They publish lots of election leaflets.com

I've chanced on a great website called the Straight Choice.

They are enabling members of the public and political parties to scan and post all the election leaflets they can find. (I know the Barnet Bugle blog is doing this for Barnet, but this is on a bigger scale showing you stuff from around the country, plus you can search by tags/"which party is being attacked", etc).

The Barnet trades council leaflet that we gave out yesterday in East Barnet ward is on there already - this website is an easy way for me to show it to you! We weren't only trying to be negative (against the BNP) but to suggest to people a positive way to react to political and social worries. As it says on the leaflet: "Fight for public services, good jobs, and decent homes for everyone".

I hope more and more people will be doing that. Frankly, we don't have a better choice!

Dishing out leaflets in New Barnet - but in East Barnet ward!

Heaven, hell and the minimum wage (written in the style of Matthew Offord)

As part of Barnet trades council's election campaign without a candidate I am keen to get up early and get out onto the streets of Barnet. After a wholesome breakfast of a fruit salad and some oat cereal which should keep me going for a couple of hours, I gather up all the things I will need for today's stall.

My significant other is not likely any time soon to be my actual husband - it is too bad as I will miss out on that handsome £150 tax break that the Conservatives are offering for anyone prepared to tie the knot that couldn't see the point of it before. Nevertheless, he very kindly offers to give me a lift, but I turn him down because I want to get on public transport and see how it works.

I make my way up to the bus stop and wait in the unseasonally glorious sunshine for a 251 bus only pausing to exchange some bored looks with my fellow passengers. I do not have to wait long before [...oh, God, I'll skip this bit and get on to the more interesting part].

I am excited to see that there is a B&Q superstore at Whetstone. I can't wait to hurry inside and roam up and down the crowded aisles looking for a wallpaper pasting table. I hope no one thinks I am going to do some decorating! I want it for a quite different purpose altogether!

I exchange a couple of text messages on my mobile phone with someone that I am due to meet at my final destination of the morning. He tells me that he is very relieved to hear that I have bought a table and that he doesn't have to bring the picnic table I asked him to bring along in case after all. This means that he is now free to RIDE HIS BIKE! He's very pleased about this as am I.

Barnet trades council is very hot on the environment, unlike the Tories who are lashed up in Europe with a bunch of climate-change deniers. I would be please to elucidate to anyone that I could find that would stand there and listen to me long enough some of the highlights of Barnet trades council's proud record on the environment. It includes:

- we are signed up to the Coalition for a Sustainable Brent Cross Cricklewood Redevelopment;

- ummmm... er... that's it. (Note to self, must dig out some more environmental cred point scoring achievements.)

[skip to the good part where I finally get to name-drop a local eating establishment] I finally reach East Barnet after a rather bad-tempered bus journey completed with my wheeled case full of leaflets, a rucksack, my new wallpaper pasting table and a rather officious bus driver. Since I am early for my meeting with my fellow campaigners I am delighted to be able to pop into the Sunshine Cafe on East Barnet Road just opposite Sainsbury's and a few doors down from the Lord Kitchener public house, and have a delicious egg mayonnaise sandwich and a scalding cup of coffee. It's a real privilege to be able to eavesdrop on some old maids of the parish congratulating each other on still being alive. I think we can all relate to that!

P.S. How could I forget?! While I was on my 251 bus-ride through Mill Hill I saw that Roger Tichborne out campaigning in the blazing heat, him and a stout fellow. I'll bet Roger's sorry now that he succumbed to the inducements of the Lib Dems, and resisted the allure of joining instead my rather confusing election campaign without a candidate. Only time will tell. That and the good voters of Mill Hill!

[anyway, back to East Barnet, bloody hell, how much longer can this go on?] Where was I? Oh, yes, at East Barnet I finally got to set up my stall outside Sainsbury's. We got there just after the Labour Party canvassers left, that was a close shave. I managed to snatch a few words with one of them, who told me that the council is run by the Tories. It's interesting what you can learn from these political johnnies.

