present: Councillor Old, you have five minutes ...

Tory councillor Old is living proof of the theory of nominative determinism: one cannot imagine him, even as a young schoolboy, as anything other than a doddery old Tory councillor, rabbiting on, trapped in the usual Barnet Tory timewarp, stuck somewhere in the Thatcherite 1970s, a place of safety but under seige from the red peril, and red tape: the great bugbears and preoccupations of our Conservative members still, forty years on.

He went further back in time, in fact, to the 1960s, a dreadful era, apparently, in which it seems that our Graham was not letting it all hang out, and enjoying the bliss of free love and magic mushrooms, but worrying about the impact of secure tenancies and restrictive regulation of the housing market.

This sort of regard for the rights of tenants, he seemed to be saying, meant that landlords found it hard to make any sort of living from their properties.

Apart from Rachman, suggested Mrs Angry, across the chamber floor, rather tactlessly, perhaps.

At this point, it was noticeable that the Mayor, who had been covering his face, during some of the more uncomfortable parts of the evening, was nodding in agreement with his colleague, who, it transpired, was more worried about the proliferation of beds in sheds, and unsightly erections in back gardens, which of course is something which keeps us all awake at night, and should be tackled, head on, in Mrs Angry's firm view. Although not if your neighbours are watching.

By now it was getting rather late. The Mayor thought it necessary to rule that the meeting should be extended beyond the ten o'clock limitation.

Yes, said Labour's Alon Or Bach, looking at the Mayor: ten pm is when some of us have to go and visit our tenants.

And then - oh, God: time for the churlish young Tom Davey to speak. He thought, guess what, that Labour could not have a 'grown up conversation' about housing. Tom Davey, who lived at home with Mummy and Daddy until recently, bless him.

You need, he said, to allow people 'choice'. You know: Tory choice - choice for the middle classes, and those with means. The 'well off' residents that Davey wants in Barnet, rather than those 'benefit scroungers' that he so dislikes.

Question time for councillors no longer appears at the beginning of the full council meeting, but still offers plenty of opportunities for embarrassing the Tory administration. Another sign that our Tory chums have lost their mojo, bigtime, is that this session was not packed full of the old style self priming congratulatory non questions, whereby an obedient backbench councillor, wet behind the ears, is encouraged to earn brownie points by asking for reassurance of the enormous acheivements of the Tory administration. None of that, this time: just a relentless litany of questions on two subjects, from Labour: on the rather sensitive issue of, oh dear, rogue landlords - and the million pound Highways expenditure in Golders Green granted by Cllr Cohen, to his own ward.

Keeping their noses clean: the Mayor and Deputy Mayorof Broken Barnet

Labour's Ammar Naqvi, a very bright new councillor, asked some particularly astute supplementary questions on the former topic, so astute that for some reason the Mayor resorted to hiding his face behind his hand, in deep discomfort.

Another new Labour councillor Amy Trevethan asked, with what may or may not have been breathless naivete and boundless curiosity:

Would the Leader provide an update on the ratio of pomp to pomposity in Councillor Rayner's mayorship so far?

No coherent answer emerged from the Leader, or the Mayor, as you might expect. Coherence, selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and - oh dear -leadership: if you are expecting to find any of these attributes in the council chamber of Broken Barnet, you are going to be awfully disappointed.

None of these things have a market value, after all, none of them can be bought, and none can be sold in the guise of a dispensation.

Back to the Pardoner's Tale, then, and a message for Cllr Cornelius and all our sinful Tory councillors, for which Mrs Angry begs your pardon, even if she doubts any of you really have any coillons:

Thou woldest make me kisse thyn olde breech
And swere it were a relyk of a seint,
it were with thy fundement depeint!

But, by the croys which that Seint Eleyne fond,
I wolde I hadde thy coillons in myn hond
In stide of relikes or of seintuarie.
Lat kutte hem of, I wol thee helpe hem carie;
They shul be shryned in an hogges toord!*

This is Broken Barnet, in 2014.

Welcome to the middle ages.

*For the benefit of those Tory councillors who failed their 11 plus, and may be in need of translation:

Mrs Angry is unlikely to kiss your *rses, any time soon, and is casting doubt as to the effectiveness of your washing cycle.

Mrs Angry is not convinced that any of you have any balls, but if you did, she would be quite happy to remove them for you, although this would be accomplished with a fair degree of disrespect and ribald humour.

Mrs Angry

Margaret Thatcher, by Lorna May Wadsworth

*Updated, see below

For reasons too difficult to explain, Mrs Angry recently had occasion to have to sit in the air conditioned isolation of the British Library, trawling through back copies of the two local papers which serve us here in Broken Barnet: that is to say the Times, and the Press.

In this strictly monitored environment, of course, readers are required to be at all times silent, and well behaved, and not indulge in outbursts of laughter, derisive comments, or any other outward expression of scorn, a requirement which was to prove a severe test of the self discipline of this blogger, distracted as she was from her purpose, entirely unconnected with the political antics of our local council.

In fact it was quite impossible, due to the unreasonable amount of provocation buried in the seemingly innocuous pages of our local press, circa 1991-1992, courtesy of the coverage of our Tory councillors at that time, more than two decades ago.

This happy period coincided with the end of the Thatcher rule of terror in Finchley, of course: and how well Mrs Angry remembers the thrill of the announcement that day of her resignation, seated as she was at the time in a union meeting, throwing her notebook and pen in the air in jubilation ...

Soon afterwards came the news that Margaret was also standing down as Finchley's MP. Happy days: Mrs Angry smiled fondly as she scrolled through the images of sad Conservatives in her constituency, gutted at the departure of their heroine.

Even happier days: the PM at a constituency event with local Tories.

Uh oh; I am still around warned the old girl, in one cheery photo, with a fixed grin, still clinging on, like a failing music hall act reluctant to leave the stage, about to be hauled off by the management - there'll never be another - but no ... soon she was gone, and her would be replacement, Hartley Booth, begins, as recorded in the local press, to feature in carefully placed local appearances, with a tight smile, trying valiantly to appear a worthy successor to the former PM.

Mrs Angry can remember being in the public gallery of the Town Hall when Hartley Booth was wheeled in to make a stately visit, hailed by his Tory chums in the council chamber.

Sadly the career of Mr Booth, who was a Methodist lay preacher and related to the Salvation Army founder, foundered once it was revealed he had had some sort of 'friendship' with a young female research assistant.

Mr Booth insisted that there had been no 'sexual impropriety', and had the backing of local Tories - There has been no sex involved and it is rather a fuss about nothing, said the constituency chair.

After losing his post as pps to Douglas Hogg, he was beaten in the selection process for the next election to John Marshall.

Awfully bad luck to lose your job for a sex scandal with no sex, you might think.

Poor Mr Booth. He must have felt rather short changed, all things considered.

And poor John Marshall, who had lost Hendon to Andrew Dismore, and now was rather surprised to find himself defeated in Finchley by Labour's Rudi Vis.

Vis became terminally ill towards the end of his tenure as MP for Finchley and Golders Green, and the seat became a fairly easy target for recapture at the last election, which is how we came to be blessed with the attentions of Mr Mike Freer, the former leader of Barnet Council, and the godfather of One Barnet, which grew, like a monstrous mutation, encouraged by the tender care of subsequent interested parties, from his fatuous, soundbite 'easycouncil' idea.

Earlier this week we heard that the neighbouring constituency of Hendon, held by Freer's accident prone Tory colleague Matthew Offord, has been predicted by an Ashcroftpoll to be won back by Labour, a fact gleefully reported here by the former MP Andrew Dismore, who points out

“In April, Lord Ashcroft’s Hendon polling gave Labour a respectable lead of 8% ahead of the Conservatives. Now in July, his poll shows we have extended our lead to 15% , meaning a 7.5% swing to Labour- we only need 0.2% swing to win.

Matthew Offord: hanging out with Miss Ballooniverse, but swinging in the wrong direction

Dismore also reports another interesting discovery regarding the targeting of Hendon ward, and the level of funding available to local Tories:

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has just published research on fundraising in the most marginal constituencies, including Hendon: http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/07/20/election-2015-which-parties-have-the-most-cash-in-britains-battleground-seats/
This shows that since 2010, Hendon Conservatives have raised more than double the amount we in Hendon Labour have been able to raise.

But there is an even more significant detail hidden in this research, regarding the funding of the Finchley constituency currently held by Mike Freer.

Most cash
The UK constituency that has received by far the most cash from any party is Finchley & Golders Green – Margaret Thatcher’s old stomping ground. In the last election, this was considered a prime Labour target seat. But Cameron’s Conservatives extended what in 2005 was a slim majority. With less than a year to the next poll, Conservative party supporters have contributed £369,737 to the constituency since May 2010.

Where does all this money come from, and where does it go to? Hard to be sure.

Another interesting story regarding Freer emerged during the week, as reported here in the Ham & High - off goes our man to a new job, as pps to Nick Boles, minister of state at the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Rather odd, because last October, rather to the surprise of many onlookers, Freer had been rewarded, at last, for his years of loyal support to the government, and his long record of interesting written questions by being given one of two pps posts to Eric Pickles. To the surprise of many onlookers, that is, because rumour has it that Eric, although of course a blushing admirer of Mrs Angry, is not particularly known for his unlimited adoration of our MP.

Clearly Freer was not always rushed off his feet with the demands of his role in government, as demonstrated by the tweet he made while Theresa May was announcing the momentous decision to instigate an overarching inquiry into cases of historic child sex abuse: an inquiry which he had refused to support:

As some unknown twitter commenter remarked:

chris g‏@chrisg0000Jul 7
@mikefreermp You missed the statement on child abuse to watch cycling? #conservatives
Mike Freer MP‏@mikefreermpJul 7
@chrisg0000 it's called having the chamber on TV and reading the statement

His correspondent was surprised that Freer was surprised at his criticism:

‏@chrisg0000

@mikefreermp Really amazing that a voter takes a view of MP taking pictures of cycling while the HS is delivering statement on child abuse?

Only nine months after his appointment with Pickles, and here he is in what might well be seen as a demotion, moved from the exciting world of local government policy making, which he probably sees as his area of expertise, what with the easycouncil thing and all - to the backwaters of Boles' department. We are told that Boles is also responsible for the implementation of equal marriage, which was a subject that Freer spoke well on, from a personal perspective, last year - in marked contrast to the ludicrous spoutings of Offord, who made offensive remarks apparently comparing equal marriage to polygamy and even incest. But to moved on the pretext of implementing something that has already happened: odd, don't you think?

Could it be that our Mike did not see entirely eye to eye with Uncle Eric on the subject of localism, and the empowerment of the citizen, and oh - hang on, the virtues of citizen journalism? Well, yes, we know that Eric is a big fan of Mrs Angry, and her blogging colleagues, and we know that Mr Freer ... is not.

Tory Barnet has been nothing but a constant source of embarrassment for the government over the course of the last few years, and seems determined to move in the opposite direction to the policy of localism, as defined by Pickles.

The latest idiotic act by Barnet Tories, to vote themselves dispensation from declaring their pecuniary interests, the act of which Eric's own legislation created as a new offence, came only days ago, earlier this month. Mrs Angry made sure to tell Mr Pickles all about it, via the medium of twitter. Can you imagine the sort of interesting conversation that might have taken place between Uncle Eric and the new teaboy, should the matter have arisen? In any event what did arise, a week or so later, was that - Freer was out.

The curse of Mrs Angry, see.

But back to a time before Mrs Angry was born, and easycouncil had not been drafted, on the back of a postage stamp, by its only begetter.

Back to Barnet, 1991, a time when Eric Pickles was not yet Eric Pickles, but a mere shadow of himself, just appointed as a candidate for the safe seat of Brentwood and Ongar.

Localism had not been invented, of course: indeed for some the very thought was ... unthinkable - local councils were run by councillors, for councillors, and certainly not accountable to their electors. Transparency? You what?

In August 1991 the Barnet Press carried a story about new government proposals to give the electorate more information about their elected representatives: specifically about their interests and financial affairs. It referred to a couple of Tory councillors whose business interests had been criticised as being in conflict with their roles as elected members.

The then Tory leader, Roy Shutz, asked about the idea of expecting councillors to disclose such interests said:

'I understand that some people may feel it is an impertinence to be asked to reveal that'.

An impertinence.

Yes, of course, that was a long time ago, and now, as we know from our current deputy Chief Operating Officer Chris Naylor, the default mode of Barnet Council is now, what was it ... ah yes: transparency, open government, that sort of thing ... Sort of. As long as it only the sort of transparency that doesn't expose any dark secrets to the glare of public scrutiny.

And - oh dear. Some of our Tory councillors clearly feel it is still an impertinence to expect them to declare their interests, even now: even pecuniary interests, and even when Eric Pickles has made it a criminal offence not to do so.

Which brings us to the matter of our Mayor, the landlord: Tory councillor Hugh Rayner', whose business activities and alleged failure to declare his interests have been reported, in June, to the Monitoring Officer, by Andrew Dismore. Andrew has also raised the matter at Mayor's Question Time, with Boris Johnson.

Several weeks have now gone by, and here we are, nearly in August, and the silly season (a relative term, here in Broken Barnet) when bad news can be safely slipped out of NLBP ... or so they would like to think.

Nothing has happened yet, nor indeed has anything emerged from the investigation, also by the Monitoring Officer, into the complaint made by the Labour group over the reportedly disproportionate highways budget expenditure approved by Golders Green Tory councillor and former Cabinet member Dean Cohen, whose own ward received £1 million in the run up to the election, while Labour held Colindale was given not one penny , as revealed by Mrs Angry from a series of FOI requests - and which Labour allege demonstrate a political bias in distribution.* See below for update

At last Friday's Mayor's Question Time, Andrew Dismore asked another question about landlords in Barnet, this time focusing on the Mayor's much vaunted 'London Rental Standard', which is, we learnt, supported by 448 landlords in our borough. Dismore pointed out to Boris Johnson that several Barnet Tory councillors, ie Hugh Rayner, Peter Zinkin, Dean Cohen, Melvin Cohen, Helena Hart and housing spokesman Tom Davey, are landlords, but do not belong to the scheme. He also invited the Mayor of London to consider the interesting fact that at a recent meeting, the Tory councillors voted themselves a dispensation from declaring their interests as ... landlords.

Do you think that is right, he asked?

Boris attempted to bluster his way out of this question, having previously been lured so easily by Dismore into condemning the Tory Mayor of Barnet's behaviour as landlord, before his identity had been revealed: this time he commented that Andrew had made allegations of criminal misconduct in regard to Cllr Rayner, and suggested, not unreasonably, that:

'if you feel that is the case, then you really must take them up with the police'.

The long delay in any news from the Monitoring Officer in regard to the two complaints about Tory councillors is rather worrying, and possibly suspicious. To take so long to investigate these matters, both of which are potentially dealing with alleged unlawful activity might suggest the cases should both be referred to the police, and the CPS, for them to consider whether or not there is any evidence of serious wrongdoing, rather than take such a long time to go through an in house process of inquiry, with no transparency or scrutiny.

Is the investigation subject to any political pressure? By remaining under the cover of an internal Barnet process, the perception of onlookers may be reasonably to fear this is what might happen, and the length of time, and degree of silence on the matter is in marked contrast to the treatment of a Labour councillor, earlier this year, who was so swiftly and so publicly referred to the police and CPS on the basis of an allegation which was proved to be unfounded.

As to the question that Boris would not answer, as to whether it is right that our shameless Tory councillors should vote themselves a dispensation from declaring their pecuniary interests: well - can this even be lawful?

Eric Pickles made the non declaration of a pecuniary interest a criminal offence.

How can it possibly be legally permissable for councillors to exempt themselves in this arbitrary way?

To do so runs counter to the principle of transparency, and subverts the fundamental purpose of the legal process.

The basis of our democracy is that the law should apply to all, without exception, not just those it suits, and in public life we now expect absolute compliance with the need for openness and accountability - except, it seems, here in Broken Barnet, where such demands are still, twenty years later, still seen as 'animpertinence'.

That our Tory councillors fail to see that residents will view their behaviour over the interest declarations at inherently suspicious is par for the course.

Their entire strategy is based on a fatal misunderstanding of the perception of the average voter, which is why so many of them were so shocked on the day of the count, to find themselves booted out of their seats.

Such a gulf between councillors and residents is buffered by the Tories' traditional complacency over the need to engage with the people they represent, or to consult them over major policy decisions.

This was another theme noticeable in the pages of the past press coverage: see the story from December 1991, telling us Barnet had pledged to take steps to become (and here you may titter behind your hand) 'the listening council' ...

This amusing idea, which never caught on, of course, was the response to a highly critical report from Price Waterhouse, which concluded Barnet failed to consult the public, 'promises services it cannot deliver and which the public do not know about' and appeared as 'centralist and bureaucratic in approach rather than business-like'.

Mmm.

Another theme which runs through this period is what was then an innovative idea, a new policy, introduced by stealth, problematic from the beginning, and a forewarning of what was to come, actively ignored by Tories then and now: the ogre of outsourcing.

In 1991, refuse collection had been privatised, and the council was struggling to cope with the complaints from residents over the problematic new system. Guess what they blamed it on, then, as they do now, in any new service arrangement?

Yes: 'teething problems'. You know, as in the perpetual failures in the new Capita call centre, twelve months into a contract whose scale simply could not have been foreseen, twenty years ago, and the implications of which are only now just beginning to dawn on the Tory councillors who so glibly waved through their approval of this ten year act of bondage to our new masters.

If you have not already done so, Mrs Angry begs that you will read the recent post by fellow blogger Mr Reasonable, on the subject of the Capita contracts:

http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/so-how-much-is-this-capita-contract.html

With his usual forensic eye, Mr Reasonable turns his attention to the interesting subject of the real cost of the massive Capita contracts, and the extent to which our 'partners' are profiting, at our expense - here is an extract:

What intrigued me were a couple of comparatively small invoices,one on 27 November and one on 9th december for a total of £417,007. What this payment relates to is a clause in the contract called "Gainshare" where Capita get a cut of any savings made. Although the contract is redacted it is apparent from the numbers on the invoices that Capita receive 40% of any savings made.

I felt deeply uncomfortable about these savings and have been trying to understand how such savings could be made so quickly. Following a great deal of correspondence with the council and having several subtly different version of how the savings are justified I have been told that these savings are the estimate of savings to be made over the next year, that Capita invoice Barnet upfront and then at the end of the year if the savings are not as great as Capita forecast then Capita have to return some of the money. Frankly I was staggered that the council should be sharing out quite so much of the savings of our money and paying out forecast savings as much as a year before they are realised.

Personally I cannot believe that any commercial organisation would countenance such a one-sided deal but this is Barnet Council we are talking about. Transparency on these savings is absolutely zero. I have asked repeatedly for evidence and it has been promised as recently as Tuesday but it still has not materialised. Indeed one of the largest elements of this saving relates to an area which I believe is virtually impossible to audit which should make everyone very uncomfortable.

So what you may say. It's £417k out of a massive budget. However this week Barnet signed off approval for contracts worth £594 million to be procured. Most of these are existing contract so will Capita be entitled to 40% of the savings on all those contracts? Let us say that they realise 10% savings possibly by squeezing residential and nursing homes who will in turn squeeze staff wages in exactly the same way that Your Choice Barnet have cut the wages of staff by 9.5%.

If that were the case would Capita be entitled to £23.76 million of "Gainshare"which they will bill upfront?
Do any of the councillors who signed the contract know? Was the matter raised by councillors on Tuesday evening when the approved the procurement exercise? There was no debate on the subject and Dan Thomas did not allow any scrutiny from Cllr Paul Edwards who wanted to asked questions.

One of the other shameful innovations of the new Tory administration, decided upon in a fit of pique, when Labour refused to comply with Richard Cornelius''indecent proposal' for a twinning vote system between the groups, was that the Chair of the Audit Committee will no longer be, as it should be, a position held by an opposition member. Tory Brian Salinger was appointed instead, and this move underlines yet again the regressive nature of Barnet Tory philosophy, and its utter rejection of the principle of meaningful, rigorous scrutiny.
At last week's meeting, yet another failure in governance - or a casual disregard for due process - led to members of the committee not receiving details of the accounts they were expected to approve before the last minute, leaving them no time properly to review the figures.

The independent members of the committee objected, and quite rightly refused to sign off the accounts until such a time as they had had the opportunity to see the relevant reports, clearly misunderstanding that the role of the new audit committee is to rubberstamp the Tory agenda, avoid the process of scrutiny, and quash all intelligent debate. As Mr Reasonable has said:

What a shame Conservative councillors did not take the same approach before they signed off this massive Capita contract.

The accounts will be reconsidered at a special meeting tonight, at 6pm.

Let us return to Mrs Angry sitting in the cool, light and calm of the British Library newsroom, scrolling through the past annals of our Tory councillors, in Broken Barnet: the land time forgot.

Let us not be distracted by the awful familiarity of long meetings, presided over by, oh dear, Councillor Old, and the tetchy objection by Cllr Helena Hart at the excess of hot air in the Town Hall (staff luxuriating in over heated buildings, rather than from daring to question the policies of members).

Try not to smile at the defence put up by our Tory councillors over the revelation of 'junkets' at the Compleat Angler in Marlow, or a lovely hotel in Reading - poor things, these days all they have to console themselves with is their free parking permits (which they voted to retain last week, and no, no need for declarations of interest, of course ...)

And please don't laugh, Mrs Angry, at the admirable sobriety of our sole surving Libdem member Jack Cohen, then moved to remonstrate with his Conservative colleagues (pointless to have a go at Labour) for indulging in alcoholic refreshment, after council meetings - to the indignation of some of the Tory matrons, whose lips had never touched strong liquor (or anything or anyone else, probably). It was a Bad Example, he said, to residents. Quite.

Mrs Angry looks forward to debating this further with you in the Greyhound, Councillor Cohen. Large Sauvignon Blanc, thank you.

This was, of course, the era of poll tax protests: Councillor Brian Salinger had no truck with those in arrears in the borough, and indeed we read here that he and his colleagues wanted to see them named and shamed.

Poll tax came and went, and now we have the bedroom tax instead: Salinger and several other of the Tory councillors are still here and are equally indifferent to the plight of those affected by what Cllr Davey refuses even to acknowledge as a tax. If you can't afford to live in Barnet, they say: move on. And if you don't, they will move you anyway, in their policy of social cleansing, or 'regeneration'.

Margaret would have been so proud.

In 1991, Barnet was having to buy back cemeteries from a catastrophic privatisation deal hatched with Margaret's chum Lady Porter: here we are in 2014, having thrown Hendon Cemetery into the Capita contract as a 'sweetener', because outsourcerers love to get their sweaty hands on the easy profits of death, as well as life.
As for housing: Thatcher's legacy, her right to buy scheme for council tenants - even as she stood down from her seat, it was clear to see that this was leading to a crisis for would be tenants and homeless families, some of them put four in a room in bed and breakfast accommodation, with the council's stock rapidly decreasing, and not replaced.

This state of affairs was noted in a Labour councillor's letter in the paper in 1992, pleading for the soon to be closed former 'asylum' at Friern Barnet to be used for social housing. Some chance: our Tory councillors have always opposed the creation of new council homes, and anyway the building was sold to the Comer Brothers, who are the landlords of Barnet Council, at North London Business Park - and indeed have kindly donated to Mike Freer's war chest, in the past.

In the nineties, the local Times group were damn good at covering local politics. There was an entire page devoted to the latest news on that front, courtesty of veteran reporter Bill Montgomery, a winner of an award by the Campaign for Freedom of Information for investigative journalism. Mrs Angry used to leak information to him, in fact, when involved in local union politics. Bill was an old school journalist, who cultivated a network of sources, researched his stories, worked hard for his material, and was never afraid to tell it like it was.

In one piece in December 91, he lambasts the Tory council in a piece headed 'Selling the Family Silver', noting their agenda of seeing publicly owned assets as at their disposal, for short term profit. He predicted the sale of schools, courthouses, depots, and many other council properties: and he was spot on. Here we are, in 2014, and our Tory councillors are still blindly following the same course of action, thrashing about for anything they can flog off, regardless of any worth other than market value: libraries, museums, all surplus to requirement.

Things change: change is good: it is an unstoppable process, but apparently not here in Broken Barnet, where our Tory politicians are stuck in an evolutionary bottleneck, cut off from the rest of the world.

Bill Montgomery has gone, and local investigative journalism has largely been replaced - or perhaps re-energised - by the emergence of the blogosphere, and the citizen journalist.

This is a new role welcomed by Eric Pickles, the Tories own local government minister, as part of his localism agenda, but no: here in Barnet they fight, tooth and nail, to resist the very principles of their own party's stated aim, to empower the electorate in their own communities, and support the idea of local democracy.

For Barnet Tories the very idea of a committment to transparency, accountability and the act of objective scrutiny is anathema: an impertinence.

This grubby backwater council is no longer the Tory flagship borough, or the proud constituency of a prime minister - it sits in a state of terminal decline, presided over by a Mayor under a dark cloud of allegations, its members an endangered species, on the brink of extinction, pecking away at the last vestiges of their existence, while a new generation of predators, the corporate profiteers move in, and steal their ground from under their feet.

They don't see it: they never will.

