The Oldest Profession

A few days ago, senior Tory Francis Maude suggested in an interview that the new coalition administration is more radical than than the government of Margaret Thatcher, and more daring, in that it is introducing hugely significant policies much earlier than is traditionally considered acceptable.

I don't think that you can disagree with that. In fact, you might almost be forgiven for becoming slightly misty eyed and nostalgic for the good old days of Maggie Maggie Maggie, Out Out Out, and all that stuff. Ok, she brought us mass unemployment, the poll tax, the large scale destruction of the mining industry, the abandonment of our industrial base, the Falklands War and oh, so much more, but look what we are having thrown at us now ...

Like post revolutionary France we are becoming victims of a reign of terror, with a newly installed administration heady with bloodlust, and lining up victims on an almost random basis. The NHS, our schools, the welfare system, pensions, taxation: off with their heads - nothing and no one is safe. Every aspect of our lives is going to be affected, and all under the guise of revolutionary fervour, the empowerment of the people; the 'Big Society'.

And who is going to suffer from the consequences of all this mindless destruction? Not the privileged elite who have taken power: the Philippe Egalites of the coalition: Poshboy, the Chancellor, and their creature Nick Clegg; all of them indisputably more High Society than Big Society. Not one of this triumvirate would know what it is like to have to claim any sort of benefit, or live in a high rise flat in a run down council estate, or send their child to a crap school, or struggle to exist on a basic pension. Sacrifices have to be made in these hard times, as we are told, but not by the people bringing us this grim news, you may have noticed, both nationally and here in Broken Barnet.

The proposed policies which are daily being dangled in front of us, in cheery new announcements from the government, are often horrifyingly extreme in their ambition and yet peculiarly short on detail, and seem more like reckless vandalism than part of a carefully thought out strategy. Perhaps a better analogy than revolutionary leaders, in fact, would be a class of nursery school kids let loose in a sweet shop, grabbing anything and everything within reach and knocking it on the floor in the scrabble to avail themselves of the opportunity.

When you watch David Cameron now he still seems oddly ill at ease in his new role as PM, almost as if he still needs convincing, along with the rest of us, that he is worthy of the responsibility. During the election period, the televised debates did great harm to his image because they showed what a curiously two dimensional character he is: the Flat Stanley of politics. He needed a partner in government to be anchored to, or he might just have floated away, up in to the sky. Nick Clegg is a similar flyweight and the ideal balancing act, therefore.

Nick Clegg. Oh dear.

I used to have respect for the Liberal Democrats.They were liberal in outlook, and believed in democracy - do you remember? But that was in the good old days, when they had the luxury and privilege of holding the higher moral ground, because they were utterly unelectable. Then look what happened. They still weren't elected but the Tories put them in power anyway.

They say absolute power corrupts absolutely: the Libdems didn't wait for absolute power - just a sniff of it and they were gone. Dave seduced Nick, and Nick played hard to get just long enough to make Dave absolutely gagging for it. And then Nick brought his friends to the party too. One third of all Libdems MPs now have ministerial jobs, with all the perks and financial rewards that brings, something they could only ever have dreamed of without their Tory sugar daddies helping them out.

You expect the Tories to be ruthless and despicable: that's their traditional role. One might have hoped, however, not to see the the Libdems act like whores, and support the exploitation of the country by a party whose political and philosophical views are so divergent from their own. Pre election, Nick Clegg laughed at the idea of Cameron's Big Society: who's laughing now? Not me.

I don't believe that this Coalition government is supported by the ordinary, decent members and supporters of the Liberal Democrat party. I don't believe that the well respected Libdem councillors here in this borough, or anywhere in the country, who have spent their political careers fighting for a set of values that have been thrown aside so contemptuously by their leadership, are happy at the humiliating position in which they have been placed. But it's up to them now: only they can rescue their party from a life of shame. They have to have the courage to exert pressure on the leadership to withdraw from a government which may have a hugely destructive impact on our society.

If the coalition government were to fail, and and there was need of another general election, just think of the consequences in this area. Alright, we may be stuck with the bunch of self serving, gutless Tories running our council, but their more loopy ideas will have to be held in check during an election period. Thanks to the fall out from Allowancegate, the three local Tory MPs may well lose their seats, and of course nationally, fears over the radical proposals so hastily unveiled by a keen new government may well frighten the electorate leftwards to a new Labour government, with a nice new boy or girl in charge.

So come on, you Libdems: put a stop to the betrayal and exploitation of your ideals: teach your party leadership some self respect, throw out the parliamentary pimps, and save us all from a fate worse than death.

