Let's go fly a kite ... Lord Hunt asks Mrs Angry to behave herself, and to pay him for suggesting it

the Wild West frontier of the blogosphere
Broken Barnet, naked blogging, & flying the kite, in accordance with new PCC proposals

worried about outlaws: Lord Hunt. photo credit: PCC


Yes. Well. Mrs Angry was trying not to write any blogposts today, for various reasons, but she just cannot help herself, and this one, especially, just had to be written.

You may recall that recently fellow blogger Mr Mustard was rather startled to find out that , without his knowledge, he had been targeted by the London Borough of Broken Barnet earlier this year in one of its increasingly desperate attempts to end the relentless scrutiny of the borough's citizen journalists.

Barnet Council tried to convince the Information Commissioner that the naughty Barnet bloggers were unregistered data processors and therefore, of course, liable to criminal prosecution and potentially enormous fines for breach of the Data Protection Act.

The ICO, unsurprisingly, took a different view, and reminded Barnet in no uncertain terms of the need to observe the right to freedom of expression, as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. The idiotic Tory cabinet and witless senior management team of the London Borough of Broken Barnet had apparently never heard of the concepts of freedom of speech, or indeed of human rights, and had to have these radical ideas patiently explained to them by the commissioner not once, but twice.

This story, it is true to say, caused utter disbelief in many quarters: academics, politicians, senior legal experts, and even members of the House of Lords (and we don't mean Barnet Libdem Councillor Lord Palmer) were horrified at what was generally seen not only as an assault on freedom of expression but clearly a totally disproportionate act by a local authority so obsessively fearful of the agenda of transparency and accountability that the coalition government states are the keystone of their localism policy for local government.

While this story was breaking Mrs Angry also wrote about an interview in the Guardian with, oh, another member of the House of Lords, Lord Hunt, the new Chair of the Press Complaints Commission:

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.com/2011/11/mrs-angry-on-blogging-and-who-says-what.html

David Hunt praised the professionalism of veteran journalists such as our friend, Mr David Hencke, and was quoted in this article as claiming that his primary concern in his new post was not going to be the regulation of the tabloid press. He stated:

..."I think the greater challenge is with the bloggers, whether it's Guido Fawkes or whoever."

This seemed to Mrs Angry to be an absolutely extraordinary thing to say, only three days after James Murdoch had had his second grilling by the House of Commons Select Committee investigating the widespread and utterly scurrilous practice of phone hacking by tabloid journalists over a period of many years.

Guido Fawkes reported the next day that Hunt had clarified his remarks and had intended to make the point that he wanted to protect freedom of speech, and to 'stave off statutory regulation' of the blogosphere.

Yesterday on the recently launched 'Exaronews' website, the revered Mr Hencke published an interview with Lord Hunt:

http://www.exaronews.com/articles/4199/online-publications-face-regulation-under-hunt-proposals

in which, yet again, the new PCC Chair expressed some rather regrettable views on the subject of the regulation of the blogosphere. He told Hencke:

" ... it is like the Wild West out there. We need to appoint a sheriff.”

The article reports that Hunt wants to scrap the PCC and replace it with a new body which will be an effective regulator of the press - and other areas too such as the blogosphere and the internet:

"His initial plan for online media is to invite bloggers who write on current affairs to volunteer to be regulated by the replacement body for the PCC.

They would be able to carry a ‘Kitemark’, showing that they abide by the new body’s code of practice. They would lose the ‘Kitemark’ if complaints against them were repeatedly upheld. But this regulatory oversight would mean bloggers having to pay a fee to the new body, which would be funded by the publications that it regulates. Hunt said: “I want accuracy to be the new gold standard for blogs. Once they have agreed to be accurate, everything would follow from that. I would like to see a ‘Kitemark’ on the best blogs so the public can trust what they read in them."

Er: what?

Mrs Angry wonders if the new Chair of the PCC actually knows what a blog is?

Clearly he is familiar with the knavish right wing gossip columnist Guido Fawkes, but Guido is a law unto himself, and is hardly typical of the wider blogosphere. Does Hunt have any clear understanding of what the rest of us are up to?

The new Chair of the PCC has a political background, of course: he held various ministerial roles during the reign of terror of Margaret Thatcher, including, oh dear me, a stint as Coal Minister during the Miners' Strike of 1984: he then served in John Major's cabinet. He is not a journalist, and has no direct experience of Fleet Street, or the mainstream media, and one imagines he is hardly familiar with the rise of social media and its growing influence within the broader political debate.

