Church Farmhouse, Hendon: our history, heritage and open spaces at risk once more

Church Farmhouse, Church End, Hendon, January 2026

We didn't go on school trips, at my primary school, which was a shame, as any sort of escape from normal routine at St Vincent's would have been a welcome relief - (see my old posts about this institution, which are still the most revisited). No school trips - except one visit to a local museum, when I was ten, on the morning of my post eleven plus interview at the convent grammar school I would later attend. Before the trip I had thrown up, in a state of deep fear of the afternoon's interview, so nearly didn't make the museum visit.

A coach took us from the school in the Ridgeway, Mill Hill Village, a short distance to Church End, Hendon, and Church Farmhouse Museum, a local museum that my father would often take us to, at the weekend, to see an exhibition, and then let us run around in the park behind. 

This time the exhibition was a really special one: a display of illustrations by Beatrix Potter, so familiar to all children, and a marvel to see in real life, in the intimate environment of small rooms in the historic farmhouse, some of which were set up a period installations.

I peered in absolute wonder, my interview all forgotten, enchanted by the artwork in the cabinets, inches from my eyes, all the familiar characters of the Tales, seeing the tiny details and brushwork close up in a way one might never experience anywhere else. For many children in my class, this would be the only time they had ever been to any sort of museum, or exhibition, and their excitement was immeasurable.

When my children were small, they were taken to the Church Farmhouse too, and into the grounds, and into the park. 

The ancient boundary of the Farmhouse is shared with St Mary's churchyard

Fast forward, now, until 2011, when Barnet Tories were running the council. 

The materialist values of this group of neo-Thatcherite comedians dictated that, as former councillor Robert Rams put it, if residents wanted culture, they should get on the tube and go elsewhere to find it. Libraries were irrelevant, as 'everyone' had smart phones, so could be cut and shut, and flogged off. 

And then: another Tory councillor whispered in the ear of one my spies that they also had their eyes on the Church Farmhouse Museum. 

And so it came to pass. The Museum was shut down, and - unforgivably - the local history collection, much of it donated to the museum by trusting residents over decades, was packed up for sale. Richard Cornelius, the then Tory leader, had declared it all to be of 'no worth'. 

The idea of value being measurable in terms of anything other than as a commercial commodity was deeply antipathetic to the worldview of Barnet Tories, of course. 

As it turned out, the collection was auctioned off for a few thousand pounds, in a church hall somewhere: our irreplaceable local history disposed of at the drop of a hammer. 

The Farmhouse itself, a Grade II* listed building, with its distinctive tiled and gabled roof, was supposed to be sold too, despite sustained and widespread protest. Unsurprisingly, however, there were no buyers for a property so well protected by that other Tory bugbear - red tape and regulation, annoying heritage legislation. 

Rear view, the Greyhound to the left

In the end the council had to persuade Middlesex University to rent it. They did so with reluctance, but felt obliged to do the council a favour, as they had been so generous in their accommodation of the empire building university's expansion, which would eventually result in the notorious Hendon Hub plan, hatched in secret over a period of years, and which would have seen the two conservation areas in the oldest part of Hendon assaulted by the appearance of multi storey, monstrous buildings, supposedly for student accommodation. The Hub plan failed, and Middlesex gave up the Farmhouse.

Church End has been settled since at least since Saxon times, but archaeological digs in the area around the thousand year old church, and the Farmhouse, have produced Roman finds, for example a cremation urn, which was given to the Museum. Other Roman finds include roof tiles which may be indicative of a large villa: some have suggested even a temple. Intriguingly, there is also a possibility that a Roman road, the Viatores route 167, passed through the centre of this part of Hendon. 

High up on a hill in the heart of the oldest part of Church End sits a trio of historic properties, all related and sharing a common boundary: the Church, St Mary's, the seventeenth century Farmhouse, and in between these buildings, the Greyhound, a public house - formerly Church House, still owned by the church, and where a room was used for vestry meetings in the time of the notoriously autocratic and combative Reverend Dr Theodore Williams, for sixty years Rector of Hendon, whose wealth was inherited from the profits of slavery, but whose extravagance result in his serving a term in debtors' prison. The church's wooden boards displaying the Ten Commandments are in the this room in the pub, admonishing customers, which often include local councillors attending meetings at the Town Hall, around the corner. 

Time to declare an added personal interest in the history of this corner of Hendon: in a few months my new book, Charles Dickens and his Hidden Family History will be published (Pen & Sword, £25, pre orders coming soon ...) Part of the research for this book was focused on a previously unknown connection of a nearby large property with Dickens, and I also explore new evidence that associates some of his work with local people and places, including the former workhouse. It was already known that Dickens knew Hendon, visited it - and according to one local account had a particular fondness for the view from St Mary's churchyard, adjacent  to the back of the Farmhouse grounds. It is still possible to get some idea of what that view would have been, from the grounds - see below.

Detail from the cover of the forthcoming 'Charles Dickens and His Hidden Family History'

But there were other reasons for Dickens's familiarity with this part of Hendon. His close friend Mark Lemon, later editor of Punch, spent his childhood there - at Church Farmhouse, living with his grandparents and attending services led by the odious Reverend Williams. He wrote about his childhood in Hendon in his book Tom Moody's Tales, published in 1864.

Charles Dickens would have known all about Lemon's connection, when visiting Hendon, seen the Church Farmhouse's rather idiosyncratic design, which in my view might well have inspired the description of Mr Jarndyce's home, Bleak House, in the book of this name which he was writing at the time Dickens had his own personal link to this area. Bleak House stands "with its three peaks in the roof; its various-shaped windows, some so large, some so small, and all so pretty; its trellis-work, against the south-front for roses and honey-suckle, and its homely, comfortable, welcoming look ..." 

There is also evidence which suggests Dickens knew all about the Reverend Williams, and it is not implausible that elements of Bleak House's Reverend Chadband and one or two other clerical figures in Dickens's work. In 1844, Lemon had published an article in Punch referring to Williams which appears remarkably close to Dickens's later description of Chadband, in fact.

Mark Lemon, writer, editor of Punch, close friend of Charles Dickens, and resident of Church Farmhouse, Hendon

And now Mark Lemon's family home, and our former museum, seen as disposable by the previous money grabbing Tory administration, is now up for sale by a Labour council, along with its grounds, for the eye-wateringly low price of £1.4 million. 

Showing the proximity and shared space of the Farmhouse and church

In this part of North London, such an amount would hardly buy you a decent semi detached family house, but this historic property, and more or less an acre of land, will be sold at this knock down price as 'a development opportunity'. In other words, forget the annoying listed Farmhouse, and consider the grounds, which they think could offer a tidy profit for a developer. Knowing the way such sales are managed by the local authority, a buyer has probably already been tipped off.

