Saturday joke: Something for the weekend, Councillor?

Yes: ok, this is really a Friday joke, slightly belated .... but still, as the weekend rolls on, Mrs Angry thinks perhaps it would be timely to offer some discreet advice on, shall we say, precautionary measures, for certain of our Tory councillors, here in Broken Barnet, about to dabble in the heady temptations of the One Barnet House of Fun.

Indeed Mrs Angry would urge all responsible Tory councillors to consider the need to protect themselves from the unwanted consequences of such dalliance, and return to the bosom of their loving partners, the electors and taxpayers of Broken Barnet. 

Take the time, in the next couple of days, to imagine, you panting, lubricious Tory councillors, if you will, the shame you will feel, in May 2014, having succumbed to the empty promises of the House of Fun, and spent all our inheritance on a few jaded evenings on the sofa with the corporate whores from Capita, or BT.

Imagine the breaking, tragic voice of Mr Andrew 'Black Hole' Travers, the once and future 'interim' CEO, and 'interim' Presiding Officer, as he announces the results of the election, and lists the names of the fallen ...

Oh ... yes, Mrs Angry has been looking at the lists of marginal Tory wards, you see, and with the benefit of her widely acclaimed psychic powers, is now able to predict the loss, in a post One Barnet world, of the following seats:

Brunswick Park: 

Goodbye, Toyah Wilcox lookalike, Councillor Lisa Rutter. You enjoyed being Mayor, though, didn't you? Nice hats. Longest goodbye speech in the history of Hendon Town Hall. Not much else to say. Came to the Barnet Alliance debate on One Barnet, last week, which earns you some brownie points. Will it save you? Don't think so.

So long, Councillor Andreas Tambourides: going to miss chairing that licensing committee, aren't you? - the one that hardly ever meets, but pays £15,333 a year. No more complaints to the Standards Board, of course: won't have to keep any standards at all, in fact, after May 2014.

Your charm, diplomacy, and political flair will be sadly missed. 

Not by Mrs Angry, though.

Moving on.

Coppetts:

Oh dear: this is genuinely a shame - a fond farewell to the lovely Cllr Kate Salinger, unless her personal popularity, and courage in the face of disgraceful bullying by her Tory colleagues, saves her from the anti Tory backlash that will ensue in the ward where the closure of Friern Barnet library has caused so much hostility - and national publicity. As Deputy Mayor, Kate has distanced herself from any political controversies, but this may not help her chances of re election.

East Barnet:

Another Tambourides bites the dust - Andreas' wife Joanna. 

Yes: the loss of another Barnet taxpayers funded allowance for the Tambo household: and no more trips to Cyprus, to protest about the invasion, at lunch, dinner and probably breakfast too: those annual trips so popular with Barnet politicians, and where, as you always remind us in the declarations, you share a room with your husband - well done. Commendable loyalty. And there'll be lots more quality time to spend together, after May 2014.

Goodbye to Barry Evangeli, too. Or Barry Leventis, as he is known on London Greek Radio.

Mrs Angry is informed that Leventis means 'good looking'. On the radio, that must mean.

No more doggy bags of biscuits from the Town Hall buffets for Cllr Evangeli, sadly.

Oh dear: here comes the most crushing loss of all, though, when East Barnet becomes a Labour ward ...

Yes: Councillor Robert Rams will be out on his ear, in 2014. 

Stop laughing. 

What's that? Karma? Yep. What goes around, Robert. Do you want to know where you went wrong? Let's see. Let Mrs Angry count the ways.

Libraries. Libraries. Libraries. Never mess with libraries, if you are a councillor, in the London Borough of Broken Barnet. You messed with them, big time, and now you are going to pay the price. 

And museums. You shut our beautiful Church Farmhouse museum, and you emptied it of our local history collection, and then you sent it off to be flogged at auction, or gave it away.

You tried to shut Barnet Museum, but couldn't prove ownership.

