The Last Betrayal, or - the breaking of West Hendon, and the making of a latter day myth: 'sink estates' ...

Left by a resident of West Hendon, on moving out of a compulsorily purchased home

I've lost count, now, of the number of posts I've written about West Hendon, and the eviction of a community from the place they call home, down there, by the waterfront, on the edge of the Welsh Harp.

The residents of West Hendon call it home: or they did, but the local Tory councillors see the place where they live as not a community, but a business opportunity, and under the pretext of 'regeneration', and despite a promise to residents of a better housing on the same site, handed the publicly owned land to Barratt London for a private, luxury high rise property development.

The land was worth £12 million, but was given to developers for £3, so as to allow them to maximise profits on their investment, conservatively estimated last year at a mere £92 million.

And now the monstrous new towers are growing higher, and higher, in West Hendon, violating the skyline of north London for miles around, while residents must watch their estate demolished, piece by piece, as they remain, trapped in the middle of a building site, waiting to be removed, 'decanted' and dispossessed of their homes, driven out of West Hendon, probably out of Barnet, and very possibly out of London. 

Is that 'regeneration'? 

Only if you see a piece of land as a commodity, an empty space; bereft of social value, and history, inconveniently occupied by people whose lives are to you nothing more than a matter of indifference, and worse: a barrier to the possibilities of profit.

And this is, after all, then, the story of West Hendon, and now the story of Tory London, and a housing crisis created by arrant greed, in the face of real and desperate need, by too many, for access to truly affordable, decent housing.

Tory housing policy in London, a subject to be fought over by aspiring GLA members, and mayoral candidates, is made manifest, here in West Hendon. 

The promise of 'regeneration' is a lie. It means redevelopment, and new homes for the rich. It means: the people who live there now will not live there in the future. 

But Londoners are beginning to understand that this lie is indeed just that: that numerous former estates are being cleared, demolished and redeveloped, and overseas buyers flocking to buy up the housing that ordinary residents of the capital can only dream about. High profile examples like Heygate loom large in public consciousness now, and yes: the game is up, but nothing must come before the enormous profit still to be had for the big time players involved and on the look out for more and more potential sources of speculative development. 

So there is now a need for a change in tactics: a gearing up of the political engineering that drives, or at least enables, this massively profitable business. As always, what is tried in Tory Broken Barnet is proof enough for the rest: what worked in West Hendon will do for the rest of London, and elsewhere: the demonisation of social housing, and the destruction of council estates, on the pretext of problems that do not exist, or at least not on the scale some would have you believe.

Yes: we are talking about 'sink estates', a term readopted with such glee by David Cameron, in his recent declarations about housing, in the new Tory war on the very idea of social housing; an approach which sits comfortably with mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith's pronouncements in a revealing interview  with the Camden New Journal:

And when asked about the potential loss of social housing, Mr Goldsmith said London’s percentage of social housing is unusually high, and that the balance needed to be “rejigged” in order to increase the amount of homes available for “those in the middle”.

So 'sink estates', then: knock them down, and the social deprivation which Tories think are synonymous with such developments, will just disappear, will it? Well: of course it is progress, perhaps, that they at least seem to acknowledge that there is significant social deprivation to address, but: no. It won't. Buildings don't create poverty. Ah: well then, what about things like ... crime? We all know that all council estates are rife with criminal behaviour, and, yes, that should scare the rest of us into thinking a Tory government is quite right to knock them down, with no further delay: ghettoes to be cleared, and sanitised: socially cleansed.

This issue was the subject of some reporting and debate on the London section of the last but one episode of the BBC Sunday Politics show. And guess which Tory MP was invited along to speak in defence of the new Tory housing proposals, and answer the question - is it the architecture, the building, or the people who live in it that is the 'problem' ? (You can see the programme here, the London section about 38 minutes in ...)

Local MP, member for Hendon, Matthew Offord. 

Offord explained in a seamless flow of virtually unchallenged assertions that in his constituency he has not one but two 'sink estates', that is to say, West Hendon, and Grahame Park. 

He spoke of West Hendon in particular, 'we're rebuilding that', regenerating it: it had become 'a success story in itself', thanks to Barnet Council, the Mayor and the government - only later did he make a general reference to Barnet working with the private sector, such as Barratts.

He referred to Grahame Park, which he said had been built 'just after the war'. He boasted of taking Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne there, and thought this might have influenced their policy making. Really? Did you take them to West Hendon?

In fact Grahame Park was not built 'just after the war', but in the 1970s, by a Tory council - but still, who needs to quibble about the facts, on the BBC, these days? And now followed some really outrageous claims by Offord, that really did demand a robust challenge, but one which unfortunately was not forthcoming:

These estates, he claimed now, are 'very much no-go places at night ...', offering in evidence of this that local police say it is 'very difficult there to maintain and enforce the law ...'