Lord Hunt's remarks betray a patronising attitude towards the huge number of bloggers who now write about politics and 'current affairs', however you would define that in the context of regulation.

How dare he suggest that we are all in need of regulation, and that the idea of striving for a standard of accuracy is a concept that needs to be imposed upon us? Who is he to define what we may or may not write about, and to impose his standards of acceptability on everyone else? We are all entitled to express our varying opinions in whatever way we choose, whether by reporting news, or investigating an issue of public concern, or simply holding our elected representatives up to well deserved ridicule in the time honoured fashion of the British tradition of caricature and satire.

As regards to the need for regulation, this is anti-libertarian nonsense too: anyone who writes and publishes material is subject to the same laws and limits of acceptability as anyone else - no further legislation or regulation is needed. Are we no longer allowed to engage in free debate or express a personal opinion? Is Lord Hunt in need of a reminder of the European Convention on Human rights? Is he keen to set a new standard of acceptable conversation in pubs, or in the workplace, or in personal emails, or texts, or anywhere else where debate or the expression of opinion on politicial issues or current affairs might take place? No, one would hope not because that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? As ridiculous as these new proposals.

It never fails to amuse Mrs Angry that Conservative politicians, so fiercely protective of their own right to freedom from regulation and bureaucracy, inevitably fail to see the need to protect the freedom of others to be different from themselves, and to hold and express opinions that diverge from their own.

Bloggers are labelled by him as amateurs, not as worthy as 'real' journalists, you know, the ones that used to work for the News of the World, or those that write page after page of drivel for the Daily Mail, yet they are now to be expected to observe professional standards as laid down in a code of practice by the new PCC. Furthermore, even though they are not paid for their work, they will be asked to pay for the privilege of carrying his new Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

Mrs Angry can assure Lord Hunt that no one with any intelligence will want to read anything written by a blogger sporting one of these code of conduct kitemarks: it will be an indication to the blog reading public of a guarantee of tedium and lack of originality, and will be avoided like the plague in favour of the thousands of interesting, innovative and well written pieces by independently minded bloggers who do not want or need the permission or intervention of any regulatory body, thank you very much.

Mrs Angry would also suggest to his lordship that as a member of an undemocratically appointed chamber of legislation, and the lucky recipient of a post whose appointment process would appear to be something of an arcane mystery, he might be better off not telling everyone else what to do, think, or say with such authority.

And last of all, before he takes it upon himself to badmouth the British blogosphere, he might like to remember that despite the lack of regulation, no blogger has ever been accused of such gutless and appallingly distasteful behaviour as the hacking of the voicemails of a murdered teenage girl, or the families of the victims of terrorism, or the systematic intrusion into the lives of thousands of other individuals whose privacy has been assaulted by supposedly professional and self regulating journalists over the last couple of decades. If and when this open sore on the body of the British press has been healed, it might then be time to start debating the perceived irresponsibility of the blogosphere, but not yet.

The reason that blogging is a flourishing medium is in no small part due to the contraction of the traditional press, and the decline of proper investigative journalism. It is also directly as a result of the increasing sense of cynicism and frustration felt by our society for the political deadlock in which we now find ourselves, with three parties almost indistinguishable from each other, and all equally tainted with an image of self serving opportunism, as a legacy of the expenses scandal and the moral questions raised by the Blair years and the Iraq War.

Blogging offers a voice to people who have been silenced by their own lack of opportunity of expression: it is a spontaneous, naturally democratic phenomenon that will follow its own course, and all the signs are that newly appointed regulator Lord Hunt has completely failed to understand what it is, and where it is going.

Update:

There is an interesting debate here in the comments following an article on the Liberal Conspiracy website, including one by David Hencke.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/12/15/the-pcc-wants-to-regulate-blogs-and-make-us-pay-for-it/

Now excuse me: in the middle of a game of poker with Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and them Clanton boys. (*just amended historical inaccuracy re Gunfight at the OK Corral, just in case Lord Hunt is calling in).

Westminster learns its lesson: Carry on Regardless in Broken Barnet

The One Barnet motto


The lead story in the Standard tonight is Westminster Council's withdrawal of plans to introduce new parking charges for evenings and weekends, a move which has provoked strong condemnation from all quarters, including the panicking Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. A ruling by a judge that the matter should be referred to judicial review - and pressure from the highest level of government - has today driven the authority to defer the new policy until after the Olympics, and it is likely the plans will be shelved permanently.

