Mike Freer: your actions show who you are - an occupation in the heartland of Thatcherism

*Updated Tuesday, see below

The story of the occupation of the People's Library, in many ways, perhaps, marked a turning point in the battle of Broken Barnet: the battle won, but not the war, and hostilities continue, of course. 

And the psychic fault line that runs through this borough, acting as a portal to some other world of extraordinary happenings. never ceases to shift and to gape ever wider, and release a series of events that ensure the continuation of this never-ending story.

After the library was returned to the community, occupier Phoenix and his friends moved on: but not very far, or for very long. They turned their attentions to the empty premises of the much loved former Bohemia pub in North Finchley, that dangerous spot, just opposite Cafe Buzz, run by Brian Coleman's nemesis, Helen Michael. 

It is in that most potent and unstable stretch of the High Road where man of the street Horace would sit, with his suitcase, his drawing pad and his crayons, and wish passers by 'the very best of luck'. 

It is in the same stretch of the street where Mrs Angry was walking when she heard our former MP and PM Margaret Thatcher had died: a departure unmourned by her former constituents, marked by a feeble offering of two sparse bouquets left outside the Finchley Tory office just down the road.

The Bohemia had closed down overnight, one night in the summer, despite doing a roaring trade, and having become the focus of the local community. 

The occupiers wanted to return the pub to that community, as well as continue to highlight the issue which is their own abiding belief: that shelter is a human right, and that the increasing level of homelessness in this country is completely unjustifiable when so many usable premises lie vacant and unused.

The new tenants of the Bohemia settled in and opened their doors to local residents, encouraging the use of the premises once more for local groups, meetings and entertainment, including a memorable night of cabaret, with Phoenix playing the part of master of ceremonies, besplendent in gold lame frockcoat, his bleached dreadlocks stuffed into a top hat, between acts like music critic Charles Shaar Murray, playing blues on a slide guitar, and spitting out his brilliant poem 'Dylan in 66', and more poetry from the poet Anna Chen, also known as blogger Madame Miaow. North Finchley, you can be sure, had seen nothing like it before.

Life is a cabaret, old chum, in Broken Barnet. 

As in any period of political repression, in this borough, where the official view of culture is that it has no place here, where libraries are only potential property developments, and museums closed, and the contents declared to be of no value, and flogged at auction, and where Tory councillors tell you to get on the tube in search of the arts while cutting funding to local projects: a clear sign of resistance is the appearance of such spontaneous, uncontrollable forms of expression. But like all such movements in a time of civil unrest, the authorities must have the last word, and the occupation ended one cold night, with bailiffs breaking down the door, accompanied by dogs - and the police.

You might have thought that was the end of this story: but the next event has brought matters to yet another level. From a community activism, to cabaret, and now to politics - the natural course of any uprising, perhaps.

Because last week we heard that the occupiers were back: in a new location, but still in Finchley. They had moved into an empty church, formerly a meeting place for the Plymouth Brethren, and now used once a week by a group of local Sufis. And it is right across the road from ... the local Tory offices, once the constituency HQ of Margaret Thatcher, now serving the same function on behalf of MP Mike Freer.

Ah. MP Mike Freer. As well as being the visionary genius who came up with the easycouncil idea which has now sold this borough and our local services into ten year bondage to Capita, Mr Freer is the proud father of the bill which criminalised squatting in residential premises, moved by the plight of the hugely wealthy homeowners of local Tory stronghold Hampstead Garden Suburb, as reported in the Standard in March 2011:

MP Mike Freer says some homeowners are so concerned by the "epidemic" of occupations that they are considering whether to take family breaks this summer.

He added: "Constituents are wary of going away for three-week holidays. They are worried that they may come back to find their home occupied.

"People have bought these large, expensive properties and the law needs to be changed to give them peace of mind."

At the time, there was much outrage expressed by local Tory politicians, especially Mr Freer, over the ocupation of the £10 million house owned by a Mr Saif Al Gaddafi, formerly of Garden Suburb, Tripoli, and now detained by militia in Zintan, Libya, awaiting trial on security charges, but apparently avoiding indictment on other charges relating to alleged war crimes. Mr Gaddafi's house was occupied by Libyans protesting about the dictatorship - their stance was inevitably portrayed as anti-social behaviour rather than a political statement, of course.

You might be wondering what Mr Freer does on behalf of the rather less fortunate constituents of Finchley and Golders Green. Is he fighting, for example, to protect local health care from the ravages of the new 'reforms'? Is he heck as like. 