Slight problem there, though. 

The grounds of Church Farmhouse Museum are, and have been used for decades by the public.The property was acquired by the authority in 1944, and the Museum opened in 1955. A path leads through the grounds, giving right of way to the park behind, which used to form part of Church Farm's fields, in the time when much of this part of Middlesex was given over to hay farming. 

The view from Church Farmhouse Grounds

The council tried putting the Farmhouse and grounds up for sale last year, but seems to have 'forgotten' about consultation over the open space and right of way. Hence it was discovered, recently that they had opened one of their 'nonsultations'*, hidden away in a local paper that now has very small circulation, referring to the wrong postcode but more importantly claiming that the plans were available at Hendon Library. They weren't. After this was pointed out, and the fact that it left the authority open to legal challenge, the consultation period was extended. But if you ask for the plans, the promised response didn't materialise, so after more resolute complaining, the period has now been extended until February 5th. 

* © G. Roots, circa 2015

This shows - in pink - part of the grounds of Church Farmhouse grounds which, in the 1950s, were appropriated as public space: land immediate to the building, and then, for some reason, part of a pond. 

Officers claim that the details of this consent are 'hard to read' but they think the purpose was 'likely' to be for 'public walks and pleasure grounds'. They make no comment about the right of way that has been established across the grounds to the park, however.

So it looks as if half of the grounds at risk are actually protected - or should be. The section further back, through decades of use as a public amenity and right of way, arguably should also be safe. But is it? Has the authority hoped that despite its history, and unexplored archaeology, and position in the heart of a conservation area, a developer will buy the plot at a bargain price, and sling up some monstrous construction? If so, why pitch the price so low? How would that represent best value? Something doesn't quite add up here.

The harsh truth is that when they took over the council, Barnet Labour, under the leadership of Barry Rawlings, inherited a legacy of development plans that they have largely allowed to continue. The monstrous development in Edgware, cooked up in secret between developers and Capita when they ran planning under the Tory administration, is going ahead. This bodes ill for the election chances of Chipping Barnet MP Dan Tomlinson, since the constituency boundaries were redrawn under the previous government, in a move meant to benefit Theresa Villiers, by including parts of Edgware. Other plans have been kicked into the long grass, but will no doubt be signed off by the Secretary of State, after the May elections. 

Other, smaller sites have also been sold off for development: some of them sensitive sites with natural woodland habitats now at risk, such as the Christchurch Lane site in Hadley Green - or already destroyed, as in the site near the Eleanor Palmer almshouses. Trying to get a definitive list of these sites has already taken nearly three months - and a formal complaint to the Monitoring Officer. 

From an administration whose first action on taking over was to declare a Climate Emergency, this is a pretty poor show.

A Labour councillor whom I took to task over all these Tory/Capita legacy development plans, which no, will not deliver the housing that people actually need, and might be able to afford, said, well - we stopped the Hendon Hub ... No. In fact, the Hub, another scheme cooked up in partnership with Capita planning, was initially waved through by the new Labour council ... until Middlesex Uni decided  that it was no longer viable. It never was viable, of course. 

Now here we are, with the authority poised to flog off any assets to make capital profit - even if it is not on a significant level, measured against the loss to local communities, our identity and history. 

Barnet council could balance the books in other ways. For example, FOI requests show that £2m+ has been wasted so far on the 'Places for Barnet' 'partnership with a company that for some mysterious reason been the subject of additional 'due diligence' checks by the council, for several months. 

For the sake of the community, and our local history, surely, it would be better to try to find ways of bringing the property back into use as a community asset? Maybe lottery funding could be found that would enable the Farmhouse Museum to be brought back to life in some form? 

Church Farmhouse 

In its way, the story of the Church Farmhouse, over the last fifteen years, symbolises the failure of both Tory and Labour administrations to protect our built heritage, in deference to the lobbying of developers whose best interests are not in addressing the real housing need of local people, but extracting maximum profit from minimum investment. The legacy of the Capita run planning, property and regeneration services continues, barely restrained, having created a corrupted process that excludes any real chance of democratic engagement and choice over the future of our heritage and environment. 

To lose the Farmhouse would be tragic: to lose the grounds would also lose a public open space, and risk a totally insenstive development of a site of huge historic and archaeological importance, as well of course as loss of open space and access to the park. The listed property and grounds of Church Farmhouse represent an intrinsic part of the group of church buildings: the Greyhound, formerly Church House, and the graveyard, all of which flow into each other, and share a common ancient boundary on the park side. The graveyard and the park behind the Farmhouse, both of which are linked to the Farmhouse grounds, are a 'Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation'. To allow development here should be unthinkable.

If you agree, please object to the sale before February 5th via this email link: 

Syma.Kadri@barnet.gov.uk

The steps down from Church Farmhouse grounds to the park

Be careful what you wish for, and: Mrs Angry goes to a library 'consultation'

 Storytime in Golders Green Library - picture credit Museum of London

Before Mrs Angry was Mrs Angry, and in between her time with MI5, a short but interesting career in burlesque, and a few years in the Carmelite convent in Tyburn , she was, you may be surprised to hear, employed by the London Borough of Barnet, working in Golders Green Library, and the union convenor for Barnet Libraries: placed there in a covert plot to undermine the establishment, and bring about the revolt of the proletariat - or at least a few bolshie librarians. 

And they were bolshie, too: successfully striking twice, and warding off a nefarious plot by the then Tory council to close down libraries. Yes, there will be a theme of deja vu running through the course of this post. Try and keep up.

Tories in Barnet are awfully fond of closing things down, of course, and always have been, since the days when Margaret Thatcher was the MP for Finchley, and her having a tendency to shut down entire industries, mining, steel, manufacturing: anything that moved and had a trade union, in short.

But what began as an anti social activity on a modest scale, in homage to the former PM and her manic attacks on public services, the neo Thatcherites still clinging on (only just) to control of Barnet Council have revealed a manic bloodlust for the sport of closing public amenities, public buildings,  running amok like Jack the Ripper, slashing mindlessly at the body of our local public services.

In the old days, there would often be proposals to shut down certain branch libraries. Top of the list drawn up by senior library management - in those days, when libraries were respected even by Tory authorities, there was a Borough Librarian - was Hampstead Garden Suburb. This was purely on pragmatic grounds, due to the cost of subsidising what was, even then, an indulgence: a sop to the hugely affluent and influential residents of one of the most wealthy residential areas in the country. The 'library' was no more than a few bookshelves in a tiny former shop, and totally impractical, leeching funds from other libraries in much more deserving areas: but we all knew that the Conservative council would never allow it to close.