Back here in Broken Barnet, what news of our equally idiotic new parking charges and cashless payment system, which is doing what the critics of Westminster's policy feared would happen in the west end, wreaking devastation on shops and businesses?

Here in Barnet our defiant councillors are carrying on regardless, utterly contemptuous of any plea from traders, and obstinately refusing to listen to reason.

For the Barnet Tory councillors a reversal of policy is unthinkable: loss of face for Brian Coleman cannot be allowed, and yet again the ordinary residents and businesses of Broken Barnet must pay the price for his ever inflating ego, political folly, and insupportable arrogance.

The newly energised Labour group in Barnet have just issued a press release: (did Mrs Angry's artful kick up the arse the other day help at all, she wonders? Tough love, comrades, is not a bad thing.) It tells us that the Tories have ignored the opportunity to mitigate the effect of their stupid new scheme over the Christmas period:

Tories refuse parking amnesty meeting

Barnet's Tories have effectively refused Labour's calls for a special council meeting to urgently discuss introducing

a parking amnesty in the last shopping days before Christmas.

Under the council’s constitution the Mayor has 7 days from receipt of a request within which to decide whether to agree to call a special Council meeting. The last day that the special meeting could take place before Christmas

would have been Thursday 22 December, but the Council summons and agenda must be issued at least 5 working days before any meeting can be called, and that deadline expired yesterday (14 December).

Labour’s Environment spokesperson, Cllr Kath McGuirk said:

“Local traders and businesses have made clear that they need some respite from the ludicrous parking charge increases imposed by this callous Conservative council, but once again the Tories have demonstrated that they just do not listen.

If the Tories wanted to, they could have dispensed with the need for a special council meeting and agreed to a parking amnesty at last night's Cabinet Resources meeting, but they just don't seem to care.

The Mayor can still agree to our request for a special council meeting, but it would now have to take place after Christmas, and many traders are telling us that that is too late.

Perhaps we need to keep a healthy optimism, and live in the hope they will agree to a meeting in time for the New Year sales - I urge them to do so.”

Labour councillors have been calling for a Christmas parking amnesty for several weeks including at Business

Management Scrutiny on 16 November.

Good for you, Kath. O heros invicibilis, dux Michael, & all that.

Why is it that the backbench Tories who we know are terrified of the reaction from their voters, if not horrified by the new policy itself, are keeping silent on this issue? Mrs Angry has not heard a single Tory councillor have the courage to speak out and say what all of them are thinking.

What a spineless lot they are.

Show them what you think about the parking catastrophe, and sign this petition:

http://petitions.barnet.gov.uk/parkingcharges/

Further post later, if Mrs Angry is spared. God willing.

Mrs Angry: Sports Correspondent

news reaches Underhill that Mrs Angry has written a post about football


Mrs Angry must make one thing very clear.

She is not interested in sport.

She loathes and detests sport, in fact. Doing it, watching it, hearing people talk about it. She hates the horrible clothes people wear when they do it, and the faces they make, and the endless discussion about it afterwards.

In Mrs Angry's view, all sport is inherently evil, and brings out the worst qualities in participants and spectators alike: the sporting instinct is, quite simply, war and showing off dressed up in lycra. Sport goes on a lot longer than most wars too: well, ok the Hundred Years War went on a bit, but the Olympics have lasted longer, haven't they? See?

Mrs Angry hates all forms of sport equally, without discrimination: football, athletics, cricket, tennis, hockey, volleyball, rounders ... true, she has watched a few games of rugby when Ireland is playing, but only because of Ronan O'Gara. True, she quite likes the idea of cricket,the sound of leather on willow and all that, and teatime in the pavilion, and men in white trousers in the late afternoon sun, but only as long as she doesn't have to watch it.

The other evening, funnily enough, Mrs Angry had to attend her daughter's parents' evening at her old school. Sitting in the school hall, and avoiding the beady eye of the headteacher who had just sat in a media studies lesson and discovered that Miss Angry's mother was the infamous Mrs Angry who wrote a scurrilous blogpost about her old school (oops), she pointed out to a disapproving Miss Angry the gym cupboard where her mother used to try to pass all her PE lessons, cowering in the dark, in a desperate attempt to avoid netball. (The school netball team was nicknamed 'The Virgins', because none of them were. Ask any old FCH boy. Mrs Angry was not in the netball team.)

