Between the idea and the reality - Mandela and Margaret: the view from Broken Barnet

Labour councillors in Barnet have issued the following statement:

Following the sad news of the death of former President Nelson Mandela, the Barnet Labour Group of councillors have called for an extraordinary Full Council meeting to enable tributes to be given, and to agree a permanent commemoration of his life and work in the form of an Annual Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture during Barnet's Black History Month.
 

Leader of the Barnet Labour Group Cllr Alison Moore said: “The sad news of Nelson Mandela’s death gives us all pause for thought about the values we seek to exemplify in the world. His inspiring fight for freedom and justice, against discrimination and hatred through a life of struggle, sacrifice and forgiveness is an example to us all.   As he said – it’s in our hands now to make the world a better place – and we must each find a way to continue that fight for progress and against injustice wherever we find it.”

Cllr Agnes Slocombe, who met Nelson Mandela when he visited London, and has visited South Africa said: “He’s given us all food for thought, and we should all learn a lesson from him.  He was inspirational with his humility and his ability to forgive - a wonderful man.  It hurts me to think of him living for 27 years in captivity and yet he emerged with no bitterness. I visited Robben Island, and went into the cell he was incarcerated in which was very small, and only one person could really fit in -  it’s hard to imagine how anyone could live for so long there.”

A request for an Extraordinary Council meeting has been sent by the Labour leader Alison Moore:

Dear Mr Mayor,

I would like to formally request an Extraordinary meeting of Full Council at the earliest opportunity, in order that Members of the Council can pay tribute to Nelson Mandela following his sad death yesterday evening.

Motion in the name of Cllr Alison Moore for an Extraordinary Meeting of Council:

Council is proud of the inspirational work of Nelson Mandela throughout his long life in fighting racism and injustice. Council commits to establishing, with key partners, a permanent commemoration of his life and work in the form of an Annual Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture during Barnet’s Black History Month on the theme of Community Cohesion and to actively encouraging young people from across Barnet’s diverse community to attend and participate.

Everyone has a Nelson Mandela story today: so here is mine.

Many of the commenters leaping on twitter to post their tributes on the passing of this great man have grown up in a world where apartheid was a part of history, as distant as the idea of slavery, or the fight for women's suffrage. 

My own children, born just after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, hardly believe me when I tell them that at their age, friends of mine in South Africa who had a different colour skin were not allowed to sit on the same bus as a white person, or eat in the same restaurant, or go to the same school, or restaurant. 

My children have grown up in a multicultural society, where race and colour are, at least to them, irrelevant. But when I think back to the way things were when I was their age, it comes as a sharp reminder of how recently the change came about and how fragile is the structure of law and hard won protections of so many basic freedoms and rights that their generation takes for granted.

For my generation, the fight against apartheid was a moral duty, a measurement of political commitment: an awakening of political consciousness. For me, anyway, from a suburban middleclass, Telegraph reading home, that is how my political senses were awoken. 

A fellow student on my journalism course was a South African, of Indian descent, who had been imprisoned for months without trial after taking part in a student uprising. 

Yunus had left the country within hours of being told he was to be re-arrested - grabbing a suitcase of clothes too big for him from a friend's shop, the ANC got him out of the country and into the UK on a UN sponsored student visa. He arrived here traumatised, deeply suspicious of his fellow students, and slow to accept that the white middle class young people he was with saw him on an equal basis, and were not his enemies.

Slowly he unwound, and began what he saw as his mission to raise the political consciousness of his friends to what was happening in his country. He would turn up on the doorstep, clutching copies of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, treatises on Marxist theory, literature from the United Nations about infant mortality in the townships. The life he described, with its unimaginably divisive barriers, and regulations imposing separation of peoples on the basis of colour and ethnicity, the violent suppression of protest, the injustices of institutionalised poverty and lack of education, was terrible, and the wider implications it raised, once seen, could never be unseen. 

While there is still injustice in the world, no one with any decency can ever turn away, but has the moral duty to fight it. 

Of course the issue of apartheid, and the test of morality that it posed, could result in an entirely different result in those of a less finely tuned political sensitivity. 

Yes: let's talk about our friends in the Conservative party, many of whom are now falling over themselves to pull sad faces and mourn the loss of a great world leader, vilified by their own party when he was imprisoned, but celebrated as soon as he came to power.

David Cameron: "A great light has gone out in the world. Nelson Mandela was a hero of our time." 

Cameron apologised in 2006 for the shameful record of the Conservative party in supporting and sustaining apartheid, and its refusal to apply sanctions against the regime which imposed a system of institutionalised cruelty and degradation on so many of its own citizens over so many decades. 

