Friday joke: Brian Coleman, witchfinder general, at it again

Since his downfall, poor old Brian Coleman has had to accustom himself to a great many disappointments. Difficult, very difficult, adjusting to life in retirement from the heady whirl of life at City Hall, and the Fire Authority, and the Cabinet, and the Conservative Party, and ... oh, all that. Sometimes it must seem that no one wants to give you the time of day.

Brian Coleman's  appearance in the dock at Uxbridge Magistrate's Court on two charges relating to the alleged assault of a local woman, which he denies, a trial due to take place this Wednesday, was postponed, at the last minute, apparently because the Judge was 'double-booked'. Those wishing to attend this hearing must wait until April 24th. *

*Updated: the latest news is that the hearing is delayed yet again, and  will be on 3rd May, and here is an amusing consequence of such a delay, according to Mrs Angry's sources, all Conservative council candidates will have been selected by then. If this is true, whatever the outcome of the trial ... oh dear. Hardly bears thinking about, does it, Brian?
 
Since the loss of his various posts, Brian has been consoling himself elsewhere in his initimitable way, having belatedly discovered the joys of blogging. And in his never ending quest for attention he has turned again to an old ploy: yes, the witchfinder general is at it again, pointing his finger and finding 'anti-semitism' in every corner of Broken Barnet.

Mud sticks, as Coleman knows, or imagines: already having been targeted, albeit obliquely, in this way, Mrs Angry has already dealt with this subject in an earlier post here  - and has no intention of giving any more publicity to his disgraceful slurs than is necessary.

That anti-semitism is a real evil still present in our society is undeniable, but Coleman has form for using false accusations of such behaviour, and clearly sees it as an acceptable method of smearing others. Forced last year to apologise to two victims of such vile abuse, he seems not to have learnt his lesson, and now writes a nasty piece with a clever combination of those who undoubtedly have made offensive remarks, and those who have not. 

Those who object to any planning application, for whatever reason, by a Jewish community group, will frequently run the risk of being labelled by Coleman as 'anti-semites': this is utterly despicable, and there is little you can do to deny such motivation when made - even, absurdly, when you are yourself Jewish. 

He refers now to the Eruv applications, which unfortunately cause endless arguments, (and frankly Mrs Angry fails to see why any Eruv represents a problem) including, signficantly, debate within the wider Jewish community. Coleman  claims to have seen 'sickening' objections to the latest one, with the implication that all objections are necessarily provoked by such repellant motivations.

That some objections are merely anti-semitic rants is undoubtedly true: it is a huge leap, and a very dangerous mistake, to move from that conclusion to an assertion that all who object to such applications are inherently anti-semitic. But the witchfinder general has tried all he wishes to charge with such motives, found them guilty, and sentenced them to the punishment of widespread and unanswerable infamy.

Why does Coleman resort to such behaviour? Attention seeking: and an attempt to portray himself as an indispensible patron of a community to which he does not belong, but which in some way he claims to represent. 

He seems not to understand that every time he makes a false accusation of anti-semitism he devalues the real impact of the truly horrific acts of racist abuse that many Jewish people endure every day in so many subtle, and not so subtle, ways and worse still, unforgiveably, denies the full horror of the Holocaust whose memory he claims to invoke in this perverse fashion.

Of course in real life, making false accusations of any form of racism is contemptible, but in Coleman's case, ultimately, what can you do but laugh? 

Having been smeared by him on more than one occasion, labelled in public by him as an old hag, shouted at in the corridors of the Town Hall, and been bizarrely accused in his blog of attacks on local Conservative party properties as well as, even more incredibly, his own elderly mother, and, perhaps worst of all, having a secret passion for David Beckham, and oh dear, Simon Cowell, Mrs Angry can only shake her head, and laugh - and feel sorry for the old fool. 

Having been advised on the finer legal points of such wild accusations, however, any repetition in the future may well mean that sympathy for the devil will be exchanged for a rather more proactive response.

Time for a real Friday joke, perhaps: 

I hear you're a racist, now, Mrs Angry?


 

Brian Coleman: the story behind those apologies - and his suspension

Last night the Tory councillors of Broken Barnet gathered for a group meeting, expecting, amongst one or two other pressing matters, to be asked to vote on the proposed suspension of their troublesome colleague, Totteridge councillor Brian Coleman.

Just before this could get under way, the news broke that Coleman had already been suspended as a result of action initiated by the national Conservative party board. 