Our only hope is that voters get another chance to wrench their finger tips from control of this borough, and this council, and usher in a new era, where the ghost of Margaret Thatcher is finally exorcised, her legacy laid to rest, most fittingly, in the Crapita Easycrem.

Not entirely gone - and not forgotten.

Broken Barnet, 1991-2014.

*Updated:

This evening saw a reconvened Audit Meeting, brought together again in order to discuss the accounts which independent and Labour members objected to being asked to approve, last week, having been supplied with the reports at such short notice.

First we were treated to a somewhat baffling debate about the borough's heritage assets - yes, there may not be any family silver left in the Mayor's Parlour, but we have his gold chain, which the Tory councillors have convinced themselves belongs to them (and of course Brian Coleman still thinks it belongs to him) ... in fact it was loaned to the Mayoralty by NALGO/Unison, and in Mrs Angry's view, Unison should demand it back, sell it, and use it to fight the further assault on our public services by our doltish Tory councillors.

We then learnt that some of the borough's war memorials appear to be missing from the list - a rather regrettable fact in the light of this year's anniversary of WW1. The Tory councillors shrugged. It means someone else is looking after them, they said, with relief.

More shrugging when Labour's Arun Mittra asked again about the heritage assets, specifically the apparent undervaluing of some of our local statues. Our most famous example, La Delivrance, known locally as the Naked Lady, stands rather brazenly by Henley's Corner, waving a sword around, installed after the first world war by Lord Rothermere, who is said to have wanted to see it there on his trips to visit his mother in Totteridge.

This and another statue in Friary Park appeared to valued at a minimal rate, surprising in view of at least the notable aesthetic and cultural significance of the Naked Lady. The Tories thought no, it reflected the market rate of lead, or whatever base metal the objects were made of. This was, of course, the perfect predictable demonstration of the cultural frigidity of the Barnet Tory psyche. Melt it down, flog it off, let someone else take care of it.

People's Mayor Mr Shepherd audits the auditors

Mrs Angry's mind was wandering somewhat at this point, and she very nearly missed the thing which she had come to observe: an objection from Labour councillors to the accounts being approved when there was the outstanding issue of the potential unlawful spending of the Highways budget, the subject of a formal complaint by the group first to the Auditor, and then kicked back by him to the Monitoring Officer.

Mrs Angry had raised the issue originally with the external auditors in a written question at the last full audit meeting, specifically because of this significance, that they could not approve any potentially unlawful expenditure.

It seemed, however, that our friends from Grant Thornton were not expecting this issue to be raised, and were completely wrong footed. Much fumbling and dithering ensued, and we heard that our external auditors thought that a mere sum of £4 million regarding the Highways issue was not important enough to constitute a material objection: really?

So then we all wanted to know - even if it is unlawful? Ah.

That caused more head scratching, and quizzical looks across the table, and whispered conversations between the Monitoring Officer, and the new Chair, Tory Brian Salinger, which lack of transparency was itself objected to by Labour's Geof Cooke, who also pointed out the length of time that the investigation into the complaint was taking.

MO Maryellen Salter said that there was only one issue still outstanding before she could conclude her investigation, which would be 'in the near future' - and we all await her report with great interest, don't we?

Ah! Then yours wasn't a really good school, said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. Now at OURS they had at the end of the bill, "French, music, AND WASHING--extra.

You couldn't have wanted it much,' said Alice; living at the bottom of the sea.

I couldn't afford to learn it.' said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. I only took the regular course.

What was that?' inquired Alice.

Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock Turtle replied; and then the different branches of Arithmetic-- Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.

August, not April, is the cruellest month, isn't it?

In the full glare of the sun, and in the absence of many of us in foreign parts, escaped from the confines of Broken Barnet, it often happens that moments of great significance occur, almost unremarked, in our beloved borough.

Of course Mrs Angry is not allowed to take holidays, as the duty of citizen journalism forbids such self indulgence, and she must remain here, her beady eye focused on the front door - and back door - of North London Business Park, where the senior management stand by, waiting for a convenient moment to slip bad news, wrapped in the cover of a carefully spun shroud, safely out of the building - before the smell becomes too noticeable.

While our council managers sit at their desks, inventing joint venture business models, and writing the Tory policy agenda for the next twelve months, our elected representatives disport themselves abroad, lying on their sunbeds in their French holiday homes, dreaming of ... of what? Mmmm ...

Who can tell?

Some of our local politicians prefer to go further afield, of course. Those of a more adventurous nature. Take Matthew Offord, for example. No, please: take him, stick him on a slow boat to China, with a one way ticket. Alternatively, sit back and enjoy the thought of him as he is now, in the Cayman Islands, enjoying a well deserved rest from his exhausting political responsibilities, asking questions in parliament, sitting on committees, going on fact finding tours of erm ... the Cayman Islands and ... well, that sort of thing.

It's a dog's life, isn't it Max?

Max, of course, is the mentor, guru and political inspiration who guides Matthew Offord's career. See above, with a campaign he was very keen Matthew to endorse, against the use of the sort of appliance in the picture - I know what you're thinking: is there something missing, Mrs Angry? But no, apparently it's used (by horrible people) for punishing badly behaved dogs - instead of using 'positive encourgagement', the system which Max now employs with Matthew, rather than an electric collar.

Matthew has also been giving his time to another important dog related subject, according to his marvellous website, which Mrs Angry recommends as a source of amusing photographs, if nothing else. Here we learn that our canine expert has given his support to a Royal Mail

Dog Awareness Week , because, as Dr Offord tells us, rather pointedly:

postal workers are not alone in facing the risk of being attacked by a dog while carrying out their jobs. Politicians and volunteers may also encounter dogs when out canvassing and leafleting in their local areas ...

Oh dear. Is there a subtext here? Has someone taken a bite out of the Hendon MP's rear, while walking the streets of his constituency? Or has Max ... no, surely not.

That said, one can sympathise with politicians worried about attacks of this sort. Mrs Angry's delinquent cat has been waiting for some time to have a go at the Right Honourable Mike Freer, MP, should he dare to venture up our path, and ring the doorbell: (and the mood he's in this week, I really wouldn't push your luck).

I'll see the ******* off, vows Tommy Angry

And ... has Labour rival Andrew Dismore given up kissing babies and frightening residents on the doorstep with his cheery grin, and decided to adopt a dog, as a vote winning companion? Seems so. Not a bad idea, especially as Cllr Langleben has better things to do these days, is barely housetrained - and has been known to bite.

But yes: the current MP for Hendon is a very busy man.

Look at the number of parliamentary questions he has asked in the last year: 249 - well above average. Interesting range of questions, too, although, well, you would be hard pressed to find any direct relevance to his constituents in any of the subject matter. In fact you have to go back to January to find one that mentions Hendon.

This is a similar pattern, of course, to the deluge of written questions submitted over the last few years by his Finchley and Golders Green colleague Mike Freer. Short on local relevance, and obsessed by a limited but deeply puzzling number of issues regarding government mobile phone contracts, electronic payment systems etc - see:

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/questions-so-many-questions-and-look.html

Matthew's interests are more wide ranging, although certain themes occur throughout. Asylum seekers, benefits, yes, yes, usual stuff ... and of course other issues of deep concern to the residents of Hendon -the threat to polar bears, elderly cod, and turtles, for example.

Another worry for the Hendon MP is the poor, literally maligned albatross, lurking about the Falkland Islands, luring sailors to their doom.

Lax biosecurity legislation in the Pitcairn Islands, that's another concern.

Ah, the Pitcain Islands, refuge of the Bounty mutineers, of course. Mrs Angry used to have a couple of woven bags from there, brought home by her seafaring grandfather, whose ship used to pass by sometimes, you know. Not sure about just the biosecurity, whole place is a bit lax, to be honest, now, and it might be more appropriate to worry about the human inhabitants, the descendants of Fletcher Christian, and the other mutineers - but then humans are of course are more expendable and less interesting, to many Tory politicians, than far away eco systems and sustainable waste theories.

Offord, whose constituency has a large Jewish community, has, in the course of the last few years, been on several paid trips to Israel and the West Bank, and quite rightly condemned the kidnapping, earlier this year, of the the three boys who were, tragically, later found dead, allegedly by the hands of terrorists.

As far as Mrs Angry can see, however, he has made no comment on the loss of so many innocent Palestinian children, massacred in the pitiless slaughter of civilians in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

He did ask in February about creating jobs in Gaza - so as to end the need for aid from us.

Looks like that question is redundant now.

Wildlife at risk, though that's the thing: yes, polar bears, elderly cod, Pitcairn, albatrosses, oh, and the Hendon MP has also asked about endangered species in the area around the island of St Helena, the last home of Napoleon: can you see a doom laden theme forming?

Perhaps, being one of the Tory MPs identified by Michael Ashcroft as part of the party's own endangered species, he feels a natural affinity with these creatures, ecosystems, and historical backwaters. Captain Bligh, Napoleon: men whose destiny, like Dr Offord, will inevitably lead them into exile, defied and disarmed. Tragic.

Turtles are the latest thing, though, with Matthew. He is awfully worried about them. Do you worry about turtles, readers, and yes, you, Andrew Dismore, late at night, when you can't sleep? No? Then don't stand for parliament, as a candidate for Hendon.

Only on the 21st of July, Offord asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the degree to which the Cayman Turtle Farm is a humane breeding facility. He asked another question on the same line the next day.

Now you might think that the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs might have slightly more important issues of war and peace and diplomacy to worry about, but then, Dr Offord is awfully interested in humane breeding, and procreation, as we know from the rigid position he adopted in response to debate about equal marriage.

Marriage between gay people, he thinks, is wrong, because it is not conducive to the getting of children. One can only hope that those boy and girl turtles in the Cayman Islands are married, and keen to, well, get on with that sort of thing, and not getting ideas about getting it on with same sex turtle partners, which would be against God's plan for the environment, and the future of biodiversity.

Dr Offord is a member of a parliamentary Environmental Audit committee, of course, which has helped inform his expertise on these subjects. Indeed he has, on behalf of the committee, been nominated, with another MP, Joanne Walley, as a 'Rapporteur' * and sent to - guess where - the Caymans on a ... what was it ... a fact finding tour, from the 17th to the 21st of April, 2013, to erm ... to 'examine how sustainable development is practised in the Cayman Islands'.

*Rapporteur = an elected politician who has a natural affinity, or rapport, with five star holiday destinations in the Caribbean or surrounding coastal region, and requires regular stays in this area, on fact finding tours, thus enabling him or her to maintain a long lasting, glowing tan, and a quiet air of satisfaction while the rest of you, especially you, Mrs Angry, are stuck at home, making jam, and sulking ...

NB: Despite the apparent embargo on any journey by Mrs Angry beyond the boundaries of Broken Barnet, she is of course in demand for her expertise as an world renowned auditor, of things environmental and/or financial, and is immediately available, if anyone wishes her to undertake an examination of sustainable development in the Cayman Islands, or any other tax haven, or exotic destination.

Not much expertise re turtles, but she did once look after a friend's tortoise while she was away in Newquay.

Gruelling schedule, mind you, for our Matthew, and his chum, what with trips to the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme (apparently they get wasted on the local rum) oh, and of course a visit to a booby nesting site.

Mrs Angry has removed the joke previously inserted here, as smutty schoolgirl innuendo has no place in ta serious blog. Or this one.

And it was such a memorable visit, it seems, that our Matthew, who is a keen scuba diver, was eager to return to the Caymans, and their sustainable developments. Who could blame him?

He's there now, on vacation, apparently, and as you do, sometimes, when on your holiday - holding receptions for government officials and the movers and shakers in Cayman society, to, oh I don't know, tell them off for eating turtles. Mock turtle is a perfectly good substitute, after all, and Matthew should know, being an expert on soup, having once bragged about giving David Cameron advice on the subject, in the House of Commons dining room. Anyway, the press in the Cayman Islands are awfully excited by the visit by Offord - here is just one story covering his trip:

http://www.compasscayman.com/caycompass/2014/07/30/Member-of-Parliament-urges-more-environmental-funding-from-UK

I'm not here to tell people what to eat, he said, while, well - telling people what to eat.

Good of him to take time off from his own holiday, though, to take part in this event, wasn't it? But then he is quoted as saying he is happy to be 'Cayman’s “man in London” to advocate for the territory to get a larger slice of environmental funding'.

Wonder how his constituents feel about all this, though? Especially the residents of West Hendon, who might reasonable prefer that their elected member spent rather less time worrying about the plight of turtles and the ecology of Caribbean tax havens, and more about another endangered species, living rather closer to home: the shorthold tenants, soon to be dispossessed, of social housing about to be demolished, in order to make way for a profitable luxury penthouse development by Barrett Homes, Hendon Waterside.

Forget about 'poor doors': the only door available to a handful of current residents will be in a grudging token small building, on a former car park, with a view not of the beautiful Welsh Harp reservoir, but the back yards of run down kebab shops on the Edgware Road.

The vast majority of current tenants, who have lived in this community for years, without secure tenancies, now face an uncertain future, with no idea of where they may be offered alternative accommodation, even whether or not it will be in the borough. They don't have any rights of protection, even, it seems, from their own MP. When some of them went to lobby him in April, at a constituency meeting in a local church hall, he refused even to speak to them, and hid inside until he could be evacuated, quaking in the back of a police van. (see end of post for pic).

The only photo opportunity availed by the plight of the West Hendon tenants was this one

here - possibly because it involved another form of wildlife, that is to say the rats which plague the homes and children's play areas of the estate: as Mrs Angry can vouch from visiting the area regularly after his picture was taken, the rats continued to make residents lives a misery, and put their health at risk: and the wider problem of their future accommodation? No Tory politician wanted to know, then or now. What local MP was going to criticise the policies and actions of their Conservative council colleagues in Barnet? Why should they care about poor people, in Labour areas?

Ah, which brings us to perhaps the most gobsmacking posting on his website this year:

http://www.matthewofford.co.uk/news/new-crossings-colindale

If you have followed the tale of Mrs Angry's investigations into the Highways expenditure scandal, in which the Tories changed the rules of budget allocation and then allowed Councillor Dean Cohen to award his own ward £1 million in the months running up to the election, while giving not one penny of funding to Labour held Colindale, you may recall the outrage expressed by Labour councillors like Gill Sergeant, who had fought unsuccessfully for much needed road improvements like the Aerodrome Road crossings.

Constant excuses were given as to why the measures were not implemented, and objections submitted after the revelations of the underfunding: now we see Offord trying to take the credit for the crossings!

Crossings in a road, incidentally, that is clearly dear to the heart of Matthew Offord, as this article from 2009 reminds us:

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/4346831.Aerodrome_Road_runs___11m_over_budget

At such a time of crisis, with the world watching in horror at the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East, one might hope that our local politicians might be here to give support at least to those in the community affected by the events. In Offord's own constituency, an orthodox Jewish family has seen their home become the focus of a vile, and blatantly anti-semitic attack, with a swastika daubed on their home: what happens in Israel, and Gaza, is of direct relevance to many who live here, and relevant now, while our elected representatives absent themselves, and remain silent.

A similar situation ensued in the year of the London riots: while London burned, and parliament reconvened, our intrepid MP for Hendon was in Belize, apparently not on holiday, but fighting 'narco terrorism', and hurricanes, as part of an Armed Forces Parliamentary scheme outing.

Oh dear me. See here:

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/your-mps-they-work-for-you-in-belize.html

And here:

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/blue-holes-black-holes-and-matthew.html

And here:
http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/mrs-angrys-honeymoon.html

Belize, Cayman Islands, turtles, albatrosses, 'narco terrorism': all along way from West Hendon, and real people with real problems, isn't it?

The glamour of the caribbean may pale into insignificance besides the grim reality of living in West Hendon, but it might behove our elected members to remember that they hold their positions in order to serve the local communities they have been given the privilege of representing, and not in order to indulge their own interests.

The three Conservative MPs in this borough are in a difficult position, of course, as we have noted before, in that they cannot adopt any local cause, or be seen to become involved in any major local issue, without having to challenge the monstrous regimen of Tory Barnet, their colleagues, and friends. And of course they cannot challenge any matter that arises out of the impact of their own government policy.

So they occupy themselves in their own way: Theresa Villiers is clever enough to have pushed her career to Cabinet level, and confines her constituency duties to smiling winsomely at garden fetes and other innocuous events, and avoiding all controversy, or expressing any opinion, on any subject, at any time.

Freer has probably reached the highest level of his own career in parliament with a demotion to PPS for Nick Boles, having been delighting Eric Pickles with his assistance for nine months longer than anyone would have thought, in his nine month spell at DCLG.

And Offord? LOL. Oh dear.

His time as MP for Hendon has been nothing more than a sequence of unfortunate events, relieved, from his point of view, by the opportunities afforded by his overseas trips, and dressing up as a soldier for the Armed Forces Parliamentary nonsense. He hasn't been mentioned in dispatches, as far as we know, although they are awfully keen on awarding themselves medals and honorary titles, these army cadet MPs.

Hendon Tories, to be frank, are in a pretty perilous state - the association is facing the impact of a huge drop in membership, factional fighting, and the prospect of long term activitist Hugh Rayner, now the Mayor of Barnet, forced to defend serious allegations in regard to his business activities and apparent failure to declare pecuniary interests in his role as councillor.

What a downfall, for this local Tory party, protectors of the temple of Thatcherism, Hendon Town Hall, and once the eager participants in one of the most influential political advertising campaigns this nation has seen: the billboard ad that helped to encourage voters to welcome a new Conservative government led by Margaret, at the beginning of her reign of terror, in 1979.

Yes, the notorious Saatchi ad, 'Labour isn't Working':

This was later revealed to be not at all what it purported, a queue of unemployed people, but some twenty volunteers from Hendon Young Conservatives, ordered to turn up to a car park by the Welsh Harp - and here Mrs Angry feels obliged, by the rules of pyschogeographic bloggery, to refer you to the fate of the car park by the Welsh Harp mentioned above - and pose as instructed, pretending to be on the dole, and all because of Jim Callaghan and the evils of Socialism. They were expecting 100 volunteers, and were obliged to make do with what they had by repeating the sequence in the photo.

Dennis Healey denounced the ad in parliament, accusing the Tories of trying to sell politics like 'soapflakes' - but it became the model for political campaign posters, and the symbolic proof of Tory hypocrisy, as we launched into the Thatcherite eighties - and record levels of unemployment.

Ironic, then, that this lie was enacted in the very location, a sink estate over run by rats, but a community defiant in the face of neo Thatcherite councillors who really do still believe there is no such thing as society, here where we witness the logical end of Thatcher's right to buy scheme, and the triumph of profit over the ideals of social housing.

Fitting too, that the ad then was a lie that was promulgated by the PM's own local activists, and fitting, now, that the local party that supplied the material for this con trick is now on its last legs, represented by a man who is about to lose them control of this once key seat.

The local elections made one thing clear: the Labour vote in Barnet is showing up now in places it never was expected to be - and a number of Tory councillors who did not imagine for one second that they would lose their seats are now ex councillors.

Freer faces an almighty battle in Finchley from Sarah Sackman, and Theresa Villiers needs to address the inconvenient truth that she is no longer safe in Chipping Barnet, where changing demographics and collapse of the Libdem vote and other complex local factors have created an entirely new electoral reality.

Over the last few years, our local Tory MPs have had the chance to do something brave, and bold, and worthy, for the people they represent.

At every step they have chosen to look the other way, and avoid tackling the real problems faced by ordinary residents, by the majority of constituents, who do not worry about Freer's bogeyman mansion tax, or the fate of turtles in the Cayman Islands, but worry desperately about how they are going to pay the bedroom tax, or the long wait to see a consultant at the Royal Free, or if they are going to be driven from the community where they live by the Barnet Tory lie that passes under the name of 'regeneration'.

The Ashcroft poll has predicted Hendon will fall to Labour, and it will.

Matthew Offord really is in the soup, and if he doesn't know it, he is even more of a fool than we take him for.

Barnet Mayor, Tory councillor Hugh Rayner

Here is a press release from Andrew Dismore, Labour GLA member for Barnet and Camden, expressing in the strongest terms his anger over the handling by Barnet Council of the allegations put to the Monitoring Officer regarding Tory Mayor Hugh Rayner:

Rayner investigation: fears of ‘whitewash’ at ‘hearing’ on 3rd September

Andrew Dismore AM, Labour London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden, and the complainant concerning the conduct of Conservative Cllr Rayner, Mayor of Barnet, has today expressed his fears that the investigation may turn out to be a whitewash.

Mr Dismore said: “My concerns began when the Monitoring Officer (MO) disallowed a large part of the complaint. She has disallowed those parts of my complaint not on the grounds of inadequate evidence to support them, but on what to me seems to be a pedantic, very technical interpretation of the councillors’ Code of Conduct. She has done so with minimal explanation, followed by an absolute refusal to even consider very detailed and closely argued representations as to why this interpretation was wrong and in my view was clearly against the spirit of the Nolan principles of conduct in public life, which set out requirements relating to openness and accountability of politicians.

“Officers have played the strict definition card before and it really restricted what the Panel could do in relation to former Cllr Coleman.

“ Because of the MO’s ruling, the Leaders’ Panel will therefore not be able to consider my complaint concerning Cllr Rayner’s conduct as a landlord, nor his non registration of interests concerning his receipt of housing benefit, even though thousands of pounds of public money was involved. The MO has taken the view that Cllr Rayner’s dealings with Barnet Homes are not relevant because Barnet Homes is separate from the Council, even though I argue that Barnet Homes is wholly owned by the Council and funded by them.

“The Council have also refused to respond to these freedom of information requests of mine, on the grounds that it would take more than 18 hours to find the answers: ·

Please disclose all email correspondence on his council email address passing between Cllr Hugh Rayner and a) Barnet Council and b) Barnet Homes that mention the following properties: (list as on his register of interests entry) ·

Please disclose all correspondence passing between Barnet Council and Hugh Rayner in his capacity as a landlord for each of the last 3 years · Please disclose details of all payments made by the Council to Hugh Rayner in his capacity as a landlord including any Housing Benefit payments in each of the last 3 financial years.

“However, these problems will not prevent the public forming their own view as to the Mayor’s conduct on these matters, bearing in mind his own admissions to the local press.

“Nevertheless the Leaders’ Panel will consider the two most serious allegations, concerning Cllr Rayner’s non-disclosure of interests at council and committee meetings; and improper use of his position as a councillor in dealings with council officers.

“That though, is not the end of the story.

“The Leaders’ Panel hearing date has been set for a date ( 3rd September) when it was known in advance that I was on holiday and not able to attend to present the complaint, which would be the normal procedure; and the MO has refused to countenance a rescheduling of the date even though I am available for a number of dates before her deadline for the hearing.

“LBB’s published “Process for complaints” states “ procedures would have an emphasis on flexibility and informality ( insofar as possible and consistent with the principles of natural justice ) and dispute resolution”. The MO seems to be overlooking this requirement in her approach to the listing of the case. Although the Code states there should be a report submitted to the Panel within 3 months of the complaint, the rules do not state that the meeting has to be convened to decide it within 3 months and this could await my return. The MO says that I could send a representative in my absence, but with over 300 pages of evidence in this very complex and detailed case of such public importance it is not fair, just or practical for me to send someone else to do this. This would not happen in the law courts and it should not happen here.

“The MO will not confirm if Cllr Rayner was consulted on the date before it was set or not, as the officer involved is ‘on holiday’ , and so this raises the question of whether there has been a level playing field, concerning the setting of the date. It looks like the ‘defendant’ will be there, but there will be no ‘prosecution’.

“Membership of the Panel includes Cllr Cornelius as chair. He has not so far recused himself, even though he has already publically expressed support for Cllr Rayner in the local papers, in response to press reports of the allegations:

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/11280338.Council_leader_defends_Barnet_Mayor_s__illegal__behaviour/

In these circumstances Cllr Cornelius cannot therefore be seen to be impartial, so far as I can see. There is also a de facto Conservative majority on the Panel. Conservative legislation removed the compulsory requirement for an independent chair, but the Council could have an independent chair if it so wanted, and that seems to me what should happen.

“The MO cannot confirm the hearing will be held in public, so justice such as it is, may not be seen to be done.

“The MO will not confirm she will copy to the members of the Panel my correspondence dealing with all the above procedural issues and including my detailed submissions as to why I consider her rulings to be wrong.

“The only way these problems can be resolved is if, at the Leaders’ Panel:

1. The hearing is adjourned to a date when both I and Cllr Rayner can attend;

2. Cllr Cornelius relinquishes the chair, stands down from the Panel, and an independent chair is appointed;

3. A Conservative member agrees in advance to abstain, so no one party has a majority, as used to be the case before the Conservatives changed the rules;

4. the Panel requires the MO to provide the full correspondence and submissions passing between myself and the MO;

5. the Panel resolves to hear the case in public, given the public importance of the issues involved

“Against this sorry background, it is inevitable that there have to be fears of a whitewash. If the Leaders’ Panel do not deal with this case appropriately, then I will have to explore other avenues to establish the truth for the people of Barnet and achieve an appropriate outcome.

Monitoring Officer Maryellen Salter, left, watched by Tory leader Richard Cornelius

As Mrs Angry predicted, it is now clear that there is absolutely no hope of a fair and objective assessment of the allegations directed at Councillor Rayner through the process of the in house Leaders' Panel.