But Cameron himself was happy enough, in 1989, when Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned, to avail himself of the opportunity to visit South Africa, all expenses paid, by a lobbying company that opposed sanction, enjoying a  'fact finding tour' that his then boss says was offered on the basis that 'The Botha regime was trying to make itself look less horrible'.

Some activists in the Conservative Party at the time were open in their detestation of the man whose loss the party now claims to mark with such reverence. Members of the 'Federation of Conservative Students' were happy to wear 'Hang Mandela' badges. 

In 1987 PM and Finchley MP Margaret Thatcher famously declared that ' the ANC is a typical terrorist organisation'. Her colleague Norman Tebbit also referred to Mandela as a 'terrorist', and her staunch supporter, MP Teddy Taylor, even suggested that he should be shot. 

Denis Thatcher had extensive investments in South Africa, of course, and their son Mark spent a year there in 1972. Margaret and Denis made their own visit in 1973.

Thatcher only brought any support to the ending of apartheid, after almost every other world leader, once it became apparent that cold war paranoia over the global threat of communism was dying, and that apartheid represented a barrier to a free market. By delaying any effective opposition, she stands accused of enabling its survival perhaps for a decade longer than necessary, and condemning millions of South Africans to conditions of intolerable oppression and hardship. And every Conservative who supported her position must accept the same culpability.

Let's look at the view taken by the Mayor of London, as revealed by Adam Bienkov here

http://snipelondon.com/scoop/what-does-boris-johnson-really-think-of-nelson-mandela

 in 1997, Johnson interviewed the former president of apartheid-era South Africa FW de Klerk for the Daily Telegraph. Here’s how he began the article.

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Once the Afrikaner discriminated against the black man on the grounds of his colour. Now the boot is on the other foot…”

Later in the interview he added:

“Mandela never accepted the Swiss-style constitution [de Klerk] proposed; and last year, fed up with being marginalised, de Klerk quit the government. He must have known that this would happen, that the majority tyranny of apartheid would be followed by the majority tyranny of black rule.”

The tyranny of black rule?

Closer to home, we have had our own tribute to Madiba from one Tory councillor: right wing councillor Brian Gordon, who, in the 1970s, while the ANC leader was languishing in prison, thought it necessary to call for an end to immigration, as Britain was becoming the 'dustbin of the world' ... and then in 2007 caused offence by attending an event at a care home blacked up as Mandela, and rapping to a bemused audience of elderly residents. 

 Mandela kindly forgave Gordon for his pathetic behaviour, observing, however, that he objected to the suggestion that he would wear a shirt like that. Which serves only to underline the difference between the graciousness of a great man, and the infantile nature of Tory politics, here in Broken Barnet.

My fellow student Yunus, as he always wanted, is now a leading figure in the new South African political establishment. He has held a number of ministerial roles, and is currently the Communications Minister. His loyalty to the ANC is undaunted, and his integrity uncompromised. How many politicians can say the same?

Margaret Thatcher took the long road to Finchley: Mandela followed the long road to freedom. In February 1990, we saw the release from prison, after 27 years, of a great statesman: in November that year we saw the end of the career of Margaret Thatcher. It was a year of deliverance from evil, and one of great celebration. 

In 2013, we said goodbye to both of them, but their legacy lives on: in the case of Mandela, that is one of hope, compassion, tolerance, and forgiveness. In the case of Margaret Thatcher, most of us see only a heritage of hatred, division and selfishness. 

Her successors in government are creating their own version of apartheid: a nation being torn apart by the same ruthless exploitation of an elite, an empire based on racial superiority supplanted by an empire of oligarchy and privilege, where the poor and dispossessed are relegated to the virtual townships of urban Britain, with just as much contempt as anything displayed under the decades of apartheid in South Africa.

Here in Margaret Thatcher's own backyard, her heirs are honouring her memory with their own form of tribute: a refusal to acknowledge the needs of the disadvantaged, a continuing obsession with the values of the market place that has seen all our council services privatised, and support for disabled residents turned into a failing business, created on the principle of creating profit from care.

Former Barnet Tory councillor Brian Coleman is complaining tonight that the suggested meeting to honour Nelson Mandela is 'gesture politics' at its worst.  

They didn't do this for Mrs T, he whinges. 

Too right, Brian, they didn't. Ask yourself why.

Thatcher, on taking office, took a solemn vow, which she proceeded to dishonour, with ruthless efficiency, throughout the course of her time in office:

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.

And where she failed, Mandela delivered, with compassion, dignity and great courage.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

The real difference between Thatcher and Mandela is in these words: between the idea, and the reality - the difference between a politician, and a great statesman.