You tried to shut Friern Barnet Library, but that doesn't belong to you either, and now we have reclaimed it. And at the next electoral auction, in 2014, we are going to put you up for sale: we don't expect many bids.

Golders Green:

An interesting one, this. Traditional loyalties to father and son councillors Melvin and Dean Cohen may well be constrained for a combination of factors: the catastrophic parking scheme has had a real impact on local trade, and also on residents in the local community.

The council's rather puzzling failure to support a bid for a much needed Jewish girls' school on the former Hendon FC ground, in favour of a lower bid from the tenant, has upset many local families. 

New boy Councillor Reuben Thompstone, the pompous chair of the Stalinist run Finchley and Golders Green Residents Forum, will have won himself few fans in the ward by his iron fisted repression of any free debate at meetings. 

Finchley Church End:

These councillors may not as be as comfortably placed as they think, either: Cllr Old does at least show his face at the Forums - Cllr Eva Greenspan, however, does not attend them, and Cllr Daniel Thomas once told Mrs Angry himself that he sees no need to bother. Both councillors may have made a miscalculation as to the strength of their support amongst local voters, and John Thomas' pro One Barnet pronouncements in the local press will have done nothing to endear him to the electorate.

Hale:

Mrs Angry, an Edgware girl, and former resident of Hale ward, can't wait to wave goodbye to two of the councillors here: yes, goodbye and good riddance, to the remarkably unpleasant Tom Davey, who has introduced a new morally judgemental housing allocation policy. Remember his sneering observation: 'you can't help those who won't help themselves'. Very keen on advocating aspiration to the undeserving poor, is Tom. 

Mrs Angry imagines that the loss of his council seat will serve as a useful lesson, and encourage Mr Davey in his own life's ambitions and aspirations.


The other candidate we will not be awfully sad to see disappear is Councillor Brian Gordon.

Gordon is the one who thinks it is amusing to dress up, black up, and rap to a captive audience of oaps, in the guise of Nelson Mandela ... 

He also once referred to residents lobbying a council meeting discussing the Pinkham Way incinerator as 'rabble', and was consequently censured by the Mayor. 

The mob always has the last word, Cllr Gordon, and if you insult the people who pay your allowance, don't be surprised if they throw you out of office.

Also councillor for Hale is Hugh Rayner. He is a jovial enough chap: ex army, no nonsense, usually, but happy enough to endorse the disastrous nonsense of One Barnet, despite the questions he has himself raised recently in committees. 

Hendon:

Two of the three Tory councillors here will disappear with no tears from Mrs Angry: Maureen Braun, for a start, who has a habit of falling asleep in meetings - although she has recently woken up and remembered where she lives, according to a lately modified entry on the register of interests, which is rather amusing. 

Farewell too to former Mayor Anthony Finn, who in the emails leaked this week remarked to colleague Sury Khatri, when he pointed out to Hendon MP that there is no mandate for One Barnet - 'ENOUGH ... Please can we concentrate our efforts on fighting our opponents not ourselves' ... 

Cllr Finn, who are your opponents? The residents of this borough? Your loyalty should be to the people you represent, not the party to which you belong, and the failure to understand this will be the reason you are thrown out of your seat, in 2014. 

Bye bye.

And what about Mark Shooter? Mrs Angry likes Mark, and not just because he is the only Tory councillor who has ever bought her a glass of wine in the Greyhound. He is a good guy. He stood for leader, and opposed One Barnet. He shut up, though, then, and kept his head down. This was regrettable. 

Let's see what the voters of Hendon make of that.

High Barnet:

This is a ward which is very likely to turn to Labour: an area which has had significant Libdem support, due in no small part to the personal popularity former councillor Duncan Mc Donald, but clearly in this post coalition world, former Libdem supporters are likely to switch to Labour. Mrs Angry suspects that we will see the loss of dip dyed councillors Wendy Prentice and Bridget Perry: and oh dear, will it be the end of a short but glittering career for Cllr David 'Goldenarse' Longstaff? 