And they never have allowed it to close. When included a couple of years ago in the nominal list of targets for closure, it was never going to happen: the residents' association was outraged, and a marvellous rescue package agreed in which the council would subsidise the little library in a shop, at the expense of other libraries in less advantaged areas. 

Despite all pleas from the local community, in far greater need of a public library, Friern Barnet branch, in a ward with two Labour councillors and one maverick Tory was refused any subsidy; closed down, the shelves stripped, and the building put up for sale. The library was then taken over by Occupy activists, who worked with local campaigners to reopen the building, fill it with books, and defy the council's actions. 

In the end the worldwide publicity this hugely popular occupation attracted forced the Tories into a humiliating retreat, and the agreement that the People's Library, the library that would not close, should become Friern Barnet Community Library, subsidised by the council, like Garden Suburb, but this apparently happy outcome was compromised by one crucial flaw: FBCL would not be part of the borough's public library system.

For some campaigners - and some councillors, of both parties - this was not seen as a problem. They had saved the library, a beautiful Carnegie building, and a group of residents would see that the venture continued on a voluntary basis. Success: or so they thought.

But for many others, the agreement that excluded the return of the library to the borough service was not only regrettable, it put the other libraries at risk. Because we knew exactly how shameless the Barnet Tories have been, under the 'leadership' of 'Tricky Dicky' Richard Cornelius, and how likely they were to try to turn what had been a galling defeat into political profit. 

For some Tories, the motive of profit is accompanied by something else: something even more shameless, and repellant. That is to say, the desire for revenge. A library, in Broken Barnet, is a symbol of resistance: a rallying point for the community, a place where people think. Shut it down. Shut them all down.

The campaigners, bloggers and residents who created a surge of rebellion to the ignominious policies of the previous Tory administration, especially in regard to the parking fiasco, and the library story, became something the Tories had never really encountered before: an effective opposition. And those two political blunders, in two areas that were always guaranteed to attack the Tories' own electoral base, lost many of the most prominent councillors their seats, and very nearly lost them control of the council.

Due to their innate stupidity, our Conservative members have failed to learn the lessons of the last few years, and like all bullies, imagine that the way to retain authority is to carry on in the same way, rather than try to reach a consensus with the residents they purport to represent. 

Hence the latest outsourcing proposals, and in this case the truly apocalyptic scale of plans lined up to besiege the remnants of our library service, knock it all down, and grind it into the dust. 

Where there is resistance, as with all such assaults, they will be likely to back off: where there is capitulation, they will walk over you.

The so called 'consultation' process for the library proposals reveals another of their tactics in the war against culture: divide and conquer. Play residents off against each other. Those who have the loudest voices, and the greater political influence: they will be rewarded for their protest, at the expense of the less advantaged, and less articulate communities. Survival of the fittest, and sod the rest: it's the Tory way. 

Mrs Angry thought she would choose to attend one of these nonsultation events, and the one she would choose would be Golders Green library, where she used to work. 

Arriving as the doors opened, there was an astonishing sight: a queue, outside, in the chilly rain, of about twenty young mothers with babies in buggies - not something that ever happened, in Mrs Angry's time, before she left to be a mother herself, with babies in buggies. There was evidently a 'baby rhyme time' session in the children's library, the first of two that day, due to enormous demand. 

Walking into the library, an eighty year old building with a mosaic floored entrance hall, brass railed, polished stone staircase, oak doors and shelving, time seemed to have stood still.

Was it really twenty years or so, since leaving? Hard to believe, in some ways, because the first two faces that she saw were the two elderly sisters who used always to be the first on the doorstep, every morning, when the doors were unlocked, all that time ago: unmarried women who lived together in a house across the road and came every morning to read the papers. We recognised each other, and were all mutually amazed at the passage of time, and yet the stillness of time, and here we were, together again. Did they know the library was at risk of closing? They did not. Mrs Angry wondered how they would cope, should that awful day come.

Ben, the consultant who has been running these events was waiting, with only a few chairs ready, in a corner of the library. Only a few chairs ready because he knew that the timing of the consultation had been carefully arranged - by the commissioning team senior officers, apparently - so as to exclude as many  library users as possible from attending: barely advertised, and fixed in a weekday morning, when working people cannot attend, an action heavily criticised by the users who came.

Despite the deliberately obscure time of the session, throughout the three hour time slot, the chairs were filled constantly by a sequence of library users, shyly but determinedly resolved to make their voice count in the consultation for this awful set of proposals.

Mrs Angry decided to stay for the three hours, not because she wanted to, but because it was clear that otherwise the discussion was not going to be anything other than a talking shop whose outcome was, like the online survey, directed by a carefully steered debate.

Significantly although the table before us had copies of the three bad options that our council thinks we should choose between: death of our library service not by a thousand cuts, but by three equally terrible weapons. 

No one was going to say, you do not need to die at all, except Mrs Angry, who pointed out that the residents of Broken Barnet did not have to choose death for their library service: choose life, she said, and reject all three options: please. 

We sat in the corner of the library, wedged rather awkwardly in the teenage fiction section, watched over on our side, Mrs Angry happily observed, by books by the brilliant writer, and esteemed library campaigner, Alan Gibbons.

And rather aptly, in view of the circumstances, a local resident persuaded by Mrs Angry to join the discussion, spotted a book by former Tory favourite, Jeffrey Archer:

Be Careful What You Wish For ...

The consultant, his back against a wall of vampire romances, introduced himself. 

Who do you work for, asked Mrs Angry? 

His company was called 'Shared Intelligence'. Oh. Sounds promising, doesn't it? How much are we paying you for this consultation? With a grimace he muttered something about £20K. And did the other users sitting there realise £200, 000 was being spent on this excuse for 'consultation', and how many libraries would that keep open, did they think?

Oh, and where is the rest of the £200K set aside for the nonsultation going anyway? 

He thought it was to be spent on the survey: printing costs etc. That would be the printed copies that had not been available, weeks after the consultation had begun, and were now being kept behind the desk, where unless you knew they were available, you were obviously not going to ask for them. Only after absolutely insisting were any copies brought to the table, and it was Mrs Angry who kept offering them to those attending (with a warning about the loaded questions), rather than the consultant.

Two of the attendees were young mothers from the local Charedi community, who emphasised how vital the library was to their family life. One of the mums described the proposals as 'devastating'. She could not drive, and depended on the resources in their local community, and the library was a central part of this. Mrs Angry remembered the importance to such families, many with several young children, and the queues that would form on Fridays,  to have plenty of reading material for them over shabbat, and one very bright and cheeky little boy called Zvi-Dov, who was found to have 116 library books hidden under his bed, by his embarrassed mother, who had to bring them back in a shopping trolley ...