                 

I don't have a problem with making a profit : Barnet Tories and the Your Choice Barnet whitewash

                         

Their Choice, not Your Choice: Gabi Maddocks questions councillors - and gets no reply 

Safeguarding is something that Barnet Tories like to think they are very good at. 

They often congratulate themselves on how well they manage this responsibility, and present the successes of hard working council staff, social workers, support workers, care workers, as their own achievement. 

And when it all goes wrong? It doesn't go wrong. Even when it does.

Just to prove it hasn't gone wrong, they set up a group to study the matter, and report back to a committee to tell them: look, some people have said it is going wrong, but we don't believe them, and here is £1 million to put it right.

That, in short, is the outcome of the report submitted last night to Barnet's Safeguarding committee from a 'Task & Finish' group supposed to look at the catastrophic 'Your Choice Barnet' venture, an 'independent trading company' set up by the council to run care support services for disabled residents. They looked at it, and have failed to recommend any really effective response.

Your Choice Barnet was launched on the basis that it is possible to make a healthy profit from the provision of care to such vulnerable people, and that such profit would be used to subsidise the activities of Barnet Homes, another part of the 'Barnet Group' ALMO - 'At Arms Length Organisation' which is meant to run certain council functions as a successful business.

Political ideology in Broken Barnet, of course, demands that the market is brought into every aspect of life, hence the recent billion pound deal with Capita to provide almost every other service not already privatised by our Conservative easycouncillors, eager to swallow any half baked suggestion from their private sector groomed senior management, and their multi million charge account consultants.

It was Agilisys/iMPOWER, the consultants now feasting off Barnet taxpayers with their multi million bills for the tendering of two massive contracts given to Capita, who created the original, disastrous business plan for Your Choice Barnet.

Within a year of YCB being in place, it became clear that, not surprisingly, there is no profit to be made from the meagre payments and personal budgets of disabled residents, and a financial meltdown was looming. The council was obliged to offer £1 million to bail the venture out of trouble. Despite a tidal wave of protest and widespread condemnation, the service was not taken back in-house. The council's only reaction to criticism was to set up a Task and Finish Group to look at the problem.

Except of course, the remit of this group was deliberately limited in terms of scope, and set up to provide exactly the outcome the Tories wanted: a whitewash.

Many residents, users of YCB and carers turned up at the Town Hall for this meeting. 

A large number of public questions had been submitted, and others had exercised their right to speak to the committee. We sat back, and watched the Tory councillors move from a position of quiet indifference to one of discomfort and even hostility. For Labour, Kath McGuirk did her best to do what an opposition member is supposed to do: oppose, challenge, obstruct the shameless political game playing of the Tory administration.

Public question time. First one from a Gabi Maddocks, whose brother Carl has attended centres formerly run for disabled residents, and who is deeply anxious at the thought of no longer being able to go to the places which have provided him with care for so long. She asked:

Can you reassure the disabled adults in Barnet that they will continue to have a safe and stimulating place to congregate on weekdays when Flightways, their current centre, is demolished, considering that this is their preference?

The response said merely that 'a service' will continue to be provided in 'various locations' across the borough. Ms Maddocks demanded to know what 'various locations' meant, and asked why they did not understand the enormous anxiety this uncertainty was causing her brother, seated at the front of the public area with another family member, and unable to follow the proceedings due to his profound deafness. Her brother had attended his centre for 8 years, drawing huge support from what was a safe, intellectually and creatively stimulating environment.

There was to be no reassurance for Ms Maddocks or her brother: she was told in a smug reply that the issue of Flightways an 'operational' matter and not part of the remit of the Task and Finish group. They would not even confirm if it was going to close. 

Tell Carl that and damn you it is THEIR choice, change the name of your company, she responded, furiously, and who could blame her?

More questions received more evasive or patronising answers from Tory councillors and officers.

Tracey Lees, the Chief Executive of the Barnet Group responded to one question by saying that they had to decide if Your Choice Barnet was an independent limited trading company, or not. It was not, she said, a good thing to interfere ... an ungrateful remark, you might think, considering the bail out of £1 million which this 'independent' venture requires from taxpayers in order to subsidise its acitivities.

As to the morality of the whole project, making money from the provision of care for disabled residents: Tory Councillor Brian Salinger commented thoughtfully 'I don't have a problem with making a profit' ... if it extends the service, he added, he was 'all for it'. The point is, of course, that the service is unsustainable as it is, let alone capable of being extended in order to benefit users. But Barnet Tories are so ideologically obsessed with the profit motive, they are incapable of admitting there are areas where the market cannot be introduced, should not be introduced.