Senior Tories had lost their patience, and tired of waiting for the shambling Barnet leader Richard Cornelius to do what he should have done weeks ago, and taken action to suspend Coleman, the former GLA member and chair of the London fire authority, as soon as he was arrested on suspicion of assault of a local woman. 

As reported in this blog some time ago, central party officials are said to be infuriated by the local Conservative associations' indulgent attitude to Coleman, and their refusal to follow constitutional procedure in dealing with allegations of behaviour likely to bring the party into disrepute. Last night David Miller, the former Tory chairman of Chipping Barnet Conservative association, indicated in a tweet that it was indeed the 'dithering' of local Tories that led to the intervention by the party board.

Coleman's charges in relation to the alleged assault are charges only, and suspension is no implication of guilt, merely a precautionary action pending the full outcome of the legal procedure. 

It is however reasonable to expect that Coleman should already have been suspended in September on the grounds that he refused to apologise to the victims of his deeply offensive 'anti-semite' slur emails: he was not. 

Cornelius should have censured him for the insulting 'sad, mad, bad, and a couple of old hags' remark he made about residents in the public gallery at the last full council meeting: he did not.

And as we know, Cornelius failed to act when Coleman was charged last Monday with assault by beating and a driving offence: he indicated he would not be taking any action in relation to his colleague, for fear, he claimed, that it might prejudice the legal proceedings.

This nonsensical excuse provoked such an outcry that within twenty four hours Cornelius was obliged to perform a u-turn and announce that he was after all instigating the procedure for suspension. 

Clearly this response failed to pacify the concerns of central office, and no doubt the possibility that our craven Tory councillors would buckle and fail to vote to suspend Coleman compelled the board to take control of the omnishambolic affair and do the deed themselves.

Apologies from Coleman to Ron Cohen and Charlotte Jago, the victims of Coleman's abusive emails, arrived only yesterday, hours before the Tory group meeting which was going to debate their colleague's suspension. 

The announcement that Coleman would after all apologise was made last week at the time of Cornelius' u-turn. It is pretty clear, therefore, that the 'anti-semite' slurs and refusal to comply with the sanction of the Standards Board played a role in the party officials' intervention and decision to suspend Coleman.

These so called apologies are, quite frankly, a travesty of the sanction process:  forcibly, painfully extracted: weeks late, cursory, sloppy: littered with errors - the act of someone continuing to show contempt to the victims of his insults. 

But too late, anyway: it's all too late - the damage is done, to the Tory party, locally, nationally, to Coleman's own career. And he has no one to blame but himself. 

When he sits in his charity flat, over the next few weeks, scribbling away at his memoirs, plotting his comeback, perhaps Brian Coleman will take the time to reflect on the sequence of events which have brought him to this end. It seems unlikely, however: he appears to have no capacity for reflection, or self knowledge. 

And this is his tragedy, ultimately: his life's story is not a tale of power, political intrigue, and statesman like acheivements, the sort of life he imagines that he has led: it is a story of rampant egotism, boundless vanity, relentless confrontation with perceived enemies - and petty point scoring.

The Tories in Barnet have failed to keep Coleman in check, and have failed to censure him because they do not feel it is necessary. In many ways he is their animus: their archytype of self, the spoken word of their private thoughts. No wonder they are reluctant to dispose of him: what will the Barnet Tories do, without his looming presence in the dark shadows of their collective mind?

Senior Tory party advisers have now written off Barnet as a lost cause. The Tories have already lost the next general election here: but now - now it is time for Labour to prove that they deserve to win it.

Update: 

The local Times paper reports this afternoon that Tory leader Richard Cornelius has declared himself to be 'feeling the strain' of the Coleman suspension. 

"I have found it very difficult to deal with because I know and like Brian. These allegations have come along and I’ve found it very difficult to handle."

Here you have the heart of the matter, the reason for the reluctance to censure anything Coleman does or say: a weak leader who puts loyalty to a friend before the duties of his post.

The seriousness of the charges now facing his chum should have been dealt with in absolute fairness to all parties, and without favour. Cornelius claims in this report that the suspension imposed by the party board last night was always possible as his colleague has a 'presence' outside Barnet, but he goes on to admit that he was taken by surprise, on the way to the group meeting, when told of the party's decision. 

As well as his reluctance to suspend Coleman from the whip, in the light of the current charges, Cornelius has always refused to condemn his many acts of rudeness to members of the public, and indeed appears to find them rather amusing. 

Mrs Angry suspects that the last laugh, Councillor Cornelius, will be on you: hopefully next week, if your colleagues remember where their balls are, if not their brains, and support the vote of no confidence.