It is also quite evident that this never was or could be the case, and that the gravity of the charges against him, involving allegations of a potentially criminal offence, mean that the matter cannot and should not be referred to any internal process, but investigated by the police, and forwarded then, if necessary, to the CPS.

In my view, rather than take part in a discredited procedure, and one which is clearly subject to political influence, Labour councillors should refuse to attend the Group Panel, and refer the matter to the police.

It should not be forgotten that not so long ago, the Monitoring Officer referred, with some urgency, what was proven to be a false allegation, on a far less serious charge, about a Labour member to the police and CPS. Quite extraordinary, is it not, that the same stringent standard was not applied to a Tory councillor accused of a number of deeply concerning allegations?

A test of the Labour leadership now, then. Comply with the Tory agenda, or do the right thing, and boycott a process whose rules you know to be ill defined, untested, unfair, and politically weighted.

The Leaders Panel cannot deliver an objective assessment of the charges against the Mayor: and they are allegations of a nature that make an internal investigation redundant. It must be repeated too that some of these allegations have been discounted by the Monitoring Officer - a former auditor with Grant Thornton, who has no legal background -on the clearly spurious grounds that Barnet Homes has nothing to do with Barnet Council.

Barnet Homes' own website states quite clearly:

In February 2012 we became part of The Barnet Group, a local authority trading company owned by Barnet Council.

Owned by Barnet Council. Got that?

Andrew Dismore

Andrew Dismore is quite right to allude to the clear conflict here between the position taken by the council on this matter, and the requirements demanded by the Nolan Principles.

Alllied with the Barnet Tories' recent outrageous move to require the same Monitoring Officer to issue them with a dispensation that allows them to take part in committee meetings without the obligation to declare their interests, it is absolutely, inarguably the case, that this council is demonstrably and fundamentally opposed to the principles of transparency and accountability, and refuses to adhere to the spirit of their own government's policy on localism, let alone the principles of democracy, or natural justice.

The behaviour of the Tory party in Barnet continues in the same squalid course as it has pursued over the last four years, in other words.

The members of this administration, in truth, are incapable of acting in any other way: and the current failure in standards of governance serves only to enforce the regime of decadence, incompetence, and abject betrayal of the best interests of the residents and taxpayers of this benighted borough.

It is time for the central Conservative party, once more, to step in, and force this maverick council to comply with the obligations of all public bodies: to be open and honest in its transactions, and to demonstrate an understanding of the need of the highest levels of probity from its elected members, its senior officers, and in the processes of the administration itself.

“So long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him -- pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?”

Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

Readers, take note.

The second of Mrs Angry's delphic prophesies is born, as predicted, in the midst, as we are, of the summer storms of August, delivered like a fearful omen, hidden from view by our scheming council, smothered like an unwanted heir to the evil empire - and smuggled out of the corporate palace of North London Business Park, before the mob has heard the news.

Yes: following on from the outrageous preliminary response by the council to the matter of the allegations regarding the activities of our Tory Mayor, Hugh Rayner, (see previous post),news has slipped out of the other 'investigation' which was promised into the disgraceful matter of the Tory Highways budget.

This scandalous affair, revealed by Mrs Angry, emerged from a series of FOI rquests and demonstrated that Councillor Dean Cohen, when Cabinet member for Environment, changed the rules of equal allocation of Highways funding, gave himself the power to approve all expenditure - and then approved the handout of one million pounds to his own ward, in the run up to the election, and nothing at all to the Labour ward of Colindale, and generous amounts to other Tory wards ... and rather less than generous amounts to other Labour wards.

If you recall, the attempts by Mrs Angry and then the Labour group, to raise this matter with the external auditors at Grant Thornton was met with the usual rebuff, and referred back to the council itself for 'investigation'. No need for independent scrutiny, or 'audit' by the 'external auditors', see? Let the party involved examine its own behaviour - or pay someone else to.

Someone else, in this case, it transpires, was a law firm by the name of Sharpe Pritchard, who were asked by HB Public Law, Barnet's own legal services partnership with Harrow, to undertake, well, not an investigation, in fact , a 'review'. The findings of this review were released, very quietly, on Friday, when they hoped no one would be looking, under the guise of a remarkably low key report from the Monitoring Officer.

The terms of reference of this 'review' were as follows:

• Consider the process of decision-making in relation to highways expenditure within
Barnet Council in the light of the issues raised in the email from Cllr Alison Moore to
Grant Thornton LLP of 30th May.

• Advise on whether that decision-making has been undertaken lawfully and in
accordance with the Council’s constitution.

• If the advice is that the decision-making process has in any way been unlawful or a
breach of the Council’s constitution has occurred, advise on the steps which should
now be taken by the Council as a result of this.

You can see the rather limited findings of this 'review' here:

http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?Id=5304

The minimal response of the limited findings, in fact, is frankly rather puzzling, considering the length of time it took to produce.

It is up to the Labour group to respond to the first seven points, but what is of real interest begins here, at Point 8, in which the allegation was:

8. The allocations disproportionately benefited
the Cabinet Member’s own ward with the
highest allocation of resources over the year,
and the second highest number of schemes
for the additional funding

Response:

The programme is based on priority
need following technical inspection
of the highway. Detailed evidence
can be provided of the inspection
process. It is worth pointing out that
roads can deteriorate between
annual inspections and therefore
may have to be prioritised.

Bsed on priority need?

This is simply not true. Not if you define the word 'need', in this context, as one objectively assessed and free from political or personal consideration, that is.

One of the Freedom of Information responses to requests made by Mrs Angry was for copies of correspondence between Dean Cohen and highways officers in regard to Golders Green ward over the previous two years.

Despite some emails having been deleted, there were enough supplied in the response to prove that Cllr Cohen was in the habit of directly contacting officers and making strong representations about his residents perceived needs - in his own area of the ward.

Let us remind everyone that one road alone in this area, ie Princes Park Avenue, had in two years more than some opposition held wards were allocated in entirety - the wards represented by the Labour leader, and the Libdem leader, for example.

This disproportionate expenditure, we are invited to believe, was merely because there was a greater need in the Environment member's ward. Need of what, exactly? Road and pavement repairs, or votes?

Ah, but Mrs Angry, if there was need in any other ward, any other Labour or Libdem ward, that is, then those councillors should have asked for pavements to be repaired, and their roads to be mended.

Erm: but they did, and nothing happened.

Ask Arjun Mittra, in East Finchley. Ask Gill Sargeant, in Colindale. Excuse after excuse was given, while the work that needed doing in their wards was sidelined. In Mrs Angry's Labour held ward, vital safety work took a year to be implemented - and was only agreed in the first place because Mrs Angry is Mrs Angry and wrote about it endlessly, and lobbied hard for it, over a period of years, following a fatal accident.

Compare this reluctance to carry out basic, essential maintenance and renewal work with the accommodation expected by Councillor Cohen from his officers in regard to his own ward ...

Don't take Mrs Angry's word for it, read the damn emails in the FOI response.

They're all published on the council's website, you know, FOIs, in line with the Chief Operating Officer's much vaunted declaration that the default mode of Barnet Council is 'open government'.

Ah. Oh ...

Of course Mrs Angry can't quite find the link to the publication of the rather revealing correspondence response. How odd. Shurely some mistake?

But the correspondence is fascinating: read the emails, for example, between Councillor Cohen and Steve Holdaway, Associate Director Highways for Capita.

Ah, yes: Capita. Awfully obliging, is their Mr Holdaway, in regard to Golders Green ward.

There appears to be an easy process of communication between our Dean, and Steve, in fact. Hi Steve!

This was on the 27th April, ie the period just before the election, when there seemed to be a flurry of activity, and a concerted effort to get jobs done.

Steve's response, first thing next day:

Plenty of reminders for officers, from the Cabinet member for Environment, should they be slow to respond.

7th May, for example: 'This was the issues I was referring to in my earlier telephone conversation', is a typically ungrammatical response from our councillor, to another hapless highways employee.

The officer promises to attend to it by the next day. Oh dear: by the 9th, Councillor Cohen is obliged to point out a couple of repairs that have, tut tut, still not been done.

Rather amusing is the email 'accidentally' sent to Cohen by our man from Capita, piously suggesting they should thank him for his interest:

The territory of Princes Park Avenue, in Councillor Cohen's ward, is clearly one fraught with almost unimaginable terrors and hidden danger for those daring to walk its length and breadth: this must be why it is so expensive to maintain.

Take for example the horrifying occurrence of a damaged kerb, hastily attended to in March by the council's emergency response team, after this shocking matter was raised by Cllr Cohen.

Admire the logistical coordination of Dean Cohen's strategy for immediate action, a military style policy of zero tolerance of cracked or chipped paving stones. Zero tolerance in PPA, that is.

In January, residents report an alarming case, a 'matter of urgency' of not one, but two cracks in the new paving: cracks and chips, in fact.

After intervention by Cohen, officers immediately agreed to replace the slabs.

In March, a disgruntled resident wrote to express his disgust at the appearance of a crack in a nice new paving stone outside his house, after he has only been driving over it for two days. Driving over it? Hardly surprising, then, is it? (Note that elsewhere in the correspondence, all hell breaks loose and officers despatched to take action when another resident complains about damage caused by what is deemed 'anti-social parking' on pavements, but by a lorry company, not residents.)

A million pounds on such emergencies is not something that anyone could begrudge, is it? Yes, it is true that at this time, in Councillor Cohen's own ward, Mapledown School for disabled children had to have its respite care facilities threatened with closure due to cuts approved by our Tory councillors, in an amount of funding that was a fraction of the cost of replacing all the paving stones of Princes Park Avenue.

At the time of the outcry over these cuts of course, it was a Golders Green councillor Reuben Thompstone, who was Cabinet member for schools, and was responsible for the budget being slashed. He admitted he had never visited Mapledown: Mrs Angry understands the same is true for Dean Cohen, and his father. Mapledown, of course, is in the other side of the ward, the poorer side, with social housing, and ... Labour voters. The roads on that side didn't see much of the million pound bonus, you should know.

And anyway: pavements are more important than support for disabled children and their parents, aren't they?

Some may feel all that Cohen's badgering of officers and eagerness to please his residents, and haste to implement the work in the last few weeks before the election is simply an example of a councillor doing his job, but of course it is not that simple. Ask Labour Councillor Mittra how many times he has asked about long standing repairs in his own ward, to no avail, for example?

Because of course this exemplary service, rolled out to the fortunate residents of the Environment Member's own ward, does not extend to the enquiries of residents in every other ward in the borough, who are not lucky enough to have the attentions of the councillor who controls the allocation of funding, and is in charge of the officers who implement the works requested.

Let's say it again: such tender care of the 'needs' of one area of his own ward, the area in which he himself resides, came at a cost, in the pre-election year, of a staggering £1 million, and clearly was paid for by the lack of expenditure in less favoured, Labour voting wards.

And the pattern of expenditure shows quite unequivocably that residents of Labour held wards are not extended the same privileges as the residents of Conservative held wards: there is effectively a system of financial apartheid in the way expenditure is distributed.

Let's return to the council's commissioned review,and Labour's allegation regarding this issue

10. Over the last 4 years the profile of spend
appears to be significantly more in
administration held wards compared with
opposition held wards (see attached officer
briefing note).

Response:

This is a way of analysing the spend,
however, it has not been allocated
on a ward basis as clearly roads are
not always contained within ward
boundaries.

Meh, in other words. This is a way of analysing the spend says the review, dismissively... away? No, this is the only way, based on clear evidence.

To try to divert attention from this glaringly obvious truth, the review attempts to distract by fatuously claiming the disproportionate expenditure is due to roads not being contained within ward boundaries.

I think you will find that Princes Park Avenue is contained within the boundary of Golders Green Ward, and yet received, let us say it again, more in two years than many opposition held wards were given in that period for their entire budgets.

This sort of facile assertion, in my view, completely compromises the objectivity and fairness of this 'review', and demands that the findings must be robustly challenged. But it fades into insignificance when we reach the conclusion drawn by the 'investigator', as you will see below. Let us continue.

Another point raised by Labour:

15. 2013/14 was an election year, and many of
the schemes were progressed very close to
the local elections.

Response:

The funding for the additional works
came from the improved financial
offer from the two outsourcing
projects (DRS and NSCSO). The
outsourcing projects had themselves
been delayed by the judicial review
(to September (NSCSO) and October
(DRS) 2013) so the money was also
delayed which impacted on timing of
the highways work.

Another ridiculous statement. Whatever the source of the extra funding, or the timing (what would they do without the Judicial Review to use as an excuse for any problems?) the progression of the schemes was quite clearly undertaken in order to favour the Tory administration's political chances: look at the huge amount of money invested, for no apparent reason, in the most marginal ward of Hale, for example, which the Tories were desperate to retain. Imagine the tragic loss, if our beloved Mayor, Hugh Rayner, and his little friend Tom Davey had lost their seats - and they came very, very close to it, seeing Labour pick up the third one ...

No defence of the splurge in Hale has been forthcoming, nor could it, because there is none.

The 'investigator' found that the council officer who dealt with a mysterious briefing note in regard to the funding of Hale has left the council, rather inconveniently, and apparently no one can shed any light on the approach made by Tory members for Hale in regard to the level of funding.

So no wrongdoing then? Ah: yes, the review does admit that the decision making process of the allocation of funding 'was not as transparent as it should have been'.

But guess what? It was the officers' fault.

It always is, in Broken Barnet: whenever there has been any wrongdoing, elected representatives are not expected to take responsibility - blame is always attached to the employees who are expected to do as they are told by their political masters, and then act as whipping boy if it all goes wrong.

The review tells us:

'However, there appears to be an assumption by officers within that service that the Cabinet Member had the exclusive right to decide which schemes went forward'.

The assumption, Mrs Angry would suggest, was by the Cabinet Member, who admits he changed the rules on allocation of funding, and it would have been a brave and foolhardy officer who dared to oppose his decisions.

That said, do we now assume that the former Director of Place will now take responsibility for the lack of transparency? Or will the blame be focused on someone more junior, and expendable?

The review does also admit, in a roundabout way, that Councillor Cohen was in breach of standing orders:

Advice on decision-making process

In my view the decision-making process was not correctly followed. The power to make decisions in relation to these matters was delegated to the Area Environment Sub-Committees. If it was not possible to convene meetings of these sub-committees then eitherthe decision should have been taken by Cabinet or, in reliance on the delegated authority given by the Cabinet meeting of 4th November, the decision should formally have been taken by Councillor Cohen and the requirements of the Council’s Standing Orders should have been met.

Will he be subject to any consequences as a result of this breach?

But here is the most preposterous assertion of all, as contained within the conclusions of this 'review'. To the accusation of political bias, the 'investigator' has decided:

'Whilst it is clear that the data supports the view that there has been more expenditure in administration held wards, this does not justify drawing a conclusion that there has been
political bias'.

Got that?

The data supports the view that there has been more expenditure in administration held wards...

(Mrs Angry translates: this review agrees with the allegation that there was MORE MONEY SPENT IN TORY WARDS)

... but you may not take from this clear evidence what might reasonably seem to be the only logical and unavoidable conclusion - that this DOES constitutes political bias.

What the f*ck would justify such a conclusion, then, you might reasonably ask, in the eyes of the company commissioned and paid by the council to produce this 'review'?

Earlier in the findings we read:

'The investigator concluded that he would not describe the expenditure on highways which resulted from this decision-making process as unlawful. The additional money was spent on lawful items of expenditure and there is no evidence that the decision-making process was invalidated by being undertaken for an improper purpose.'

No evidence, if you overlook the incontrovertible proof that, in the run up to an election, more expenditure was made in Tory wards, to the extent that £1 million was spent in the Environment Member's own ward, in one year, and half a million in two years on one road alone, and the most marginal ward was lavished with funding, and in neither ward was there a case for real need, while in less advantaged, Labour held wards in the borough, funding was withheld, and in Colindale, not one single penny was allocated in the year before the election.

As Cohen himself expresses, with some irritation, to officers in the FOI correspondence, residents' perception surveys clearly demonstrate a high priority given to the state of the pavements and highways.

Quite clearly then, he was aware this had a direct effect on the way in which these issues might reflect on the councillors representing any ward. He made sure his own residents received prompt and efficient responses to their 'needs', whereas in Labour wards, residents stumbling over broken kerbs and pavements, and trying to find a safe crossing point to get ti the other side of a busy road would have assumed that their councillors were not acting as effective advocates, when the truth was that restraints on expenditure were being applied to their areas, and continual excuses masking long delays in agreed work.

Does this sort of impression affect the way people vote? Of course it does.

Should there be safeguards to ensure that the allocation of such high visibility expenditure,within weeks, days and even hours of an election is fairly allocated, without any risk of even the perception of bias? Yes, yes, and yes again.

Has our local tax been used lawfully in regard to the Highways budget?

Has the council's own commissioned review been adequate to the role of independent scrutiny, or should there now be real action to more thoroughly investigate this matter, and ensure that we, the residents and taxpayers of every ward in this borough has received equitable benefit, in a programme uninfluenced by political considerations?

You can probably guess Mrs Angry's view: what do you think?

Over to Labour once more - and any other citizen who objects to the findings of this so called review. The investigator hired by Barnet Council hesitated to call the expenditure unlawful because he felt he had seen no evidence of improper purpose. Improper purpose would presumably have included political bias, and the investigator's reasoning for seeing no evidence of this, even though 'there has been more expenditure in administration held wards' might reasonably be questioned by a more stringent act of scrutiny.

The council and the Tory party would like to think they have seen the back of this story.

Mrs Angry thinks that they are mistaken, if they really imagine that to be the case.

Background:

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/scandalous-barnet-councils-million.html

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-lost-highway-or-road-to-broken.html

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/highways-of-despair-labour-report.html

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-highway-to-hell-tory-councillor.html

Trying to find evidence of ethics, and probity, in the London Borough of Broken Barnet

Councillor John Marshall is one of the old survivors of the glory years of Barnet Conservatism, a grandee of the age of Thatcherism.

As old as time itself, no: before there was time, look: there was Councillor Marshall; and when the universe was created, there he stood, finger pointing, waiting for the birth of the blessed Margaret, and her arrival in Finchley, here to delight us all.

And here he still stands, undaunted, and happily in better health after a recent illness: appointed now to the position of Chair of the new Constitution, Ethics and Probity Committee.

What? Yes, of course we do not have any ethics or probity in Broken Barnet, but we have set up a committee for the purpose of sniffing out any signs of the emergence of such dangerous notions, and stamping it out, before it interferes with the running of our local council.

What? Chair, Mrs Angry? Tssk. There are no 'Chairs' in the new, retro organised committee system, which aims to drag us back to the good old days, when women were ladies, and knew their place, at home, making dinner for their Tory councillor husbands, and warming their slippers in front of the fire, rather than getting ideas about entering local politics, and daring to speak out in front of the men.

So we have reverted to the title of 'Chairman', and quite right too, because the idea of a woman as Chair is risible, and must not be countenanced. And anyway, as the Tory councillors have told us, gender is of no importance when it comes to titles, and to make a fuss about such things is petty, and quite unnecessary.

I feel like An Innocent Abroad, declared Councillor Marshall, as he took his place as Chairwoman.

I hope, he added, that it will be an Easy Baptism ...

Mrs Angry smiled politely, and hoped against hope that it would be anything but.

Marshall noted with approval that the previous meeting, had finished in fifty five minutes. The three Tory councillors nodded happily - Antony Finn, Melvin Cohen and - oh no, surely not, a Woman, or rather, as she prefers to be addressed, a Lady, Joan Scannell.

Council meetings, in Broken Barnet, are of course not to be seen so much as vital part of the democratic process, or opportunities for debate, but as a flipping nuisance, an ordeal to be endured for the sake of rubber stamping their previously agreed agenda.

The Chairwoman expressed the fond hope that this committee would work by consensus, rather than be driven by partisan politics.

What this meant, of course, is that the committee should be driven by Tory politics, and Labour should just shut up, and let the meeting finish in fifty five minutes.

Not altogether a popular idea with the Labour councillors. Leader Alison Moore demurred, suggesting the purpose of the committee was to produce the best constitution. Even she had given up on the idea that the Tories might be interested in matters of ethics, and probity.

New Labour member Dr Devra Kay (aka La Bloggeuse) reminded the Chairwoman that they could only come to a consensus if they, the Labour members ... agreed to things ... Which of course, they might not. The Chairwoman appeared baffled by such an impertinent suggestion, but conceded that the Labour leader may be right about the constitution. She was right, sometimes. She was right, often, replied the Labour leader.

On to the agenda, a long, tedious and largely pointless discussion of tiny amendments to the constitution, navigated in her usual laconic style by the Monitoring Officer, Maryellen Salter.

So, she began. She begins every sentence with 'So', even responses to questions, and indeed this is apparently required form for all senior officers of the London Borough of Broken Barnet - and it is extremely tiresome.

The subtext, leaving aside the mindless use of corporate jargon that most of our senior officers - and friends from Crapita - adopt at the committee table, is that they really want to disregard the irritating interjections of elected members, and get on with their own agenda. So anyway, in other words.

A mild objection from the opposition to a change that potentially could lead to a misuse of power: the Chairwoman shrugs: When people start playing games, as they sometimes do ...

It could run counter to democracy, suggested the Labour leader.

The Chairwoman looked on, blankly. The Tory members sat round the table, and looked on, blankly. Democracy?

Another objection to the way in which school governor appointments are made, obstructed, wilfully or not, by the administration. The Tories look away, indifferent.

Endless small adjustments are made, or not made, agreed, or mildly objected to. On and on, like the droning of bees.

The soporific effect filled the room. Even the People's Mayor, Councillor Lord Mr Shepherd, was unusually quiet, no heckling, desultorily inspecting some of the many papers he carries everywhere with him, or making the odd note with one of the pens from his stationery filled top pocket: pens, scissors, sellotape at the ready. Occasionally the buzzing of constitutional wordplay was interrupted by his tearing off of bits of paper, and sticking them back together again.

After the meeting Cllr Shepherd told Mrs Angry, clearly with some sense of affront, that he had offered a pairing arrangement with the Chairwoman, but had been rebuffed. He also took her back down the committee room corridor to show her a lovely photo of a mayoress taken in the seventies, unusually young - without a moustache, even - displaying a rather revealing decolletage. This picture, he pointed out, with stern disapproval, was coupled with the Wrong Mayor.

We then had a laugh about one of the names of the former Mayors so lovingly inscribed in gold letters for posterity. That man, he claimed, ruefully, was the only Trotskyite Mayor of Barnet. So far. We live in hope.

The People's Mayor, Councillor Lord Shepherd

Back to the meeting.

The Labour clearly enjoys this sort of analysis of small points, and is good at spotting anomalies: then, whoosh, she was off, bemusing the Tory councillors with a casually lobbed in use of the word 'oblation'.

Did you say ... 'oblation', asked Antony Finn, as if the use of such language was some sort of outrage, or indeed, an indecent proposal?

Explain that, demanded Melvin Cohen, as they sat there like lower set schoolboys, trying to keep up. There followed a patient explanation, couched in simple terms.

Serious debate about the adoption of the word 'should', then, instead of 'must', a debate which went on for some time.

Ah: and then some consensual action, right there, in front of everyone watching, like punters at a corporate peepshow. From this grotesque coupling, however, emerged something lovely, all wet and shiny and new, a form of cooperation - a bi party agreement called the 'Moore-Finn Amendment'.

Mrs Angry, whose hearing is less than perfect, was obliged to ask the Barnet Bugle if they were discussing the use of morphine, and heartily wished she was in possession of some.

Mrs Angry gave up making notes, at this point, and made a few half hearted sketches of the Tory councillors, finding that constant glances at their bored faces at least eventually began to make them feel slightly uncomfortable - and keep them awake.

Mrs Angry is Bored

Appendix R, part of the reports submitted to the meeting deals with 'Protocols for Member-Officer Relations. This is a most amusing read, and Mrs Angry recommends it to all those with an interest in ethics in probity in public life.

Admire the committment to 'Open Local Government'. Witness, whilst putting to one side your sense of ironic detachment, the staunch support expressed for the Nolan Principles, explained in full for the benefit of members, many of whom appear to have no grasp of the lofty ideals here stated.

Selflessness, honesty and integrity, objectivity, acountability, openness, personal judgement, respect for others, duty to uphold the law, stewardship, leadership ...

Yes - all of them qualities in almost total absence from the remorselessly self serving, evasive, scheming, malodorous quagmire that is Tory run Barnet, in other words.

Aha: Devra Kay raised an interesting point about a statement made in this appendix:

4.6 Members should not ask for information on a matter on which they would have to declare an interest.

Indeed they should not. Do you think they ever do, or have done, readers? Hard to believe, isn't it? Unthinkable.

Councillor Dr Devra Kay, in her innocent way, was confused. Bearing in mind the fact that the Monitoring Officer has been 'persuaded' to grant dispensation to Tory members not wishing to declare their interests, how does that affect this requirement?

Linda Cohen, an officer from HBPublic Law, was present at the table. She seemed to slightly misunderstand the point, referring to the register of interests in which members are supposed to make declarations, so that they are in the public domain.

She thought it unlikely that there might be a 'fishing expedition' by an elected member, 'in order to feather one's nest'.

Hmm. Of course not. Heaven Forfend, commented Mrs Angry.