A questioner asked why Your Choice Barnet had no user or carer on the Board, to represent the real stakeholders in this as is supposed to be the case. Ms Lees said there was a carer representative, but they had still not managed to find a user. In any case once on the Board a member became a Director, and could not represent anyone else. It emerged that the carer representative has stood down, and it seems extraordinary that in all this time no user can be found to join the Board, or that their contribution should be so proscibed, one might think.

Is someone representing Capita? asked our veteran revolutionary commenter Mr Shepherd, from the back row of the public seats. No reply.

Perhaps Question 21 elicited the most telling response of all.

Resident and member of Barnet Alliance Barbara Jacobson had asked why the report had not, as it had stated, acted to ' Consider evidence from parents and service users about their experience of the services ...' Instead of doing so, the study used 'existing readily available information' and some feedback regarding only one centre. The written response said that due to 'time constraints' this was considered a good idea.

The Group did not consider any reports from service users and/or carers and instead undertook site visits to engage with service users and staff.

Tory Brian Salinger seemed to see nothing wrong with the restricted scope of information.

We weren't sitting an exam, he said.

Time for those who wished to address the committee to speak. 

The narrow scope of the Task and Finish group had also, quite ridiculously,  excluded any input from Unison, representing staff members working for Your Choice Barnet. Labour's Councillor Kath Mc Guirk now asked for Unison to be allowed to speak to the committee, and pushed for a vote on a motion for this to be moved. 

Rather astonishingly, the vote went in favour, and Helen Davis addressed the meeting, stressing the link between decent pay and working conditions for staff and a good quality of care for users. Due to the effect on morale of the uncertainty regarding YCB's financial stability, and the threats to staffing levels and terms of employment, many had chosen to leave, replaced by agency staff, which was clearly not in the best interests of users. She criticised the glaring flaw in the business model which had led to false assurance resting on the funding available from personal budget payments.

Service user Janet Leifer addressed the committee next. The picture she painted of the effect on residents who relied on their purpose built centres was bleak, and shaming. 

She spoke of users being obliged to spend long periods outside in cold weather, 'out and about in the community' as it is so cynically described. Mrs Angry thought about the group of disabled young adults she saw recently being dragged reluctantly along the road,on a bitterly cold day, confused, accompanied by what seemed like too few carers, not speaking, or interacting, just being moved about for the sake of it. 

Janet explained the terrible difficulties caused by lack of transport, or the high charges of transport that was available, and the burden of costs introduced for some activities. All of these changes make it impossible for many former users to take up the more limited services available. The resulting impact was not only on the disabled residents but on their carers, who were being deprived of much needed respite. There was no independent body to inspect and evaluate most of these facilities. And the report was wrong to say they had to create YCB: the alternative of an in-house service would be more likely to guarantee that users were well cared for, healthy and happy.

Mrs Angry thought that perhaps the happiness of disabled residents was not a Key Performance Indicator recognised by the directors of Your Choice Barnet.

Glancing at the committee table then, it was apparent that the hardline Tory councillor Brian Gordon was sleeping through Janet's impassioned speech. To the many disabled users and carers who had come to the Town Hall to hear their elected representatives debate this report, it must have seemed extraordinarily discourteous. 

Resident and carer John Sullivan had wanted to address the committee, but is in ill health, and so asked Barbara Jacobson to read his speech for him. John has a fifty year old daughter, Susan, who has Downs Syndrome, and he is deeply concerned at the standard of care that she and her fellow users of care services in Barnet are being offered, since the creation of YCB.

There are many kinds of lie, said John Sullivan: a complete untruth, a partial untruth, inaccuracy, omission ... The name Your Choice Barnet gives the impression people were given a choice. LIE.

Barnet Council created Your Choice and foisted it upon users; it did not allow them to choose to keep services in house. The brochure effectively selling this privatisation of adult social services was called 'More Choices' ... LIE: there was no choice at all; all services are administered by Your Choice. 

This brochure claimed "the services will not change, only the logo will change" LIE: services have changed out of all proportion to what was available before ... 

Your Choice claim they have consulted parents, family carers and clients: LIE. They arranged purely informative meetings, and the leaflets about the meetings that they sent to family carers said there would be no change to services ...

Now, wrote John, we have the absolute farce of an investigation by members of this committee. How many of these concerned parents and family carers did this inquiry consult to ascertain what they think, feel, or fear? None.

These parents collectively have hundreds of years of 24/7 front-line experience in this field, experience far beyond that of those on the board of Your Choice, yet this inquiry chose to ignore them. No investigation into a complax service such as this can possibly be considered comprehensive without that input.