The reason Mrs Angry really detests sport is because she can't do it: any of it, and she only really likes things she is quite good at. Which is not much, which is why she is always so disatisfied. She quite likes swimming - which she managed to learn when she was too young to know any better -although it is rather boring, let's be honest, and she hasn't been since the memorable winter's day her club had a fire alarm panic and forced everyone to leave the pool by the fire exit, barefoot and semi naked, shivering in wet swimsuits, and then stand dripping in Waitrose's car park in full view of the shopping public of Mill Hill East.

So, anyway: this is a long way round to explaining why she has not previously shown any particular interest in or understanding of the long, long saga of Barnet FC and the Underhill ground. But she was sad to hear the news anounced today - that the club will no longer play at its traditional venue, ending more than a hundred years of association and putting the future of the team in real jeopardy.

Mrs Angry has no intention of going into the tedious story of how we reached this point: in short, there have been years of wrangling between the club's owner Tony Kleanthous and Barnet Council over leasing and other issues, none of which makes much sense to her, but one thing is clear: Barnet Council has effectively done everything in its power to bring an end to the club's residency at Underhill, and has done nothing to support what is a hugely important and much loved team, the heart of the local community: in many ways, the story of Underhill and the treatment of the club is a potent symbol of everything that is wrong in Broken Barnet.

Mrs Angry was present at a recent council meeting where the sale of Hendon FC ground was nodded through in a matter of seconds: the property is awaiting development, of course, and Mrs Angry can confidently predict that the same fate eventually awaits Underhill, despite its greenbelt status.

What angers so many Barnet supporters, and apparently Mr Kleanthous too, is that in contrast to the lack of support for our own local football side, so much consideration has been shown by Barnet Council to the proposal by outsiders, Watford based Saracens rugby team, to take over our run down stadium at Copthall and develop it into a ten thousand seat venue, despite what many local people feel is the inappropriate location of the stadium in a residential area with limited access, transport facilities or parking.

Copthall stadium has been allowed by Barnet Council to deteriorate - through lack of investment and funding - to the point where any proposal to take it off their hands might seem attractive. Mrs Angry used to visit the place, not so long ago, for children's sports days and once had to report to the borough's health and safety officers and the fire brigade that the fire exits, at the bottom of deathtrap cement stairwells, were being kept locked while thousands of school children were attending events there: the whole building was then clearly neglected and poorly staffed. It must be even worse now, and no doubt getting rid of responsibility for Copthall is a high priority for our Tory councillors.

There is no connection between Barnet and Sarcacens, of course, other than the fact that the Chair apparently lives in Totteridge, the ward coincidentally represented by Tory leader Richard Cornelius and oh, Brian Coleman.

In today's local Times, Cornelius states himself to be innocent of responsibility for the breakdown in negotiations between the authority and the club. But then again, this is the man who states himself to be innocent of responsibility for the current catastrophic policy that has robbed our town centres of more than 40% of trade since cashless parking was abolished.

What has happened at Underhill was predictable: in our borough we have no time for sentiment, or regard for our heritage: culture, history, the arts and sport are things without material value, and therefore of no consequence to the Tory councillors of Broken Barnet.

But here is another fatal mistake: another political misjudgement: having alienated every driver in the borough with the parking fiasco, the idiots have now gone and upset every Barnet FC supporter: a big mistake in the borough as a whole, but especially in the wider Chipping area, which has a surprising number of marginal wards. The Bees might have lost their football ground: it looks like the Barnet Tories have, yes, sorry, scored yet another own goal. It's all very well getting pre election handouts for the High Street from electioneering mayors, and splashing out on a Christmas tree for the church yard (which instantly fell over, overcome with theatrical irony) or sending Brian Coleman out on a Sunday afternoon to frighten small children at the Barnet Fayre: this fools no one.

The Tories have gone too far, and caused too much damage - there cannot be a single resident in the borough who has not been affected now in some way by the result of Tory policy in action. Forget about the effects of One Barnet and the outsourcing of our services: the libraries, the museums, the parking, now even our football team - these are the things which policiticise normally indifferent voters into protest. Roll on May 2012, and roll on the next local elections.

Mrs Angry, mystery shopper: Barnet Council, mystery shopper

Mrs Angry likes shopping. She is very good at it, having had years of practice. This is why, when she sometimes enters a shop and the assistant immediately asks her a. how she is today, and b. if she needs any help, she is likely to respond, with full confidence, and in no uncertain terms, that she is very well, and able to proceed without assistance.