Mrs Angry also remembered the elderly residents who would call in every day, the library being part of their daily routine, a welcome sanctuary, where staff would build relationships with them, over the years, and be privileged, in some cases, to hear their life stories, and become honoured trustees of their confidences. 

Yes, in some cases, these older residents, in Golders Green, were former refugees, and in some cases, survivors of the Holocaust. Over a period of time you would get to know these people, and their backgrounds, and maybe be trusted to hear their testimonies. Some of them would need your help to find books to read, that they needed to read, because it helped, in some small way to come to terms with the path of their lives and experiences that they could not discuss with their own families. 

Mrs Angry has written about this before, but it has to be repeated as it tells its own story: the necessity of communication, and bridges between generations, and different communities, and the value of reading, and literature, and bearing witness, and telling your story, and enabling those who come after you to learn the lessons of history.

For Barnet Tories, of course, history began in the year zero, when Margaret Thatcher came to power as PM, and ends when she was disposed of. Since then, we find ourselves living in Broken Barnet, under the flag of Capitaville, where history is of no value: nothing more than the collection of faded photographs, and a few family items left to a local museum. Museums are dangerous places, like libraries: their contents remind us of our common past, and sense of identity. Shut them down, sell off the collection: charge people £8.50 a go to look at those old photographs, online: heritage is only valuable in monetary terms, after all.

This disregard for culture, or history or heritage extends to our built heritage. The museum is shut, and put up for sale. What next? The libraries, of course.

How fitting that the idea of a public library, promoted by Victorian philanthropy, funded by successful capitalists, salving their social conscience by good works, and investment in access to the education of the working classes, should be destroyed so enthusiastically by their heirs in the Tory party, both nationally, and locally. 

What happened to the idea of enabling social mobility, and aspiration? 

When did such paternalistic Toryism become replaced by the mutant brand we see in power now, wielding policies that widen the gulf between rich and poor, making education and healthcare the privilege of those with means, rather than a right for all? 

Access to information, and the liberating power of reading: the means to self improvement, self expression, to empowerment of the individual: what was once the gift of the Tory do gooder is now an affront to those who took his place in government: a form of intellectual terrorism, a covert activity that threatens the status quo. Remove books from prisoners, then, (or try to, anyway). Stop as many young people from disdvantaged backgrounds from being able to afford to go to university. And shut down the public library system. Close the buildings, and sell them off to local property developers for more non affordable housing. 

Rather than admit that this is their real agenda, Barnet's nonsultation pretends that many of the branch libraries will merely be 'shrunk' in size, so as to free up the rest of the buildings for rental to commercial tenants. Reduced by an average of a staggering 93%. No, that is not a typo: let's say it again, 93%. The size of Hampstead Garden Suburb Library, the library in a shop.

Except that of course this is a load of balls. This option is thrown in as a distraction, and a frightener. The worst excesses of the three bad options are meant to make whatever final outcome emerges, with its 'compromises' favouring Tory ward branches, seem like a blessing. And the truth is that any branches considered surplus to requirement will simply be flogged off as lucrative developments. There are no doubt companies that already have their eyes on certain buildings, including the one in Church End that has already been marked for sale thanks to a previous deal with the shy and retiring Pears Group who have planning permission to develop Gateway House.

The fact that the consultation document reveals there is no costing for the potential rental of library buildings reduced in size, nor any mention of the substantial capital investment that would be needed to convert the libraries to extra use, (and therefore make a complete mockery of the alleged motive for the cuts, of finding necessary savings) says it all. In a borough where an abundance of empty office space is begging for tenants, there is no business case to support this preposterous suggestion, and there never was intended to be.

Golders Green is one of those branches that are supposed to shrink in size. The consultant tried to give a vague idea to the users sitting around the table, of what that would be. He said it would kind of be like that section over there, between that bit, and that bit. The group looked bewildered. 

What is the current floor space, asked Mrs Angry? Erm .... around 5,000 square feet. And do remind us of the size of the new 'library'? 540 square feet. So, said one of the men in the group, you are saying ... it will be a tenth of the current space.

Yes. 

A tenth.

Golders Green is not a large library. A space that is one tenth of the area now used is simply impossible: an insult to the idea of a library. Room for a couple of shelves and a handful of books: no space for students, or pcs, or children's activities. No baby rhyme time. No library, in short.

But this is as likely to happen as the building of Robert Rams' invisible library in North Finchley. It is pie in the sky, a total fantasy. The library will either continue as it is, or be sold for development. And it will not be sold, or closed, or shrunk - because the Tory councillors in Golders Green will not dare allow that. 

Some debate took place in the nonsultation over why these proposals were made in the first place. Mrs Angry took it upon herself to explain that the cut being presented as an unavoidable saving was in fact a relatively small amount, although the fact that it represented 60% of the library budget demonstrated what good value for money our services already provided.

Some further explanation ensued as to how much money the Tory council wasted on such things as - sorry, Ben - consultants: millions and millions of pounds each year, oh, and you might like to ask your local councillor, Dean Cohen, why he spent so much money on the pavements and roads of Tory wards, including £1.1 million in Golders Green, just before the election, and £500,000 on Princes Park Avenue, in the last two years, while some Labour wards like Colindale last year got not one single penny. £1.1 million pounds - almost half the savings the Tories say necessitate the closure of library services.

Someone asked where Cllr Cohen was, and then one of the young mums said, with an interesting glint in her eye, that she knew Dean Cohen, and his wife, and would be Having A Word With Him. 

In the background, baby rhyme time continued in the children's library, and library staff dealt with the continual stream of visitors, helping with enquiries, using the pcs. 

None of the Tory councillors had the guts to show up, but Sarah Sackman, who is Labour's parliamentary candidate for Finchley and Golders Green, spent the morning talking to residents outside, and then came in to sit through some of the discussion. Just look around you, she said: there was no better evidence of why the library was so vital, and irreplaceable.
 
When Mrs Angry worked there, the staff structure comprised a librarian in charge, a deputy, a reference librarian, a children's librarian, library assistants and a branch administrator. It was a struggle even then to keep up with the demands of users: heaven knows how they manage now.

Typical remarks from attendees ranged from 'absurd' in regard to the 'open library option, 'absolutely ridiculous' in general, and 'I don't understand what motivates these people ...', 'the heart is being ripped out of council services', 'outrageous proposals' ...

After a while, a woman who had been sitting opposite the consultant, and glaring rather furiously at him, said she was rather inclined to agree with the views of that woman, Mrs Angry, who wrote about this sort of thing.