Mr Freer is gushing in his support for government policy on health, and describes talk of the privatisation of the NHS as 'tosh'. He does not want us to know the unpublished risks associated with these reforms. He says those who press for this information to be put in the public domain are 'shroud waving'. 

What about those residents affected by the bedroom tax? Any support from their MP?

Nope, sorry: in the housing benefit debate on 12th November, he complained that everything was the fault of Labour:

They created the perfect storm of insufficient house building, record overcrowding and housing benefit out of control.

This is rich coming from the man who was  Leader of Barnet Council, at a time when it had the longest housing list in the country, at the same time as boasting of the success of selling off so many council houses. Barnet is only now daring to build an astonishing number of three new council homes, the first in the borough for over twenty years.

Mr Freer, who owns two properties in Finchley, one house in the the south west of France, and enjoys half ownership of another in Scotland,  does not explain where the poorest and most vulnerable of his constituents now living in social housing, deemed to have one bedroom too many, should move to, if they cannot afford the Tory tax on poverty.

What exactly does our MP do on behalf of us, in parliament? As recorded on the 'They work for you' website, Freer's interests, according to Hansard are:

Billing, Departmental Billing, Press: Subscriptions, Sick Leave, Mobile Phones

For some reason, Mr Freer asks question after question about these subjects, to each government department in turn, fretting over the cost of paper invoicing, and hard copy newspapers. Mrs Angry wonders if by any chance he knows of any alternative form of IT based solution that might be used instead, and if so, could he come right out and tell us all, and concentrate on matters of more immediate interest to his constituents?

In the meanwhile: on Friday, his new neighbours in Ballards Lane moved across the road to the forecourt of the Conservative Association offices, and set up camp, with a couple of tents, and some pithily worded posters, aimed at raising the issues of squatting and homelessness.

 As the occupiers press release explained:

Mike Freer, co architect of the anti-squatting law is our next door neighbour! 

We challenge you, Mr. Freer, to sleep out in the cold with us for a night, while the local homeless who we will invite into the warm building watch us from within. 

We can assure you that this will make you understand the reality and flip the switch in your brain which prevents you from feeling compassion for brothers and sisters! 

Or else you can use your political influence to force us out of here into the frost. 

If you are ready to make laws, be prepared for the consequences. With power comes responsibility.

'Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights'
                                                                                                                                                                                        Isaiah 10:12 

Mr Freer declined the invitation, as you might imagine. The occupiers are still there, in the cold, camped in front of the room that serves as a shrine to Margaret Thatcher. 

Thatcher is dead, but there is really no need for a £15 million museum - her memory  lives on in the sociopathically charged policies of Barnet's Tory councillors, who prefer, for example, to continue to cut council tax at the same time as announcing cuts in vital services to the poor, the sick, and the dispossessed residents of this borough.

Our MPs sit back and say nothing, do nothing, in their defence, intent on furthering their own political ambitions at the expense of the more pressing concerns of those they represent. 


In the debate on benefit 'reform' Mike Freer told the house his support for the bill was based on his own upbringing, which appears, in this version of his early life anyway, to have taken place in a brown paper bag, Python style, between the wars, or possibly the nineteenth century:

I would never be rude to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you well know, but I feel passionately about this. I was raised in a two-up, two-down, with no outside toilet—[Interruption]—with an outside toilet and no inside bathroom. Opposition Members might laugh, but I know what it is like to live in poor accommodation and I do not need lectures from them about what it is like to live in poor accommodation. The Conservative party is the party of aspiration; it is the party that is solving the mess; and I will vote for the amendment.

Of course in this pre-election interview in the Guardian Mr Easycouncil admitted he had spent part of his childhood in a council home, which his parents bought under Margaret Thatcher's right to buy scheme. He thought then that all social housing tenants wanted a similar 'housing journey'. 

Thing is, Mike, you can't even think of travelling anywhere on this journey if you have no social housing left to allocate, and if the poorest of all are finding themselves without any roof over their heads, or are thrown out of their homes when they cannot pay their bedroom tax.

My own mother, between the wars, really did live in the worst poverty, a family of ten, at one point, before her brother and sister died as a result of illness caused by their appalling living conditions, living in a two up two down hovel, in one of those mining areas where your heroine later launched her worst policies of attrition against the working people of this country. And my mother's journey out of poverty was made possible not by Tory style aspiration, but by the efforts of union campaigning for a decent wage, and decent working conditions, and by the policies of a Labour government, the creation of a welfare state, the NHS, fair access to education. 