Your Choice have claimed that no staff are having or are about to have their incomes slashed: LIE. As and when staff have had a huge wage cut. Skilled support workers have been demoted to a lower-paid status as assistants, a 23% pay cut, effectively forcing them out, and they have been replaced with as-and-when and zero-hour contract staff at reduced rates ...

It has been lie after lie after lie.

You cannot build a future for these vulnerable folk on a lie, any more that you can build a stable home on the sand.

All Your Choice services should be returned in-house at the earliest possible time, before we experience our own version of Winterbourne View. 


The Tory councillors shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Tracey Lees's expression was a picture. And then it was the turn of one of the users of Your Choice Barnet, a resident called Philip Rackham, who has physical disabilities and learning difficulties, but whose spirit, cheerfulness, cheekiness, and hard won independence, is truly inspiring.
  
                  

His speech must be reproduced in full, delivered as it was with such determination, effort and sincerity.

My name is Philip Rackham, and I want to tell you about myself.

I'm 52 years old and live alone in a flat in Whetstone. I've lived in the borough of Barnet all my life. I have cerebral palsy and a mild learning disability.

When I was younger, I was abused physically and mentally for being like I was.

When I was 34, I moved out of my mother's house into a residential home. I then lived in different places, until I moved into a ground floor flat, where I've lived for eleven years. 

In 2001 I got married to Susie, who also had a disability. None of my family came to the wedding. Sadly Susie died in 2005, and I've lived alone ever since then.

I used to be able to get about quite well, with no problems, mainly using buses. But a couple of years ago I was knocked down by a car, and broke my hip. Since then it has been very difficult for me to get about at all, and I have to rely on other people for transport. That means I have to spend a lot of time in my flat, on my own. 

So I've had a very difficult life. But I'm a FIGHTER.

I've joined a  lot of different organisations that have helped me stick up for myself, such as CADDSS, BAPS, Peoples' Choice and Barnet Mencap. They have all helped me to become more confident, and stand up for the rights of disabled people. 

But the council isn't helping much. I don't think they give a DAMN about disabled people, just like the government. 

I get Direct Payments, but they're not enough. I think that councillors probably get more, just for coming to meetings. The councildoesn't give me enough money for all the care and support that I have to have, such as cooking and cleaning of my flat, and also for getting about as much as I want and need. 

I used to go to BILS (Barnet Independent Living Service) which is run by Your Choice Barnet, but when I became a volunteer receptionist there, my transport was taken away, so I can't afford to go there anymore. I really used to enjoy the company I had at BILS, and I get quite lonely without it. It was an important part of my social life. 

Barnet don't want the responsibility of looking after disabled people. That's why they set up Your Choice, so they wouldn't have to bother anymore. 

In the end, all that it's about is MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, which seems to be more important than caring for people. 

That's why I wanted to say all this today. 

I'd like to finish with a question to the councillors. 

How would YOU feel if you were in my situation?

When he had finished, and made his slow, difficult steps back to his seat, the room was absolutely silent.

Did I do well, he asked, afterwards, over and over again, with a grin: did I do well? 

Because, you know, I've had to learn to stick up for myself.

Yes, Philip: you did well.

There were no questions from the Tory councillors, of course, only from Labour's Kath Mc Guirk. Time then for Barbara Jacobson. Barbara laid into the deeply flawed report on YCB.

She noted the failure to investigate the issues it promised to address, to listen to users, carers, and staff. She referred to the lack of evidence for any of the assumptions, statements and recommendations the report makes, a report whose lack of thoroughness she said would not be acceptable in a sixth-form student essay, and exacerbates the worries of some of the most vulnerable people in our society - real people with real needs, real hopes and real fears.

Our humanity, she said, means that each and everyone of us has a responsibility to them.  


All of us here tonight, representing those who cannot speak for themselves, are asking you to examine the matter before you with empathy and the knowledge that it is your responsibility, too, to use your power to protect adults with disabilities. After all, you are the safeguarding committee.

While you might not have the power to order, as we demand, that adult social services are brought back in house, you do have the power to find that this report is only a first draft and demand further, more substantial work by the Task & Finish Group. And so we ask you to do that. 

Please do not fail us; do not fail yourselves.

Kath McGuirk asked a question, then at last one came from a Tory: Kate Salinger, wife of Brian. She said that it was fair to say that none of them could fail to be moved by what they had heard. Kate is a nice woman, and thinks the best of everyone. Clearly some people around the table were unmoved, and their consciences untroubled.

Further comments by John Sullivan were read by Tirza Waisel. He said that 'our caring councillors' could not see that attempting to make profits from extremely vulnerable people is 'immoral and reprehensible'. 

