Broken Barnet, May 2014: the morning after the night before

It is now a week since the local elections, and all parties in Barnet are now beginning to adjust to the new reality of political life in this borough. 

Or not.

In the last few days we have seen the Tories in a state of shock, uncharacteristically silent, unable to comprehend the reasons for the loss of so many of their councillors, and unable to see that their failure to predict such consequences is proof itself of the fundamental problems that have driven their party to the brink of disaster. 

They didn't see it coming, in short, because they didn't look. And their ability to remain happily out of touch with reality, has reached its logical conclusion: not to know when they had made the fatal error of alienating their own electoral guarantors, the residents naturally inclined to vote for them, whose support they took for granted, and overlooked in the rush to impose their half baked policies in the course of the last four years.

Not that Mrs Angry is inclined to help the Barnet Tories analyse what went so awfully wrong, but for the record, it might help if they sat in the corner thinking very hard about their attitude of contempt for the views of residents, and asked themselves why they felt obliged to act with such Stalinist zeal to silence all debate with residents, to avoid real consultation with them, to allow Tory councillors like Brian Coleman and Robert Rams to treat residents with such rudeness at council meetings - and to continue in imposing their most unpopular policies regardless of widespread protest, and an uprising of activism in this borough on an unprecedented scale, and one which brought the focus of media attention not just nationwide, but across the world. 

I mean, really, when it becomes a common place occurrence for the borough to be visited by film crews from Japan, or Australia, or Germany, and documentaries are made on just one of the political issues tearing your community apart - did you never stop to think, Tory councillors of Broken Barnet, hang on - this is all getting out of hand? Maybe ... just maybe we've got this wrong? Maybe we are going to be in a spot of trouble, on polling day?

The result of their arrogance, and ineptitude, is that their control of the council has all but disappeared, and hangs in the balance. 

We are just one by election away from the Tories losing all authority, and the introduction of the new committee system means that they will need to exercise a regime of the most stringent party discipline, and eternal vigilence, to ensure their own members turn up to all meetings. This will be an impossible challenge for the Tories, Mrs Angry cheerfully predicts.

At the election count, she asked one young Tory member why he had stood again for council, when his poor attendance record was so poor, and widely criticised. He maintained that he had made a promise to 'improve' his record of attendance, patchy because of work commitments, but said he thought that actually, going to meetings was not the only part of being a councillor which mattered, helping constituents was just as important. True, but for the next four years, being at meetings is going to be crucial, not optional. 

In truth, what is left of the Barnet Tory party, after the election, is a most peculiar creature, hard to define. 

So many of the members that were most characteristic of the previous administration have left us, thank God.

Consider the loss of the man they dare not name, no longer a Tory by the time of the election, but the dark power behind the throne throughout most of the administration, yes, it's him, Brian Coleman, the malign influence which worked its destructive power over the leadership of the party, and led to its downfall: without his totemic presence in the chamber, what strange synergy there will be, in this new administration.

Let's be clear: the Tory party has accomplished the sell out of our council services to Capita, and got it through an election campaign for two reasons. First of all because of the complete failure of the Labour party to oppose the programme - more of this later - and second: the privatisation has only just begun to become established, and only the first signs of fundamental change have begun to become apparent to residents. That is not going to hold out much longer, which is why it is vital for the new intake of opposition members to start as they mean to go on, and get a grip of contract scrutiny.

This week after the election, in fact on the first morning back after a Bank Holiday weekend, it was almost impossible, as Mrs Angry found, over the course of 14 phone calls in one hour, to reach the council by phone. The new Capita call centre could not cope with the number of calls it was receiving. 

 The way that Capita addresses the shortfall in the number of lines it provides, is to set up 'this number is not recognised' messages, or simply saying 'the line is busy'. This brilliant wheeze - dismissed at the beginning of the contract as teething problems - means that not all calls are logged - if they were the performance statistics would tell the truth, that at times residents cannot access information about their council services. 

These failings to respond to calls will not be recorded as failures to respond: they will simply not appear in the data, thus enabling KPIs to be flunked, as indeed they are, as Mr Mustard will tell you, in the course of the NSL contract. 

