Boring, boring Barnet? A highly political Monday in London's second biggest borough

The bloggers and local reporters in Barnet will be kept busy tomorrow, Monday 5 March.

Up with the lark to attend the standards sub-committee hearing at Hendon Town Hall at 10am. Standing trial, not for the first time, will be councillor Brian Coleman, GLA member for Barnet and Camden. (Mrs Angry has the full charge sheet over at her Broken Barnet blog.)

You might argue that a man should be considered innocent until proven guilty. Yes and no. There are two degrees of offence here.

1. Charge: He has broken the members' (councillors') code of conduct. Verdict: The committee will decide that tomorrow.

2. Charge: He has pissed off a member of the public sufficiently for them to report him to the committee. Verdict: The defendant is guilty as charged!

Remember this on the day of the next elections to the GLA. You won't have to wait long: Thursday 3 May.

Asssuming the trial not of the century but at least of this month finishes early enough (clear-cut case, I would think, so it shouldn't take long) you can hear "Newsnight" reporter Paul Mason speak at Middlesex University about his new book "Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere". (It's certainly kicking off in Barnet right now, Paul!)

This is from 11am-12.30pm, in Room W138, 1st Floor Williams Building.

After that, it's a long pub lunch, I would imagine, at the Greyhound or the Claddagh Ring, or another hostelry close to Hendon Town Hall. (Or there is a good noodle restaurant opposite Middlesex University if you don't approve of liquid lunches.)

Out of the borough but of great importance to its residents, in the evening you can head down to Friends Meeting House, Euston Road for a meeting from 7pm organised by "Right to Protest".

One of the speakers will be Middlesex University student Alfie Meadows who was coshed on the head at a student demonstration by a police officer in 2009, and nearly died from his injuries.

We all need to defend the right to protest, residents of the quiet London Borough of Barnet as much as anyone! Just ask the small traders, the sheltered housing residents, the library users, the motorists, Barnet Council employees... and on, and on.

Citizen Smith journalism is not for me

Alfie Meadows, a philosophy student at Middlesex University, appears in court this Thursday, 9 June, on a charge of violent disorder. It strikes me as highly unlikely that Alfie is guilty of violent disorder and highly likely he finds himself in the dock because he was hit on the head, nearly fatally, probably by a police officer, at the student demonstration in London on 9 December. That's the controversial part of this blogpost. I don't think the rest will be.

Supporters are holding a rally for Alfie at Westminster City Court, 70 Horseferry Road, at 9am on Thursday. If I can swing it, I'll go along there before I start work. If I do go, I'll take some photographs. What I won't do is share any photos with the local newspapers.

That's not because I don't like the journalists on the local newspapers. I do like them, and I'll happily help them out with pictures of local protests that I've had a hand in organising, when I know they can't send one of their own photographers to cover the event.

But I know there will be freelance photographers at the rally on Thursday for whom protests such as this are bread and butter. I'd quite like to have a stab at adding demo photography to my own CV - heaven knows, I attend enough of them! It's never going to be my day job though! (Have you seen my pictures?!) The temptation is there, however, to send a snap to the local papers. I could ask for money, and they'd probably say no, but if I asked for a credit they'd say yes and many people are happy with just that. There are few things as satisfying as seeing a photo you've taken in the paper.

I'm eschewing the pleasure, though. I've gone all principled. I'm not going to play citizen journalist in this instance, when I know I'd be depriving some other poor sod the chance of selling a picture - a fellow National Union of Journalists member at that!

Taking the moral high ground also lets me have a dig at Sir Ray Tindle, the owner of 200 plus local newspapers, including our own Barnet Press and associated titles. What's Tindle done that's annoying me? Stopped employing freelances on his north London newspapers.

Nine journalists there had taken two weeks' strike action to protest against their impossible workload, caused by Tindle not filling vacant posts. What has Tindle's response been? To dispense with the services of the freelance staff that fill the gaps and help the full-time journalists and photographers get their titles out each week.

Tindle boasts that he hasn't made any journalists redundant, even in the recession. But he leaves posts unfilled and increases the workload on those left behind so that they can't do the good job they want to do. What is Tindle's plan? Probably, ultimately, to plug the editorial gap with content provided free by "citizen journalists", sending in reports and photographs.