The only way we will protect these residents from the horrors that the market place brings, such as Winterbourne View and Veilstone Care Home is to bring all Your Choice services back in-house and stop the continual obfuscation, misinformation and smokescreen attempts to hide the truth, such as this inadequate, one-sided Task and Finish Group's inquiry, which is a whitewash and a cover-up.  

Time for a Labour member of the Group which produced the report to step up to the table. Deputy Leader Barry Rawlings, the senior member, was absent for some reason, so it was left to the less experienced councillor Arjun Mittra to speak. He was put in a very difficult position, left to carry the can and to explain the objections which opposition councillors had raised in the course of the study. They had wanted to speak to Unison and CADDSS, and had argued that they should visit all sites, not just one. He disagreed with Tracey Lees about the representation on the Board of services, and did not see why it should not work perfectly well. He urged YCB to look much closer at how they engage with users, and to have a more formal process in place for such engagement.

Kath McGuirk asked about morale. Arjun responded. And then at last a Tory councillor who rarely speaks wanted to ask a question. We all looked expectantly at Councillor Barry Evangeli, who proceeded to use the opportunity not to ask anything about the impact of the shambolic YCB venture on disabled and vulnerable residents, but in order to score a cheap political point.

Were the findings of the report agreed unanimously, and if so why was Labour bringing up reservations now?

Arjun said he did not believe it had been unanimous. Both Barry Rawlings and he had agreed they should take direct evidence from the unions ... there had been a necessary compromise ...

In fact the Labour group had issued a press release yesterday before the meeting, stating their position - but only a handful of individuals have seen this:

Your Choice business plan did not stack up 

"Optimistic revisions to financial projections" were made in the Your Choice Barnet business plan before Cabinet approved the transfer of some adults social care services to local authority trading company Your Choice Barnet - a cross party scrutiny review has found. 

The May 2011 Business Plan showed Your Choice making a loss of £282,260 in the first year of operation, but in November 2011 this was revised to show a profit of £85,337. 

The scrutiny Task & Finish Group review of Your Choice was set-up following a request by Labour councillor Barry Rawlings after Your Choice Barnet, which provides services to adults with learning and physical disabilities, reported first year losses of £68,000 and had to be bailed out with a £1m loan from its parent company - the Barnet Group - earlier this year. 

The scrutiny review also found that the business planning process prior to outsourcing failed to identify the key cashflow black hole that later required Your Choice to borrow the £1m from the Barnet Group in order to continue operating. 

 It is not clear from the Task & Finish Group report why the optimistic revisions to the business plan were made in advance of the Cabinet decision to outsource, but Labour councillors believe that Cabinet Members did not challenge the figures in the business plan sufficiently before making the decision. 

 Labour councillors Barry Rawlings and Arjun Mittra who participated in the Task and Finish Group (TFG) both argued that the final report should be delayed in order to take more evidence from parents and service users, and to allow for all of the services to be visited, but this was opposed by the Conservative majority of councillors serving on the TFG. 

The Task and Finish Group report will be considered at tonight's Safeguarding Overview & Scrutiny Committee (Wednesday 27 November). Nearly 40 public questions have been submitted to the committee on Your Choice by concerned parents and service users. Labour's Social Care & Health Spokesperson, 

Cllr Barry Rawlings said: "There was a complete lack of robust data so the business plan just did not stack up. The Conservative Cabinet did not properly test the figures, or ask for comparisons in other Boroughs. If they had the services may not have been outsourced - it is almost as though they were determined to outsource these services regardless. "The problem is we are now in a catch 22 situation: the council say they cannot afford to bring the services back in-house because so many service users are now receiving direct payments for their care and this money would be lost under an in-house service, but Your Choice must still make cuts to continue operating and this may impact on the quality of the service in the future. It is a very worrying situation for parents and service users." 

In the committee room, however, Labour's position had been unclear to the residents present, many of whom assumed from Evangeli's insinuation that they had been sold down the river by the Labour group's involvement in the report. 

Here is something that needs to be said.

The Labour councillors' naivete, and innate decency, plays right into the hands of their shabby Tory colleagues. They need to be more outspoken, more assertive and more challenging of the Conservative members, and senior officers, and to communicate better with electors - or the Tories will succeed in deflecting the strength of focus on their own failures and appalling policies, and win another election by default.

In other words, they have to learn to fight, and shout, and scheme, and play tough, or stand accused of facilitating the policies of the current administration, and of betraying the first duty of an opposition: to fight for the rights of the residents who have no voice, and are effectively disenfranchised by the democratic deficit in this borough.