It's not greed which drags people out of poverty, and protects them from falling into a spiral of need and even homelessness: it's the right sort of support, and compassion from others.

Everything, in short, you cannot expect to find in the political philosophy of the Conservative successors of the woman whose malevolent legacy is embedded, like a genetic fault, in the dna of everything that is wrong in the blackhearted policies of the coalition government, and in the mindless, merciless governance of Broken Barnet.

Updated Tuesday:

The story of the occupation of Margaret Thatcher House has begun to attract attention beyond the boundaries of Broken Barnet, with stories in the Standard and the Guardian , and local BBC news.

Mike Freer, it should be noted, is putting a new spin on his reasons for promoting the anti-squatting bill: 

 “I supported the criminalisation of squatting because it was a big problem in my constituency. I don’t think it was right that hard working families that have saved would come home from holiday or having a house refurbished and would find someone else living in it.”

Rather a different pitch to the quote given above, you will note: Mr Freer has changed the story from worrying about the peace of mind of the multi millionaire residents of Hampstead Garden Suburb returning from their three week holidays to their 'large expensive properties' to 'hard working families' - clearly not Mr and Mrs Gaddafi, then, or oil rich overseas royalty, or even Tory party donors whose fabulous family fortunes are founded on arms dealing, but ordinary folk, like you, or me.

Mrs Angry looks forward to hearing further details of the 'big problem' of squatting that has existed in this area, and is confident Mr Freer is able to provide the evidence for this.

The occupiers want only for Mr Freer to accept their invitation to join them for one night, sleeping in the cold, and to experience what it is like for the increasing number of homeless people who have no home, no shelter, and whose numbers are set to increase further this winter as the impact of government welfare cuts makes its impact. Their view is that the effect of his bill, which criminalises the act of squatting in any empty, unused residential property, is unfair, and punishing those who have nowhere else to go. 

The Finchley MP would appear to becoming deeply uncomfortable at the unwelcome publicity that the occupiers have provoked, and the local Times paper reports now that he has told his new neighbours:

 "I appreciate you feel your point is important, but I must stress that I am trying to deal with constituents who are facing urgent medical issues and child protection issues to name but two.  “My constituents are being deterred from calling at my office.  Having made your point through your protest, I now politely ask you to stop."

In fact such claims are nonsense: Freer's Sooty and Sweep style camper van, his mobile surgery, has been happily parked at the back of the office all throughout the last few days and could easily be accessed as normal throughout all this time. The occupiers are in no way agressive, or intimidating, but very charming, reasonable and courteous. And the truth is that he appears to have given them a licence to remain on the forecourt quite legally, but now resents the embarrassing reminder displayed outside the Tory HQ of the consequences of his own actions. 

So be it. 

A message for our elected representatives:

The lull before the storm: Brian Coleman's last stand

Walking along the corridor to the Budget scrutiny committte meeting at the Town Hall last night, Mrs Angry spotted the Mayor, Councillor Brian Schama. He looked at her rather warily, and said:

 'Good Evening'. 

'I am not speaking to you,' replied Mrs Angry, rather childishly, sweeping past. 

'I am not speaking to you', said the Mayor, sulkily. 

'Good,' said Mrs Angry, continuing on her way.  

After the events of the last week, here in Broken Barnet, Mrs Angry was not at all in the mood to attend last night's meeting, chaired as it is by Brian Coleman, but on the other hand, she did not want to give him the idea that she was in any way impressed by his recent baiting of her, so off she went, notebook in hand, fist in pocket, clenched, ready for a fight, if need be.  

As it happened, he did not dare acknowledge her presence in any way other than, she noticed with interest, darting the odd covert look at her, when he thought she was not looking. She was looking. His expression, she noted, was one of curiosity, rather than anything else, studying her with detachment, looking on. An insight into his apparent inability to empathise with others, perhaps, to read their emotions: or maybe a calculating assessment to see what effect his behaviour has had on an enemy? Who knows - and who cares, really.

He slammed a wooden hammer down on the table sharply, twice, to call the meeting to order. Mrs Angry laughed, never having seen any Chair resort to such a theatrical device. It made Coleman seem rather like the auctioneer in some seedy smalltown saleroom, a role in a way, one might say, he was enacting for real, last night, later on, as we moved onto the interesting topic of the One Barnet sale of the century, and the now you see it, now you don't Joint Venture.

As well as three bloggers and a group of local residents, the committee room was, most unusually, stuffed full of  Tory Cabinet members and councillors, including the leader Richard Cornelius and deputy leader Daniel Thomas. Even more unusual was the atmosphere in the room, one of quiet unease. The mood darkened as the evening progressed.