In regard to the register of interests, dear readers - a few months ago, when it was brought to the notice of the Monitoring Officer that a certain Tory councillor had apparently forgotten to update his declarations to include a property he owned, it was implied that this sort of compliance was no longer necessary. The declaration, however, was immediately amended.

Cllr Kay's question was perfectly valid. If the Tory members can now exempt themselves from having to make declarations of interests at meetings when they wish, how can members of the public be assured in the integrity and probity of the standards required of elected members?

What assurance is there that a member has not, will not raise a matter that touches on his or her own interests? There is no certainty that an officer would know the significance, and can we really rely on the honesty of councillors when they have gone to such lengths to protect themselves from obligations to transparency with their shabby dispensation tactic?

The end of the meeting approached. The Chairwoman began to call matters to a close. But the Labour leader had an important issue still to raise: one that is of the most pressing importance.

At five o'clock this afternoon, there is to be a meeting of the Group Leaders' Panel, convened in order to discuss a complaint made by local Assembly Member Andrew Dismore, regarding allegations about the conduct of the Tory Mayor, Hugh Rayner. Or rather some of the allegations, as for some reason the Monitoring Officer has disallowed some of the complaint.

You may well question why such a serious matter, relating to the Mayor's alleged conduct in his business affairs, as a local landlord in receipt of benefit income, and other allegations regarding declarations of interests, has been sent to this panel, rather than immediately referred to the police for investigation.

When totally bogus claims of wrongdoing - on a much less serious scale - were thrown at a Labour councillor earlier in the year, no time was lost in sending this matter to the police and CPS, in a publicly humiliating move for the individual concerned. It is really quite incomprehensible why the same urgency has not been shown in the matter of a Conservative member. Or is it?

It should also be noted that the meeting is going ahead even though Andrew Dismore made it clear right from the beginning that he cannot attend as he is away. Of course arranging meetings when Labour representatives cannot attend is the new tradition of Tory Barnet, despite all pretence of adherence to the Nolan principles in public life, which is why we will see a full council meeting this month deliberately moved to the day of Ed Miliband's speech at the conference in Manchester.

The Barnet Labour leader now protested at the format of the Group Leaders' Panel, a creation not agreed by the opposition, who wanted a Standards Committee that functions, as natural justice surely demands, without the bias of politically weighted membership, and the inclusion of independent members who no longer have a vote.

John Marshall looked across the table, unmoved, untroubled. There is a meeting, he declared, airily, referring to today's farcical arrangements ... Let's see how it goes ...

Yeah: let's see how it goes.

Linda Cohen mentioned the inclusion of independent members: Devra Kay reminded her that as they cannot vote it means that the Tory members will always win their case, and Labour members will always lose. This, she said, really isn't fairness, or justice.

Such an arrangement, along with the new dispensation of declarations, amounts to a scandalous distortion of the very values this Tory administration affects to have adopted.

Such hypocrisy comes easily to Barnet Tories. So what, if it flies in the face of the concept of localism so loudly championed by their own party in government, Pickles' flagship policy?

If such anti democratic procedures are retained, they will form an open channel of opportunity for corrupt practices, and represent the gravest risk possible to the reputation of the council, the Conservative party, and the very principles of ethical standards and probity in public life.

Do they even care?

What do you think?

*Breaking - Updated: new information released the day after hearing - see below

The Heritage Room in Hendon Town Hall was of course the perfect setting for the hearing of the allegations regarding the current Mayor of Barnet, Hugh Rayner.

Heritage, in Broken Barnet, is not, and cannot ever be, an abstract concept, an undefined inheritance of history, and culture. It is not even a collective legacy of listed buildings, or artefacts with local significance.

Heritage, in Broken Barnet, is a collection of corporate tat, municipal bling, souvenirs and gifts kept in dusty glass display cases, safe from any light fingered members of the public who might be allowed into the plushly carpeted inner sanctum of our Tory masters.

After successful protests at the proposal to hold this hearing in secret, in defiance of the principles of transparency, a handful of local bloggers and reporters took their places for last night's hearing in this sacred room, accompanied by only one member of the public, the man whose absence makes any council meeting inquorate: yes, Mr David Shepherd - Councillor Lord Shepherd, the People's Mayor, here to witness the trial by Group Panel of his official counterpart, Tory member Hugh Rayner.

In front of us at the table were the group panel, lawyers and officers. Ex Squadron Leader (Warehouse Division, mentioned in dispatches, and probably in the stockroom too) Hugh Rayner slipped into the room, in Martin Bell style cream blazer and pale tie: man in a white suit - always does the trick, doesn't it?

The Mayor sat quietly next but one to Mrs Angry. Behind him, in the old fireplace, was a large plaster representation of the Hendon coat of arms, bearing the motto 'Endeavour'. The council's website helpfully explains, possibly for the sake of our empty headed councillors: The motto “Endeavour” means to try hard to get things done. (Like make your declarations of interest, if you are a member of the council, as soon as you are elected?)

At one point in the proceedings, Mrs Angry caught sight of Rayner's face, and his doleful eyes seemed moist with emotion. For one moment she almost felt sorry for him. But then the moment passed, and having read some of his comments in the papers submitted to the hearing, and witnessed his behaviour at the end of the evening - any sympathy was swiftly abandoned.

For someone who so badly wanted to be Mayor, and spent his inaugural meeting shouting demands that the impertinent residents in the public gallery show respect for the office he has waited so long to attain - the events of the last few months have come as a crashing blow, and clearly spoilt what he imagined would be a reign of splendour, a year of pomp and pomposity, the first citizen of Broken Barnet, admired and photographed in his pantomime dress at an endless sequence of buffets, receptions and civic ceremonies.

And instead here he was, called to account to his fellow members in response to serious allegations made by local Labour Assembly member Andrew Dismore about his activities both as a local landlord, and elected member, accusations that he had abused his position as a councillor, and failed to make declarations of interest in council meetings.

The panel which would decide whether these allegations had any merit consisted of five councillors: three Tories - Chairwoman and Tory leader Richard Cornelius, deputy leader Daniel Thomas, and substitute member John Marshall. Labour was represented by leader Alison Moore, and deputy leader Barry Rawlings. There was an independent member, Tanya Ossack, but her role is advisory only, and she has no vote - one of the changes from the old Standards Committee, another being that of course we now only have two groups with leaders that may take part in the proceedings, and this means the panel is dominated by Tory influence, three against two.

If all members were to take their roles in the decision making process on a basis of strict objectivity, and in relation to the evidence presented to them, this would of course mean there might be a chance of justice, and fairness in the new system. There isn't, and there wasn't, as we shall see. In fact what happened was pretty squalid, and proved beyond any doubt that the Tories have no interest in any real or effective process of accountability for their own members.

Conspicuous by his absence, but through no fault of his own, was the complainant himself, ie local AM Andrew Dismore. As the background papers hereshow, he naturally expected to be present at the hearing, and should have been. But the hearing was held, despite all protest, on a date set despite knowing he was away, and could not attend. He says he was available on other dates before the relevant deadline, but this was not agreed.

The meeting began with an agreement, hard won after lobbying by local press and bloggers, that it should be held in public. Councillor Rayner stated that he was in agreement with this decision.

Another decision that was less than agreeable was announced next: that the Tory Leader would take his place as Chair, despite having made remarks about the case in the local papers. Objections had been raised about this, but he said he saw no reason to step aside.

The Labour leader said she thought he had been quite dismissive of the case. She failed to quote any of the relevant remarks, which was a tactical mistake, but let us repeat them here.

Take this example, from an article in the local Times on the 16th June, headed:

Barnet council leader defends Barnet Mayor Hugh Rayner's 'illegal' behaviour

... When questioned about Cllr Rayner’s behaviour by the Times Series, Cllr Cornelius appeared to dodge the question.

He said: “I don’t know, it doesn’t sound illegal. I don’t know the details of it so I can’t make a judgement.

If it’s something that’s illegal it’s something that shouldn’t be done. It depends on what you mean by illegal?

Leases should be in line with a statute. If it wasn’t, it would be a civil matter.”

It might be reasonably thought that Cornelius was indeed seeking to defend his colleague, and minimise the allegations made about his actions. Last night, however, he said he thought that nothing he had said was wrong, in terms of legality, meaning in terms of his position on the panel.

Alison Moore said merely that it was a question of how the public might view his position.

How the public might view anything they do is generally of little interest to Barnet Tories, of course. Labour members kept repeating the significance of public perception, of the importance of their confidence in the integrity of the council - but this idea simply fell on deaf ears.

One of the two lawyers from HBPublicLaw began to sum up the allegations regarding the Mayor, giving details of each instance, and the date on which it occurred. This is not as straightforward as it might sound, as there are two different codes of conduct which apply to the various examples. If you want more detail: see the background papers here .

The background papers make for interesting reading, in fact, and should be read by anyone who really wants to know the full context of the complaints.

The Mayor's excuse, for example, for his actions in not making declarations: in regard to the Annual Council Budget, or the Housing Revenue Account he said:

How far does one go ...? I drive a car and therefore, if the complainant's logic is to be accepted, should not be able to have an opinion on parking ...

An extraordinarily disingenuous attitude, by any standard - if not by group panel - it is quite clearly not in the interests of transparency, or accountability, or open government, for councillors to take part in decisions which directly affect the means by which they derive their income - a pecuniary interest. Barnet Tories may choose to interpret this matter as of no importance, but this is now a legal requirement. As it turned out, some members still think the local code of conduct has entirely different requirements.

Time for the 'independent person' to speak. She seemed a little unsure of her brief, but made the point quite clearly that there had been, in her view, 'a blurring' of the line by Councillor Rayner between his activities as landlord, and as councillor, when dealing with his tenants. and most importantly, she could not understand why anyone would fail to declare a pecuniary interest.

Case over, you might think.

Well, no. It was up to the panel to decide if the code was breached, she thought.

And Richard Cornelius ventured the opinion that it was a matter of perception ...

No, thought Mrs Angry, it is a question of legality, if a pecuniary interest was found not to have been declared.

The panel members left to consider their verdicts on the separate instances alleged to represent behaviour in breach of the code of conduct. Rayner left to sit alone with his thoughts in the Mayor's Parlour. A lone lawyer remained,and waited, in a somewhat bemused state, with the assortment of reporters, bloggers, Barnet's spin doctor, the Tooting Twister - and Mr Shepherd.

Councillor Lord Shepherd, The People's Mayor, sat himself in one of the civic ceremonial chairs, below an old portrait of the Queen. Looks more like Thatcher, he observed.

He confessed that like his official counterpart, he had been in trouble, from time to time, even from his early childhood.

I was thrown out of the Courtesy Guild, when I was four, he announced, with his usual grin.

And asked to leave kindergarten ...

Hard to believe, Mr Shepherd, said Mrs Angry.

Two long empty glass cabinets stood on either side of the fireplace. Someone suggested they looked like the box that contains the mummified body of Jeremy Bentham, at UCL.

Mrs Angry had a horrible vision of a wax headed, embalmed figure of Brian Coleman, dressed in his former mayoral robes, and adorned with his swimming medal, stuffed inside, exhibited there, on display, to frighten foreign dignatories from our many twin towns, strewn around the world.

There's Heritage for you.

And speaking of our twin towns, there at the back of the room was a lovely collection of beautiful gifts from our friends around the world: of course we only bother with one or two of them, the towns in nice places with charming hotels and generous hospitality, like Morphou, where our local politicians go every year for a - erm ... to, what was it ... to protest about the invasion of Cyprus ...

Another twin town of Barnet, of course, is Ramat Gan, whose gift is so enormous, it simply wouldn't fit into the Heritage room, and sits coyly outside the Town Hall, behind a bush, which seems appropriate. Mrs Angry is not entirely sure what it is, being very innocent, and educated by nuns, you know, but imagines it must be awfully hard to find a battery to fit.

Behind the committee table there was a glass cabinet displaying a number of mayoral chains of office, from the various former boroughs which were incorporated into the present London Borough of Broken Barnet.

Gold chains with enamelled heraldic details, undoubtedly valuable, and utterly pointless, yet a heritage that our Toytown councillors would never dream of flogging off, as they have our listed Museum, and its local history collection. For them, the trappings of office are precious, and a mark of their status. Status for the sake of it, the pomp and pomposity of taking buggins' turn to be Mayor, rather than serve their community for the good of that community, demanding respect for the office they fight for, rather than show respect to the people whom they represent.

And after an hour and a quarter, here returned our present Mayor, and the panel, to deliver their verdict, or rather leaving the verdict to be announced by an officer.

The outcome was predictable: Rayner was cleared of all charges. The votes were as follows:

3:2

5-0

2:2 chair casting vote

4-0 cllr Marshall left the room

2:2 chair casting vote

5-0

The outcome was predictable, as we must assume the Tories would vote to support their colleague. Should a panel deciding a matter of serious allegation regarding a member be politically weighted? Is that fair, just or credible?

What was not predictable, perhaps, was the fact that in four instances, the verdict of no breach was unanimous, that is to say, supported by the Labour leader and her deputy.

Of course it must be that there were valid reasons to acquit the Mayor in these instances, and one might expect Labour to abide by the standard of proof, rather than party politics.

What is questionable is why the Labour leadership endorse the illegitimacy of these proceedings, by taking part, in the first place?

Why is the Labour leadership endorsing the illegitimacy of the Full Council meeting moved to the week of the Labour conference, insisting Labour members travel from Manchester and back in order to attend a pointless meeting?

What is behind the story in tonight's Barnet Press in which it is revealed the council has been holding private meetings, not in the public domain, and which some Labour members are being expected to attend? Why cooperate with such undemocratic processes?

Back to the panel meeting.

The Mayor immediately asked to address the room: an audience comprising a handful of reporters, bloggers, Mr Shepherd, one Labour councillor, and the Tooting Twister.

He turned to the Barnet Bugle, who had been filming the meeting: Am I in focus, he demanded, like Norma Desmond, in Sunset Boulevard?

Ready when you are, Councillor Rayner.

Rayner then stood in front of Mrs Angry and made a prepared speech: a short but impassioned address, on a scale of extended martyrdom reminiscent, perhaps, of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, declaring :

" I thank my peers for deliberating on this at length, and coming to the conclusions they did ..."

Unfortunately Rayner then threw away his moment of vindication - as he saw it - by launching into a bizarre attack on the probity of Andrew Dismore. With all the evangelical zeal of a born again convert he announced that he was now a proud member of the very scheme he had eschewed, until the complaints about his activities had been made, in the chamber of the London Assembly - that is to say the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme. He then urged other landlords to join - including, he added, in a rather infantile jibe, Andrew Dismore, should he ever become a landlord.

A cheap remark, remarked Mrs Angry, in the circumstances: and Tory leader Cornelius, it was apparent, was looking on in fury, his cheeks blazing: he immediately objected to Rayner's remark, and told him instantly to withdraw it. He apologised, and then withdrew it, but lost the opportunity, if there had been one, of leaving the room with some dignity intact. It was a pretty shameful performance.

Outside the Heritage Room, Mrs Angry collared the Tory leader.

Do you think the public is going to be reassured by that, she asked?

His face reddened even more deeply, and he stuck his chin out:

Absolutely, he said.

I think you are deluded, Councillor Cornelius, replied Mrs Angry.

*********

Andrew Dismore has released a statement about the findings of the panel:

http://www.dismore4hendon.co.uk/rayner_complaint_tories_bottomless_bucket_of_whitewash

In response to last night's decision on his complaint against Conservative mayor Cllr Rayner, Andrew Dismore, Labour London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden said:

'I am disappointed but not surprised that the Conservatives voted to clear their own mayor - their large bucket of whitewash has no bottom when complaints against their own members are concerned.

After all, Cllr Cornelius who chaired the meeting and used his casting vote to clear Cllr Rayner had already expressed his opinion to the local papers before he had seen any of the evidence.

It is an important fact that the independent member of the Panel, (a senior barrister who did not have a vote) agreed and supported the key arguments of my case against Cllr Rayner.

It is also relevant that the factual basis of my complaint was not challenged by anyone at the meeting.

It was appropriate that the Panel agreed with my request that the hearing should be in public, as this now means that most of the arguments and evidence are in the public domain.

The people of Barnet can now form their own view as to the rights and wrongs in this matter.

This, however, is not the end of the story. I am looking to pursue other avenues about the issue and I will make a further announcement about this in due course.'

Here is footage of the meeting, courtesy of the Barnet Bugle. And you can expect more on this story later today ...

Update Friday morning:

In a truly astonishing twist to this story it was revealed this morning that within 24 hours of the hearing that cleared Rayner of any breaches, new evidence was released in response to a FOI request which has direct relevance to the case, and quite clearly presents an entirely new perspective on some of the decisions made by the Monitoring Officer in regard to the investigation. See Andrew Dismore's statement, just published here:

http://www.dismore4hendon.co.uk/just_one_day_after_rayner_hearing_council_disclose_crucial_email_relevant_to_the_case

Andrew Dismore, Labour London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden has just received the attached email exchange from the council in response to his freedom of information request concerning the Rayner case.

These emails reveal that Ms Salter, the Council's monitoring officer was advised by Stephen Ross, the 'independent person' who is required by the Code of Conduct to be consulted, that the whole of Mr Dismore's complaint against Cllr Rayner should go ahead for formal investigation, which included the key allegations which Ms Salter disallowed- against his advice- at the first stage. Ms Salter did not follow this advice nor Mr Ross's advice that Mr Dismore's complaint against Cllr Hart should also proceed.

Mr Dismore said:

"This is absolutely outrageous. This information should have been made available to me and the public before, not after, the hearing.

The dissallowed parts of my complaint should have gone for full formal investigation as Mr Ross recommended.

As is now public knowledge as my submission to the Leader's panel has been published, I considered the explanation given by Ms Salter for the disallowance to be woefully inadequate and I submitted detailed arguments as to why she was wrong. Ms Salter refused to even look at what I submitted, saying her decision was final.

These revelations add yet a new twist to the Rayner scandal and cast further opprobrium on the whole disciplinary process operated by this shameful Conservative council."

This witholding of information is quite simply utterly unacceptable, and further undermines the already dubious integrity of the panel process as a fair and just system of investigation.

It seemed odd that Mr Ross, who is the Independent Person mentioned in this new information, was not present at the panel hearing - and this would seem to be a most regrettable omission.

The FOI request was made on the 6th August, and the response sent at the maximum limit of the 20 day statutory period. The limit is not supposed to be the general point of response, the expectation is that the information should be supplied only at the last moment if there is a genuine reason for delay. Quite clearly in this case, with the hearing being scheduled, despite the inability of the complainant to attend, for the previous day, it should have been supplied before the panel hearing.

In my view not only should the Labour group refuse to take part in the panel process, and indeed should never had engaged with it in the first place, there should now be an independent investigation into the authority's handling of the complaint from Mr Dismore.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it - George Santayana

1936 was a terrible year, for my mother's family. I've told this story before, but it bears telling again, I think.

In the late spring, in a space of less than a fortnight, two of the six children lost their lives as a result of contracting diptheria, in an epidemic that raged in the foetid slum housing of the mining town where they lived.

My mother's four year old brother succumbed first, alone, in a bed in the isolation ward of the local fever hospital, his father looking on, punching the glass wall in despair, forbidden to hold him as he died.

His six year old daughter died a few days later, shortly after making her first holy communion - a source of some comfort perhaps, if there was any, to my devoutly Catholic grandmother.

A third child, ten year old Peggie, was expected to die too: in later years my aunt could still recall with vivid memories lying in the fever hospital as her parents watched her at a distance through the window, her head thrashing from side to side in delirium. Somehow she pulled through, and was eventually sent home, in a horse drawn ambulance, accompanied by the matron, in starched collar and cuffs, then carried into the house and laid on a sofa in front of the fire, there to be slowly, lovingly nursed back to health by her Irish granny, as her own mother struggled to come to terms with her loss.

A tragic loss, and a tragedy all the greater because it was not inevitable. My mother's brother and sister need not have lost their lives.

There were treatments for diptheria, by 1936: in fact the first effective medicine had been pioneered in 1921.

But if you were the children of a Durham miner, living in the squalor of a two up, two down terraced house, in an area characterised by a depth of social deprivation so degraded that it visibly shocked the playboy Prince of Wales, when he made a visit to Spennymoor - you had no chance of affording the sort of care and medicines that would save your life, should any serious illness affect your health. And of course this was twelve years before the advent of a new national health service, and healthcare, free for all, free at the point of use for all who needed it.

Not only could my grandparents not afford to pay for any medical care for their children, when their son and daughter died, they had no means to pay for their funerals. A compassionate local Labour councillor who lived nearby, and knew the family, quietly made the arrangements, and paid the bill.

Peggie survived, and did well at school, passing the entrance exam to a convent grammar school in Darlington. She was clever, and gifted too, with a talent for art: a talent she explored through studies at a local socialist run community centre, called The Settlement, which was opened in 1931.

The settlement movement was a radical, groundbreaking venture, evolving from the work of Canon Barnett, and Toynbee Hall, in the East End of London, from the notion that educated classes and working classes would benefit from being brought together, and learning from each other: the recognition of the need to build community that involved all classes, in a cooperative effort - a truly revolutionary thought.

The Spennymoor Settlement was also known as the 'Pitman's Academy', and is perhaps best known for artists such as Norman Cornish , who died last month, the last of his kind: one of a small but very talented number of local artists who worked in the former local pits, and portrayed a now long vanished way of life.

The Settlement had huge ambitions for the working people of Spennymoor, encouraging them in education, cultural activities, philosophy and political debate. The theatre company produced the highest standard of drama, with miners and their wives playing roles from Ibsen, and Gorky, making art, playing and listening to music. But most importantly it educated the working poor out of their sense of powerlessness, and took them to a place where they could begin to challenge the political system and the limitations of their own lives. They learnt to expect and demand more of themselves, and to question the inequality of their lives.

Norman and Peggie both attended classes at the Settlement and then in later years were near neighbours, he and his family living a few doors up the road from my grandparents' old house, later my aunt's. She and I once spent a memorable afternoon wedged on his sofa, with his wife, Sarah, listening to the well rehearsed story of his life; and then he showed me round his studio. I picked up one that reminded me of my grandfather: miners drinking in one of the many pubs and clubs in the town, figures sketched in rough blackened outlines, as if marked out in the very coal dust that used to lie everywhere, in my childhood visits, sweet smelling soot in the air, on your clothes, the window panes. Nodding at the picture he said, aye: Lowry liked that one, too.

Norman is gone now, and that way of life is too. But the work remains, a heritage and a legacy to remind us of the past, as it really was: harsh, painful, but sustained by family, and community.

The idea of 'heritage' is something our Tory friends mistrust: they hold in the deepest suspicion the notion that working people might benefit from cultural activities, or that society might benefit from theirs. Worse still they fear that such creation might reflect the ugly truth of life as it is lived now, with the exploitation of an underclass once more the raison d'etre of their own existence.

As we see in Broken Barnet, the neo Thatcherite tendency, aspirational Tory administration still in power here, has no time for culture, history, or the arts. There is no value and no profit in it, for them. And the last thing they want to do is to encourage people to think for themselves, or inform themselves. Shut the libraries, close the museums: sell their collections that tell the story of our social history, and the progress we thought we were making, towards a better future.

But as the events of the 'Barnet Spring' demonstrated, by trying to close our library, and our museum, they inadverdently recreated a sense of community, and a network of resistance connected and informed in the same way as the settlement movement worked for another age.

Only months after the deaths of my mother's brother and sister, and many children, in Spennymoor, in October 1936, a group of unemployed men from the North East left their home town of Jarrow on an epic journey to London, a march intended to draw the attention of the government and country to the appalling plight of those living in the sort of conditions that were to be found not just in Jarrow, or Spennymoor, but all over the industrial and mining areas of the country.

At the beginning of their march, they stopped in Ferryhill, the village next to Spennymoor, where my grandfather worked, at the Dean & Chapter pit. According to newspaper reports of the time,

'before leaving, many of the younger marchers danced with local girls in Ferryhill market place. Gifts in kind were made by Ferryhill people, and even a dog which has attached itself to the marchers got a ration of biscuit ...'

According to another account, during the gruelling 25 day march, stopping in towns en route, and accepting modest support from sympathetic supporters on the way, one marcher was seen to place the ham from his sandwich. When asked why, he said:

'I'm sending it home ...my family haven't had meat in the house for six weeks.'

As the march approached London, they left St Albans, and travelling via Edgware, now in this borough. On arrival at their destination, of course, no one really wanted to listen to them: they were given their train fare home and sent on their way.

No one in government wanted to listen to them at the time, but the initiative they had demonstrated, and the commitment and courage of the marchers helped to inspire the burgeoning Labour movement, and the slow building move to the first Labour government, and the great founding principles of our welfare state.

The birth of the NHS, in 1948, transformed and extended the lives and expectations of my family, everyone's family. My grandparents' later years were supported by free healthcare, and the end of their lives took place in dignity, in the comfort of an NHS hospital.

Would they believe it if they were told that in my lifetime, all the social progress they saw in their middle age, and old age: access to good education, a safety net of benefits, and a free national health service, all of this would be taken away, piece by piece, no: not taken away, given away, piece by piece, by a government largely comprised of the grandsons of the same ministers that once turned their backs on the Jarrow marchers? I doubt it. But that is what is happening.