Tindle's newspaper group made £3 million last year. Tindle is a rich man, and his son will inherit his empire. Tindle has worked hard, but his journalists, many hundreds of them, work hard too keeping him rich and building up a nice pot for his heirs. I don't think Tindle newspaper readers should start feeding in their own labours for nothing on top of that! Let's have some pride!

What does a guy have to do to get arrested around here?

Oh, yeah, that'll do it.

I don't know whether Alfie Meadows was involved in violent disorder during the student demonstration on 9 December, but it strikes me as unlikely. Almost any number of people were caught up in the pushing and shoving that went on around Westminster on that day. Why, if the police went through every bit of of film they have, they could probably make a good case against me.

I met Alfie Meadows during the campaign to keep the philosophy department open at Middlesex University a year ago. The students held an inpromptu demonstration outside Hendon Town Hall as it happens, on the evening of Barnet council's last AGM.

I didn't get to know any of the students well, but, from the little I did see, Alfie stood out as someone astute and rather brave. On one occasion the campaigners were discussing the next steps in their campaign, on the lawn in front of the Middlesex campus. One of the staff and a key figure in the campaign, Peter Hallward was holding forth. Alfie interjected to ask Peter to come clean on whether he was holding negotiations with Kingston University with a view to moving the postgraduate research department there. Don't such negotiations undermine our campaign to keep the philosophy department open here at Middlesex? asked Alfie. And, if you are negotiating, aren't you being irresponsible egging undergraduate students on to acts that could jeopardise their academic careers here at Middlesex after you and your research department have shoved off to Kingston?

He didn't come out and say so directly, but that was the import of what he said. In the event, the research centre did go to Kingston University, and the philosophy department at Middlesex stopped admitting new students. Alfie, as far as I know, is still a student there, one of the last to do an undergraduate degree in philosopy at Middlesex (or anywhere in the country possibly).

But Alfie and Peter seemed to have been on good enough terms on 9 December, because they were together at the demonstration, around the time that Alfie was seriously injured, hit on the head, he says, by a police truncheon. The injury he sustained caused bleeding on the brain, and he nearly died.

He has made a complaint against the police. How interesting that they should now make charges against him of violent disorder; he is bailed to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on 9 June along with a handful of other defendants facing charges in relation to the 9 December demonstration.

One thing that I found very distasteful about this charge is the alacrity with which pro-police blogs reported it. Perhaps they think they are looking after their own. Well, in that case, I will look after my own and stand by Alfie Meadows.

Talk, don't talk

Young people are getting mixed messages today from Barnet council, to judge by two reports in the Times series.

On the one hand they are being encouraged to stand for the Youth Parliament.

Youngsters can make their voices heard nationally as nominations open for the borough’s first ever representatives of the UK Youth Parliament.

...Councillor Andrew Harper, deputy leader of the council and cabinet member for education, children and families said: “The UK Youth Parliament gives young people an insight into how democracy works – hopefully we will see some of them become councillors or even MPs in the future.”

On the other hand they are being told to meekly acquiesce in the tuition fees rise and abolition of Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).

THE council has been urged to give schools in Barnet a “directive” not to allow students to join in protests during school hours.

Tory Councillor Brian Gordon made the request at Tuesday's Full Council meeting after pupils from colleges across the borough joined thousands of others in the tuition fees protests in central London.

...The question was a follow-up after Cllr Harper had agreed “the sanctioning of such political activism in schools should be strongly discouraged”.

Meanwhile, staff and students of Middlesex University are saying that the forces of the state shouldn't be free to wallop young people over the head for going on a demonstration. They have published an open letter about the treatment of Alfie Meadows at the tuition fees demonstration in central London on 9 December. It is being carried on various blogs - because the Guardian and Times Higher Education supplement won't take it.

Get well soon, Alfie

Alfie Meadows, a Middlesex student who helped to mobilise about 80 staff and students from the university to go to the tuition fees demonstration yesterday, has had a serious operation after being hit by a police truncheon. See the Independent report here.

I wish Alfie well. I was in touch with him when he was part of the campaign to keep the Middlesex philosophy department open, and more recently through Barnet trades council. I'm sure we all wish you a speedy recovery.

P.S. At least one more Barnet student fell foul of the police yesterday: Shayan Moghaddam, a pupil at Woodhouse College. There is a report in the Times series.