Mrs Angry sat up. Aha, she declared ... that is ... me!

Is it really? asked the woman. She laughed.

Is it really? asked the consultant, turning a funny colour ...

After this dramatic revelation, outing Mrs Angry in the manner of the denouement of a murderess in a sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, a satisfying change was noticeable in the nonsultant's attitude of complacency, as he realised he was in for a very long and uncomfortable morning. Throughout the session, he nervously kept checking twitter, to see, he confessed, what was being said about him. Mrs Angry assured him she would do no such thing. But would write all about it in the blog instead. So here you are, Mr Lee.

The option for 'open libraries' caused the most ridicule and protest: when asked, the consultant appeared to know little about it, other than to say, rather feebly, that it worked well elsewhere. Where, demanded Mrs Angry? He didn't know: probably, was it - Ipswich, or ... Abroad. (Same thing, arguably, to be fair).

Scandinavia, suggested Mrs Angry, trying to be helpful, and nodding encouragingly, but at the same time trying to conjure up vague intimations of Nordic Noir, and menace in the shadows of an emptied out library, devoid of books, people, meaning or hope.

The Swedish model, remember? No, he thought it might be Danish. Less exciting, of course. Though probably safer, thought Mrs Angry, as the bookshelves were less likely to have come from Ikea, and fall over. Not safer than a fully staffed library with human beings interacting with each other, of course, rather than a dystopian vision of a self service library, and a holographic librarian, however. 

The safeguarding aspects, issues of equality of access for the disabled: have these really been taken into consideration? The residents at the consultation laughed, but were incredulous that this was a serious proposal, pointing to the risks involved, and again, the necessity for capital investment for implementation, uncosted. And again, this is because these nightmare scenarios will never happen, and are meant only to scare us all into acceptance of the eventual, slightly less awful decision.

What was truly touching about the reaction of the users who came to this discussion was this: they were none of them the sort of people who made a habit of this sort of thing. Ordinary residents, reserved by nature: when they approached the table, quite a few of them did that quintessentially British thing, hovering vaguely, then moving off pretending to be looking for something else, then plucking up the courage to join in. Quiet people, shy: but determined to speak out, because they desperately care about their library service, and are truly distressed to think it may be taken away from them.

One man said he had lost his job a little while ago, and that it was comforting to have somewhere to go, near to home, on the days when he had nothing to do. The staff were all good people. 

Another man, serious, carefully weighed his words before speaking. He had, he said slowly, got a lot of general knowledge from using the library. He trailed off, clearly unable to express what would be a personal loss on such a scale, or understand the reasoning behind it. Who could?

One quietly spoken older woman said apologetically that she was not very articulate - she was - but clearly she felt very strongly about what was being proposed. She did not have a computer, she said, or a mobile phone. This was, as she put it, an intimate library. She wanted to say how kind the library staff were, in helping her learn to use the pc, so patient, never a raised eyebrow: that's rare - in the world we live in, she said, why would we lose that?

This woman was not the only one to praise the staff, for their help and kindness, and professionalism, and to try to explain the intangible, inexpressible sense of sanctuary, welcome and belonging that you find in a library. It is a place of refuge, a place of safety, as well as a place with access to the world of books, and information.

The selective note taking of the nonsultant throughout the nonsultation consisted of, well not taking many notes, as far as Mrs Angry could see, seated at his right hand side, so as to keep her beady eye on him. He was quite keen when a woman turned up who worked for Wandsworth library service which had been taken over by a 'mutual' company, apparently seen as a lesser evil by staff who had been previously treated by the council in a pretty shabby fashion, reportedly having to pay back sick pay, for example. Mrs Angry pointed out that when the same 'mutual' company took over Greenwich libraries, they put new staff on zero hours contracts. 

Has anyone, in all these events, expressed any support for the proposals, Mrs Angry asked the consultant. He thought very carefully, and then remembered there had been one elderly man with wild hair, who said he had grown up on a remote sheep farm, and thought everyone should stand on their own two feet. (Or four feet, presumably, if you are a sheep).

It will be interesting, won't it, readers, to see how the outcome of these events, from a few scribbles in a notebook, are transformed into a report to council?

When the session was nearing the end of the three hour time slot, a woman in a beautiful blue velvet coat slipped into one of the spare seats. She smiled very sweetly, and listened patiently to what they group had to say: and then she took out a piece of paper, on which she had written a speech. 

And what a speech it was. 

Her name was Esther Waldron, and you can find a copy of what she said on the Independent Catholic News website. No further comment needs to be made, as Esther says it all: only to add that, for some reason, the consultant listened to what she had to say - and wrote nothing down.
 
A Defence of Barnet Libraries

One of the books I’m borrowing from Golders Green Library is ‘A Century of Wisdom - Lessons from the Life of Alice Herz-Sommer’.

Alice’s surname means ‘Heart of Summer’. Alice spent two years in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during the Holocaust. She survived because of the beauty of her piano playing; she was a concert pianist who played in concerts in the concentration camp.

In the book, Alice quotes Heinrich Heine who foresaw the evils of Nazi Germany. Heine said of the early days of Nazism: “Where they burn books, they will, in the end, also burn people."

To translate this to the modern day: if Barnet Council decimates its library service and severs access to books, it will, in the end, also decimate the spirit of its people.

And not just any people, but its weakest members – by which I mean the most vulnerable; as Gandhi once said: “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”

In average, in Barnet, 44 per cent of school children don’t speak English as a first language at home. And 18 per cent of the borough’s population are aged 60 and over. Reducing staffing levels in our libraries by 40 or 50 per cent will make it 40 or 50 per cent more difficult and intimidating for these people to navigate our libraries.

I’ve listened as staff of Golders Green library have patiently explained to elderly people how to create an email account, how to surf the internet. The time and care these librarians take with the people of our community is an example to us all.

In literary terms, the three options that Barnet Council is proposing for its future library service are ‘Hobsons Choice’.

I love and choose to live in Golders Green is for its religious diversity and tolerance. 

Directly opposite the library is a Greek cathedral. Nearby is a Buddhist community centre. The area is, of course, well known for its vibrant Jewish community. This is also a Christian parish - my Catholic church is five minutes’ walk away on Finchley Road.

Barnet Council would not restrict access to our places of worship – at least I hope it would not. The same principle applies to libraries.

When I was a child every book was like the Bible to me. Every book felt holy. I still feel that books are holy, and that libraries are sacred spaces. Libraries are cathedrals of the human imagination. 

When I walk into my local library, my spirit soars at the achievement of the writers around me, and my soul sings at the possibilities inside the pages of the books.

