Friday joke: an apology, and the tears of a clown

The two faces of Tory leader Richard Cornelius: happy, and sad. Sorry, and not sorry.

Hmm. Mrs Angry has been distracted from the business of writing another blog post, and provoked into an interim post here, for your reading pleasure, prompted by a story she has just read in this week's local Press.

Look, on page 17, Barnet Council Tory leader Richard Cornelius has contributed a short piece to the Opinion column, with the heading 'Councillors always have to see the bigger picture'.

Ha ha: yes, indeed, so they do, Councillor Cornelius, and your blogging friends here in Broken Barnet are always ready to help you to focus clearly on the bigger picture, are they not? Even when you are crouched still, hugging your knees under your desk, whimpering, fingers in ears, and trying very hard to keep your eyes firmly shut.

I have been asked, says Richard, why on earth did I get involved in local politics?

Oh dear.

Yes, Mrs Angry can believe that this question is posed regularly, and with some intensity of purpose, at increasingly frequent intervals, and not just by that face in the bathroom mirror.

There are two reasons, he tells us - to stop moaning and do something, and to be a part of making the difficult decisions that face our area.

Ah. Mmm. this is where it has all gone awfully wrong, though, hasn't it? When you are leader, you are not just there to engage in the process of decision making, you are supposed to, well, show leadership, and guide the process in the right direction.

In this article, with gobsmacking, infuriating cheek, the disingenuous Councillor Cornelius now talks about that the catastrophic parking scheme which he and his Tory councillor colleagues have foisted on the borough, in the face of all reasonable argument, and which they all obstinately defended during months of protest from residents and traders, allowing the impact of the scheme to wreak irrevocable damage to our high streets, and sending many businesses to the brink of disaster, and in some cases to the point of closure.

Now, only now, despite all the warnings, after three major electoral defeats in the space of a few weeks, this dunderhead has the gall to acknowledge at last that he was wrong, his party was wrong, the council was wrong: the parking scheme was, after all, a mistake. Oh, but by way of consolation, he tells us they are "saying sorry".

Krusty the Clown Cornelius and his Tory pals are hoping that the residents of Barnet will imagine that the parking scheme, promoted by Sideshow Bob, the now politically deceased Brian Coleman, was nothing to do with them really, and that nasty Brian shoved them up against a wall and was beastly to them until they agreed to back his idiotic plans.

Not so.

It is true to say that the whole snivelling bunch of cowards which constitutes the Tory party in Barnet were inexplicably terrified of opposing Coleman, even when the most dim witted of a very dim witted lot could see he was engendering the most enormous political damage to the credibility of their administration.

But this was not entirely due to fear of the big bad wolf: most of the little piggies were worried about the future of their own straw houses, that is to say their own political ambitions. Only when Coleman's tenure was so dramatically ended did they decide that there was nothing further to gain by continuing to support him. Shameless, selfish, and cowardly: and now they want our congratulations for saying sorry?

Who are you saying sorry to anyway, Richard? The residents and shopkeepers? Good.

But maybe you owe another apology too: to the activists, campaigners - oh and yes, the bloggers of Barnet who held up a picture you really, really did not want to see, until it was safe for you to do so.

Except, of course, you've blown it, and the apology has come too late: the stupidity of your administration has created its own form of nemesis, in the shape of a newly galvanised opposition movement in this borough: the recent electoral defeats of East Finchley, the GLA and Brunswick Park are just the beginning of your long, painful and undignified end.

Who's sorry now?