Mrs Angry likes Mary Portas, too. Mary, Queen of Shops is a very sensible woman, who sees clearly what is wrong with the state of retail in the UK, and has a clear vision of the route we should follow to take our high streets out of the terminal decline in which so many find themselves.

Mary Portas has today published her government sponsored report on this very subject, with 28 recommendations, in an action plan to address the problems they face. Funnily enough, high on her list of suggestions was this:

9. Local areas should implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres and we should have a new parking league table.

Oh dear. Here in Broken Barnet, Mary, we do things differently.

Here in a borough controlled by a Conservative administration, one which you might expect to be sympathetic to the needs of small businesses and retailers, at a time of recession, we are seeing a reported further loss of 40% trade in our local town centres, as a direct result of recently introduced parking policy. Not only do we not have free parking, Mary, we have seen charges shamelessly hiked up to a ridiculous level - and cash payment for parking is no longer possible.

At one stroke, just before Christmas, when every local retail outlet and local business has been hoping for extra trade to help them through the economic crisis, a life threatening assault on trade has been launched by the local council. The cowardly leader of this council has said that he doesn't see what he can do about it, and the idiotic councillor responsible for the new scheme doesn't give a shit.

There is a Barnet Cabinet Resources Committee meeting tomorrow night. On the agenda are several interesting items. In accordance with the tradition of Broken Barnet, two of them have mysteriously had their reports exempted from publication. *(Although some material regarding these items is not exempt, in both cases further reports are being withheld).

One of them, Item X2, is the award of a contract for Corporate Buildings Security.

The award of this contract, hello, in case you have been living on Mars for the last few months, or are a back bench Tory councillor, is only necessary because Barnet bloggers, earlier this year, exposed the council's long term use of MetPro, an illegally operating security company, without a contract, and the authority has only now got round to arranging its security requirements in what we can only imagine is a more compliant arrangement. Mrs Angry emphasises the use of the word 'imagine': why this is being done in secret, in a process without transparency or accountability is, you might think, in the circumstances, pretty obvious - and utterly disgraceful.

Item X6 is 'Parking Enforcement and Related Services'.

Again, the question must be asked: why is another politically sensitive matter being exempted from public scrutiny?

Do we not have the right to know what the shiftless bunch of incompetents that comprise the Cabinet and senior management team of Broken Barnet are up to?

What have they got to hide?

Some very interesting rumours have reached Mrs Angry in regard to this touchy subject - watch this space - but really, the whole issue of parking in this borough is an absolute scandal, a malodorous, stinking scandal, and it will very probably prove to be the ultimate undoing of the Tory administration of Broken Barnet, not to mention the end of the inglorious career of certain widely loathed local politicians.

Here is a press release from the Labour group today. More to update later.

Labour calls for special council meeting on parking

Labour councillors have requested that the Mayor convene an extra-ordinary council meeting urgently to discuss a Christmas and New Year parking amnesty to help residents and struggling local traders in Barnet’s town centres.

Under the council’s constitution five councillors can request the Mayor to call a special meeting of Full Council. The Mayor can accept or refuse the request. The meeting must be called within 7 days of the notice being presented to the Mayor, although there is no time limit by which the meeting must take place. If the Mayor refuses, or does not call the meeting within the 7 days, any five members may themselves call an extra-ordinary meeting.

The Labour motion is:

"Council notes the eye-watering parking charge increases that have been introduced this year, the proposal to increase parking charges by a further 5% next year, and the introduction of cashless parking which has resulted in fewer people shopping in our town centres and more and more local traders and businesses suffering as a consequence.

Council asks Cabinet to urgently introduce a Christmas and New Year parking amnesty in our town centres with immediate effect, to run until the 16^th January 2012 in order to help local traders and businesses in our town centres over the Christmas and New Year sales period.

Council also asks that Cabinet review the introduction of last year’s parking charge increases, and the proposal to increase parking charges in the borough by 5% next year."

Labour councillors have been calling for a Christmas parking amnesty for several weeks including at Business Management Scrutiny on 16 November.

Labour’s Environment spokesperson, Cllr Kath McGuirk said:

“The parking charge increases this year and the move to cashless parking has really depressed footfall in our local town centres, and many traders are suffering.

We need to do all we can to try and give local traders and businesses a boost in the final few shopping days until Christmas, and during the New Year sales – this is a real chance for the Tories to listen to what businesses are saying and do something to help them.”