Tory councillor Brian Gordon was awake now, although clearly not entirely. He seemed to be confused by the prolonged debate. Why the fumbling around, he asked? There was, he thought, a 'huge trade union input' in the discussion, with a 'left wing agenda' ... 

Uproar ensued - and a certain amount of hilarity at the thought of left wing agendas driving Barnet Labour policies.

Why are you still living in the 1970s? yelled Mrs Angry (amongst a few less polite observations). In fact this was unfair. Gordon and his Tory colleagues are still lingering in the Thatcherite glory days of the 1980s.

Unions don't exist in fascist states, Mr Shepherd observed, loudly, from the back of the room.

Most union members are low paid women, struggling to provide for their families, added Mrs Angry ...

Women don't get the vote in a theocracy, replied Mr Shepherd, trying to rile the traditionally minded, shamelessly authoritarian Gordon.

Tory Brian Salinger summarised his view on the outcome of his Task and Finish report. No change is never an option, he said. We have to live within our means. 

All the more reason, you might think, not to throw good money after bad, in the cynical exercise of propping up a failed venture, on grounds of political expediency.

The Salingers have a good understanding of the needs of those with disabilities, having a family member with such difficulties. Of course one family's experience is not easily comparable to that of any other.

To some extent Brian thought he could see John Sullivan's point of view. But there had been a 'sea change' in the management of disability in the last fifty or sixty years. In the past, disabled people were institutionalised but now parents were looking after children, and for longer. Those parents were getting older, struggling to look after the children who had outlived their expected span of years.  

Go and shoot them then, suggested one resident and carer, seething with fury.

Councillor Salinger was not going to support asking the Task and Finish Group to do any more on this issue, it was too much of a demand on resources.

And we've discussed it for nearly an hour and a half, agreed his colleague, Councillor Gordon. 

Kath Mc Gurk insisted a vote should be taken on whether or not the report was recommended for approval. The Tories refused to consider this, despite protests that the constitution allowed it. The meeting broke up with residents shouting in disgust at the councillors, and one or two officers.

Is it payment by results, asked Mr Shepherd, as Tracey Lees, the Barnet Group Chief Executive who earns a six figure sum salary for her efforts, left the room in something of a hurry.

Clearly not, Mr Shepherd.

Chickens coming home to roost, or: the occupation of Margaret Thatcher House

Updated Thursday - see below

Mrs Angry called in to visit the occupiers of Margaret Thatcher House this morning, finding them in good spirits and keen for our local MP Mike Freer to accept their invitation to join them for a night in the cold, to experience what it is like for someone without a home to live out on the street. They have this morning sent him this letter:

Dear Mike 

We appreciate you taking the time to communicate with us, thank you for the permission from you and your office to conduct our peacefull protest on the front yard piece of land at 212 Ballards lane N12.

The protest at your constituency office is a result of us trying to engage with the parliamentary democratic process in which we followed your procedures,for a public consultation.

Lobbying campaigning and raising awareness,whereby 96% of the replies to the public Consultation said do not criminalise squatting.

Including  Judges, police and lawyers associations as well as homeless charities and housing NGOs  requesting the law not be enacted.

However your government chose to ignore their own  public consultation and press ahead undemocratically to criminalise sheltering (squatting) in empty buildings.

We are further concerned greatly by Chris Grayling the justice minister saying he may once again undemocratically criminalise non residential squatting.Which is one of the last safety nets for many homeless and landless people who are not helped by the housing system.

Part of serving your constituents is to represent all constituents including rich and poor this includes some of your homeless constituents currently evicted onto your front yard from a community centre around the corner the Bohemia.

We have many points of importance to raise with you around the issues of the Housing crisis,the rise in street homeless,the bedroom tax,the further criminalisation of non residential squatting etc.

The law you co sponsored sec 144 Laspo act is unfair, unjust, undemocratic, unlawful, unaffordable and unworkable,and is causing great misery by removing an ancient and basic human right to shelter.

Also leading to an increased number of people freezing to death over winter.Many of your constituents are facing urgent housing/homeless and medical issues,which we hope you are willing to address.

We have had numerous liaisons with the inspectors from Colindale police of the past days (which we have filmed recorded and logged ) who are happy for our protest to continue, acknowledging that:

We are not breaking any laws and that we have rights to peacefully protest and assemble under ECHR articles 10 and 11.

That at all times we are endeavouring to be polite, courteous,co-operative with police requests through regular Liason.

We are keeping the area clean and tidy and are aiming to install some plants and window boxes to make the area more beautifull and attractive.

We are keeping the main access way very clear to your doorstep all times.

We have trained health and safety managers who are monitoring the situation.

We politely ask you to meet with us to discuss matters of great national importance such as the housing crisis which we feel your sec144 is exacerbating.

