Broken Barnet: a Statement.

The Broken Barnet blog has now been outsourced to the private sector, as part of the One Barnet programme, and will no longer continue in the present format.

It will now be known as the BT Barnet blog and will aim to present a more positive image of our borough, with an emphasis on the corporate values of 'Barnet, a successful London suburb', and 'Better value for less money', and demonstrating a particularly 'relentless drive for efficiency'.

Mrs Angry has now been relocated to a call centre in Bangalore, where her terms and conditions of service will no longer apply, although her (unpaid) employment will be guaranteed, at least until the day after the next local elections.

Councillor John Thomas has told her to feel grateful for this new arrangement, and in return Mrs Angry has told him, on behalf of all council employees and residents of Broken Barnet, to go and get a life in the real world outside of the Town Hall, and to shove the whole One Barnet scam up his smarmy little Tory arse.

Mrs Angry Predicts ...

Instead of a Friday joke, let's introduce a new occasional service from Broken Barnet: 'Mrs Angry Predicts' .... This will eventually be part of a subscription only clairvoyant and fortune telling service for the discerning reader,(working title 'Vital Vision'), however, following the mixed success of the Broken Barnet racing tipster column, (Mr Tom Roper has been outsourced until he has raised the cost of covering Mrs Angry's ruinous last bet with William Hill), we feel it only right to run this new venture on a free trial basis first.

Do sit down. Take Mrs Angry's hand, and close your eyes. No peeping. Try to relax, and empty your mind of all thoughts - as if you were say, the deputy chief executive and chief finance officer of a major London borough. Easy, isn't it? Just imagine a space of infinite darkness ... a big black hole ... oops: don't fall in!

Now then. Shhh ... listen ... my spirit guide is whispering in my ear ... yes ... I have a message coming through the ether for someone worried about the future ... is there an outsourcing company in the audience tonight? Someone keen to muscle in on £750 million of business from the London Borough of Barnet? I'm listening ... oh dear. I see. Is it you, dear, over there, with the worried look on your face?

I have a message coming through ... yes, yes, it's from your uncle ... Max, is it, who has passed over to the other side - or nearly, he keeps coming back again, doesn't he? And taking people with him. Very sad. Uncle Max says, oh dear: 'feck off son, you don't stand a chance, I hear you've been stitched up like a kipper' ... does that mean anything to you? .... and something about ... tender fodder ... Uncle Max says don't waste your breath, another company is all lined up to take the contract. A big company with powerful and far reaching influence, and friends in all the right places, going to and fro: busy, busy, busy. Ah: but what is this? Mrs Angry can see Uncle Max moving on in spirit, taking Solace in a new world, newly Impowered, in a recycling of old souls ... how curious ... what can it all mean?

All is still, but in the darkness, suddenly, a bright light shines at the back of the hall, a dazzling golden glow: my eyes, my eyes - citizens, do you see? Oh: Councillor Longstaff, do please pull up your trousers, Mrs Angry is trying to commune with the spirit world.

There is more: Mrs Angry has a vision of a large call centre, mysteriously left with a huge budget deficit that no one wants to talk about, and now with, no this can't be right, several council departments all pushed into one service, with suitable staffing reductions, to makeup for the deficit and make customer services still financially attractive for outsourcing ... Oh dear, look, a pile of redundancy notices being slid under the desk. Back in the call centre, the phones are ringing and ringing ... here is a horrible, rude little man ringing up to complain about his road not being gritted, despite being a grade one priority and next to a church, and the whole world revolving around him and his monstrous ego, while an elderly woman whose husband has dementia and complex needs and wanting someone to talk to who understands her sense of desperation is being kept on hold for an hour and a half and then told by someone reading from a script to ring up a voluntary group to see if they can do anything to help, because the council won't. That can't be right, can it?

Is there anyone else who wants to talk to us, spirit guide? Let them contact us through the medium of pyschic messaging, twitter DM or messaging. Mrs Angry is always happy to receive their guidance.

No need to cross Mrs Angry's palm with silver, senior officers and councillors of Broken Barnet: why not try to salve your heavy consciences and donate to a good cause: Children in Need:

https://www.donate.bt.com/CIN2011/cin/