An extraordinary remark, and indeed a pretty extraordinary sequence of assertions, made smoothly, as if irrefutable fact, and accepted without question. 

No-go areas? Mrs Angry made a note, in red, and thought this was something that really did need investigating. When had the mean streets of Broken Barnet become so dangerous that our police officers were struggling to exercise the rule of law, in certain areas of the borough?

Offord continued blithely with his litany of woe, delivered deadpan, still unchecked: yes, the 'walkways' and the 'physical attributes' of these places are the problem.

Walkways? What 'physical attributes'? No one asked him to elaborate. 

Neil Coyle, the Labour MP for Bermondsey & Southwark, tried to bring some sort of human perspective to the discussion by reminding us the debate was about people's homes. 

West Hendon resident Leigh, who has lived on a sink estate, without realising it, for more than 40 years

This is never a good line to follow with Conservatives, of course. A house, for a Tory politician, in 2016, is not a home, if it is defined as social housing.

And so we saw, as the debate turned to the question of 'tenancies for life'. Offord had strong views on this.

The big issue here, he said is just that, 'people living in properties (or livin', as he says, in that curiously archaic accent he has - to match the curiously archaic nature of his black and white political vision - talking out of the side of his mouth, like a chippy, but aspirational costermonger in a 1950s Ealing comedy, ... some sayin' well, they should be able to live there for life ... '

Now he went further: stating he was indeed happy with the five year limit on tenancies, he then declared, absurdly:

'No one has a right, even in the private sector, those of us that own our own properties ... we cannot guarantee, even ourselves who have mortgages, that we are going to live in that property for the rest of our lives ...'

Tim Donovan asked Offord now if he accepted that if you knock down these estates, what you put in its place, both in its nature of tenure, and the number of properties, will never be matched, which means people will be displaced. 

Offord thought that you never can, because using private sector capital 'means you are going to have to sell some of those properties privately ...'

Some of these properties. All of these properties, in effect, with at best a token offer from the profiteering developers of a minimal amount of (non) affordable housing.

Look at the history of West Hendon: a 'regeneration' sold to residents on the basis of doing exactly what is looked on now as out of the question - improving the quality of life, for their families, giving them new homes, in their own community. Now they find themselves evicted, and in some cases, homeless, in order to make way for luxury accommodation, the majority of which, so far is reported to have been sold to wealthy overseas investors.

Let's ask the question again: is this regeneration?

Or is it, yes: social cleansing? 

Offord was asked about that.  He said he found the term 'quite offensive'.

'We're actually trying to socially improve people's lives, not only through the quality of their housin', but also through their ability to access transport, to engage in the work process - maybe to live in parts of London they'd not considered before ...'

No: really. That is what he said. 

The feckless, ungrateful residents of West Hendon, you see, are having their lives 'socially improved', by their Tory council, which gave away the land they live on to private developers, and then informed tenants and leaseholders alike to clear off out of it, and don't come back: you can't come back. 

No right to return, no compulsory purchase offer to owner occupiers adequate enough to enable them to buy shared equity on the new luxury development. A few lucky secure tenants shoved into a grim building outside the footprint of the new development, with no view of the waterside, looking onto the grimy backyards of shut up shops on the Edgware Road, the rest kicked out into more temporary accommodation on other 'regeneration' estates, refusal of which made them homeless. A community destroyed, displaced, eradicated. Kerrching.

And it was a community. And it was not some 'sink estate', or any sort of high rise, dystopian, Brutalist monster, creating a latter day Dickensian style rookery of crime and social deprivation. If only the Tory council had maintained the estate, and not allowed it to fall into disrepair, it would be a perfectly nice place to live, even now. 

Local Labour Cllr Devra Kay and residents' representative Jasmin Parsons

Who wouldn't want to live in such a beautiful spot, overlooking the waters edge of the Welsh Harp? But beauty of location is now reserved for those who can pay a premium for it: and deliver profit into the hands of developers.

The West Hendon estate was built on a human scale, with low rise buildings, looking onto each other, with green spaces in and around it. The 'physical attributes' which their MP said had created a 'sink estate' had in fact done nothing of the sort. 

The beauty of the surrounding landscape, and the simple architecture of West Hendon created a community, rooted in generations of local families rehoused, in the sixties and seventies, in homes which afforded dignity, decent housing, and hope for a better future.

The green spaces that surrounded this estate included York Memorial Park, a place of totemic significance to the residents there - a mark of ownership, central to the local history: the idea of continuity, and community - an area left in commemoration of the many civilians who lost their lives, some of them still buried there, under the earth, below the wreckage of the war time bombing of 1941, and now annexed by the developers for maximum profits from their investment.