With its current options Barnet Council will restrict access to books, but also the ideas in them - the hopes and dreams of authors’ hearts that speak to the human spirit, and what it means to be human and alive. 

To sever libraries is to sever access to what the books inside them represent: the creative imagination, which the poet William Blake said was God. He called it ‘Jesus Christ the Imagination.’

In closing: the words ‘council’ and ‘councillors’ have their origins in Latin words meaning ‘a group of people meeting together;’ and also the verb ‘to call’.

Councils are literally called to bring people together.

Barnet Council, please use your powers to preserve our libraries because they are worth far more than any budget gap of £ 72 million.

Barnet libraries, like the people who live in the borough, including its most vulnerable members, are valuable beyond measure.

Taking a haircut, in the market place of care: another Residents Forum in Broken Barnet

Update 24th November, 2015

Greetings, visitors from Cornwall: your new Chief Executive is seated above, at the right end of the table. You might want to skip the Barnet stuff & start reading half way through. Or read the whole thing, and get an idea of what might be in store for you ...
Good Luck!

The story of our local residents' forums, here in Broken Barnet, is in essence the story of something else, something rather bigger: it is the perfect demonstration of why Barnet is broken, and will never be mended, while we languish under the regime of swivel eyed loons that have possession of our council.

Started by a Labour administration, the Forums were intended as a way of extending the democratic process to the community, of giving a voice to neighbourhoods within the borough, and focusing attention on hyperlocal issues. 

Once the Tories returned to power, they were stuck with a clearly unwanted and potentially troublesome vehicle of opposition to their authority. This presented no real threat, however, during the following years, until such a time as it became apparent, at last, that there really was a burgeoning  movement of resistance to their policies: dating from the beginning of the administration which began four years ago.

At this point, the new council began with a fatal error of judgement: the furtive attempt to award themselves a whopping pay rise. This spectacularly backfired, and marked the beginning of a collision course which continues even today, a period of unprecedented crisis, alarm and confusion, which perhaps marks the end of days for Barnet Tories. If not the end, as you might say, it is certainly the beginning of the end.

The council which began in 2010 had a secret agenda laid down for the next four years: the mass privatisation of our local services. 

Secret, unmentioned in the course of the election campaign: about to be foisted on the borough's residents and taxpayers, whether they wanted it or not.

Whether they wanted it or not was of no importance to the Barnet Tories. 

What was important was to get their own way, and instigate the preparations for a course of action on which they were already determined.

Tory councillors had been easily persuaded by senior officers and consultants that not only was an outsourced council the way forward, there was no possibility of considering an in-house option. 

There was therefore every reason to make sure that the course of action decided upon by a handful of officers, consultants, and a few tame Tory councillors could be followed with no chance of objection or even debate.

The Labour leadership offered little threat of effective opposition. The local press were totally uninterested in the issue. The Unions' resistance would be dealt with by the usual smear tactics, and game playing: the one remaining difficulty was the growing criticism from local campaigners - and bloggers. 

Any risk of public criticism must be suppressed: the Residents Forums were clearly likely to be the main focus of such challenge, and the Tories duly acted to censor them, amending the council constitution so as to forbid residents and taxpayers raising any issue in public at these meetings which alluded in anyway to what was deemed to be council 'policy'.

Residents daring to question the decisions or proposals about to be imposed by their elected representatives were met with every resistance by Tory councillors and their senior officers, united in a frenzied determination to prevent challenge of their authority, on a level of obsession akin to the merciless fury of a medieval inquisition, seeing heresy everywhere, the devil stalking the streets of Broken Barnet, using the Forums for his nefarious purposes, taking as his tool the sense of uprising and rebellion amongst the previously unpoliticised householders of our borough's leafy avenues. Where would it all end?

It all ended in the High Court, and a finding by Judge Underhill that the council had failed in its duty to consult residents in regard to the massive outsourcing programme. Oh.

And so, in the run up to this year's local election, the Tories decided to try to look as if they were suddenly mindful of the need to respect the views of the electorate. Back to the constitution - let's undo the awful ban on  - sshh - questions of policy, and other silly restrictions.  For the time being.

Here we are, though, on the wrong side of the election, and look: we are travelling back in time to the bad old days, again ... 

The first Residents Forums of the new term were not advertised in advance, and those on the mailing list were not contacted: those who knew that they were listed, and gambled on the chance that they were still legally constituted, after the debacle of the last few days, submitted questions, and found that in many cases these were refused, on spurious grounds, such as being not about 'local' matters, or having been previously discussed, or, in Mrs Angry's case, exchanged, without her consent, for questions submitted to the previous Forum, and filibustered out of time by the Chairwoman. 

Time allocated to residents at this meeting, was appropriated by an unasked for presentation of corporate spin, meaning some questions were left unaired.

The responses to questions were not sent on the day of the Forum to residents, who only saw these, crucial to the formulation of their supplementary questions, once they came to the meeting.

And the responses which were given made it clear that every effort is and will continue to be made to evade, obstruct and deny any real enquiry that might cause the council to view it as a challenge to its authority, or secret agenda. The demands of transparency and accountability are easily subverted in these Forums, as you will see.

At the Finchley and Golders Green Forum, an array of council officers was ready and waiting at the table, when we arrived. Neither ready, nor waiting, was the Chairwoman, Tory Danny Seal, who, despite his claim, after criticism of his record in the last term, that he would commit to turning up to the meetings he is paid to attend, failed to show up, even for his first appearance, which seemed discourteous, at the very least.

The Forum began, not with residents' questions, but with a presentation by an officer who told residents what sort of people they were, according to a ward profile, and then what they might be allowed to do with the new allocation of some funding to area sub-committees.

Allowed being the word, as nothing can be done without approval from councillors and senior officers, in the best tradition of Broken Barnet. This decision, we heard was ratified at a meeting, on the 10th June.

Is is lawful, then, asked Mrs Angry, in a fit of constitutional doubt?

They thought so. Because, said Kate Kenneally, solemnly, Counsel had said so. 

This Counsel, by the way, is the same Counsel who thought the Council could win the parking Judicial Review, which, erm ... it lost. 

Still. No need to panic. Keep calm, and carry on f*cking up, the Broken Barnet way.

And is the allocated funding part of, or separate to, the money distributed in the manner of Councillor Dean Cohen, largely to his own ward, and not at all to Labour held Colindale, in the last year, asked Mrs Angry, still unclear, and casting a baleful look at Councillor Dean Cohen, skulking at the back of the room?

Separate to. And the stand in Chairwoman, the pompous young councillor Reuben Thompstone, who used to try to run the Forum with all the tact and discretion, as Mrs Angry once described it, of the Governor of an antipodean penal colony addressing the convicts on a newly arrived ship from England, clearly wished Mrs Angry would shut up, and not interrupt with impertinent questions.