Yesterday, around 20,000 people assembled in Trafalgar Square to greet the arrival in London of a group of people supporting some women from Darlington, Co Durham, who had the brilliant idea that there should be a commemoration of the Jarrow March of 1936, a journey dedicated to the fight against the predation of the private sector companies now invited to feast themselves on our precious, irreplaceable national health service.

The 'Darlo Mums' followed the same route, through Ferryhill, and Barnet, though High Barnet rather than Edgware this time, as we witnessed on Friday.

The pride and determination of the marchers and their followers as they entered the square was evident, and well deserved: just as the speeches that followed were a real mark of the rapidly building sense of outrage that is now felt by people of all classes, and all backgrounds, the length and breadth of the country.

Looking at the crowd, listening to the speeches, it was clear that this policy, the assault on our NHS has galvanised political activism in people who were completely new to any form of campaigning, or demonstrations. Senior citizens, middle of the road, middle class, ordinary people, burned into a state of protest through sheer fury, and deep anxiety about something they have always taken for granted, and fear they are about to lose: a health service, free at the point of care; the A&E departments at their local hospitals, the GP centre down the road, new demands to pay for that cataract operation, or those crutches, a two tier service for those who can afford to be fast tracked: a return to the old way of doing things - a return to a past their parents fought to put behind them.

An army surveillance plane circled low at least three times over the Square - (why? If it was for security reasons: fine - if for gathering information on the participants in a legitimate protest: that's deeply worrying).

Speech after speech bore witness to the real and present danger in which we now find ourselves: doctors and MPs spoke of the threat of closure of their local hospitals - including Chase Farm, whose A&E department, before the last election, David Cameron promised to protect, but has now been shut, causing an intolerable burden on Barnet General's services.

Welcome words from Labour politicians, Andy Burnham, Andy Slaughter, Diane Abbott - all pledging to reverse the iniquitous assault of the NHS by the Coalition government, and interesting thoughts too, from Owen Jones and Billy Bragg: the latter two stressing the importance of the past, our inheritance, our legacy: our heritage, fought for over centuries as Owen Jones put it, by a people's army.

Between songs Billy Bragg reminded us that the generation that voted the 1945 Labour government into power, and made possible the creation of the NHS was the first election in which women really had the opportunity to make their voices heard. They voted for the future, he said, for their children, their grandchildren, and their great grandchildren.

He is right: it was women who had had enough of war, and want, and loss and hardship, and voted for a new society, where every one had equality of access to health and social care.

And it was a group of women from the North East who walked to Trafalgar Square to remind us of the past we may have forgotten, and never want to return.

Aneurin Bevan famously predicted: The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it"

We owe it to those who made the welfare state, and have paid all their lives to support it, and for those who knew the indignity of poverty, and denial of the right to life, and good health, to fight for those rights now, with every last breath in our bodies.

On Monday and Tuesday this week workers employed by Your Choice Barnet have been taking strike action, in order to try to draw attention to the scandalous treatment they - and the vulnerable residents for whom they care - are receiving from Barnet Council.

And yes, it is the responsibility of Barnet Council, despite every attempt by the Tory administration to hide behind the shop front of Your Choice Barnet, run by their ALMO, the 'at arms length management organisation' which is The Barnet Group.

Why do you keep the responsibility of housing and social care at arms length? Because you don't want people noticing the depth of contempt that you hold for these functions, as an ideologically driven, materially driven Tory council, contempt for those in the most need, and contempt for those with the least means.

Your Choice Barnet is the failing LATC 'local authority trading company' set up by Barnet Tories, having paid a fortune to the One Barnet private consultants Agilisys/iMPOWER to create what turned out to be a fatally flawed business model, in which, incredibly to anyone with any sense, it was expected that the profits that they thought they could screw out of the provision of care to vulnerable clients to subsidise the massive venture that is the other component of The Barnet Group, that is to say Barnet Homes, the council's social housing service.

The unions warned that the business model would not work, could not work: they were ignored, of course. Within a short time it was clear that YCB most certainly was not working, and was indeed on the brink of disaster: Barnet Council was obliged to bail it out with a million handout of taxpayers' money.

YCB took the money, and promptly made a third of the workforce redundant, and slashed the terms and conditions of employees already struggling with low pay, and with the most demanding and sensitive of roles in caring for residents with special needs and disabilities.

As reported earlier in the year, it then emerged that YCB had decided to make a massive cut in the salaries of these poorly paid members of staff: a devastating cut in wages of 9.5%.

At a Residents Forum in June, Kate Kennally, the handsomely paid senior officer in charge of social care, glibly informed residents that such 'efficiencies' were necessary, so as to create what she described as 'a sustainable market place in care'.

As for the staff members who so dutifully provide such vital, sensitive care to our most needy citizens: your mother, my father, your neighbour - well, those employees should simply accept that, as Ms Kennally put it, they needed to 'take a haircut'.

Commenting on Friday, the equally well paid, six figure salaried Chief Executive of The Barnet Group declared :

We are very disappointed with the proposed strike action being taken by Unison Members at Your Choice schemes next week. There are no winners in this scenario. YCB staff will lose pay and YCB will lose income.

Yes, the staff will lose pay. They cannot afford to lose it: but they have principles, and put those before monetary considerations.

And they hardly have any other option, do they, than to exercise their right to withdraw their labour, in the face of such injustice?

And: YCB will lose income. Well: that is an interesting thought, is it not? We mustn't let YCB lose income, must we?

Unless, of course, we are Barnet Council, who are playing a very interesting game here.

Let's look at what Barnet Unison are suggesting should happen, in order to resolve the problems besetting YCB:

1. Barnet Homes writes off the £1 million loan.

2. Barnet Council stop penalising YCB for ‘no shows’.

3. Barnet Council pays up front to YCB in order to help the cash flow situation.

4. Barnet Council pays the going rate for the services being offered.

5. Barnet Council conducts an immediate investigation as to why Adult Social care services have referred only a handful of referrals in the last 2 and half years.

6. Senior management and other Service Level Agreement costs imposed on YCB are reduced.

7. YCB & Barnet Council find a more efficient way to invoice for services. The current arrangement is that Barnet Group invoice Barnet Council then YCB invoice Barnet Group.

8. YCB is allowed to independently procure its own support services and not be forced to use Capita CSG services.

Please pay attention to number 5.

Barnet Council's own Adult Services have referred only a very few cases to YCB in the last two and a half years.

This is of course the same Barnet Council which not only seeks to blame striking workers protecting their pay for the impact they claim there will be on income, but the same Barnet Council which is refusing to negotiate over the industrial action because, it says, YCB is nothing to do with Barnet Council.

Yes, just as the Monitoring Officer of Barnet Council has dismissed some of the recent allegations against our troubled Tory Mayor Hugh Rayner, involving potential conflicts of interest in regard to his activities as a landlord, because the allegations involved Barnet Homes, and - even though Barnet Homes is part of Barnet Council's ALMO, it is erm ... nothing to do with Barnet Council. Got that?

Barnet Homes, incidentally, has recently had its ten year contract extended ... but only for one year, which is rather odd, isn't it? Only Crapita gets ten year contracts now, it seems and ... oh ... no, surely not? Is that the spectre of ... something else, hovering in the shadows, something that will divest our social housing averse Tories of obligations, even at arms length?

According to Unison, it has been clearly stated by the council that:

“commercial risk remains with the Council” in which case they must take part in negotiations with Barnet UNISON & YCB.

And ... this thing about YCB ... why is the council so reluctant to use it, and so keen on obstructive practices that hinder its ability to 'trade'? (Market place of care, remember). Your Choice Barnet, only we don't want you to make that choice, for some reason.

Why is Barnet not doing what it is surely obliged to do, and bringing the service back in house?

Could it be ... oh no, Mrs Angry, surely not. Surely Barnet Council would not follow the temptation to allow a service to fall into such a state that, oh dear: look - it must be off loaded entirely to the private sector?

Of course not.

Meanwhile, the fight by Your Choice Barnet workers continues, as planned, over the next six weeks.

Yesterday Mrs Angry headed off up to Barnet House to show support for workers staging a rally outside council offices, and was pleased to see a great turnout, accompanied by a large number of friends from Doncaster CareUK.

Later in the day YCB and CareUK strikers were demonstrating outside a location in the West End, when a limo stopped, out of which emerged, to their surprise, ex Queen guitarist Brian May ... he said he had been driving by, and noticed them, and felt he had to stop and give them his support - see below.

Back in Broken Barnet ... well, normally at these sort of gatherings you get the odd car passing by offering a supportive toot of the horn, but never in Mrs Angry's experience has there been such an overwhelming response from those driving past: it was deafening, in fact. Why? Because people really do care, about care, just as they really feel fiercely proud of the NHS, especially now it is under threat.

Labour councillor and former union convenor Paul Edward spoke to the strikers. Other Labour councillors, Schneiderman, Trevethan and Langleben attended picket lines elsewhere too. Local supporters like Barbara Jacobson were there, as was veteran campaigner John Sullivan, who was, despite his health problems, absolutely determined to come to the rally.

Mrs Angry spoke to some of the workers who are taking strike action, about the sort of work they do. One very charming and sensitive middle aged woman explained quietly, in careful detail, the sort of learning difficulties presented by the adult clients she looks after: adults with autism, largely, her role being to help them, as she put it, to reach their full potential, and lead fulfilling lives.

Others worked in day centres, helping with activities, or supported living schemes, enabling clients to live semi-independent lives in their own home. One worker helped in much needed respite care, and another specialised in helping with tube fed residents.

The first woman said that many workers had been employed in these posts for years, and could offer the best care for their clients, based on experience, and familiarity with the differing needs of individuals. Some of the people they support present quite challenging behaviour: contintuity of care is of the greatest importance to most clients, but in such cases it is vital, yet YCB is increasingly resorting to the use of agency workers, at unknown cost, and with clearly compromised standards of care for those for whom they are responsible.

As John Sullivan commented to Mrs Angry:

YCB has been a lie since day one and continues to be so. This wage cut to staff wages cannot be justified - it is an inhuman act that will place many vital care workers on the breadline, many will no longer be able to meet their monthly outgoings, which will lead to further decimation of disability support services for YCB clients ...

A service is only as good as the staff that provide it, and any Muppett, even Cornelius, can work out slashing already low staff wages will inevitably lead to a deterioration in service quality, and in turn quality of life for YCB clients, but they don't care.

Finchley and Golders Green Tory MP Mike Freer, the architect, or so he likes us to believe, of the 'easycouncil' policy which is the foundation of One Barnet, and the mass outsourcing to Capita of our public services, claimed originally that his vision was for a local council that offered more choice. Your Choice Barnet is the legacy of Freer's half baked scheme: the logical conclusion.

Because John Sullivan is right. Your Choice Barnet is a lie: the usual Tory lie - in this case, the appropriation of the word 'choice' to cover an ugly truth: the delegation of responsibility from a public service to a private sector, not for the benefit of those who depend upon them, the most vulnerable members of our society, and their families, but to create an opportunity for the rapacious outsourcing companies circling over those services, waiting for a new market for their profiteering. Running the service down, cutting the wages of staff to the bone, to make the sell off all the more appealing: is this what it is really all about?

On September 2nd, Andrew Travers, the Chief Executive of Barnet tweeted about a staff briefing to The Barnet Group, which, he claimed, 'sets out opportunities for growth'. It's pretty clear what he meant: the opportunities are not going to benefit staff, or tenants, or the users who depend on Your Choice Barnet.

But this is Broken Barnet, Mr Travers - and, as striking workers sang with Brian May yesterday:

We will, we will fight you ...

There really is, well: no choice, after all, for those workers being told to have their wages slashed, and for those residents who will bear the real cost of becoming Barnet's latest commodity, up for sale, in the market place of care.

A local business representative dropped in to Cafe Buzz the other day, to see Helen. He was full of excitement, and full of good news. Did she know, he asked, that Barnet Council and Capita are really keen to engage with local businesses?

Helen Michael smiled politely, although Mrs Angry can imagine that smile may have been a little fixed, and hard to sustain. And then she told her visitor what had happened to her, earlier in the week.

Helen Michael is of course a leading character in the story of Broken Barnet: a local heroine, much loved and admired for her generosity, and good humour, and for having had the courage and determination to confront Barnet Council over its catastrophic parking policy, which has had such a devastating impact on our high street traders.

More particularly, she is feted wherever she goes for her role in the downfall of former Barnet parking czar, Brian Coleman, now mercifully relieved of all his overpaid public posts, and holding a criminal conviction for common assault by beating of his nemesis, after an incident in the street outside Buzz, when she spotted him illegally parking, in defiance of his own cockeyed cashless parking scheme.

On Monday Mrs Angry had arranged to meet a friend in Cafe Buzz, and arrived there to find Helen in what appeared to be unusually animated conversation with a man sitting near the entrance to the kitchen.

Helen has a history of entertaining interesting visitors, of course: during the run up to the GLA elections which saw the downfall of Coleman, for example, a couple of officers from SO15 came to see her, and she was later questioned by them under caution on the interesting pretext of having printed a few campaign posters without the relevant imprint.

But this gentleman caller - well, he may or may not have been a gentleman, but he was at least wearing a suit - was holding a card with the word 'Equita' on it.

Hello, said Mrs Angry: what's going on here, then - Equita? That's the bailiffs owned by Crapita, isn't it?

Helen, who was clearly upset, and rather cross, explained this man was indeed a bailiff, sent by Barnet Council, to try to enforce some demand related to disputed and backdated business tax. A demand from over a year ago.

How very interesting, said Mrs Angry. The bailiff asked who she was, so she told him, and explained what a keen interest she took in all things crapitorial. He looked slightly uncomfortable.

It appeared that there were no copies of any liability orders, or summons, yet the bailiff, she reported, wanted to seize goods in lieu of this distant and disputed amount.

Dealing with the Capita run council can be trying at the best of times, and mistakes are made in the calculation of tax collection, since they took over, as we know. Difficult to sort out, when dealing with an outsourced service.

Mrs Angry's friend arrived, and we sat down, increasingly aware that the conversation between Helen Michael and the bailiff was becoming heated, and threatening to boil over into something much worse. The bailiff, despite being asked not to, entered the kitchen.

Helen called the police, which was the right thing to do, as they came quickly, ensured her safety, and acted with impeccable tact and diplomacy until the whole horrible scene, prolonged, and taking place in front of all her customers, was over.

That it ended at all with any sort of resolution was thanks to the great generosity of a friend who intervened and offered to make a payment because, she said, she so admired Helen's stance and courage over the events of the last few years.

Before she did so, another bailiff, with CIA type earpiece in place, had arrived, and within a short time the pair of them were behind the cafe counter, picking up bowls, ridiculously, and poking about, looking for goods to take, as you can see in the photo above.

Are you hoping to confiscate a box of kitkats, asked Mrs Angry?

It then became clear that in fact, rather more seriously, one of them was intending to take the cafe's coffee machine, in other words deprive a cafe owner of her source of revenue, which seemed if not a symbolic gesture, a questionable move when even bankrupts are entitled to retain their tools and means of income.

Presumably Equita would then have covered Capita's allegedly missing tax by flogging a second hand coffee machine on ebay, or maybe a car boot stall? In any event, they make a tidy profit from the fees attached to sending the bailiffs round, don't they?

At this point, as they were poised to risk electrocution and remove the coffee machine, Mrs Angry's kind friend discreetly made her offer of a payment to the bailiffs, which eventually they accepted.

Mrs Angry asked the two bailiffs if they particularly enjoyed their chosen vocation, and pointed out how unfair what they were doing was for someone who worked so hard to keep her business going, and to improve the state of the local high street. They looked on, indifferently.

One of the police officers, as he left remarked on the kindness of the good samaritan who made the payment, as a really fine example of community spirit. He was right.

A few months ago, another trader in North Finchley high street was visited by Equita, and Helen witnessed what happened, as the distraught trader pleaded with them and, she claims, explained he had already offered to pay £200 a month to cover backdated demands. She alleges that in this case, there was no ID shown and reportedly the necessary paperwork was again missing.

In the end, she says, the bailiffs made an agreement that the trader should pay an amount less than that he had already offered. So what was the point of the visit? Well, one result is that Equita can bill for the visit, and other costs. And therein lies the really interesting feature of this process.

Let's remember how and why Equita arrived in this borough: here is an article from last September, in the Barnet Press:

http://www.barnet-today.co.uk/news.cfm?id=33120&headline=Bailiffs%20fighting%20eviction

When Capita were handed the two enormous contracts to run our council services, here in Broken Barnet, they arrived knowing that the council already had contracts with two bailiff companies, whose services they had used for several years.

Capita decided they were going to bring in their own company, Equita, to replace the long standing arrangement, despite the fact that Barnet Council had signed new contracts with Newlyn and Phoenix in April, and despite fears over the potential conflict of interest that might be presented by using their own bailiffs, raised by opposition councillors. Newlyn and Phoenix threatened legal action, but against Capita? That all fizzled out, eventually.

As Libdem leader Jack Cohen stated at the time:

“All of us are owed an explanation about what has gone on here. The other bailiff firms have had to go through a procurement process, but Capita can just appoint their own.

This is all about Capita making more money and the council has really got themselves into an awful mess. The people who will pay for this are the residents of Barnet.”

Jack Cohen's prediction would appear to have come true.

It is reported that Equita bailiffs enter the process of recovering money deemed owing from residents and traders much quicker, and with more 'efficiency' than the previous contractors. That of course benefits the council in a quicker return of revenue, and may well benefit Capita in terms of more and higher costs involved in the proceedings undertaken to recover more actively, and more quickly.

The human cost is harder to quantify, of course.

That evening, Mrs Angry went to a council meeting, chiefly to witness our Tory councillors give our former Church Farmhouse Museum to Middlesex University - or rather pay them to take it off their hands, as it has stood empty and decaying, since they closed the place, ransacked and flogged the local collection, and tried to sell the beautiful listed building. Mrs Angry pointed out that not only were they philistines who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing, they were evidently utterly incompetent when it came to selling any of the heritage assets they are so keen to offload.

And their lack of business acumen is also reflected in the way they approach the duty to support local businesses, which was another item on the agenda at this meeting. It was impossible not to laugh, recalling the events at Cafe Buzz, earlier in the day, as the Tory chairwoman, Daniel Thomas, congratulated himself and his fellow members for their marvellous policies in encouraging the local economy, and traders.

And then Danny Seal, the globe trotting, ever cheerful Tory member for Hampstead Garden Suburb, making one of his rare appearances at a council meeting, and remarking on Mrs Angry's tutted disapproval, from across the room, stated that these days - everyone did all their shopping online, anyway.

Well, no, they do not: we need our high streets, and we need a thriving local economy, with small businesses and traders supported in a time of austerity and economic hardship. But Barnet Tories are not interested in local shops, and the needs of those who don't drive to Brent Cross to buy a pint of milk, or wait in for their delivery from Waitrose. They don't understand the idea of community, or community spirit.

Tories ignore the high streets in preference to their boundless enthusiasm for the development of Brent Cross, of course. They are indifferent to the plight of the high streets they themselves have brought to the point of terminal decline with their parking policies, detering residents from visiting local shops, causing lasting damage to the trade upon which shop and cafe owners like Helen Michael depend: and they are happy to send in the bailiffs to demand the tax such businesses are finding it increasingly hard to pay, as a result.

We don't need museums, we don't need libraries; we don't need affordable housing, or social housing, and we don't need local shops and cafes.

If your business fails: it's your fault.

If your high street dies: meh - that's market forces for you.

Turn away, Tory councillors, and shrug your shoulders: this is Broken Barnet, and you're the ones who broke it, but ... you're not done yet, are you?

Last month Home Secretary Theresa May announced plans for consultation over plans to redefine the laws on domestic violence, and create a new offence of domestic abuse, in which behaviour that is abusive in ways other than direct physical assault may be taken as seriously as physical violence is now.

The law can already be considered to cover such abusive behaviour, but is not necessarily regarded as such by the courts, or by police, so clarification is welcome, but there would appear to be a grossly neglectful examination, within these proposals, as to the real problem facing women - as victims mostly are - caught in circumstances such as those addressed by the law as it stands now, or as it will be once re-defined.

In our deeply misogynistic society, as this article in the Guardian explained, domestic abuse is on the rise, with on average around two women every week killed by a current or former partner.

The prevalence of abusive behaviour that does not end in death, or physical violence, but causes so many women to live lives of quiet desperation, unable to escape, or take legal action to protect themselves and their families from harm, is harder to quantify, but is undoubtedly worsening, at a time in which family life, in living memory, has never been under greater stress as a result of the economic crisis, the political dogmatism of the Coalition government, and their relentless dismantling of the foundations of our welfare state.

Worst of all is the impact that the removal of access to legal aid for so many people in dire need, but without the means to pay for what used to be considered a right, the right to justice.

Even access to limited sources of free legal advice is becoming almost impossible, as law centres and helplines close, due to loss of funding, and the burden on those few bodies remaining becomes harder and harder to sustain.

For women who are victims of domestic abuse - and it is generally women, but can of course can be men too - this loss of support and protection in law is truly disastrous. In some areas a decrease in refuges - specialist refuges decling in number from 187 to 155, since 2010 - for women needing escape from violent partners, put them and their children at enormous risk, and may even cost them their lives.

Here in Barnet, sadly, the cultural values of the Tory administration create a perfect environment for the cultivation of a culture of misogyny.

Here where the role of council committee chair has been redesignated as Chairman, because 'the ladies' won't mind, and female Conservatives are expected, despite the still looming shadow of Margaret Thatcher, to take a back seat, and accommodate themselves to the patronage of a male dominated party, it came as no surprise to wait in vain for local Tories to disassociate themselves from the act of their then colleague, Brian Coleman, in beating up a female resident in the high street, simply because she had caught him in breach of his own much loathed new parking system.

No sympathy for Coleman's victim was expressed publicly by any Conservative councillor, then, or consequently. In fact many of them continued, and some still continue to support him.

This is a clear reflection of their own attitudes: firmly entrenched in the past, when women did not challenge the authority of men.

Along with their aversion to the principles of equality, let alone feminism, Barnet Tories have embraced a set of housing policies which also sit comfortably in the past: the distant past, a happy time when women knew their place, as did the lower classes, whom Tory housing spokesman Tom Davey would prefer did not entertain the outrageous idea that they might be entitled to live in this borough, and indeed he has commented that he wants to see only the 'well off' living here.

In accordance with this broadly accepted view, Barnet Tories have pursued, and are pursuing, a reckless policy of gerrymandering 'regeneration' of the poorer, Labour voting areas under the rule of their administration.

As we see in the West Hendon example, the principle of social housing and any commitment to protect the life of an established community is being gleefully supplanted, here anyway, by a new Barratt development with penthouse flats for, as Davey put it 'Russian oligarchs', and a number of expensive propertiest that will no doubt ollow the fate of Beaufort Park, and end up as speculative investment properties, some buy to let, affordable only to the priviliged few.

Barnet Tories are keen on encouraging the rental market of course, and indeed quite a few of them are private landlords, as we know from the tale of the Mayor, Hugh Rayner, who recently escaped all censure from a highly controversial 'disciplinary panel' hearing, after allegations were made about his behaviour as a landlord, and apparent conflicts of interest between his business and council activities - and as we know from the successful attempts by the Tory group to gain a dispensation allowing them to take part in meetings, despite their interests.

The Tories are also keen to promote home ownership, and to stifle any signs of dependency on social housing.

Such dependency they see as lacking in aspiration, and a thing to be discouraged at all costs.

Discouragement came in the form of a new system of allocation, with lucky applicants fast tracked to the front of the queue, if they could show their betters that they had made a 'positive' contribution to their community - served in the armed forces, started a youth club, that sort of thing.

If you do get offered a property - you have no say in where it is, or any choice, turn it down, and that's it.

And if you are lucky enough to be allocated housing - it might not be in the borough, because clearly we prefer to export our feckless poor, over the border, oh, and - it will be only for a maximum of five years.

A house is not a home, in Broken Barnet: it is interim accommodation, to be removed from your grasp before such a time as you may begin to put down roots, and consider yourself part of a community. Communities are to be discouraged, in Broken Barnet. They lead to a sense of empowerment, and represent a potential threat to the establishment, of course.

Now local Tories have excelled themselves with a soldering together of two key components of Coalition government policy: the limitation of access for those in need of support, and the narrowing of a definition of the right to priority of housing.

Women - and men -considering fleeing from the control of domestic violence, if they live in Barnet, and if a new proposal is not opposed, will now face the added difficulty and anxiety of being told that in order to be rehoused, they must declare themselves to be homeless.

As this recent story in the Barnet Press revealed,

"... housing experts and domestic violence charities have argued the system will unfairly penalise those trying to escape violence by removing their priority status on the housing waiting list and reduce the likelihood of them being placed back in council accommodation.

Previously, those escaping violence were immediately placed in the highest band one priority for rehousing – but under the new scheme such residents would be told to declare themselves homeless and therefore find themselves placed in band two or even band three, depending on their community contribution.

Giles Peaker, a housing and public law solicitor for legal firm Anthony Gold, said: “It is clearly an attempt to reduce the number of people who would be eligible for social housing. By putting them into the homeless category, the chances of them getting social housing would be very slim.

“I don’t think there is a justification for that reduction in priority.”

Mr Peaker added that since the 2011 Localism Act had enabled Barnet to discharge its homeless duty via the private rented sector, those trying to escape a violent home would most likely find themselves rehoused in the private rented sector".