We would like to invite you to spend a few nights camped out with some of your homeless constituents to discuss these and many other issues,over a cup of tea, in an atmosphere of co-operative democratic discussion.

Having been ignored by your so called democratic public consultation, we have taken this act of peacefull protest to facilitate direct discussion and to stimulate the debate in the national media.

We are, having met with you and shared our views with each other,and some of our conditions met, happy to discuss an end date to our protest in a reasonable and proportionate manner without recourse to the law.

We hope to avoid unnecessary court time and expense.

We shall be advised in all the matters by our good friends Bindmans solicitors.

Looking forward to a discussion of solutions to the housing crisis that we can all work towards together.

Yours sincerely

Phoenix

Daniel

Mordecai

Petra

Peter

Graham

Dom

Mark

Bohemia Caretakers

 

Not backing Boris: the Bohemian occupiers of Margaret Thatcher House

One of the occupiers is Mordechai, a former director of the Jewish theatre of Budapest, who explained to Mrs Angry that he has been celebrating the first night of Chanukah, a festival of lights, but also commemorating an uprising against oppression. It seems a suitable festival to re-enact, in the circumstances. 

 Ma'oz Tzur, occupy style

And as Mrs Angry pointed out to Phoenix, even the Pope has made a point of speaking out yesterday on behalf of the plight of the homeless and dispossessed in a papal 'exhortation' issued yesterday:


No to an economy of exclusion


53. Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.

Here is the testing point then, in the story of the occupation of Margaret Thatcher House. Who will win? The rule of might, and the interests of the powerful, or the voice of the excluded, and dispossessed?

Mrs Angry would suggest that Mr Freer accepts the invitation of the occupiers, and spends a night out in the cold, and demonstrates that he does have sympathies for those constituents beyond the boundaries of Hampstead Garden Suburb. 

Leaving Margaret Thatcher House and wandering up the road to North Finchley, Mrs Angry bumped into a local sympathiser who was taking some coffee and food to the occupiers. He commented that he had enjoyed the previous post, and the psychogeographical references. He was himself, he confessed, a former Situationist. Of course. This is Broken Barnet: the streets of are full of them.

And here in Finchley, in November 2013, we have the spiritual home of Conservatism, where now,  in the grip of this heartless government, we see the battleground of a war we are only just beginning to understand: the fight for the heart and soul of something whose very existence Margaret Thatcher denied: society, community, call it what you will - we want it back, and if it doesn't really exist anymore, we will have to re-invent it, won't we?

*Updated Thursday:

At 6 am this morning bailiffs evicted the occupiers from the forecourt of Margaret Thatcher House. 

Phoenix and his friends believe the eviction to have been 'illegal'. The action has been reported here on the website of the company that carried out the eviction, with a lovely picture:

Rejoice, rejoice: Margaret Thatcher House has been liberated: pic courtesy 'The Sheriff's Office'

 According to the bailiffs:

Mr Freer is very pleased with the work of The Sheriffs Office – he asked us to remove the protesters as he felt they were intimidating and deterring his constituents from coming to the door.

Oh. He asked us to remove them, did he? Hmm. 

And then, oh dear ... look at this email which, for some reason, perhaps accidentally, Mr Freer sent to Phoenix and the occupiers in reply to their invitation to join them for one night to experience what it is like to sleep out in the cold, as so many homeless people will be tonight, and every night this winter ...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: FREER, Mike 
Date: Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 7:20 AM
Subject: Re: Invitation for direct democratic
To: Bohemian 

err no

email told them to phone and we would follow our usual procedures. which they seem unable to do. I am mightily peed off at the Police. I feel like sending the BILL to the Commissioner saying your daft advice landed us with this Bill.

of course this will inhibit every other demo as we will simply refuse to allow anyone onto our property.

so tempting to say - you are all numb-nuts as i am not the owner of the property and it is they you should be dealing with about your presence!


Mike Freer MP Conservative Member of Parliament for Finchley & Golders Green

020 7219 7071 (Westminster)

 020 8445 5875 (Finchley)

Sent from my iPad, working in the move

Well: dear me. Speaking as someone who has always found the local police to be hard working public servants, dedicated to their jobs, and working under extremely difficult circumstances, under resourced and overstretched, Mrs Angry finds it rather objectionable to hear her local MP referring to them in such disrespectful terms. 

Remember when the Conservative party was the party of law and order? 

Tssk. 

How times have changed. What would Lady Thatcher say?

Numb-nuts? And ... if Freer is not the owner of the property, was he entitled to call bailiffs in to have the occupiers removed, especially when a licence already appears to have been given to them to remain there?