Oh dear.

But here was one of Mrs Angry's impertinent questions, on the agenda, inescapable, despite being rather out of date, substituted as it was from a previous meeting months ago, as explained above.

I understand that Golders Green ward has benefited from £800,000 of Highways related funding in the last year, and has benefited recently from new paving, and even trees, including one planted by Councillor Dean Cohen, in what must be a very welcome photo opportunity, only weeks before the localelections. 

Please tell me how much funding from the same source in the same period has been received by West Finchley ward, and explain why, even though money was agreed last summer for potentially lifesaving measures in the accident blackspot that is Squires Lane, still no move has been made or funding spent on delivering the agreed changes? When is the authority going to replace the safety barrier next to Manorside school, destroyed in one of the two serious accidents since the funding was agreed last year, and why is this taking so long?

The response was the old one, in which no real reason was given for the continual delays, and claimed the safety barrier would be in place by the time of the previous Forum. It wasn't, and it isn't.

The officer from Highways apologised, saying he was 'surprised, and disappointed' ... but gave no real reason why these safety measures, a year after being approved, had not been implemented, while so much time and attention had been lavished on Cllr Cohen's own ward on replacing great swathes of pavements and smooth road surfaces in a few favoured streets, in an area in which he himself lives, while the less Tory inclined part of his ward was ... less favoured, and why many other wards in less affluent, Labour held wards received a fraction of the budget, and in the case of Colindale, nothing at all in the last year. 

Mrs Angry asked, to no avail, why safety measures outside a primary and nursery school had a lower priority than the pavements of say, Princes Park Avenue, which had £500,000 spent on it in two years. There was no sensible response: how could there be? What: that the life of a child in a Tory ward is worth more than that of one in a Labour one? That would be grossly distasteful, wouldn't it?

West Finchley Labour councillor Kath McGuirk agreed that the delays and disproportionate spending were unacceptable. The accident spots and traffic hazards in Squires Lane have been known about for years, and nothing done.

Mrs Angry had invited Councillor Cohen to comment on the points raised. All he could manage, however, was a mumbled piece of nonsense about funding being based on 'need'. Yeah, right. Whose needs?

Labour's Arjun Mittra, who represents East Finchley, said there was a wider issue at stake: in his own ward he had 18 outstanding defects, reported months ago. 

Dean Cohen tried to blame this on the reporting system, whereas some of us more cynically minded citizens might think the lack of resources, due to funding being diverted unfairly elsewhere were possibly a factor.

Mrs Angry's second question, again held over from the last, filibustered meeting, and with a frankly insulting response, bearing in mind the length of time this issue has been complained of.
How long has the park keeper's lodge in Victoria Park been vacant? Why is it still vacant? 

How much revenue from rent has been lost since the tenants were moved out? How much has keeping the property secured cost? 

When was the property last inspected to ensure the building is still sound and not deteriorating through neglect? 

Has the property been valued, and if so what is the value? What plans have been made for the sale of the property?

The response from a Property Services manager:


Following legal advice the Council is currently considering its position in
relation to this matter.

There was no extra information to add.

This historic property was emptied of its tenants nearly three years ago - a family with small children were evicted - or 'decanted', as the council described it, and has since stood, empty, vulnerable and decaying, exposed to vandalism and a magnet for anti-social behaviour and drug dealing. Why? 

Because it is one of those assets marked up for the car boot sale that Barnet Tories want to have with any public properties they can flog, libraries, museums, anything that isn't nailed down, whether or not it is part of our local architectural heritage.

Just as with our Carnegie library in Friern Barnet, our Grade 2* listed Church Farmhouse Museum, the lodge keeper's cottage is of no value to the Barnet Tory sensibility, and our councillors would all be perfectly happy if they all fell down, or burnt down: easier to sell as a property development then, of course.

As it happened, Mary, a resident who lives right opposite the lodge was at the meeting, and she told the panel how long she has been worried about the state of the building, the trespassing, having to call the police, and the impact on the local area. No interest, no comment from the Tories - and nothing will be done.

After commenting on this, she was scheduled to speak on another theme: the long running saga of the Dollis Valley Green Walk, whose route, despite the clear clue in the name Walk, seems to suggest to our officers that it must be made accessible to cyclists. 

Mary said she was a little nervous. Reuben Thompstone said very solemnly, with no sense of irony, albeit to the accompaniment of much mirth in the audience, that she should not be: this is a very welcoming place, he said.

Mary gave a charming talk, illustrated with the novel use of props: a dolls' bicycyle, Barbie, Ken, and a couple of their offspring. 

(Did they have offspring? Did they get married? I always assumed Ken was gay, or reluctant to commit, perhaps. The one that lived in our house, anyway, and led a life of hell, as permanent escort to the twenty seven Barbies accumulated by Miss Angry). But anyway.

Much as we need more cycle paths in Barnet, and elsewhere, the rights of walkers along the course of a Green Walk should really be paramount, shouldn't they? The right of someone to walk slowly along a tranquil path, by a babbling brook, ought not to be ruined by the worry that some speeding cyclist is going to come out of nowhere and make you jump out of the way, or tumble into the babbling brook, especially if you are elderly, or disabled, or a small child. 

And if the use of the path is going to be changed, there should be consultation. Local residents associations, such as the Friends of Windsor Open Space, headed by Boris botherer Dennis Pepper, should be consulted. They have not been, and nor has any Equalities Impact Assessment been made, and for very good reason: yet again in the noble tradition of consultation, in Barnet: such consultation might produce the wrong outcome. The outcome that does not fit the decision already made - to 'improve' the footpath for cyclists, because funding for cycling is available.

While residents such as the redoutable Mr Pepper were making points about this nonsultation, by the way, Mrs Angry spotted Councillor Cohen apparently laughing as he made some whispered observation to an acquaintance in the back of the room. What the joke was, we do not know.

Mrs Angry had a vision of the past, Broken Barnet in black and white: a comedy classic, with Brian Coleman as Colonel Mainwaring, and Councillor Cohen as Pike. Who would have thought that the boy would take over the Home Guard, with such hilarious consequences?

At ease.

Not so hilarious was the next item: questions on the subject of Your Choice Barnet, from resident Tirza Waisel.

 There are vulnerable residents in this area who use services provided by Your Choice Barnet and to whom Barnet Council has a legal duty of care. How will Barnet Council protect these residents from a decline in quality of service resulting from YCB’s treatment of the care workers employed to look after them? 