A boon to the landlords of Broken Barnet, no doubt, but at what cost to the victims of domestic violence now being exposed to even further degrees of hardship? There is a very real risk that now those individuals, largely women with children, will be dissuaded from attempting to escape abusive homes, and remain at risk of harm.

Incredibly, it seems that with their usual disregard for equality issues, the council has not even carried out an EIA: Equalities Impact Assessment, on their latest proposals.

Labour Councillor Reema Patel, elected in May to represent Coppetts Ward, is a bright young lawyer - and Secretary of Fabian Women - and has condemned the new Tory proposals, as you can read here , commenting:

"Forcing the victims of domestic violence to make themselves homeless and stripping them of their tenancy and right to be considered a priority for permanent housing is a cruel policy that needs to be stopped.

We are supposed to protect the victims of violence and crime, not the perpetrators. I would like to encourage as many people as possible to sign the petition to get the Tories to see sense and stop this change to housing policy.

The council should withdraw these proposals and undertake a proper impact assessment to make sure the new allocations proposals properly accommodates survivors of domestic violence."

In the usual way of things, in Broken Barnet, it happens by chance, or not, that perhaps the most notorious woman beater in literature, Bill Sikes, in Oliver Twist, was placed by Dickens in Hendon, on his attempt to escape justice after murdering Nancy. He tries to take refuge there, we read, but the locals were suspicious, and he runs away.

Here we are, back in Hendon Town Hall, in the twenty first century, where our retro Tory councillors are about to reward the latter day Sikes, at the expense of their victims.

If you disagree with this proposal, please sign the petition, and help us all move forward into an era where the rights of the abused take precedence over the rights of their perpetrators.

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/protect-domestic-violence-survivors-right-to-housing

The landscape of Broken Barnet is changing ... Capita: et in arcadio ego.

The first rule of Broken Barnet is the only rule of Broken Barnet.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it: break it, break it up, pull it apart, burn it down, toss it away - or put it up for sale.

The former Tory administration, of course, has already performed a brilliant hatchet job on the body of our local council services, in giving away as much of it as possible, but one of the characteristics of this type of indulgence in serial capitalism is that once is never enough, and the perpetrators are always looking for new victims.

Or in other words, what is left, to butcher, and display on a slab, on offer on that corporate market stall?

Education is something the Tory councillors of Broken Barnet like to think they are awfully good at delivering, and for which they should take all the credit, and none of the criticism.

It is fair to say there are some very good schools in Barnet, but the best of them, at secondary level, are highly selective, and packed full of middle class pupils from a huge catchment area way beyond the confines of the borough.

And many pupils who live in the borough, and come from less comfortably placed backgrounds struggle to find a place at a good local school.

Having inherited a tradition of well thought of educational establishments, however, is not enough for Barnet Tories. They are not interested in the thought of education for its own sake, just as they hold no interest in the provision of care for its own sake.

The provision of care, as we see in the disastrous 'Your Choice Barnet' enterprise, must be made to make a profit, no matter how distasteful that might seem to many of us - and now education too is to be dragged into the marketplace.

At Monday night's Children's Education, Libraries and Safeguarding Committee, members were asked to consider a report on the 'future delivery' of educational services.

Before the meeting, Mr Reasonable wrote an excellent post exposing the inherent weakness of the claims made in this report, a blatant attempt to force us into a commercialisation of yet another public service:

http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/barnet-councils-clap-o-meter-tactics-to.html

Already we see the case for an in-house option deliberately misrepresented and minimised, so as to ensure an unbalanced preference for the involvement of the private sector.

Clearly they want to ease the way for oh, let's see, some company like - just off the top of Mrs Angry's head - say, Capita, to take over, and add education to their already bulging bag of services, stuffed in there with such enthusiasm by our doltish Tory councillors, at the behest of the senior management team which has always been the real driver of One Barnet.

Much of the report is frankly rather comical in the absolute lack of awareness - or perhaps disregard - for the clunking way in which the way towards further Capitalisation of Barnet's services is being prepared.

We read, for example, that some market testing has already been carried out:

3.3.2 Initial Market Research

Based on the initial assessment of the options, some assumptions required testing
with the market. Due to the sensitive nature of the project it was decided that the
most appropriate method of carrying out this research was to invite four industry
representative companies to complete a questionnaire and attend a short interview
with the aim of answering the following questions:

• Is there a market appetite for this type of contract?
• Is the scope appropriate? If not what could be added or removed?
• Would the role of schools as owners in the model be an issue?
• What level of growth is possible for the services in scope?
• What would be required to ensure a fair procurement process is recognised
as such?

Four companies were asked to take part, and three agreed to do so.

Thanks to public questions submitted by residents Barbara and Bob Jacobson, we now know who those three companies were: Babcock, Carillion and erm, who was it now ... name escapes me.

Ah. Capita.

In other words, two patsies and one contender.

And their responses? Mrs Angry's rude remarks in red.

• All respondents agreed that there was a market for this package of services

Well, f*ck me. Who knew?

• All respondents identified the value in providing a single brand for educational
services

Ditto.

• Some respondents speculated that some services may be subcontracted or
delivered in partnership with co-bidders

Charitable.

• Some respondents identified additional services that could be added into
scope including early years and libraries

Ah: libraries - but of course. If you think the Rams regime was a threat to libraries, readers, you need to prepare yourself for what is on the horizon now ...

• It was universally accepted that the role of schools as owners would be
feasible. However, the details of this structure would need to be worked out
through the procurement process

• All respondents identified that ownership carries risk.

Unless you mean ownership of say, YCB, of course.

If schools take an ownership role they inherently take on some of the responsibility for delivery of these services and some of the risks of failure

• The proportion of ownership was identified as a key factor, as a controlling
stake for schools would be unattractive to some respondents. For those that
identified a controlling stake would be acceptable it was made clear that the
respondents would not guarantee results from a company in which they did
not have a majority stake

In other words: give me a majority stake.

• It was suggested that any procurement should be heavily weighted on quality
over cost

In other words: the choice of final provider can be supported by ambiguous definitions of 'quality' if the cost is greater than a less popular bidder

• All respondents expressed a preference for competitive dialogue procurement
process, as it allows constructive and iterative development of the solution,
keeping the process fair and transparent

Fair, and transparent. Remember that.

• It was identified that scoring should be clear and transparent to ensure no bias
to a particular bidder

Mrs Angry is entirely confident that no bias will be given to any particular bidder, of course.

Some other interesting information emerged from the questions put by the Jacobsons. They noted a reference in the report to the use of 'independent external support', and wanted to know who that was, and how much they were being paid.

Goodness me: imagine the surprise when it turned out to be from - no, go on, guess, our favourite consultants, iMPOWER, who have had millions of pounds of local residents hard earned taxes thrown in their laps already during the set up - the iMPLEMENTATION - of the One Barnet scheme.

One Barnet: remember that? The Tories don't refer to this anymore, as it had become something of a toxic brand, before the election, and now must be only slyly nodded at as 'the change programme', or 'alternative delivery of services' or some such claptrap, rather than what it was and is: one of the biggest acts of privatisation of local authority public services in the UK.

Well, One Barnet is well and truly iMPLEMENTED, but there is still more profit to be screwed out of the marketing of our few remaining services, and here they are, with their dear little consultant faces, all keen and shiny and expectant, like puppies in a pet food ad on telly. Or a starving boy in a workhouse. Aww.

Please, Barnet Council, can we have some more? Yes, of course you may.

Take £26,045, for 17 days work.

Yes: nice work, if you can get it. And of course, the response informs us, they got it through 'a competitive tendering exercise that was carried out by the Council's Contract Procedure Rules'. Two bids were received, and iMPOWER were the successful bidder'.

Mrs Angry can reveal that the other bidder was the bROKENBARNET consultancy, which through the course of a competitive dialogue, offered a service providing an unlimited supply of advice, and a generous amount of unsolicited and offensive criticism, at a cost of only £26,044, but the procurement process (run by Crapita) was of course obliged to go for quality, over cost.

Shame.

The work that we have now coughed up for was, so we were told at the meeting by Ms Val White, Schools, Skills and Learning Lead Commissioner, is for 'commercial modelling' - which conjures up all sorts of thoughts, doesn't it? Oh, and for 'testing some of our hypotheses'.

Mmm. Good idea.

Let's hope the commercial modelling isn't from the same mould as 'Your Choice Barnet', eh? Testing hypotheses, though: that sounds awfully sensible. Except, should we not be learning from the hypotheses that we have already tested in real life, like ... Your Choice Barnet? Which was conceived by ...iMPOWER ...

Tactless, Mrs Angry.

Question 8 by Mr Jacobson was to ask who were the members of the Project Team overseeing the proposals regarding Barnet schools. The response was that there was a Project Board, chaired by Ms White, and attended by 'the Director of Education of Skills' as well as the Customer Services Director and various others. There was, we understood, no conflicts of interest in regard to any previous employees of say, Capita, taking part in the project.

The Director of Education, of course, is one Ian Harrison, who joined Barnet in this post last September. He introduced himself to Barnet schools in a circular, as you can see here:

http://www2.schoolcircular.co.uk/sch_circ_599_11092013.html

As Mr Harrison explains, he arrived at Barnet straight from his post as Managing Director of Capita Strategic Children’s Services.

In his introduction he strikes an ominous note:

I am very clear that most schools are now very self-sufficient and require little or no support from the local authority.

Mrs Angry is clear that the writing was on the wall, wasn't it, only days after the Tory leader had signed off the contracts with Capita for so many of our public services, that education was likely to be next?

By 18th September, according to the online minutes of the 'Barnet Partnership for SchoolImprovement' steering group, (good to see from the website that our headteachers are off for their three day annual jolly at the Sandbanks Hotel, btw) ... new Director Mr Harrison was attending discussions with some local school representatives about the future form of the schools partnership:

Neil went through the five options again and reminded the group that Option 5 had been favoured at their previous meeting because there was no loss of control:-

1.Remaining within the council
2.Combining with another authority eg Harrow
3.Becoming a Local Authority Trading Company – which would mean becoming part of a group of companies
4.Subsumed into a private company eg Capita
5.Spinning out to become a stand alone legal entity

Subsumed into a private company eg Capita? *

*Disclaimer: other supersized outsourcing companies are available, in your local private sector marketplace.

Mrs Angry is rather confused. Please help her understand.

We are about to look at the possible outsourcing of educational services in Barnet.

Our procurement is now run by Capita.

Capita was one of those three companies involved in the initial 'market research'.

Capita is likely to want to bid for any contract.

The Director of Education, who is directly involved in the process of forming the review of options and the choice to be made on the future of our educational services has come straight from a managerial post with Capita's education section.

How does this not represent a massive, tangled web of conflict of interest?

Without implying any personal wrongdoing or intentions at all by Mr Harrison, of course, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude these circumstances raise a serious question of, at the very least, the perception of a major conflict of interest, and this really should not be tolerated in any authority with a robust risk strategy, let alone any standards of probity.

Mrs Angry: this is Broken Barnet.

Sorry. Forgot where we were, for one moment.

Carry on.

Back to the questions: around the possibility of a Joint Venture - remember when our senior management team announced 'We have decided on a Joint Venture', and remodelled the DRS/ Re contract, without consulting the Tory leader? Awfully fond of JVs, the outsourcerers, see, because more risk ends up on the shoulders of the Barnet taxpayers ...

Barbara asked for clarification on the degree of satisfaction that would be considered acceptable from residents on such a proposal but received no clear answer, but more babble from Ms White on the lines of something to do with partnership boards. Eh? Asking for a response to the question she asked, and objecting to receiving the wrong answer, she was tersely cut off by Chairwoman Reuben Thompstone.

It's the answer you've been given, he snapped.

Ms White, like most senior officers at times of stress, was by now resorting to her default corporate language setting.

This language, in fact, is an interesting patois, found only in low lying outsourcing regions, and high levels of contract management, used as a form of communication between senior officers, and private sector executives, a type of secret code between peers, like Cockney rhyming slang, polari, or rogues cant.

Like all such phraseology, it is meant to signal warning to others, and build a sense of camaraderie, but more importantly, it confuses the enemy, and acts as cover for real intent.

There are certain phrases that are used, over and over again, like prayer, or as invocations against the threat of discovery.

Direction of travel. Overarching. Mystical references to journeys, and landscapes. Mrs Angry particularly likes the latter: conjuring up a view of Broken Barnet not as the primeval swamp it has become, but a rural idyll, with nymphs and shepherds (or at least Mr Shepherd) frolicking in the arcadian fields, untainted by the incursion of the industrial revolution, and its bastard child, the rise of capitalism.

So, as our officers would say, do say, at the beginning of every utterance they make at meetings:

So.

We are on a journey with schools. F*ck knows where we are going, although ... I think we can guess, can't we, readers? But this journey, you know, is through a landscape, and: the landscape is changing.

Et in arcadia ego.

As for consultation, the council will be 'teasing out' the views of residents.

Of course Mrs Angry rather enjoys teasing people, if she is particularly fond of them, although prone to be upset if anyone does it to her, which is silly.

So: please: no teasing, thank you, senior officers of Broken Barnet, and Crapita. In or out.

Let's have some grown up, full blown, full on consultation: no need to be shy. We are consenting adults, alone in the privacy of our own borough. No one's looking. Well, actually, yes they are: but don't let that put you off ... oh. Oh dear. Never mind. We still love you: really we do. There, there.

More of the secret language of corporate claptrappery followed, courtesy of Ms White.

There were of course key drivers to the 'project'. Awfully important, but Mrs Angry was bored, and forgot to write them down. And a relentless focus on educational outcomes. I know, that sounds rather Dotheboys School, but it refers to the 'relentless drive for efficiency' which is - oh, hang on, was the leitmotif, the raison d'etre, of One Barnet. Bit old hat now, isn't it, as well as - well: not true?

Then we heard that, ah yes, good: one of the drivers was financial, of course, and all sorts of complex factors, but our senior officers were pretty sure there were ways we can harness this in the new landscape.

Hmm. Mrs Angry, whose dinner had consisted of half a banana and two old sweets found in the bottom of her bag, had a vision of herds of lovely wild horses running free across the nuclear wasteland of Capitaville, being rounded up by a stern faced Mr Harrison, and Ms White, dressed in a fetching rhinestone cowgirl outfit. A charming scene.

Wake up, Mrs Angry, from your crapitorial reverie: now we hear of worrying plans to put all our resources into a critical mass ... Sounds rather Boson Higgs, doesn't it, readers?

There is, we learn next, a strong appetite in Barnet to work with us. Us, who? You? Quantify appetite, in this context? Oh, and these potential punters are all desperate for more information.

What is the ask, they want to know, said Ms White, as Mrs Angry, and Mr and Mrs Jacobson wept, in the public seating.

Seems to Mrs Angry the only ones with an appetite for dumping our educational services are excited about this only as a result of enticement (one of Mrs Angry's favourite words, although something she is clearly very bad at), enticement by those evangelists, keen to lobby for a new and almost certainly commercial provision.

If it ain't broke ...

Time to discuss the report and whether of not to approve it. Labour's Anne Hutton raised the point about the need to consider in-house provision - an option strangely ruled out at an early stage in the previous outsourcing, and not favoured in this one.

Then, by some miracle, Tory Dan Thomas agreed to add the option to the motion being agreed for future consideration.

Showing a display of insight rarely seen amongst our Tory members, or clairvoyance on a scale usually only entrusted to the far seeing eye of Mrs Angry, he said he sensed there was some cynicism about how an in-house option was being treated. There was, he said, no harm in us looking into it.

Flipping heck.

Yes, thought Mrs Angry, nor was there with the two previous contracts, and why did you not speak up then?

Still, we must encourage our young Tories when they show some sign of latent intelligence, so - well done, Cllr Thomas.

Ian Harrison, Director of Education, and Tom Pike

Some question now about the involvement of the unions, as of course many jobs are at stake here. Mr Harrison said that there had been a joint negotiation meeting two weeks ago. In fact it emerged that there had been a one sided briefing, which did not amount to a dialogue, and then, rather perplexingly as the meeting came to a close it became apparent that Unison secretary John Burgess, who had expected to be invited to make some comments to the committee, was overlooked.

John Burgess is a man of immense integrity, and courage: a hardworking union leader who has continued for years now, against all the odds, to battle for the protection of workers facing redundancy in the face of an attitude from the Tory council ranging from indifference to one of active obstruction, exemplified by the loss of facility time earlier this year. He and his union reports, usually compiled with great care by local government experts and academics, are continually overlooked. It't not hard to see why.

Never fear: Mrs Angry happens to have a copy of what he would have said, if he had been invited to the table, like a grown up:

Dear Councillors

Thank you for allowing me to address this committe on behalf of the joint trade unions. You will have seen the UNISON report on the proposals before you tonight.

We have tried to keep it brief and succinct in order to allow the reader to understand the critical issues and concerns we have with this report.

We have reason to be concerned when we read a business case which recommends outsourcing based on growth.

I refer of course to Your Choice Barnet, which is an example of what happens when the financial experts advising the council get it wrong.

Before I start I would like to add a caveat.

The Trade Unions have not been provided with the detailed financial evidence behind many of the assumptions made in this report.

I am assuming all members of this committee have seen this evidence.

In the interests of transparency please can this information be shared in order we are able to understand the rationale behind the recommendations of the report.

Without this information the report reads as biased & ideologically driven. It fails to acknowledge or recognise the hard work of loyal council workers.

In house services have consistently had to deal with year on year cuts and increased demand & yet still provide first class service to residents.

This resilience in the face of diminishing resources is simply not recognised in the flawed Scoring Matrix in Appendix B.

The issues facing members of the committe are:

Dwindling financial support as a result of the cuts to local government.

The need to develop a service delivery model which can sustain & grow in order to maintain excellent services for our community.

Councillors: you have a live example of a thriving innovative in house service which has won business from both public and private sector in and out of this borough and is even providing services in the House of Commons.

I am referring to the Catering Service.

In the report at paragraph 1.35 it states the 'in -house model would have less capacity for growing traded services'.

This is simply not true, the service has been doing just that for many years.

The Catering service is already operating within a competitive business environment yet has managed to increase the number of schools wanting to purchase the in house service.

The Catering service is a genuine traded service which has operated as a true business for many years returning significant profit to the council every year.

Why would the Council want to share any of the profits this service generates with another partner?

Councillors, I am speaking to you, as you are the Employer.

How can you ignore a success story just because it is an in house service? If an in house service can achieve the success Catering has delivered, why can't Education and Skills services?

336 council staff are watching and waiting to see what you do next.

Another 1600 staff are also watching.

There is a view within the workforce that the Council doesn't really value the staff.

This is reinforced every time a service delivery model proposal disregards the in house option and recommends outsourcing.

Staff working in Libraries, Street Scene Services and Early Years Children's Centres are all watching and waiting to hear how you deal with this latest outsourcing proposal.

Senior officers advise, but you Councillors decide.

The weight of history, in Manchester, still bears down heavily on the city, eloquent in the architecture of the built heritage, a wealth of buildings paid for by the profits of Cottonopolis: the Town Hall, the Central Library, the Exchange: and the less grand but still imposing legacy of the cotton industry, expressed in more functional structures.

Mrs Angry's hotel, for example, was a former warehouse, as documented by a worn inscription beside an entrance still marked with the name of the company that once traded there.

But the history of Manchester, held fast in the stonework and bricks of the buildings of the city centre, is now put to use just as relentlessly as the workers who once toiled in the mills here: the looms may have stopped, but the machinery of profit grinds on, and now property development is the overseer.

Warehouses become hotels, banks become restaurants and bars: leisure and tourism, the self indulgence of the bourgeoisie has taken the place of manufacture and industry.

And as part of the new culture of corporate hospitality, the Conference Centre, round the back of Peter Street, regularly performs its duty as the venue for the Labour party, in annual navel gazing mode.

The Labour conference provides an open opportunity, for all members who can afford the vast expense, to engage in a wider debate, or what passes for it, of the policies and ambitions that we hope will drive the next Labour government. Well, that is the idea, anyway, or was.

Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.

Mrs Angry arrived in Manchester on Sunday, and wandered into the conference centre, passing, outside the security zone, two demonstrations, one against fracking, the other in support of our NHS.

Throughout the days of the conference there are what appears to be a diminishing number of protestors, campaigners and activists, standing by the turnstiles, trying to press into the hands of those with passes a number of leaflets lobbying for all sorts of desperately important causes, begging for attention like petitioners of the jaded nobility wandering up the steps, into the long mirrored corridors of a royal palace.

In the centre itself, a market place of stalls awaited the conference attendees: worthy bodies like the Howard League, and various unions, and the sort of organisations you might expect to see at a left of centre political event, and rather more random enterprises: a phosphate mining company, CAMRA and ... a company offering public convenience provision. Useful for the public sector commissioning councils wishing, and probably failing, to organise a piss up in a brewery, in short.

The only stall that offered anything other than leaflets and free biros - (Mrs Angry's friend Councillor Dr Kay managed to acquire a collection of 38, which we admired, one by one, on the train journey back to Euston) - was the political bookshop, on whose table proudly stood a pile of discounted books, for the less discerning reader and/or any MP thinking of joining UKIP:

The debate that was in progress in the hall was on the subject of education. A number of delegates spoke passionately about the impact of government experimentation on schools, and the way in which now education is becoming a privilege, not a right.

Shadow minister Tristram Hunt made a fairly feeble speech, starting, as one might have hoped from an historian, with a reference to Manchester's Chartist schools, the history of the Mechanics Institute, co-operative schools, and the Workers Educational Trust. Education, he said, was a moral calling, and teaching the surest way to social mobility. Indeed it is, and on grounds of evading the call of morality and the obstruction of social mobility alone, must be interfered with by our Tory masters, of course.

Equalities next. Joanna Baxter, speaking in a quavering voice, still wrestling with the intense emotions of the Scottish referendum, and keen for us to understand the wider message of the campaign, and its result: that the people who voted 'yes' were doing so because they were offered hope - and Labour must learn from this, and offer this very thing, must become the party that offers change, that empowers, and inspires. Quite, thought Mrs Angry.

Wandering out of the hall, through the stalls, there was one welcome sight: the People's History Museum, with a range of material for sale, including a short history of the Peterloo Massacre.

This event took place on the very ground beneath our feet, on St Peter's Fields, nearly two hundred years ago - ground spattered then with the blood of working class heroes - and heroines - now covered by a pair of luxury hotels and an enormous corporate conference centre. The gathering place of rebellious workers now resounding with the whispers of spin doctors, rather than the protest of spinners, and the chattering of media, the twittering of politicians, instead of the clattering of the cotton mills.

Later that night, Mrs Angry wandered along from her hotel room in the eaves of George Fraser and Sons warehouse, on Portland Street, to the grandeur of the Midland Hotel (where, comrades, Tory blogger Barnet Bugle accidentally bought Mrs Angry a glass of champagne, in honour of her preferred shade of socialism). Passing her on the way there, creeping along in the shadows of the Midland, a few seconds apart, their faces momentarily illuminated by a street light, was first Hilary Benn (poor man, whose picture with Mrs Angry on google image for some reason has been tagged 'Mr and Mrs Eric Pickles' ...) and then Andy Burnham: both of them looked pretty glum. Who could blame them?

Walking back late at night revealed a rather different side to the city: beggars soliciting for change outside the Midland and Radisson: a homeless man sleeping in a doorway, open drug dealing down side streets, another man begging on his knees outside a shop, being patronised by a group of drunken men with conference passes round their necks.

Arriving at the conference hall next morning, with perfect timing, Mrs Angry managed to miss all but the last few words of Chuka Umunna's speech, and settle down to listen to the rather more inspiring thoughts of Unite's Len McCluskey.

McCluskey was another speaker seizing on the result of the referendum to try to persuade the Labour leadership that it must change the course of its campaigning back to traditional party voters, ordinary working people whose interests were being ignored by all the main parties.

Ignore them at your peril, he warned Labour.

He dismissed the pundits in our own party who said class didn't matter, and rejected the idea of a constitution made by posh boys at Chequers.

He called on the party to mobilise the imagination and aspiration of members determined to defeat the ruinouse coalition.

As he always does, he received a standing ovation, furious applause from the vast majority of members in the hall: a fact that ought to worry the leadership, sitting nicely, with tight smiles on the platform, careful not to appear supportive of any controversial statement by a speaker who does not obey the rules and conventions of the offical party line of approved opinion.

The chair of this plenary session was the insufferably patronising Keith Vaz, * whose air of noblesse oblige never ceases to amuse Mrs Angry, in this instance particularly enjoyable was the patrician tone of his exortations to 'comrades' and 'sisters' to wind up their speeches and clear off the stage.

(*Note for Labour members and readers suffering from Catholic guilt: as in plenary indulgence, attendance equating to a penance necessary for the remission of sins)

At this point, Mrs Angry's attention, wandering as usual, was caught by a familiar sight: the figure of a woman, deathly pale and quiet, her hair coiled in an old fashioned french pleat, carefully slipping into a seat, dressed entirely in an outfit from the 1940s: linen suit, stockings, and a pill box hat, in straw, balanced at a slanting angle on her head. This woman was at the last Manchester conference too: solitary, silent, looking on, and Mrs Angry had the idea she might be a ghost: a manifestation of the past,bearing witness to the time when Labour had its finest moment, making real social progress in radical change, in the creation of a welfare state, a national health service, and the provision of a fair system of education for all. The conscience of the party, perhaps, up in the balcony, looking on in a state of unease.