Public question time. This process of engagement with the electorate clearly was being tolerated by the Chair only by the most strenuous effort on his behalf. In defiance of any consideration for the public, he had not allowed any written answers to be published, and read out the questions - about the cuts to sport and leisure, as well as the Joint Venture issue - in the most contemptuous manner, at the greatest speed, and spat out his response in the fewest words possible, often dismissing the question, or a subsequent supplementary question, as being an issue to be covered later in the meeting, which as it transpired, was largely not the case. 

Coleman was revelling in this opportunity to grandstand what he sees as his magisterial control of procedure and great statemanship, and his ability to manipulate and direct the course of action. Poor old boy, this committee post is now his only chance to demonstrate the tired old music hall act that once played out on the London Assembly and the Fire Authority, and NLWA, and in the Cabinet: being Brian Coleman. He clearly thought he was on sparkling form, but the stony silence and watchful gaze of his Tory colleagues looking on told quite another story.

In truth Coleman's behaviour as Chair is very telling. He is easily distracted by trivia, is clearly bored when the attention is not on him, seems unable to engage with any prolonged intellectual debate, and is more interested in the procedure, and the confirmation of his authority within the procedure, than the objectives of the meeting.

He began the discussion of the first item with a reprimand, in his peevish manner, for the language used in their report. He had had to translate it into English, he said. Coleman's own writing, as seen in his ludicrous blogposts, is littered with grammatical mistakes and omissions, but clearly he sees himself as the model of fluency and is keen to keep others up to his standard. He made an objection to aspects of this report, on early intervention schemes for what he called 'patronising attempts to manage people's lives'. He didn't care, he said, how people lived their lives, as long as they 'don't break the law, and don't cost anything'. Hmm.

He picked away at phrases that displeased him: references to 'academic thinking' , 'possible life outcomes' ... he was not sure, he said, how you measure a happy successful life ... Mrs Angry studied his face, thinking that this was almost certainly an honest admission, at least. He then went on to rail, bizarrely, about the poor relationships in this borough between the council and the Church of England. An increasingly tense and irritated Richard Cornelius spoke pointedly about his admiration for a 'first class cleric' who was a vicar in Stonegrove, Edgware.  More trivial objections to come: why do we no longer refer to 'troubled families'? The committee looked on in bemusement.

Tory Hugh Rayner now spoke. As he made his perfectly reasonable contribution, the Chair paid no attention, preferring to look at the messages on his blackberry.

Tory Brian Gordon talked about 'troubled families'. As he often does, he decided to make a provocative statement about what he considers to be 'the ideal family', with a mother, and a father: do we, ie the council,he asked, still take that view? The Chair, who had already forgotten his liberal attitude of not caring how people live their lives, informed the room that families needed fathers. Leader Cornelius said quietly that what constitutes an ideal family is in the eye of the beholder.

The next item was about sports and leisure facilities, or rather the abandonment of such facilities in this borough, where playing fields and sports clubs are development opportunities rather than a much needed resource for the less advantaged residents unable to afford expensive gym fees to keep fit. A rather terse Councillor Rams expressed the view that 'leisure isn't just about buildings' but that parks played an important role in such activities. In other words, the residents of Broken Barnet are allowed to take a walk in their local park (providing there are no private functions being held, thanks to the Tories' new policy of hiring out our parks and greenspaces), but this is about the only free leisure activity that will be available in future.

Some rather awkward discussion took part then about rates of obesity, and the need for physical activities to combat this problem. Can you guess which two tubby Tories thought this was not a problem, and that fitness centres were a waste of time?

 

 Cllr Rayner took the opportunity to raise the issue of the risk of obesity and a higher chance of early death. There was an awkward silence before Coleman made a joke about dying happy, followed by a rather enthusiastic response from Rayner: see above.

On to budget matters, and a curious display of thinly veiled hostility towards the Chair from an increasingly combative deputy leader John Thomas. Coleman voiced his opinions on seemingly every aspect of budget expenditure, asking whether it was not a 'cop out' not to go for another council tax freeze?

An icy Cllr Thomas suggested to the Chair that he might like to find a way of finding the £4 million that is required in able to acheive such an objective. Coleman did not respond.

How confident was Cllr Thomas in his One Barnet savings?
 
Confident, actually, said Thomas, in a rather equivocal manner which did not, in the way one might hope, inspire Mrs Angry with any confidence at all. Actually.

Pretty confident? asked Coleman again, without conviction

I am, said Thomas, who may or may not have had his fingers crossed behind his back.