All Quiet on the West Finchley Front

Listen!

An eerie silence has fallen over the neighbourhood, broken only by the sound of Tory party canvassers tiptoing past our house, in an attempt to dodge the bullets. Well, in truth, as the saying goes, I have no gun: but I can spit.


For five nights now, I have actually been able to sleep in my own bed, without fear of being woken up by the noise of a gang of louts next door at one, two, three in the morning. What bliss. Of course I do miss the Ikea camp bed in the kitchen, and the strangely hypnotic sound of the fridge and the boiler, and worrying about the thing that bangs on the living room door, and wondering whether it wanders about downstairs at night, and the nightmares and sleepless nights worrying about what on earth we are going to do - oh and the occasional sound of the Smiths and their yob friends vomiting out of their kitchen window.


The Angry cat is very happy to be allowed back to sleep once more in his rightful place on top of the pile of ironing in the kitchen and is also enjoying nipping over to the Smith's 'garden' to leave his own fragrant token of appreciation, with my blessing. As for the 'parting gift' thoughtfully left for us by the Sniths in the middle of the night, this is being retained for forensic inspection by the local CID (Crap on the neighbours' doorstep Investigation Department).It will then be forwarded to a more appropriate recipient, with our good wishes.


Mr Angry has at last today donned protective clothing, safety goggles, and a pair of oven gloves and sat down to read this blog in the privacy of the dining room. From the strange noises which could be heard from behind the closed door it was impossible to distinguish whether or not he was laughing or crying.


The Angry son and daughter don't quite believe it is all over: actually, nor do their parents, and of course it may not be, if Barnet decides, as it has repeatedly stated, that it will not rule out placing another family with the outrageously behaved owners of the neighbouring property. So far the owners have not shown up at the house. I would like to think that they are too ashamed, but I doubt it.


I think it will take weeks, if not months, before we actually stop twitching and jumping at every sound in the street, thinking the Smiths have rolled up again in their car, slamming the car doors, the front door, constantly in and out, running about the house yelling abuse at each other, fighting, swearing, Mrs Smith threatening her kids with a whack, screaming at them, the boys screaming abuse back at her. Wonder what her new neighbours make of them all? Of course, bearing in mind the nature of the place they have gone to, it may well be that Tracey Smith is ringing up to complain about the people next door. Wouldn't that be amusing?


I don't think we will ever be the same family we were before all this started. It just went on too long, and had too profound an impact. I bitterly regret the effect this has had on all of us but particularly on my children's lives and I can't forgive those responsible for creating and prolonging the situation. The fact that some of them are standing for election as Conservative party candidates this coming week is just too much, and if this blog has persuaded just one person not to vote for these fools it will have been worth it.


Someone has asked if Mrs Angry will now become more temperate. Funny. Maybe. But not yet, Mr S. There are a few things that need seeing to first.


I want compensation from Barnet Council for all the distress the last sixteen months has caused us, and the lasting damage not just to us, but to the value of our home.


I want Barnet to be forced to acknowledge the need for a proper boroughwide antisocial behaviour policy, put into practice by a fully resourced and specifically designated team of officers, and effective procedures for identifying and reporting ASB.


I suggest that there needs to be a review of the way in which the council works, or fails to work, with the police in combating ASB, and improved working practices which will help support the victims of such behaviour rather than the perpetrators. The emergency police response can be improved by as, suggested in a recent report, an improved system of identifying and prioritising calls from the victims of long running ASB cases, and some way of redistributing calls to SNTeams off duty is necessary too.


Barnet Council has already admitted messing up the complaint we made to them in regard to our situation, and the way it was being handled: this 'mess up' unnecessarily and severely prolonged the distress we endured and it seems evident that a review of the way in which they deal with complaints is urgently needed. Also evident is that our experience of the mishandling of Freedom of Information Requests is not in any way unique and appears to be symptomatic of a disturbingly inefficient management of data and information, to put it politely, and don't you agree, DCMD? Let's hope that a new administration, or perhaps the Information Commissioner, will order a full review of this issue too.

It's hard to explain how it feels right now to be liberated at last from the tyranny of the Smiths and their hangers on. I think we are still in a state of shock: or maybe post traumatic stress disorder.

A couple of years ago we were in Normandy, and visited the D Day landing beaches. and other WW2 sites, including a guilty trip to Caen, flattened by the efforts of Mr Angry senior and a Lancaster bomber, in order to aid the allied invasion. I was struck by the posters still displayed, so many years later, everywhere in the villages in the area, expressing gratitude to those who had freed them: 'Merci a nos liberateurs'. Well, I'm not comparing our experience to five years of Nazi occupation but boy can I sympathise with their long lasting sense of relief now.