Another ghost from another era, also dressed in vintage costume: Margaret Beckett, in one of her shiny eighties suits, delivering a starchy warning that the Tories were about to ramp up a campaign of smears and insults levelled at Labour policies, added and abetted by the media, willing to join in, because 'it's so much more fun' than reporting the truth. Isn't it, though? Especially as the truth is so hard to define, Margaret, so carefully spun, and lost in the warp and weft of the utterances of party leaders.

Try as she might, Mrs Angry had mistimed her arrival in the hall, aided and abetted by Comrade Chair Keith Vaz, who had, in his role of benevolent dictator, allowed proceedings to overrun by 25 minutes - and oh, dear, next up was Ed Balls.

He was pro business, Balls said, but not business as usual.

He wanted, he added, to have an economy that works for - can you guess?The many, not the few.

Ye are many - they are few ... sounds familiar.

He made a show of learning from 'our' mistakes, and listed the pledges he and the Labour party would make to the British people. As he did so, the reaction from those seated in the balcony area was less than rapturous. Some were muttering, for example, when he said that Labour won't pay for new free schools - in areas where there are extra places. In other words, they will pay for new free schools in other areas. Capping social security funding didn't go down awfully well, either. A man sitting next to Mrs Angry sat throughout the becoming increasingly impatient, refusing to clap, and staying seated at the end, with a mutinous expression on his face. Others were more polite, but unmoved. It was a disappointing speech. Ed Miliband, who sat turned towards his colleague, in a pose of absolutely rigid attentiveness, remained pretty much the same, although dutifully applauding with outspread hands, like a seal at the circus. Oh dear, thought Mrs Angry.

In truth, what is said by the shadow ministers on the stage of the conference hall is an irrelevance. The next day you can buy a copy of their speeches for a quid, if you are desperate: might as well sell them beforehand, and save people the bother of listening to it. The really interesting contributions are from the delegates who speak, and of course in the fringe events, where real discussions can take place, and the most important part of attending is probably in the chance encounters and conversations with members whose experiences and views engage you in a real debate, and give a real insight into where we are now, as a party, and as a nation.

And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, and spies.

After an interesting evening wandering about looking for lost Northern MPs (must have gone to bed early, as perhaps so should have Mrs Angry) and bumping into an assortment of familiar faces, and party grandees, Mrs Angry was unexpectedly treated to a more intimate encounter with Ed Balls later that evening - thankfully not as intimate as those famous fantasies of the mumsnet blogger- (be warned, ladies: read at your own risk, and prepare never to want to have sex EVER again) ...

No, this was at a private Cooperative do, the purpose of which escaped Mrs Angry, except that it was unlikely to have gained the approval of Robert Owen, and the Rochdale Pioneers, but gave a clearly relaxed shadow chancellor the opportunity to sing and - my eyes, my eyes - gyrate with a couple of over excited middle aged women on a wobbly dais in the Labourlist tent. Mrs Angry, of course, behaved with impeccable dignity, made her excuses, and left.

The next day was the day of the Labour leader's speech.

Readers may recall that Barnet Tories deliberately rearranged the date of a full council meeting, in defiance of all convention, to coincide with this date, so as to make a cheap political point in the nasty war against their opposition party, and to cover up the fact that the previous date, as in the official calendar, would have meant many of their own members would have been absent, being on holiday, or otherwise engaged. This is the problem of the new committee system in Barnet: presenting our usually indolent backbench Tories with the necessity of actually turning up for the meetings they are paid to attend on behalf of their residents.

Mrs Angry's view, and the view of many others, was that the meeting should have been boycotted by the party. Instead of this, no one from the Labour leadership came to conference this year, which was a shame, and other members were asked to make the journey back to Barnet, directly after the speech - and in some cases return again that night - a round trip of 400 miles. Rather ridiculous, you might think, especially for delegates who are paid to attend conference on behalf of their party.

Thankfully Sarah Sackman, the wonderful Labour candidate for Finchley and Golders Green, was present, and spoke at conference about some of the successes we have been involved in during the course of our struggle with the shabby Tory administration: the reclamation of Friern Barnet Library, the protest against their removal of funding of respite care for the severely disabled children of Mapledown School, and the outrageous attempt to slash the already pitiful wages of care staff working for Your Choice Barnet. Sarah alluded to the legacy of Thatcherism, in her former constituency, and explained how her taunting claim that there was no such thing as 'society' was being exposed as a lie by the collective efforts of our community.

The long queue for seats in the hall for the leader's speech is a traditional process, beginning after the morning session, always with queues stretching through the building, outside, and sometimes even coiled back again. Usually everyone gets in, eventually, and Mrs Angry and a contingent of people from Barnet were very well placed, within sight of the beginning of the line. A long two hours followed, eventually broken by the sound of applause as Ed Miliband and his wife entered the hall, and strode swiftly though the room, noticeably at a distance from the queue, and not looking in that direction. Odd, thought Mrs Angry: we have not even been seated yet.

Then we noticed that on the screens he had started his speech. A rumour came down the line: we were not being allowed into the hall to hear it: there was no room.

No one could believe it. At no point had any staff come down the line and warn of any likeliness that no one would get in: many of those who had queued were elderly, and had made huge efforts to wait patiently for such a long time: yet priority had been given to more favoured ticket holders, apart from delegates - including VIPs, ex MPs, celebs, all seen planted in the audience.

Of course the people left standing pointlessly for two hours, and then kept out of the hall, when those arranging the seating must have known the unusually limited capacity would not accommodate them, are the people who will be expected to deliver victory for the party in May, campaigning, leafleting, doorknocking, canvassing: a gross miscalculation of priorities, but a symptom and symbol of the disconnection between the party leadership and the party membership.

The contigent from Barnet led a walkout of the proletariat into, well: the decadence of the Midland Hotel lobby, to sit in overupholstered sofas, watching the speech on screens. But there was nothing much to hear, and we left for the more congenial surroundings of an old pub, aptly named the Briton's Protection, to debate the events of the day, and the conference, before going back to the rather more useful and important fringe events elsewhere.

A story picked up by Guido Fawkes, originally reported in the Morning Star alleged that Bernadette Horton, a disabled member and mother of four, who tweets as @PinkWaferBelle, and blogs about the impact of austerity measures, had been forced from the row of seating reserved all conference for people with disability needs by party officials who insisted other party members needed to sit there. She and others were obliged to try to climb up the steep steps of the balcony: she tripped and fell. At the end of the speech, she noted:

... all became apparent as Ed Miliband and his wife Justine walked to the back of the hall and shook hands with the long line of party members sitting in the reserved seats. Of course Ed himself would have been oblivious to the fact we had been ousted from this area, and the feeling of somehow nthat it was truly a time for working class MPs who have compassion and the human touch to be elected to change the make up of the current establishment.ot being good enough or photogenic enough for the cameras following him pervaded our thoughts.

Bernadette wrote a very interesting post about her experience at conference:

http://www.mumvausterity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/my-labour-conference-2014.html

She had not been able to afford the expense of coming to Manchester, and had crowdfunded her way there. She intends to stand as a candidate in 2020, having concluded:

that it was truly a time for working class MPs who have compassion and the human touch to be elected to change the make up of the current establishment.

She observed, as many others did, that the real benefit of attending the conference was in the ordinary people whose stories pay witness to the reality of what is happening to the most vulnerable people in our society: including the truly admirable 91 year old Harry Smith, whose address to conference was so moving. As she puts it:

... he weeps as he tells of his sister dying from TB aged 10 because there was no NHS. These speakers told the real stories of conference. The stories that were happening to ordinary people. To me these were far more important than any policy announcements taking place in the main hall as they told the real story of what is going on under the watch of Cameron's Britain.

Bernadette thanked the many people who had contributed funding to enable her to come to conference and hoped that something can be done to help improve access to ordinary party members in future:

I am eternally grateful to the many people ( including MPs) who put their hands in their pockets and paid for me to attend. I then began a campaign which I will continue to take up with Labour Gen Sec Iain McNicoll entitled #ForTheManyNotTheMoneyed

For the many, not the moneyed: for the many, not the few: ye are many, they are few.

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.

Shelley wrote the ninety one verses of The Masque of Anarchy in a storm of fury, his 'blood boiling with rage', after reading reports of the Peterloo massacre, enacted on the very soil beneath the secured territory of the Labour conference: around eighty thousand people, about half the population of the area around Manchester then, were present: men, women and children, on a beautiful summer's day, under a cloudless sky, to hold a peaceful protest, and to make a demand for representation in parliament.

Faced with what they viewed as an act of revolution, the authorities sent in the cavalry to charged the unarmed gathering. In the mayhem which ensued, including, it seems, an early example of kettling which undoubtedly led to a greater toll than would have otherwise been the case, eighteen were killed, and 653 people injured.

Peterloo ended in chaos, injury and loss of life, but the movement for reform began, and the fight for widespread franchise: the fight for democracy.

If you go to the fabulous People's History Museum, in Spinningfields, Manchester, you will find a fine collection of prints and cartoons depicting the events of Peterloo, and the consequent birth of a radical political movement in Britain - as well as the story of the Labour party.

Because, let's be honest: what happened on St Peter's Fields, in 1819, that moment of such significance, was never meant to evolve into the party we see now, back on the same sacred territory, locking the doors on its own members, accessible only to the privileged few who can afford the cost of attendance, not a venue encouraging real debate but one in which handpicked audiences dutifully attend the stage managed grandstanding of shadow ministers, and applaud the platitudes of a third rate speech by the party leader, and protestors are kept at bay not by charging cavalries, but behind a metal barrier manned by a privatised security company.

The spinning of politicians has replaced the profits of Cottonopolis, and the annual conference brings in an estimated £25 million to the city of Manchester.

Who knows how much the conference itself makes from the exorbitant charges to members, or the payments from lobbying companies keen to flog their wares on a stall in the centre, dangling temptations in the hands of potential commissioning public sector employers?

It is a real disgrace, on the ground where people paid with their lives for demanding a fairer society, and a voice in government, to see their cause, and the rights of the latterday workers, exploited just as much as they ever were, ignored, and excluded from the process of debate.

Peterloo, and the history of our struggle for democracy, a voice in government, and social justice may seem irrelevant to some people, and something to ignore. And this is exactly the mistake made by the leaders of the Labour movement today.

In his wonderful, unforgettable speech, dedicated to the threat to our NHS, Harry Smith, whose childhood and his unbearably vivid memories of the needless loss of his young sister, in the absence of the ability to pay for her recovery must have evoked the past of not just my family, but those of almost everyone listening, he pleaded that we should learn the lessons from the earlier era of austerity, otherwise, he warned, your future will be my past.

My life is your history, he added: we should keep it that way.

We must repeat that truism again: those who forget the past are condemned to relive it: it's time for the Labour movement to take a look behind the scenes at the museum, remember the People's History, and remember who we were, where we come from, and think again about where we are going.

An exhibit in the museum: the Beveridge Report

One of the inescapable truths about life in Broken Barnet is this: the things we do not do, or cannot see, are more dangerous, and more interesting, than what is clear, and present, and visible.

The power of the negative shape between, the telling absence, and the sins of omission: this is the defining characteristic that best describes our borough, and the conspiracy of cunning fools tasked with the responsibilities of local governance here.

The default mode of Barnet Council, we are told, is open government. Or rather, the readers of the Guardian were told this by our Chief Operating Officer, who lives in a lovely, glass walled cell in North London Business Park, with a view of the new outpost of Capitaville, filtered by magic glass, that reverses the colours of the landscape, and returns a beautiful image of an ugly world, where a regime of craven Tory councillors obey the prodding of their senior management, as piece by piece, the monstrous mouth of Capita swallows us up, and spits us out, and grinds our bones to dust.

Since the Tories managed to retain control of the council, by the skin of those mascerating teeth, the rampant appetite of Capita has grown and grown. More money, more services, more profit, more bones, more flesh: stomp, stomp, stomp, the monster prowls around the boundaries defined by two massive contracts, but cannot be contained and is hungry, very hungry.

We must feed the beast : and we must ransack the last of our supplies, in a frantic search for more of our public services, to keep it happy. Of course other outsourcering beasts may want to feast on the carcass that is left, but Capita will have first pickings.

In the last post, we saw how educational services is to be staked out, like bait, to tempt a new set of privatising bidders. It is of course entirely coincidental, and devoid of any conflict of interest that Capita is in charge of the procurement, has been used to market test the proposals, and has a former senior manager from its own educational section working for Barnet since September 2013.

There is a problem, it must be acknowledged, for those wishing to ease the transit of more of our services, and jobs, out of the direct control of the people who own them, that is to say, you and me, into the grasping hands of private enterprise.

The first two contracts were hidden behind the discreet wall of tosspottery known as One Barnet, the ideologised excuse for the giveaway opportunity involving so many of our council's functions.

One Barnet became a toxic brand, however, under the glare of scrutiny from residents and local activists, just as the authority's compliance with the requirement of the localism act's rulings on open government - the real thing, not the lipservice, was to be put to the test.

One Barnet flourised in a swamp of confusion and obfuscation, bereft of any programme of consultation, decisions taken that were not decisions, at a time ill defined, lost in the process, and making it impossible to challenge in court, until it was too late.

The next tranche of outsourcing proposals is more tricky, and so much harder to manage, for the simple reason that those who oppose the very principle of privatised local services are wised up, hardened veterans of the war against the profiteers. We've served one round of service in the trenches, and now we know what to expect.

In the earlier programme of privatisation, residents and voters were kept entirely in the dark as to the implications of what the Tory administration, its senior management and coterie of consultants had planned. There never was any mandate from the people for what happened, as election material gave no hint of what was to come. The need for consultation, as the findings of the judicial review confirmed, was ignored, and any opportunity for debate carefully smothered, by such means as refusing local forums to discuss any issue relating to council 'policy'.

Since the election, Barnet has changed to a new system of governance, or rather reverted to the committee system. With predictable ineptitude, the Tory group failed to ensure the proper rule of governance was in place to monitor this change, and make sure the system was constitutional. Which reminds me: what happened to the independent investigation into that particular cockup?

The Tories decided upon this course of action before they found themselves clinging on to power with the most slender of majorities - and now they find themselves in the most perilous circumstances, needing to micro-manage every committee and every councillor, to ensure there is never a loss of political control, or mistake in voting.

If only the opposition was so vigilant, some might say: because the naivete of some Labour members is often exploited by their Tory colleagues, and used, in their knavish way, in order to facilitate their own agenda.

And here we go again.

After the fiasco of the new group leaders' panel, the risible, politically biased replacement for the previous standards committee, one might hope the Labour leadership would not have been duped into falling for another Tory trick, and allow the opposition to take part in another example of their absolute defiance of the principles supposedly embedded in their own party's policy of localism, and yes, open government.

We are talking about a new range of secret meetings, coyly referred to as 'working groups', a new idea in which elected members and officers discuss forthcoming policy proposals relevant to a committee, in a body that is not constitutionally recognised, has no regulations or guidelines as to procedure, is not advertised with the other council meetings, and which the Tories - and certain officers - wanted to remain private, with members of the public barred from attending.

We are told that no decisions will be made at these meetings. Whether or not this is true you must judge for yourself, after reading about the outcome of the Environment group oon Thursday night.

These meetings are not minuted, no papers are available to the public, if they should by some means know they are taking place: clearly this new procedure was deliberately designed so as to circumvent the need for transparency and accountability in the decision making process of the authority at a time when more outsourcing is being planned.

Last year Eric Pickles made it clear in new guidelines that he was serious about opening up the process of local government to residents and taxpayers, as well as the press and citizen journalists.

Quite evidently the new 'working group' strategy is deliberately directed so as to be in defiance of the spirit - and possibly the letter - of the law regulating local government procedures, as defined by the localism act. Last year's guidelines made it clear that only 'informal briefings' or meetings that contain material which is exempt due to confidentiality may be held without the right of public access to the meeting, and the relevant papers and information.

The 'working groups' are not informal meetings: they are part of a new and well organised process, which will be used to influence the outcomes of the committee meetings. At a time of controversial new proposals in regard to further outsourcing, and associated redundancies, it is even more important that such discussions take place in public, as part of a full programme of consultation.

Already briefings given on the subject of the possible privatisation of educational services have tried to persuade opposition members that a joint venture is both likely and inevitable. It is not, and is not.

So now we have meetings that are not part of the democratic process, and yet will direct the evolution of policy decisions affecting the future of our local public services, with an impact on the lives of all residents. Meetings that exist, but do not exist, an empty space in the calendar: a negative shape - all in the tradition of Broken Barnet.

Mrs Angry thought it would be appropriate to attend one of these meetings: and on Thursday went to the Environment 'working group'.

This meeting, which was not a meeting, was nominally chaired by Tory Dean Cohen, whose responsibilities for environmental matters, you may recall, is particularly focused on the environment of his own ward, to the tune of £1.1 million pounds worth of expenditure in the year before the election, on roads and pavements on his home ground, while Labour wards went without - completely, in the case of Colindale.

The person who appeared to be directing the meeting, that was not a meeting, however, was the senior Barnet commissioning officer Declan Hoare, who had clear views on the way in which the session was going to take place. Any papers for the public? No. Anyone from governance to ask for copies? No. Any minutes being taken? No. Is this compliant with the guidelines on public access to council meetings, as defined in the amendment to the localism act? Yes, he said.

Mrs Angry tried hard to remember other examples of this sort of body, as sanctioned by our transparency averse council. Ah yes, during the tendering process of the first massive contracts, the senior management team would meet as Corporate Directors Group, but strangely, whenever it met in order to discuss anything of a 'sensitive' nature, called itself something else, and did not minute the meeting, so no material existed that could be FOId relating to the decision making process which led to, for example, the announcement that 'we' had decided to change the business model of what is now Capita run 'Re', without the knowledge or consent of the leader of the council and his cabinet ...

That was then, and here we were now, a handful of residents, bloggers, and a local reporter therefore sat in the few seats allocated for anyone insisting on attending the meeting that was not a meeting and looked on, unable to follow the secret agenda, or read the information given to members in the reports.

Two Labour members, Alan Schneiderman and Devra Kay objected to the arrangements, but neither Mr Hoare or the Tory members, Cohen and Brian Salinger, who sat with his back to the public, were sympathetic to the idea that the meeting that was not a meeting should follow any rules of access or transparency.

Mr Hoare gave us a short lecture on the way on which the meeting which was not a meeting would be held. It was 'a briefing', just, he said pointedly, for members - it was not constitutional, and therefore they could not make any decisions, or recommendations

Mrs Angry decided, that as there were no rules, and the meeting that was not a meeting was not constitutional, she was therefore entitled to join in with helpful contributions to the 'discussion', when appropriate, as a resident, and taxpayer.

This view was not welcomed by Councillor Dean Cohen, sitting self importantly, as he always does, like a schoolboy left to mind the class while the teacher has been called away to see the headmaster. In fact, Councillor Cohen kept snapping at Mrs Angry and told her she could not speak, which of course she happily ignored, if only to annoy him even more.

Even though members of the public were clearly not welcome, it transpired that a resident had been invited, by whom we did not know, to sit at the table and talk about the Friends association which now oversees much of the activities in a park in Childs Hill. Presumably the Tories thought that this was a good example, Big Society style, of where they can show that dumping council responsibilities on residents with a minimal amount of encouragement was a marvellous thing, and hope no one would notice it was just an excuse to try and cut costs.

It was pretty clear that as she began to speak, however, that the woman was no fool, and was determined to inform the members that expecting volunteers to take overall responsibility for the park was not a viable proposal. Grounds maintenance, she pointed out, depends on a continuous and reliable stream of funding by the authority.

What was interesting was that the park's friends' group, in marginal Childs Hill, previously a Libdem seat, targeted by Tories and Labour, returning two Tory and one Libdem councillor, received £50,000 in funding, last August, around the same time that the Highways bonus of £4 million was spent on certain wards. This may have been part of a regular budgetary handout, or it may not, but one wonders how many parks in less advantaged and less marginal wards received similar payments.

It also emerged that the various resident run park associations are not brought together in any one body, but act in isolation, along the old Barnet divide and conquer strategy. There was some sort of proposal to this end, but allowing them to join together would of course be a breach of the riot act, and might lead to unity of purpose, and a pro park lobby which could oppose their fiendish plot to commercialise our parks and open spaces, which of course, in Broken Barnet, must be made to generate income in order to justify their right to existence.

Now Crapita has its hands on our council services, and even pursues us in death, as in life, at the Easycrem crapitorial post life facililty, the air we breathe, and every leaf of every tree, every blade of grass, and even the chirruping of birds in the sky must be harnessed, and put to the plough. Seems only reasonable, doesn't it?

Next up - ah, Highways maintenance. A sad eyed welshman from Capita, with a teddy boy haircut, stood forlornly at the end of the room and pointed dispiritedly at a powerpoint presentation of charts and diagrams that appeared to signify an apocalyptic future for our road structure.

One of the charts was headed: The Public's Really Simple Asset Management Plan.

The chart consisted, as far as Mrs Angry remembers, of a giant For Sale sign, and a picture of a cashpoint, with the word 'kerrching' written underneath.

Her notes may not be entirely accurate, of course.

We have too many roads, in Broken Barnet, it seems. The ground covered, we heard, would go all the way to Leeds and back, or was it that all roads went to Leeds and back, whether or not that was where we meant to go? Mrs Angry was confused.

There should be resurfacing of roads, we heard, once every hundred years. Oh. No: by the rate in which they are currently being resurfaced, it would be once every hundred years.

Apart, suggested Mrs Angry, from roads in Councillor Cohen's own ward, in Golders Green. Councillor Cohen suggested she should be quiet. Mrs Angry smiled, recalling that in some parts of Golders Green ward, the roads appear to be resurfaced, and the pavements replaced, more like once every 100 days, while, as the recent 'investigation' confirmed, the highways and byways of everywhere else that is not in a Tory ward, must wait in line.

The sad eyed welshman said that in order to maintain the roads, Barnet's residents would have to fork out £13 million alone for the backlog.

The road ahead, in this presentation, was becoming clear, and we were not headed for Leeds, after all, but doing a u-turn, all the way back to Capitaville.

Not all roads are the same, of course, he said. Mrs Angry agreed, thinking of the difference, say between Princes Park Avenue, in Councillor Cohen's ward, or the quiet residential roads in marginal Tory Hale, and Aerodrome Road, in Colindale, which Labour held ward that received no funding at all last year, while PPA alone was given £500,000 of funding in two years.

All roads are equal, but some roads are more equal than others.

We should be prioritising the need to resurface, not, it seems in order of political allegiance, but according to need. Real need, not the definition used by Tory politicians, but concentrating on areas around hospitals, and, you know, where the poor people hang out, because their buses and clapped out old cars wear the roads out too quickly, in their typically selfish way.

The sad welshman continued. He cheered up a bit with the thought, expressed largely to himself, that we, ie Re, ie Crapita, have 'different treatments in the toolbox' in order to fix the many highways of despair, in Broken Barnet.

Here was a nice image of what looked like the flag of a newly independent Balkan state, the ones you can never remember in the picture round of that quiz down the pub, with a scribbly line ominously scratched across it.

If we had consistently bad weather, we were told, we could cope better with these challenges.

In a cold climate, as he put it, we know where we are.

In the course of a cold, cold winter, things fall apart, and the surface cannot hold, but we can patch that up - or seal it - with Mrs Angry's rhubarb jam, (also available under the new Re-surfacing label, at Waitrose, North Finchley, all proceeds to the Broken Barnet charitable trust and pension fund).

In the glare of our summer sun, sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, and the roads of Broken Barnet melt, like chocolate, and require a different treatment from the toolbox, so lovingly administered now by Crapita. And that meant the toolbox is not big enough, and we need to buy a new one, because Crapita can't afford it, apparently.

Which is odd, isn't it? We heard that 'efficiencies' need to be made from the Highways budget, and all our roads, even those that do not go to Leeds and back, must be resurfaced over a shorter than hundred year cycle, yet those savings promised us by those advocating the Capita contracts with such enthusiasm, are not available to cover these costs, which surely must have been or should have been assessed before the contracts were negotiated?

We have to find an immediate saving of more than £5 million. Yet last autumn, according to the line given to excuse the pre-election highways spluge in Tory wards, the £4 million they spent was only forthcoming as a result of the new contract. Why did they indulge in that spending spree, when they knew there would be a shortfall in funding after the election? How could such expenditure possibly be justified? This truly is a scandalous use of taxpayers' money.

And it gets worse: because, as Labour's Alan Schneiderman revealed, the efficiencies we are now told are required will require staff redundancies - and further outsourcing.

In other words, the lovely new pavements and road surfaces of Tory held wards are being paid for by turning loyal Barnet highways staff out of their jobs.

No wonder that they wanted to hold these 'briefings' in secret, is it?

But you know: this is what we signed up to. Or rather the Tory councillors signed up to: being used as a cash cow by Capita - and this is how they make their profits. Look at this news from Birmingham, where it has just been revealed that in 2013, of the £102m spent on their own joint venture, the City Council handed over a staggering £23m in dividends to Capita, despite the dire financial straits in which they now find themselves:

http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/business/business-opinion/david-bailey-service-birminghams-63000-a-day-7870124

Quick, change the subject.