There was a low crime rate, in fact, on this estate, until the council moved in so called property guardians into vacant flats, according to the remaining long term residents, and as for 'no-go' areas ...?

Well, then: Mrs Angry thought she would check this with the local police, who were more than happy to put the record straight.

A representative of the borough commander immediately refuted the idea that there were 'no go' areas in Barnet. 

And then the senior officer in charge of policing for this part of the borough contacted her to say that in all the years he has served in Barnet, he has not known of anywhere in the borough that is 'no-go' ... day or night.

And he has kindly invited Mrs Angry on a 'ride along' tour with the police in West Hendon, to see for herself how they fulfil their duties on the estate and elsewhere (plus a visit to the station to meet him, and inspect the custody suite in Colindale, although hopefully not for an overnight stay, like one of our former Tory councillors ...)

Couldn't be clearer, could it? Offord's allegations were apparently ... without any basis. Got that?

No no-go areas.

Quelle surprise.

In fact, in Mrs Angry's view, for an MP to make such a remark is utterly unfair to the local police, who work so hard to do such a difficult job, and maintain peaceful community relations, in the context of increasing budget restraints.  

And it is insulting to the residents of the West Hendon estate, the vast majority of whom are not in need of Matthew Offord's programme of 'social improvement', but are already perfectly familiar with the work process, and keen to remain in their own community, rather than be introduced to the impossible task of finding any alternative accommodation in 'parts of London they hadn't considered before' - in a capital city gripped by a rapidly increasing housing crisis.

Offord's remarks have caused fury amongst many residents who saw the programme: but he has nothing much to lose politically in his own backyard, by what he said. There are few Tory voters, on that estate now. 

There were some once, amongst the tenants who were taken in by another version of mythology, that is to say, the 'aspiration' encouraged by Margaret Thatcher, to join the property ladder, and buy their own council homes: the leaseholders, who were handed a £10,000 bill for work the council needed doing before they knocked down their homes, and which the leaseholders furiously rejected, saying if any work was necessary, it was clearly the responsibility of Barnet Council ...

These people were betrayed by Thatcher's heirs in Barnet, on the council, and in Parliament, not just over the demands for money, but at the point of compulsory purchase of their hard earned properties.

 When the council's valuers rated their properties, subject to CPO, at less than a level that would help them reach the shared equity point, who helped them? Who spoke for them, at the Housing Inquiry? Did their MP even attend the Inquiry? No.

The appointed representative from Sawyer Fielding, Dan Knowles, not only put their case but acted as an unpaid advocate for tenants on the estate, to defend residents interests: an honourable thing to do, and absolutely necessary in this case, when the council and developers were able to promote their arguments with the help of a highly experienced - and expensive - QC, and legal team.

There is no doubt that the belatedly improved offers for leaseholders, and better offers of rehousing for tenants, were achieved only by the efforts of people like Dan Knowles, the local Labour councillors, and, let us not forget, the limitless determination, courage and strength of residents' representatives like Jasmin Parsons. 

Oh, and all the attention generated by this story, locally, here and elsewhere and nationally, and all the negative PR blown back in the faces of the developers.

It should also be remembered that residents did ask their MP for help, and in desperation, even tried to lobby him at a constituents' meeting in a church hall, in their own ward: he hid from them, refused to speak to representatives, and then demanded a police escort home. 

Luckily, it seems, the forecourt of St Matthias' church, West Hendon, is not in one of those 'no-go' areas, where policemen fear to tread. 

Some Tory MPs apparently feel differently.

The constituents who had tried to speak to him were, Offord told a local reporter, a 'rag tag bunch' who only wanted to 'cause trouble'.

Next month sees the broadcast of a BBC documentary programme that has been made about the story of West Hendon, from the perspective of these 'rag tag' residents: the real history of West Hendon, in contrast to the mythological version preferred by Tory politicians, and their commercial partners.

The myth of the 'sink estate', and the smear campaign now directed at the very idea of social housing - this is a necessary part of the faux regeneration of London: that is to say, not a regeneration at all, but a commercial exploitation of easily accessible, bargain basement development sites, pimped to the private sector by willing Tory councils like Barnet, and a Conservative government obsessed with the demonisation of the working class, and the creation of a new, powerless underclass, easy to dehumanise, to decant and control, and reduce to nothing more than an unwanted residue, disposable and ... irrelevant.

A useful mythology then.

The truth, as with so many things, in Broken Barnet, is something else.

Turtle Soup, or: the last days of Matthew Offord, and the long slow death of Tory Hendon

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 Important 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 for 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 encouragement', 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 a 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.