Alors: merci encore a nos liberateurs, et 'va te faire foutre' aux autres ...

Et vive la resistance.

The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum

False alarm ... the Smiths are still there, and we are still here.

On Friday night the Smiths and their friends made such a racket even Mr Angry was considering sleeping downstairs. I really don't know how much longer we can put up with this uncertainty. Are they going or not?

We have heard absolutely nothing from Barnet Council, and this makes me suspect that the attempt to remove the Smiths to alternative accommodation is not going as planned.

Due to technical problems with the sequencing of blogs, I had to delete one so, hey ho, let's repeat the content here:

In this week's Hendon and Finchley Times, Mike Freer, Tory candidate for Finchley and Golders Green consituency and former leader of Barnet Council, is quoted thus:

'We need to ensure the voices of the great ignored are heard again. Those who work hard, pay their taxes and obey the law need to have a Government that supports them.'

Not going to argue with that, Mike. And we are hard working, pay our taxes and obey the law.

So why is it, when you were in charge of Barnet Council, you ignored us when we asked you to sort out the mess your council has landed us in, directly as a result of your administration's inept housing policy, your officers' totally inadequate response to what Barnet had now recognised as a long running and serious case of antisocial behaviour, and what your deputy chief executive has now admitted was your council's cock up of the complaint we were forced to make? Where was the support for us?

They are an odd lot, the Tories in Barnet. Completely out of synch with the sort of image David Cameron would like us to believe is the new face of the party: caring, sharing, the party of 'Compassionate Conservatism'. The Tories in Barnet are a bunch of mavericks, self obsessed individuals pursuing their own agenda rather than uniting in a coherent political force, and peculiarly retrospective in their brand of idealogy, harking back fondly to the good old days of Margaret Thatcher, and the hardline stance she took on spending and on social issues: no such thing as society, remember?

In Barnet for some time now, the mavericks have been in control; the lunatics have been running the asylum, and no one has dared to challenge their authority. Mrs Angry, in her capacity as an amateur psychiatrist, would have to conclude that a study of the policies lately pursued by this administration strongly suggests that there seems to be some sort of collective psychological disorder, one might say displaying an almost sociopathic personality. What is the definition of a sociopath? An individual with ho ho, an antisocial personality disorder, someone unconcerned with the adverse consequences of one's activities, someone with no heart, no conscience, no remorse, only an extreme self regard, a narcissim which sets them apart from the rest of society. I don't think that it is any coincidence that the ordeal we have been through this past year and more has been facilitated by the actions and inactions of this clapped out administration: in fact I think the peculiar tolerance shown to antisocial behaviour is in some weird way a psychological projection of a bunch of individuals who share the same qualities as the perpetrators of ASB, albeit in a more socialized form. The philosophy is the same, whether you call it yob mentality or bang on about the freedom of the individual, it's all about caring about yourself more than anyone else and to hell with the consequences.

The behaviour of certain individual councillors within this administration, their egotism, self indulgence, and disregard for the well being and opinion of others is pretty apparent. But collectively is where the real damage is done: could it be that this sociopathic disregard for the well being of others is responsible for a lack of interest in social issues, in giving support to the less advantaged residents of the borough? The cut price housing policy and the attempts to remove wardens from sheltered accommodation are examples, I would say, of a political stance that has no time for compassion, or empathy, or a sense of duty to the less advantaged members of our society.

Politics, as we know only too well, is now less of a vocation and more of a career choice for a type of particularly hardnosed opportunist. And a spell as a local councillor provides a suitable start for many with larger political ambitions. This means that these administrations, as in Barnet, end up with a collection of politically ambitious but inexperienced members, often with no real interest in, or committment to, the local community, buffeted to a degree by a core of old timers, the councillors who have been entrenched in their party positions since the dawn of time, in some cases clinging on to their positions when, naming no names, they are clearly unable or unwilling to fulfill their duties. Additionally we have the phenomenon of the absentee landlord councillor, who effs off to another country whilst retaining his droit de seigneur (metaphorically speaking) over the people in his ward. In one example in the past year, Mike Freer had not even noticed that one of his councillors was living in Australia. Imagine that! Bit like when he didn't noticed £27 million pounds of our money had gone to live in Iceland, on a one way ticket.

Here's a question: which councillors would you like to send on a one way ticket to somewhere far far away? Post your answers in the ballot box, available for your convenience at all polling stations on the 6th May.