Mrs Angry has criticised the opposition party for failing to show a fighting spirit in recent times: Kath McGuirk is an honourable exception to this regrettable tendency. Let's see now if the Tories are capable of responding to this initiative, admitting that they have messed up, and are willing at last to put the best interests of the borough's business community before their own party political game playing, and the dangerous profiteering strategies of the One Barnet programme.

The elephant that fell through the crack: audit meeting, Part Two

The auditors came to town, but they missed the procession of elephants

After the public question time, there was a member's item from Labour councillor Geof Cooke. He had asked a question about fraud, but Councillor Cooke was not very happy with the question that was in his name on the agenda. He stated that the question he had submitted had been rewritten, and the version which had been published online and attributed to him was not in fact his work.

Councillor Cooke had included a reference to MetPro, and that reference had been omitted.

Why would that be, do you suppose, citizens of Broken Barnet?

Item 6 was the annual audit letter, 2010/11 from Grant Thornton. See 'Everything in the garden is lovely' for a summary.

GT's Tom Foster addressed the committee and told everyone why everything in the garden was lovely. His colleague Paul Hughes gripped his face and listened while Tom glossed over a reference to 'some improvements' that were needed in relation to contracting. Hmm. Some improvements. Move on.

Ah, but Tory councillor Brian Schama was not ready to move on. Mrs Angry rather likes Councillor Schama: partly because he always grins at her in a twinkling Tory amused way at meetings, and partly because he is old school gentleman Tory, and not a boorish oaf like most of the Conservative Barnet councillors. Call Mrs Angry a snob, but she likes her class enemies to be well mannered, and know which knife to use at the table.

Anyway: Councillor Schama immediately expressed his firmly held view that now, six months after the MetPro audit, council contracts should be 100% compliant, and that meant all contracts other than those needing emergency procurement. This appears to be too radical an idea for the liberally minded auditors of Grant Thornton, however.

Lord Palmer's turn to look a bit twinkly eyed. He thought that there was something along these lines that we would be discussing later. Ah ... listen -there is a stomping of feet in a corner of the room: the elephant is awake.

Another Tory on this committee, Hugh Rayner, is another independently minded member (relatively speaking - remember we are talking about Barnet councillors here) and he added now that the report from Grant Thornton was markedly lacking in any really positive terms of appraisal - such as 'outstanding'. Mrs Angry thought that was a little unfair, as any lay reader would fairly swiftly come to the conclusion that the entire procurement system was still outstandingly bad.

Paul Hughes gripped his face even more determinedly and looked glum.

Senior officers present smiled complacently as the Chair thanked them for agreeing to come to the audit committee, even though he had no powers to compel them to do so. It was indeed awfully kind of them, thought Mrs Angry, that they agreed to do their f*cking jobs and go through the process of pretending to be accountable when in truth they are not.

Cllr Old, with his finger firmly off the pulse, went off on a tangent and asked about council assets. What assets, asked Mrs Angry? You've sold them all.

Labour's Alan Schneiderman asked about our reserves: auditor Tom Foster thought, yes, it was a good idea to have some. Marvellous. He chuntered on and Mrs Angry's mind started to wander, but then she thought she heard him use the word 'paradigm' and her attention snapped back in time to see Mr Paul Hughes dart him a mystified look.

Cllr Schneiderman then asked Foster for his assessment of the plans in place (or not) to prepare us all for the huge scale of outsourcing brought by the One Barnet programme.

In a rather extraordinary admission, Foster said they had not really done enough work on this area. What? Why not? He stated: 'We can't really answer this question ...' Er: what is the point of having external auditors if they are not able to assess the adequacy of preparations for a £1 billion commercial project? Surely nothing could be more important?

Foster was off again, rabbiting on about being 'holistic' ... he thought that they might get around to scrutinising One Barnet finances in the future, sometime next year (too fucking late, mate, commented a member of the public) Craig Cooper was looking uncomfortable by this point, as well he might. Of course he might just have been bored. It was an awfully long meeting, and he probably had more interesting things to do.

Labour councillor Cooke asked more questions about contracts not showing up on the awful SAP IT system, where only contracts under the value of £25 K are currently listed. The rest of the council's contracts - the ones they have, or think they have, or what pass for contracts in the happy go lucky world of Broken Barnet - they exist only on a spreadsheet somewhere, supervised by Mr Bob Cratchit, with a goose quill pen and a flickering candle.