This is how your councillors, of both parties, have the wool pulled over their eyes about performance, and are able to remain at contract scrutiny committees, nodding as senior officers and Capita representatives assure them everything is just fine and dandy. 

It is not.

And just bear in mind that where large outsourcing contracts like these have ended, it has often been based on dissatisfaction with call centre performance, as we are now seeing in Birmingham. Contrary to what some are saying, it is possible to escape contracts, if the contractors are proven to be failing to provide the services paid for.

You, councillors of Broken Barnet, are being fooled. No more excuses, please: do your job, and challenge contractors not only on the performance statistics, but how they actually compile those statistics. It takes a bit of effort, doing this, but -hello - that's what you have been elected to do.

Over the last four years, I have sat and watched Labour councillors on committees fail to challenge the most appalling blunders by both Tory members and senior officers, open opportunities for political profit, and, for f*ck;s sake, to do what the people of this borough deserve, stand up for them, and do the right thing, on their behalf.

I'm not prepared to do the same again, in silence. 

In the previous administration countless opportunities were lost, by a failure in courage, in strategy, and most of all in leadership. This cannot continue.

The Judicial Review of One Barnet is the most worrying example. The reason this failed, of course, was not because the merits of the argument of the claimant: Judge Underhill ruled that Barnet had breached the statutory duty to consult residents about the privatisation of services. The Judicial Review failed because it was made too late.

Why was it made too late? Because legal action was not instigated by Labour when it should have been, early on in the process. Legal advice was not taken by Labour, until - it was too late. This was an unforgiveable error in judgement.

Having lost the JR, what then? During the election campaign, we had a series of question times at different parts of the borough. Mrs Angry took part in the first one, and sat in fury as the Labour leader refused to commit the party, if successfully elected, to attempt to exit from the Capita contracts. This also infuriated the majority of residents in the audience.

Now safely back in opposition, where some Labour members feel so much more comfortable, we hear reassurances that the party will 'fight to ensure that One Barnet is not selling residents short'. 

Let's hope that the new intake of more challenging and more radically minded councillors will do just that, and not succumb to the culture of complacency and impotence that has too often prevailed in place of any rigorous process of opposition.

And there are some really, really good new Labour members: at last, some young women, bright, passionate and determined: Reema Patel, Amy Trevethan, and Rebecca Challice. Equally promising are Devra Kay, Kitty Lyons (previously a councillor until 2006), and Kathy Levine, joined by Ammar Naqvi - a very able and welcome candidate, Adam Langleben, who works for Andrew Dismore, Paul Edwards, who used to be involved in union politics in Barnet, with Mrs Angry, a long time ago, the inimitable Alon Or Bach, who stood against Sarah Sackman for the Finchley and Golders Green PPC contest, Phil Cohen, Tim Roberts, and Laurie Williams. 

In an article here the local Times, the Labour leader Alison Moore is quoted as saying that this latest electoral defeat for Labour was in fact nothing of the sort, that the results were 'positive for the party' ... she says - I think absolutely it was a success. 

If this had been a campaign fought in the context of proportional representation, yes, perhaps. Notably where the candidates won surprising victories, it was largely because acitivists in those areas defied the predictions of the leadership group and did their own thing.

And as far as Mrs Angry is aware, the result in Barnet must be judged on the basis of first past the post, and - winning control. So, no: not a success, another failure. A failure resulting in a stronger party, but still: a failure.

There was every chance of doing this, of winning control, after the calamitous Tory administration of the last four years. 

Let's say it again: the Tories lost this election, and then so did Labour. 

Why? Because of the same misjudgement that failed to challenge them effectively in opposition, and something else too.

In the Times article the headline reads: I still have the backing of members. In the article itself the leader actually states: I still have the confidence of many members ... 

In fact the Labour party is in schism, beneath a veneer of unity, between the more - sorry to say - conservative members, and those more radical in approach, who want a new and more challenging form of opposition. 

It has been so, in truth,  for many years, with all criticism dismissed as supporting one faction or another, personalised, polarised. 