Oh. Not the best subject: the controversial issue of street lighting, and a terrifying proposal to turn off the lights of Broken Barnet at night, in order to, yes, make efficiencies.

This is, of course, the very same light which emanates from the entirely new stock of streetlamps replaced over the length and breadth of the borough only the other year.

Had the police given their opinion, as to the impact on crime? Conveniently no one could answer.

Mrs Angry gave her unasked for views on the risk to the safety of women and elderly, and even the perception of risk which would affect residents' quality of life. This will be maximised should another proposal on the table, to leave parks unlocked at night, be adopted by our idiotic councillors.

Fear, they acknowledged, was a potential result of such a drastic step. But fear and loathing, in Broken Barnet, are qualities our Tory councillors seem happy to encourage, as you may have noticed.

And then: oh dear. The next item, on the secret agenda, was a formal proposal from the handlebar moustached octogenarian Tory John Hart, on the subject of ... trees.

Councillor Hart is very worried about the trees of Broken Barnet, at least the ones that line our crumbling highways.

He wants them all removed, because they are too big, he thinks, and must be replaced, on a boroughwide programme, like all our streetlamps. The replacements should be small trees, colourful ones of which he approves, not ones, he said, with heads like lavatory brushes, which he does not like.

After an incomprehensible anecdote about when he worked for the Board of Trade, with what he called the Abominable No Men of Whitehall, he enlarged on the reasons for this Amazonian scale schedule of deforestation.

Not only are the trees too big, they fall on people, or cause subsidence, and then our 'darling residents', as he described them, with no little disdain, complain about cracks in their houses.

The poor officer from Open Spaces tried valiantly to address these barking proposals with some semblance of restraint.

There are some 300,000 trees lining the streets of Broken Barnet, she said, patiently, as if talking to a particularly obtuse child. The savings from subsidence claims would be negligable, and the cost of replacing them prohibitive. There would also be an impact on the ecological life of the borough, such as the loss of honeydew for bees.

Those of us who were sniggering at the foolishness of such a suggestion were informed tersely by Tory councillors: at least he made the effort.

And there we were, at the end of the meeting that was not a meeting, and Labour councillors were still asking about the very terms of reference under which the 'briefing' and discussion had taken place.

Labour's Devra Kay had asked - why shouldn't residents attend these meetings? They are in public, she was told - but of course 'public' in this case means only to those members of the public who did not have to rely on the meetings which are not meetings being listed on the calendar, or advertised in the press, or advertised anywhere except hidden away beneath a series of baby rhyme times, or knit and natter sessions, in our no doubt soon to be offloaded libraries.

In fact, despite no visible listing on the council's website, there is another 'working group' arranged for tomorrow night - but the Labour members due to attend have rightly decided to boycott the event.

Tory Brian Salinger banged on, as he always does, about having been a councillor for 33 years, and always having private briefings and ... he was interrupted, possibly by Mrs Angry: Be quiet and listen to me, he said, jabbing his finger about. Pointy finger, pointy finger, said Mrs Angry, tutting.

As the non meeting ended, Alan Schneiderman raised questions about the status of members, as opposed to officers. This was an important point, as a visiting stranger, who may have wandered into the town hall, and up the stairs, and into the committee room and found the meeting which was not a meeting, might have concluded that Mr Hoare and his colleagues from Crapita were in charge, and not the elected members of the London Borough of Broken Barnet.

No decisions, of course, are meant to be made at these sessions, yet clearly when even the Chair appeared to want to back away from the lighting proposal, it seemed the officers had the last say in what 'went forward' to the actual committee. Mr Hoare would be passing on his views on what had been discussed at the 'briefing', even thought, we were told, there were no minutes, and no recommendations.

In other words, members' opinions would be marginalised in the process, and yet some report finalised by non elected officers, which might well suit the purposes of Capita and senior management, but is clearly a distortion of what is supposed to be a democratic process, open and transparent, and accountable to the community, and their elected representatives, would go on to the committee stage.

This is where the road takes us, not to Leeds, but always back to Capitaville, and here we must remain, enclosed by boundaries we feel, but cannot see, in the shadows of the night, where the glare of scrutiny is dimmed, and the underworld of private enterprise, like thieves in the night, robs us of what we hold dear, and fear to lose, at the cost of our liberty, and our democracy.

Put out the light, then put out the light.

This is the history of Capitaville, Year Two.

Only eight more to go.

Clare Lloyd-Jones pic courtesy of the Marston Group

*Updated Wednesday: see below

1.3 The voting on ‘wrong’ reports, and the subsequent unraveling of the decision-making structure caused Barnet to be mocked in the local press with headlines using words such as “disgrace” and “chaos”. No Local Authority would wish to be subject to such avoidable public criticism.

The truth is more complex.

In the last post, you may recall, Mrs Angry raised a question about the long awaited report by lawyer Claer Lloyd-Jones, who had been asked to conduct an investigation into Barnet's governance service earlier this year, but whose findings were as yet unknown.

By coincidence, or not, but only by accident, it was discovered by local bloggers yesterday that her investigation had not only been concluded, but the findings submitted to the authority last month.

No announcement of this report, nor the very serious implications for the governance and legal compliance of our local democratic process, had been made by the authority, and quite clearly the matter was being kept under wraps for as long as possible. Until Monday, that is, when someone found out about it, rather than being made known in a formal announcement to the residents and taxpayers of this borough, in an admission of failure on an almost apocalyptic scale,

The findings are simply staggering, and expressed in blunt terms by Ms Lloyd Jones.

Take for example these observations:

There is no-one who understands local government law in depth at Barnet.

Barnet employs no lawyers.

There are staff in key roles in the Governance structure in Barnet who are inexperienced in governance matters.

There was no clear protocol for clearing council reports throughtaking external legal or other specialist advice.

And here is the damning conclusion:

7.1 Barnet Council was ridiculed in the local press for finding itself in the position of having misapplied the political proportionality rules and thereby failing to keep member decision-making safe from challenge. The Chief Executive was subsequently given advice that committees that were not properly and lawfully constituted, an could not continue to meet and make decisions prior to the next Council meeting on July 15th. Leading Counsel’s opinion was taken and he advised that although the political proportionality rules had been misapplied, the committees could continue to meet and make lawful decisions due to the savings provisions in the Act. Leading Counsel’s opinion was preferred.

7.2 The facts leading up to these events demonstrate that there was no clear protocol or process between Barnet Governance Team and HBPL for providing legal clearance of council reports to ensure that they were correct. In the case of both the political proportionality report and the members allowances report, legal advice was asked for from HBPL. It was not forthcoming, and the absence of legal advice in the reports was not escalated nor chased by Barnet Governance Team.

7.3 The risk of either of those reports being wrong was therefore high, given that Barnet does not employ any lawyers itself, and the relevant governance staff responsible for these reports are relatively inexperienced.

7.4 This high reputational risk to the council was multiplied by the change to alternative political management arrangements, ie a return to the Committee system. This risk was further aggravated by a very close election result.

7.5 Mitigation of the risk would necessitate early consideration of the legal principles, and close and careful attention being paid to the compilation of reports, in draft, and when submitted to council for decision. This would require at the very least, close collaboration between HBPL and Barnet Governance Team.

7.6 All parties involved were capable of spotting that something was wrong with the reports, but no-one did. To those members involved, the perception was that no-one was in charge.

7.7 I find that Barnet’s Governance Team were responsible for the reports being sent to print in their incorrect form and subsequently voted on by members at June 2nd Council meeting. Members were not advised that the reports had no legal clearance, and the form of the report gave no indication of whether the report had been cleared or not.

7.8 I also find that Barnet’s Governance team were jointly responsible with the shared Legal Service, HBPL, for those reports going to print containing misapplications of the correct law, and allowing members to vote on them as though they were correct. Copies of the reports had been sent to HBPL at an early stage. They gave no comments or advice. The Harrow MO attends Barnet Council meetings in order to advise the Barnet MO and Chief Executive.

7.9 In order to prevent the risk of some other governance failing attributable to the absence of legal advice or misapplication of legal advice, a number of changes need to be made to both the IAA and to Barnet’s internal governance arrangements

You can read the full report here:

http://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s18278/Appendix%201%20-%20First%20report%20of%20Claer%20Lloyd-Jones.pdf …

This investigation had been prompted by a catastrophic failure in the creation and implementation of the authority's new committee system, a sytem to which our Tory members, in their wisdom wished us to return, but failed to ensure that the correct establishment and processes were in place when the change was made.

The Monitoring Officer of Barnet Council, also the Director of Assurance, since April 2013, is - or at least as far as we know, still is - Maryellen Salter, the former head of internal audit (previously employed by our external auditors, Grant Thornton).

Will no one think of the Customer?

Apparently not: we were the last ones to know, weren't we, Mr Naylor?

From the start of the new Tory administration, it was clear that something was badly wrong. The political proportionality of the committees was incorrectly balanced, and it emerged that the committees themselves, therefore, and any decisions made by them, were possibly unlawful. All council meetings were cancelled. It was then announced that they were lawful, after all, and could go ahead, or that they may be unlawful, but any decisions made were not - but no one seemed quite sure.

The first Full Council meeting of the new administration was an absolute shambles, directly as a result of the incompetent organisation of the new system - and the plotting of Tory councillors, terrified of the implications of their slender majority, intent on excluding Labour members from all opportunities to exploit their vulnerability.

The situation was, in short an all round disaster, and the administration eventually agreed that there was need of an independent investigation.

In the meanwhile, the life of the administration carried on, as if all were well.

The Tory group launched a series of policies and actions which raised serious questions about the legality of their basis, and the consequences that ensued.

The new Mayor, Hugh Rayner, was accused by AM Andrew Dismore of a number of very serious allegations relating to his business activities and apparent failure to make declarations of pecuniary interest. The Monitoring Officer disallowed a number of the allegations, which Dismore - who, unlike the Monitoring Officer is a lawyer - fiercely disputed.

Rayner escaped unscathed from the politically weighted panel hearing, cleared of all charges.

Earlier in the year, a Labour councillor was falsely accused of 'taxdodging' in regard to her council tax. The fact that this was not true, and the false charges due to failures by the council and Capita, did not stop her reputation being smeared, and she had been referred to the police with all speed by the authority within hours of an initial interview about the unfounded claims.

The case of the Tory Mayor, by contrast, involving far more serious allegations, but was not referred to the police.

Bearing in mind the criticisms in the report regarding the provision and quality of advice and support since Barnet outsourced its legal services to HBPublic Law, questions must now be raised about the management of both cases.

There are in fact many decisions and actions which must now be subject to review, and challenge where necessary: including the deeply dubious allocation of 'dispensations' that our Tory councillors have obliged the Monitoring Officer to give them, so as to allow them to take part in meetings and decision making even when they have pecuniary interests: a clear defiance of the Nolan principles that are supposed to govern those in public posts, and, prima facie, an arguably unlawful move, in breach of the localism act, and legislation which makes the non declaration a criminal offence.

The status of such dispensations in regard to the authority's own regulations is certainly questionable: a statement made on the subject on behalf of the authority said that it was assumed the dispensations were constitutional. A statement that is an example, we can now conclude, of the lack of legal oversight described by Ms Lloyd Jones in her report.

False assumptions can be very costly, can't they?

But these are only a few instances of what is clearly a terrible failure in governance, and law, by Barnet Council.

The report makes clear that this disastrous situation is a result of the ill conceived outsourcing of legal services, and the removal of the post of head of governance, (or democratic services, as it used to be called when there was at least some semblance of democracy in Barnet). It should also be remembered that the Tory administration sanctioned the cutting of several posts within the governance service.

The Monitoring Officer may well be set up as the solitary scapegoat for this mess: but that would be unfair, as clearly the responsibility for governance and law is ultimately borne by the Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer - and of course the real culprits here are the Tory leader and his senior colleagues, who decided on this course of action, and were happy to approve both the abolishment of in house legal services, and the post formerly held by the most senior lawyer, who also ensured the proper process of governance.

Tory councillors are this morning gathering in a panic at the council's headquarters at North London Business Park in order to discuss this unprecedented state of crisis.

Apart from the disastrous findings of the report, one must ask why members appear not to have been informed of the findings until now; and why the report was not made public, but was sat on, and then sidelined, sneaked into the agenda of a policy and resources committee agenda?

The final version was apparently published on 14th September, the original date, it seems, of the report, was in August.

In the time since the investigation has begun, hugely significant decisions that affect not just members, or employees, but the daily lives of every man, woman and child in this borough, have continued to be made, even after the report was submitted - despite the serious questions now raised about the very constitutional basis of the council.

Once the report and its findings were made known to those who commissioned it, no press release was made, no statement given, until bloggers broke the news, stumbling upon the report, hidden in plain sight, in the unpublicised agenda of the Policy & Resources committee.

Only when the findings had been uncovered in this way did the council respond.

This is simply not good enough.

Mrs Angry tweeted the following question to Mr Chris Naylor, the Chief Operating Officer, and enthusiastic supporter of open government, this morning:

‏@BrokenBarnet

If the default mode of @BarnetCouncil is 'open gov'@publicnaylor why has the damning report into governance not been openly acknowledged?

He replied:

‏@publicnaylor

@BrokenBarnetdo you mean the report published on the web, that is going to a public meeting and that we're talking to the press about?

To which Mrs Angry's response was:

‏@BrokenBarnet

@publicnaylorOh come off it: a report with such serious findings should have been put in the public domain with a statement asap, not sat on

(He's still arguing on twitter, by the way, and getting some well deserved impertinence in response).

It is clear that there is urgent need for an emergency council meeting to discuss this report, and the fullest scrutiny given, in public, to the implications.

Perhaps one question that might be asked is this: was the requirement for legal qualifications removed from the job description of the post now held -maybe - by the current Monitoring Officer?

If so, who removed it, and why?

Was there a risk assessment of the consequences in failing to have a lawyer in this statutory post?

How many decisions by the authority since the new structure was in place are now potentially invalid, and subject to legal challenge, and how much cost to local taxpayers will there be, as a result?

What does this latest failure in outsourcing tell us about the risks presented by the two massive Capita contracts which our Tory councillors have committed us to for a period of no less than ten years?

Let's look again at one of the findings of the report by Claer Lloyd-Jones:

7.6 All parties involved were capable of spotting that something was wrong with the reports, but no-one did. To those members involved, the perception was that no-one was in charge.

There, in short, you have the most damning observation of all.

Don't be fooled by the tradition of Broken Barnet in which all major cockups, from the Icelandic fiasco to every other mess that has occurred, are blamed on one individual, and addressed by the sacrifical offering of that person's job.

The incompetence of senior management, the inexperience of one senior officer, the lack of professional support from our oursourced legal service: factors which contributed to the perfect storm we now see wreaking havoc in the administration of our local authority, but the truth is that, ultimately, this is a political failure by the Conservative leader, and his party.

Richard Cornelius takes a hands off approach to governance, and has left all the boring day to day management of the council to 'Travers', as he refers to him, in the manner of the master of Downtown Abbey flinging his coat on the floor for his valet to pick up.

But Cornelius had ultimate responsibility for this awful situation, and must accept that.

He should now consider his own position as leader, even if the Chief Executive remains in post, safely enveloped in the protection of that black hole he carries everywhere with him.

The investigation by Claer Lloyd Jones tells us some of the story: the rest is unknown.

What is clear is this: our council is being run by a bunch of incompetent fools, with a catastrophic disregard for the due processes of law, as well as the need for transparency, and accountability.

And while we disport ourselves in the wake of these revelations, those who are waiting offstage, waiting to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Tories next round of privatisation will be standing by, grinning, and rubbing their sweaty hands with glee.

More later.

Updated Wednesday:

A statement has at last emerged from the Barnet Labour leadership:

Labour calls for no confidence vote in Council Leader after damning report on governance failures

Labour councillors have called for an Extraordinary Council meeting after a damning independent report was published yesterday into June’s shambolic Annual Council Meeting and the constitutional crisis that followed where the decision-making process in Barnet ground to a halt because committees were not properly constituted at the Annual Meeting.

The independent report states that:

There is no-one who understands local government law in depth atBarnet. Barnet employs no lawyers.

There are staff in key roles in the Governance structure in Barnetwho are inexperienced in governance matters.

There was no clear protocol for clearing council reports throughtaking external legal or other specialist advice.

Barnet was moving to a very different Constitution at the Annual Council and needed to have given detailed consideration to the implications of moving back to the Committee system. It is not just a question of making amendments to the Constitution.

Legal Advice was requested on both the reports, but was not forthcoming on either in time for them to be printed. No-one at Barnet queried this or noticed anything was wrong.

Barnet’s legal service was outsourced through a shared service agreement with Harrow Council under the One Barnet mass-privatisation programme in April 2012 on the basis that it would save money and provide greater flexibility and capacity to manage the council’s legal work more efficiently. But the independent report suggests that Barnet does not have “access to pro-active professional and expert advice at all relevant times” and that “the clienting of the HBPL service has had no professional legal input looking at the quality of legal advice given for 18 months”. Last month’s performance data also shows the outsourced service is currently overspent by £138,000 or 7.7% of the overall budget.

The Cabinet Resources report from the Leader of the Council that recommended the outsourcing also states that “Governance arrangements will be developed to enable this council to have strategic oversight of the Joint Legal Service…”, but the independent report findings show this hasn’t happened.

The council was supposed to have appointed a legally qualified person to monitor the contract with Harrow Council according to the Inter Authority Agreement but this did not happen either.

Authorisation of the Inter-Authority Agreement with Harrow Council was delegated to the Leader of the Council and Deputy Leader of the Council. This authorisation was formally published in an officer delegated powers report which was exempt from call-in by scrutiny.

Legal services were outsourced within a very short timescale – only 4 months after the proposal first appeared on the One Barnet Programme highlight report in December 2011.

Leader of the Barnet Labour Group, Cllr Alison Moore said: “The current legal and governance service is clearly not fit for purpose, but it was the Leader of the Council who proposed outsourcing legal services in the first place, who authorised the final detailed agreement with Harrow Council, and who proposed and has presided over the introduction of the council’s new committee system.

“In addition, the Chief Executive needs to answer for the failure to ensure that there was sufficient in-house legally qualified oversight of the outsourced legal service, and the failure to ensure that councillors and the council were provided with correct legal advice.

“In my view both should go, but the buck has to stop with the Leader, so we have called an extraordinary council meeting to debate this issue - it is too important to be left to a single committee and all councillors should have an input into the way forward.”

“So long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him -- pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?”

Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

Readers, take note.

The terms of reference of this 'review' were as follows:

• Consider the process of decision-making in relation to highways expenditure withinBarnet Council in the light of the issues raised in the email from Cllr Alison Moore toGrant Thornton LLP of 30th May.

• Advise on whether that decision-making has been undertaken lawfully and inaccordance with the Council’s constitution.

• If the advice is that the decision-making process has in any way been unlawful or abreach of the Council’s constitution has occurred, advise on the steps which shouldnow be taken by the Council as a result of this.

You can see the rather limited findings of this 'review' here:

The minimal response of the limited findings, in fact, is frankly rather puzzling, considering the length of time it took to produce.

It is up to the Labour group to respond to the first seven points, but what is of real interest begins here, at Point 8, in which the allegation was:

8. The allocations disproportionately benefitedthe Cabinet Member’s own ward with thehighest allocation of resources over the year,and the second highest number of schemesfor the additional funding

Response:

The programme is based on priorityneed following technical inspectionof the highway. Detailed evidencecan be provided of the inspectionprocess. It is worth pointing out thatroads can deteriorate betweenannual inspections and thereforemay have to be prioritised.

Bsed on priority need?

This is simply not true. Not if you define the word 'need', in this context, as one objectively assessed and free from political or personal consideration, that is.

One of the Freedom of Information responses to requests made by Mrs Angry was for copies of correspondence between Dean Cohen and highways officers in regard to Golders Green ward over the previous two years.

Despite some emails having been deleted, there were enough supplied in the response to prove that Cllr Cohen was in the habit of directly contacting officers and making strong representations about his residents perceived needs - in his own area of the ward.

Let us remind everyone that one road alone in this area, ie Princes Park Avenue, had in two years more than some opposition held wards were allocated in entirety - the wards represented by the Labour leader, and the Libdem leader, for example.

This disproportionate expenditure, we are invited to believe, was merely because there was a greater need in the Environment member's ward. Need of what, exactly? Road and pavement repairs, or votes?

Ah, but Mrs Angry, if there was need in any other ward, any other Labour or Libdem ward, that is, then those councillors should have asked for pavements to be repaired, and their roads to be mended.

Erm: but they did, and nothing happened.

Compare this reluctance to carry out basic, essential maintenance and renewal work with the accommodation expected by Councillor Cohen from his officers in regard to his own ward ...

Don't take Mrs Angry's word for it, read the damn emails in the FOI response.

They're all published on the council's website, you know, FOIs, in line with the Chief Operating Officer's much vaunted declaration that the default mode of Barnet Council is 'open government'.

Ah. Oh ...

Of course Mrs Angry can't quite find the link to the publication of the rather revealing correspondence response. How odd. Shurely some mistake?

But the correspondence is fascinating: read the emails, for example, between Councillor Cohen and Steve Holdaway, Associate Director Highways for Capita.

Ah, yes: Capita. Awfully obliging, is their Mr Holdaway, in regard to Golders Green ward.

There appears to be an easy process of communication between our Dean, and Steve, in fact. Hi Steve!

This was on the 27th April, ie the period just before the election, when there seemed to be a flurry of activity, and a concerted effort to get jobs done.

Steve's response, first thing next day:

Plenty of reminders for officers, from the Cabinet member for Environment, should they be slow to respond.

7th May, for example: 'This was the issues I was referring to in my earlier telephone conversation', is a typically ungrammatical response from our councillor, to another hapless highways employee.

The officer promises to attend to it by the next day. Oh dear: by the 9th, Councillor Cohen is obliged to point out a couple of repairs that have, tut tut, still not been done.

Rather amusing is the email 'accidentally' sent to Cohen by our man from Capita, piously suggesting they should thank him for his interest:

The territory of Princes Park Avenue, in Councillor Cohen's ward, is clearly one fraught with almost unimaginable terrors and hidden danger for those daring to walk its length and breadth: this must be why it is so expensive to maintain.

Take for example the horrifying occurrence of a damaged kerb, hastily attended to in March by the council's emergency response team, after this shocking matter was raised by Cllr Cohen.

Admire the logistical coordination of Dean Cohen's strategy for immediate action, a military style policy of zero tolerance of cracked or chipped paving stones. Zero tolerance in PPA, that is.

In January, residents report an alarming case, a 'matter of urgency' of not one, but two cracks in the new paving: cracks and chips, in fact.

After intervention by Cohen, officers immediately agreed to replace the slabs.

And anyway: pavements are more important than support for disabled children and their parents, aren't they?

Let's say it again: such tender care of the 'needs' of one area of his own ward, the area in which he himself resides, came at a cost, in the pre-election year, of a staggering £1 million, and clearly was paid for by the lack of expenditure in less favoured, Labour voting wards.

And the pattern of expenditure shows quite unequivocably that residents of Labour held wards are not extended the same privileges as the residents of Conservative held wards: there is effectively a system of financial apartheid in the way expenditure is distributed.

Let's return to the council's commissioned review,and Labour's allegation regarding this issue

10. Over the last 4 years the profile of spendappears to be significantly more inadministration held wards compared withopposition held wards (see attached officerbriefing note).

Response:

This is a way of analysing the spend,however, it has not been allocatedon a ward basis as clearly roads arenot always contained within wardboundaries.

Meh, in other words. This is a way of analysing the spend says the review, dismissively... away? No, this is the only way, based on clear evidence.

To try to divert attention from this glaringly obvious truth, the review attempts to distract by fatuously claiming the disproportionate expenditure is due to roads not being contained within ward boundaries.

I think you will find that Princes Park Avenue is contained within the boundary of Golders Green Ward, and yet received, let us say it again, more in two years than many opposition held wards were given in that period for their entire budgets.

Another point raised by Labour:

15. 2013/14 was an election year, and many ofthe schemes were progressed very close tothe local elections.

Response:

• Consider the process of decision-making in relation to highways expenditure within
Barnet Council in the light of the issues raised in the email from Cllr Alison Moore to
Grant Thornton LLP of 30th May.

• Advise on whether that decision-making has been undertaken lawfully and in
accordance with the Council’s constitution.

• If the advice is that the decision-making process has in any way been unlawful or a
breach of the Council’s constitution has occurred, advise on the steps which should
now be taken by the Council as a result of this.

8. The allocations disproportionately benefited
the Cabinet Member’s own ward with the
highest allocation of resources over the year,
and the second highest number of schemes
for the additional funding

The programme is based on priority
need following technical inspection
of the highway. Detailed evidence
can be provided of the inspection
process. It is worth pointing out that
roads can deteriorate between
annual inspections and therefore
may have to be prioritised.

10. Over the last 4 years the profile of spend
appears to be significantly more in
administration held wards compared with
opposition held wards (see attached officer
briefing note).

This is a way of analysing the spend,
however, it has not been allocated
on a ward basis as clearly roads are
not always contained within ward
boundaries.

15. 2013/14 was an election year, and many of
the schemes were progressed very close to
the local elections.