Maryellen Salter thought the spreadsheets were a step forward. Well, thought Mrs Angry, one up from the ink stained parchment ledger and abacus system, maybe.

Cllr Cooke tried to bring up the subject of parking revenue, and referred to the sudden 7% loss in income from parking since Brian Coleman's cashless scheme was imposed on the borough. He was told that this issue was too new to feature in the audit committee's remit - the audit committee is of course still dealing with the last quarter of 1843, and struggling to keep up.

Lord Palmer thought it might be a good idea to hold more audit meetings. Craig Cooper yawned.

Next up: CAFT, the corporate anti fraud team, presenting a report on performance.

Cllr Rayner asked about the effectiveness of anti-fraud prosecutions as a deterrent, and explained that as an ex military man (like Captain Cooper, of course) he was aware that the enemy needed to know how powerful your weapon is ... Lord Palmer intervened and pointed out to Councillor Rayner that in fact we are not allowed to shoot benefit scroungers. Typical Liberal wishy washy spoilsport.

Publicity was an effective weapon, however, we were told. Let's put all details in that marvellous publication, said Rayner, the corporate magazine, 'Barnet First', (one of those Town Hall Pravdas that you so dislike, Eric, but they still waste money on, even though they are never delivered to residents and sit unread in some warehouse, at our expense).

One imagines that if this journal were to be more widely distributed, thieves and scroungers all over the borough would of course be sitting by their letter boxes, waiting for the next issue, and moved by the tales of fraudsters prosecuted by CAFT, side by side with morally uplifting pictures of our virtuous Tory councillors presenting their friends with civic awards, would feel suitably chastened and instantly resolve to eschew a life of crime.

Mr Jeff Lustig, the Director of Corporate Governance, spoke up to explain that the BBC had been filming a CAFT investigation: 'Operation Avalanche', shortly to be shown on a series called 'Saints or Scroungers'. Lord Palmer mused on this title and wondered which was which, in the London Borough of Broken Barnet.

Before this item finished, there was a curious development. Palmer asked the officer from the CAFT team if she would kindly look at the issue raised by Mrs Angry regarding the senior officer and one of the four short listed outsourcing companies. Mrs Angry was rather taken aback by this suggestion, as fraud had not been an allegation made by her, rather a potential conflict of interest, which is, although a very serious matter, entirely something else. Mrs Angry would have preferred that CAFT had investigated the MetPro affair, which was curiously considered a subject not requiring assessment by the corporate fraud team.

Item 8 was the report from internal audit. Councillor Cooke wanted to know more about a reference to some sort of compliance requirement applied in the case of countries outside the EU. Some people in the room were clearly puzzled by this and wondering why it was relevant. It is relevant: what is generally not understood is that the One Barnet outsourcing programme will not only take jobs away from this borough, it may well take some services overseas. Mrs Angry is not the only blogger to have received visits from companies in the Indian subcontinent apparently interested in what may be on offer for them.

Lord Palmer now introduced an interesting question in regard to the internal audit report. What, he asked, is the extent of Cabinet members' involvement? There are 10 executive members: what do they do? Perhaps Ms Pam Wharfe might have been able to tell us more about her dealings with Councillor Brian Coleman at this point, but Craig Cooper wanted to sing the praises of deputy leader Councillor Dan 'John' Thomas, who was always very keen to know what he was up to (I'll bet), was 'interested in results' (even the wrong ones?) and 'holds me to account'. Hmm. But you are still there, Captain Cooper, even so.

Uh oh: procurement again. Palmer is clearly not going to keep quiet much longer about a certain case that has been raised, a non compliant 'contract' involving over £2 million pounds worth of tax payers money. Mr Cooper's head drops.

It does seem, suggested Cllr Rayner, that there is an elephant in the room. The room, at this point, was shaking, as heavy feet pounded impatiently in the corner. The elephant, we were told, would be performing shortly.

FOI requests now though: aha - Labour's Cllr Schneiderman reminds officers that there should be 100% compliance as this is, oh yes, so it is, to be sure, a legal requirement. Mr Lustig agrees: in an ideal world, he said, there would be 100% compliance. The London Borough of Broken Barnet is not an ideal world, reflected Mrs Angry: it is a state of dystopian nightmare, where compliance is irrelevant. Lustig blamed the 'complexity' of many requests. Mr Mustard, Mr Reasonable and Mrs Angry all groaned. Mrs Angry muttered to Mr Reasonable that he might admit that the requests which are routinely delayed, obstructed, or simply ignored are in fact the politically sensitive ones, rather than those presenting 'complex' demands.