We must really be in the shit, then, was Mrs Angry's conclusion.

More nitpicking. Councillor Coleman wanted to know why we are spending money on the closed Friern Barnet library. Electricity, for example: he noted that the place was lit up like a Christmas tree.

That would be your squatters, Brian, pointed out Mrs Angry, trying to be helpful. 

Cornelius said that electricity had to be left on in order to keep the burglar alarm system in full operation. There was some amount of derisory laughter at that point, as you might imagine.

More bright ideas from Coleman: charge for Freedom pass adminstrative costs. A review upwards of councillor allowances: (review upwards = more money for Brian & chums).

Ah: savings could be made from the pool of carers used by residents with dependent needs by means such as, ha, better contract monitoring ... better contract monitoring saves money, you know - does it? Oh dear: think of the millions lost, then, by the cock ups in procurement & contract monitoring over the last few years. How many childrens centres, libraries & museums could have been saved by that overspend?

And then we got to the real event of the evening: the Joint Venture item.

Coleman had called in this item to the scrutiny committee. Why? Because he can, and because it gives him a sense of power, and because he is probably annoyed at the fact that senior officers have been caught out taking decisions rather than members: an affront to the authority of the Tory group, of course.

Various councillors sit at the table, as well as Ms Pam Wharf, the 'interim' director who let the cat out of the bag and informed staff the decision had been made to switch to the even more high risk Joint Venture model of outsourcing, a statement then contradicted by leader Cornelius who claimed no such decision had been made. Mrs Angry, after teasing out the relevant information from council sources, established that the decision in fact had been made by the directors' group, and not been subject to consideration by Cabinet.

Poor Brian was in a dilemma now. He explained that his concern arose when he read about this story in erm, the papers. He meant the blogs, of course, but could not say so, and yet he detests the local press, so he modified his position by a disclaimer. He had not read it in the local Times. That leaves the Press, who followed it up after we covered it, of course, and issued a joint statement.

Leader Cornelius sat and admitted quietly that he had not seen ANY outline papers relating to a joint venture proposal. He said this not once, not twice, but three times, with an almost disarming simplicity. 

Furthermore, he explained that the proposals had in fact emerged after the bidders had been 'closeted' with senior officers. 

Everyone in the room sat still in astonishment.

I'm every bit as curious as you are, added Richard Cornelius, yes, the same Richard Cornelius who is paid to be leader of the council, and nominally in charge of a £1 billion programme of outsourcing.

After some frantic signals from the blogging side of the room, Cllr Mittra asked the question that had to be asked, the email that Pam Wharf sent to staff. Mrs Angry twisted round to see her reaction. Keeping her head down, but smiling to herself. 

John Thomas tried to distract attention from  the glaring chasm that had opened up in the middle of the room before us. A Joint Venture should not be ruled out, and of course we would in any consideration learn from the experience of ventures that had failed.

Mrs Angry has just received FOI responses which confirm her earlier suspicions that there has indeed been no new appraisal of the Joint Venture proposal since 2010, and in the immediate weeks before the gaffe by Ms Wharf, no correspondence between Ms Pam Wharfe and Mr Nick Walkey, and Ms Pam Wharfe and Cllr Richard Cornelius on the subject of the JV.
 
Labour tried to ask more questions. Coleman ended the discussion saying triumphantly, Cornelius has not read anything about it, and you haven't been able to crack his position. Brian went on to say he is not a gambling man, but he would bet there will not be a joint venture. 

Mrs Angry whispered to Mr Reasonable that she was, therefore, off down to William Hill to put her life savings on the absolute certainty of the announcement, on Monday morning, of a One Barnet JV.

And indeed this afternoon, Mrs Angry's spies, who are everywhere, told her that senior officers are still informing staff that a Joint Venture is the preferred option. 

Here is the frightening truth, then: the elected members of this council have effectively lost control of the One Barnet programme, if indeed they ever were in control.

The really fascinating discovery last night, however, was the clearly evident tensions within the Tory group, specifically between councillors and Brian Coleman.

At times, arguments between Cabinet members and the Chair threatened to develop into something rather more than a disagreement over small points of debate. There was an intense, mutinous atmosphere, charged with something only a fool could overlook: the creation of the perfect storm.

One fool in particular did overlook the warning signs, and earlier this evening, it would seem,  the stormcloud broke, in spectacular fashion.

More tomorrow on the latest developments. 

Councillor Coleman in action.

Sweet dreams, citizens of Broken Barnet, wherever you are resting your head tonight ...