 If Your Choice Barnet is in such financial difficulty, will LBB take its services back in-house to ensure a proper fulfilment of its duty of care to the residents using these services?

 As the sole shareholder and owner of Your Choice Barnet and its main funder, why does Barnet Council not ensure it pays YCB £21.81 per hour per service user so that YCB have sufficient funding to run good services without claiming it needs to cut its employees’ salaries by 9.5%?

All very good questions. 

The response, to all three, from an officer in 'Adults and Communities' was: Response to follow. Oh. 

Now we understood why Kate Kennally was present. 

The more power that the members of the senior management team acquire, the more grandiose their job titles become, of course. 

For a brief period of lunacy, two of our highest paid officers revelled in the preposterous twin appointments of Director of Place, and Director of People. 

The Tory councillors may be happy to allow their officers to run the council by proxy for them, and tell them, the councillors what to do, but they certainly don't like it when the said officers start to encroach on their sacred territory: the world of pomp and pomposity, where status alone counts, as described by the trappings of office. 

They didn't like the universal, heroic scale of these titles, so they took them away, and made them take rather more prosaic labels. Kate Kennally, therefore, is now, not Director of People, but Strategic Director for Communities. Yes, there is Strategy, in One Barnet. In theory, at least. No community, clearly: frowned upon, only people, mostly annoying people, but it is quite the thing now to pretend you care about them, hence the name change.

So, Ms Kennally had graced the Forum with her presence, in order, as it became evident, to address the PR disaster of Your Choice Barnet, the catastrophic enterprise set up by Barnet, on the basis that it is possible to make profit from the provision of care to vulnerable and disabled people, and that there would be so much profit that you could screw out of such a venture, it could be used to subsidise Barnet's social housing company, Barnet Homes. 

As it turned out, you can't do either, which was already pretty obvious to all but the private consultants who were paid millions and millions of pounds of our money to come up with a clearly flawed business model, which collapsed, leaving the poor old local taxpayer to cough up a million quid in the first year just to keep it going. 

Funny, isn't it, how a Tory council, so keen on financial efficiency, is so inept when it comes to running any sort of business?

Now of course, as YCB continues to sink, it has been decided it is necessary to make ... 'efficiencies' ... by punishing the already very low paid care workers who do this most sensitive and vital work, and cutting their wages by 9.5 per cent. 

There had recently been a 100% vote for strike action, reluctantly taken, by employees facing such desperate cuts in their livelihoods, with many families completely supportive of their decision, knowing that the support they provide can only worsen, should staff be reduced to even lower standards of pay.

How can you defend cuts of nearly ten per cent imposed on staff already struggling to survive on the low wages they receive? Kate Kennally gave it her best shot: and it was a truly enlightening experience for those of us who were obliged to sit and listen. A masterclass in corporate drivel, a shameful attempt to justify the cuts, and invert the very logic of the situation, in true Barnet style.

What is important in the nature of the relationship between client and carer -  the support giver and the person needing care? Quality of interaction, we heard. Ok. Agreed. And it seems that cutting the wages of the support giver will not in any way compromise that quality of interaction. Really?

We were wrong to think that these care workers were badly paid, anyway, apparently. They have 'a higher rate of pay, compared to others'. Like senior managers in the London Borough of Barnet, but without all the zeros on the pay check.

Mrs Angry wondered where these 'others' were that were paid even less. Albania? China? In the nineteenth century? 

The rate of pay was all carefully calculated, we heard.

Clearly.

Ms Kennally was pleased that Strike Action had been called off (for the moment).

Strike Action, of course, was 'detrimental', for users. Detrimental, presumably, in a sense different to the impact of using employees struggling on the lowest scales of pay to look after disabled residents and their personal care, or substituting them with a series of agency workers?

In answer to a question from a resident whose son uses YCB, she said we need to reduce overhead costs. 

Do we, thought Mrs Angry? Will that help? Or are you simply dragging out the slow, painful death of a fatally ill concept, simply in order to save the face of our Tory councillors and shire up the credibility of an authority determined to pursue the path of mass privatisation?

Another resident and user of YCB asked if and when YCB finally fails, will it go back in house - or be passed on to Capita?

I think we all know the answer to that, don't you?

Tirza Waisel had a useful suggestion for Ms Kennally: why does she not take a cut in her own salary - a very comfortable six figure sum, with added pension contributions - and other directors?

We didn't seem to get a response to that. What we did hear was that - and Mrs Angry apologises for putting this phrase before you - that we - which we was unclear, but you can count me out of this collective thought - we need to create ' a sustainable market place in care'.

A sustainable market place in care.

Is there any worse condemnation of the corporate culture of this council, than that they subscribe to such inverted principles? 

That the care of our most vulnerable residents, your mum, my dad, someone's daughter, someone's neighbour, is dependent on not some intrinsic right to support, but determined by market forces, the language of commerce, and the success of your own stall in the piazza of monetised compassion?

What a revolting concept.

But now 'we' - the same 'we', or a nicer one, again unclear - are worrying about the importance of that 'human interaction' that may take place, between care giver, and customer - if the price is right. Marvellous. 

We may need to worry about that being compromised by staff feeling demoralised, after their wages have been slashed, and we must help them to feel 'empowered'.

No good being sentimental, Mrs Angry, about their wages being slashed. As Ms Kennally explained grimly, her dangly earrings, like spat out, half sucked boiled sweets, bobbing about incongruously below her own crewcut locks: they had to 'take a haircut'.

Yes: take a haircut.

Mrs Angry was somewhat taken aback by the use of such a phrase, in reference to the pitifully paid care workers of Your Choice Barnet, facing such a punishment. It was reminiscent of the punishment handed out to female collaborators after the war, a public humiliation. 

In fact it is a translation of the term 'kourema', used in reference to the Greek economic crisis. Used in this context, it was a crass remark, and very telling. 

We heard that the workers of YCB must take this ritual punishment, sacrificing their right to a decent wage, while YCB 'grows'. 

It isn't growing, yelled Mrs Angry: it's failing!

But it doesn't matter that Your Choice Barnet is failing. Even when it is clinically dead, it will wheeled out from the One Barnet warehouse, to be propped up behind a stall,  in the market place of care, a mummified corpse, overseeing the next stage of the sale of our borough. 

No one must acknowledge failure, in Broken Barnet. The word does not exist. And if the word did exist, it could not be uttered in the carefully filtered air of a Residents Forum, for fear of contaminating us all with a viral urge to seek out a democratic solution, or rise up in revolution,  and man the barricades, get a bit shouty in the public gallery at the Town Hall, or refuse to pay our library fines. 

This is England, and this is Broken Barnet, June 2014.

The next Residents Forum is not until October. 

Probably just as well.