Back to procurement: oh - Ms Pam Wharfe sits at the table in her shiny, kitten heeled patent shoes to answer questions. Mrs Angry is wearing pointy, high heeled boots. Pointy high heeled boots win over kitten heels. Ms Wharfe once took a very close interest in the contents of Mrs Angry's living room window, you know, and now look: Mrs Angry is taking a very close interest in her shoes. Isn't life strange? Karma, see.

Sitting behind Ms Wharfe is a large grey elephant, rearing up on its hindlegs and reducing Mr Paul Hughes to a frantic display of pen waggling. As an auditor of some experience, Mrs Angry can tell you that this is code for: Help me - I do not want to be here, I wish I was somewhere else, and I wish I had become a train driver instead of an auditor. Of course, if Mrs Angry subscribed to the Freudian school of analysis, she might interpret his gesture in an entirely different way.

Ms Wharfe explains that, as Mr Mustard discovered, she signed a DPR generously bestowing work worth around £80K upon RM Countryside Ltd, a company with whom Barnet had a contract, or at least an arrangement, that had already been deemed to be non compliant. There also appears to have been an absence of other tenders for this work. Oh: the work the company was paid for? It was to remove the parking machines so disliked by Ms Wharfe's boss, Councillor Brian Coleman. It would seem this programme has come to an unexplained halt, for some reason. The removal was supposed to have been completed by November 21st, but the machines still stand forlornly in their places, unused, and unloved, wrapped in black bin bags and sticky tape, like Lady Gaga tribute acts.

Ms Wharfe said in reply to Cllr Rayner that no, she had not seen the company's accounts, and that no one had noticed that the involvement with this company had continued despite the 25% of total work rule that is supposed to prevent using any companies being used with too great a reliance on council business. No one had noticed the aggregate amount, which was unfortunate, but nobody's fault. Well, yes it was, but someone else's. Not a senior officer. Senior officers sign documents but apparently do not have to check them before they do so.

Captain Cooper dealt with the issue smoothly, with nice hand chopping gestures. There were inevitably going to be 'legacy' issues in procurement. When they had started looking at the number of non compliant contracts (courtesy of our MetPro investigations, rather than the rather extraordinary fact that Cap'n Cooper and his team had apparently not noticed that the council had no proper tendering, procurement, contractual and payment procedures) ... well, at first they had thought that there might be say, two hundred non compliant arrangements. As it turned out, and he thought this was a testament to the hard work of his officers that this was revealed, rather than something to be ashamed of, er, oops: six hundred contracts that are not contracts were found to be lurking in the filing cabinets of Broken Barnet. A testament to your officers' incompetence, then, Captain Cooper, or, more fairly, perhaps, the incompetence of the senior management team?

Still: carry on chaps, business as usual - as he said, there will inevitably be instances that fall through the system. This one, he told us, had, er, 'fallen through a crack'.

To my knowledge, he boasted, to the amusement of the bloggers, there are no others.

The chair, and committee members, and bloggers laughed, and laughed, and then laughed some more.

Cllr Schama sternly expressed the view that he expected full compliance from all officers, from the Chief Exective Officer down. Goodness, what a demand, Councillor Schama.

As the meeting came to an end, the Director of Corporate Governance announced that he had to read out a statement. He explained that he needed to clarify a point, after remarks made during the CAFT item by the Chair, Lord Palmer, and to reiterate that a member of the public (ie me) had not alleged any fraudulent activity on behalf of any individual. Mrs Angry was perplexed by this. Er, can I say something, she asked. NO, came the reply, which she ignored. Because, she said, that is quite correct, I made no such claim. How very peculiar, thought Mrs Angry, and rather touching: the director of Corporate Governance, perhaps inspired by the mention of Carter Ruck at the Tambourides complaint hearing, has felt moved, as a gentleman and lawyer, to defend my reputation. Hope he doesn't send me a bill. She almost felt regretful, then, and slightly ashamed of the blog she wrote comparing him to Captain Pugwash.

The meeting ended, and the zoo keeper came to collect the elephant, and take him away to a secret destination. Unfortunately, the elephant's stomping in the committee room has caused a large crack to appear in the One Barnet building, and it is likely that many other inconvenient truths may fall through this crack in the near future. Let's wait and see, shall we?