This failure to be inclusive of a range of views, and to allow the same attitudes to prevail without any review, is how an opposition becomes institutionalised, neutralised, too comfortable as part of an establishment.

The division in the party is such a waste of energy, and a real weakness, and yet it is set to continue because some of those who might make a challenge for leadership are too scared of disadvantaging themselves, should they fail, and in the handout of offices, and others feel that everything is just wonderful, and anyone who says it is not is disloyal, and mean. 
 
What is happening in Barnet is, in its way, a reflection of the faultlines within the national party. A disconnection between the voters, who see only weakness, and lack of conviction, with an establishment that runs on its own momentum, fuelled by an empty tank, right up until the moment of electoral failure.

Four more years of this, then? 

No: there won't be, because new leader or not, the councillors arriving in the Town Hall mark a new course, one of change, which will build a new momentum. 

The Tories in Barnet are in meltdown: in total disarray. Cornelius is the counterpart of his Labour rival, in fact: rather fatally for his party, he lacks leadership, or political instinct, and no doubt, sooner or later will be challenged, presumably by deputy leader Daniel Thomas.

The Tories only began to realise what was on the cards for them, in truth, in the last days of the campaign. The party which had ignored all criticism, all demands for a real dialogue with voters, all attempts at consultation, suddenly realised they were about to be handed the results of the ultimate form of consultation, in the course of the democratic process, when even their normally loyal supporters told them where to get off.

Then, so desperate were they to hold on to Hale, they resorted to such tactics as asking David Cameron to phone voters in that ward, to invite them to support their local Tory candidates. And yet, after a very long count, despite - or perhaps because of - Cameron's help, it became clear just how close they came to losing all three seats, rather than one. Boroughwide, their supporters, all those residents and traders they provoked into a 40 % turnout on polling day, came out in strength to punish them for the parking fiasco, and every other cockup they have created in the last few years.

Look at their major losses: Rams, the two Tambourides -  and good riddance to all three - and a real struggle to hold on to so many wards. The old epicentre of Tory influence in  Chipping Barnet has blown: things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. The heartlands of Conservative power,  in the cradle of Thatcherism, all crumbling. Who would have thought it? 

Me, and quite a few others, in fact, those of us who bothered to look carefully at what was happening, and why.

You can imagine how popular Mrs Angry is with the old guard in the Labour party at the moment, for daring to raise these issues in public: facing accusations of disloyalty, and being unkind, washing dirty linen in public. Oh dear. 

Don't give the Tories something to make political capital from, they are saying. 

Friends, you've been doing that for the last four years, without my assistance. Now is the chance to put an end to it.

The Tories in Barnet are now in no position to make capital out of anything: they are trashed, discredited, floundering about with no leadership of their own, no direction. Richard Cornelius is standing by, smiling politely, like the chief steward of the Titanic, handing out glasses of sherry to passengers, as they wander towards the lifeboats. 

There are no lifeboats. The ship is going down, and we are all going down with it.

And to those people who don't want to hear it, let me say this: there is a need to address these issues honestly, and openly, and now, when it really matters. That is the mark of a healthy relationship: this is what should mark the difference between us, and the quivering, cowardly Tories, who have followed their own leadership blindly over the edge of the electoral abyss.

It might be in the interests of some to shut down all dissent, and carry on as normal, but it is not in the interests of the party,  or those residents who have placed their trust in elected members to form an effective, fighting opposition, and protect them from the onslaught of Tory policies, nationally and locally, that are driving them into poverty, and then seeing them gerrymandered out of this borough, a process which is set to continue in the new administration.

Next year we have a general election. 

As you will see from this piece in the Ham & High ,  the fight between Tory MP Mike Freer and the brilliant Sarah Sackman has already begun. The party must be in a state of unity, and it must have a new approach to campaigning: painful honesty now, and a few more members putting party interest before personal comfort, or ambition  -and Labour will be unstoppable. 

After the humiliating losses for the Tories in the Barnet areas, predicted by the more radical of us amongst the party, it should be said, and dismissed by many - all three constituencies in this borough are now up for grabs. 

Let's start here working towards that, here and now, but let's start by being clear about who we are, where we are, and where we need to go.