A shame, in fact, as David is a nice enough man, and, luckily for Mrs Angry, one with a robust sense of humour. He has made the effort to try to engage in debate with critics of One Barnet but he has not, as yet, publicly come out against the reckless folly which he must know it to be. He will pay the price of silence, therefore, Mrs Angry suspects.

Mill Hill:

This is another ward which has traditionally has some Libdem support: not any more ... Mrs Angry does not need to explain why, does she? And so the inevitable One Barnet backlash, if backed with some well chosen Labour candidates, could see the end of one of Mrs Angry's council pin ups: handlebar moustachioed lady pleaser Cllr John Hart, (below) the waivering new One Barnet sceptic Sury Khatri, and then - oh dear, our current Mayor, Brian Schama.

Well, Councillor Schama: Mrs Angry is not very pleased with you, as you know, after failing to demand an apology from the odious Brian Coleman when he insulted the residents in the public gallery, yes, the 'sad, bad, mad and a couple of old hags'  ...  and then informing those of us who protested that we must show YOU respect ... Respect? No. I don't think so. 

Thank you, and goodbye. 

Revenge of the old hags, dear Brian.

Underhill:

The ward which was the home of Barnet FC, now forced out of the borough, in a move which is horribly symbolic of everything wrong with this borough, a culture of defeat inculcated by so many years of cynical Tory mismanagement.  

There are two Tory councillors, Andrew Strongolou, and Rowan Turner. Neither have exactly impressed Mrs Angry with their efforts since 2010. Both are young and inexperienced councillors whose largely silent presence in meetings goes unnoticed. Do they deserve to be re elected? Not in Mrs Angry's view.

So: a large number of Tory councillors with something to think about, this weekend. 

In a couple of weeks or so, the Cabinet will be asked to vote to approve the first of the One Barnet packages. 

Will they simply do what they are expected to, the turkeys, voting for Christmas? Or will they smell the blood ready to be spilt, and turn on the farmer and his men, waiting by the butcher's van? 

It's time for the Tory group in Barnet to wake up, face reality, and decide whether they want a fighting chance of being re elected in 2014.

Local elections are often won and lost, rightly or not, on the battlefield of national political issues. By May 2014, the huge unpopularity of government policies on the NHS, welfare 'reform', the economy: all this will have already encouraged voters to be less than well disposed to a Conservative council: add to that background the disastrous record of the Barnet Tory administration, the parking fiasco, the library story - and then the impact of One Barnet, a newly implemented privatisation of almost all council services ... there is no doubt that the electors of Broken Barnet will decide the time has come for a change, and punish the councillors they blame for the mess we are in. 

Mrs Angry advises the Tory councillors to be very careful, in the weeks ahead. Consider the awful fate that awaits you, should you continue to keep quiet about the concerns we know you all have. You must now put pressure on the leader and Cabinet members, collectively or individually, to call a halt to the One Barnet process. Already there is one legal challenge begun to instigate a judicial review: others will inevitably follow - they must, because what you are proposing to do is injust, irrational, and absolutely without a mandate from the people you represent.

You probably don't care about the impact on residents, in the way that you should but you undoubtedly do care about the impact on your own electoral future ... turn your backs, then, on the One Barnet House of Fun, councillors - walk on by ... Pull yourselves together, find some courage - and do the right thing.

*Update:

Please note this message if you are going to the Billion Pound Gamble film screening tomorrow:

URGENT: CHANGE OF VENUE -  

Billion Pound Gamble will now be screened tomorrow, Monday 19th November - yes, thank you Baarnett - in the Palace of Westminster Committee Room 12. Same time: 6.30 for a 7 pm start. Directions: Please go to the Cromwell Road Entrance. There will be people in the Central Lobby (house of Commons) to direct you to Committee Room 12. If you someone asks you where you are going you should say “you are going to see the Billion Pound Gamble Film in Committee Room 12.” There will be security checks, so make sure you get there early.