My stall was on a very serious matter, far too serious to parody in a blogpost like this. Hopefully, you'll all've given up reading by now and won't tick me off for that. Anyway, while we were campaigning in the glorious April sunshine, asking people to fight for jobs, homes and public services and not to vote for the racist, fascist BNP, a group of Christians stood next to us doing some open-air preaching. But not before one of them came over and introduced himself as a fellow trade unionist. Did you know that the Unite union organises a faithworkers branch? No, neither did I, but it does! And this chap is a member! After we had had a nice chat about why it is wrong to vote for the BNP, he went back to his preaching of the gospel telling people that they have a basic choice between Heaven and Hell. It looked like the good people of East Barnet knew exactly what he was going on about!

Anyway, over the next couple of hours we met a good many more very interesting people and I hope we managed to steer some of them away from evil and onto the righteous path of loving their neighbour as they would have others do unto them. That could be of any faith, of course. (I hope I haven't missed anyone out.)

There was just time on the way back to get a lift from one of my fellow campaigners who kindly drove me up to the High Barnet station passing a pub - I think it was called the Old Red Lion, Barnet - where a large number of men in football shirts stood drinking in the scorching heat of the unseasonably warm spring afternoon. I wonder what they were doing. I'll go back next week and find out.

I am pleased to say that I just had time to stop off for a revivifying fresh juice drink at the Blu Cherry juice bar on my way back through Whetstone, before catching the 251 bus back home to my home. Tired but revivified. And rather tired. It's these things that make being a non-candidate so rewarding.

BNP standing in Barnet - how worried should we be?

The BNP might not be able to grow very large at this stage in history, but it has grown in the last few years and continues to grow. It will use its election candidacies, council and general, to try and build a more permanent base to launch out from. For, as they themselves admit, their recruitment pool at the moment is mainly friends and relations of existing BNP members.

Stephen Curry, who has announced his candidacy in East Barnet for the council elections, is the BNP's deputy London organiser. He has stood before in Barnet, in the by-election in Hale ward in May 2008. He got 213 votes, which doesn't sound much, but was 3.8% of the total turnout. As well as standing for Barnet council, he will be one of the BNP's 32 London parliamentary candidates, standing in the Westminster North seat.

From comments he makes on the BNP's London website, we can't be sure whether he will concentrate his personal canvassing efforts in Barnet or in Westminster North. But I think it's clear that the BNP would like to use the council election to recruit in our area. What could make Curry think that East Barnet is a good option? Perhaps stories like this, reported in the Times series, indicate a seam of racism in the area that the BNP would hope to mine:

The teenage ringleader of a gang which terrorised traders on the Dollis Valley Estate has been jailed.

Phillip Joy-Friel, 18, of Dollis Valley Drive was jailed for 18 weeks after admitting a string of offences at Hendon Magistrates Court.

...Dee Rajhwani, who manages a shop in High Barnet lived close to the bully and said he suffered regular racist insults and threatening behaviour by him.

Standing in Hale ward in the past made a certain sort of sense as well, when you consider where Curry lives: Kingsbury Road. In Brent, a BNP candidate is standing in Fryent ward. This is right next door to the area Curry comes from. I imagine the BNP dreams of building a small base in this area, where Barnet, Brent and Harrow meet, which is pretty run-down.

I've spent the afternoon preparing a briefing for Barnet trades council on this. We will be campaigning against the BNP in the next few weeks, and also promoting our positive values of defending and extending public services, defending and creating jobs, and building homes. It is when services and jobs are under attack, and decent homes are scarce that the likes of the BNP hope to grow fastest, as they scapegoat immigrant populations for all our ills.

East Barnet gas debacle - the council recommends...

Times series on Barnet council's ad hoc scrutiny committee report of their investigation into the East Barnet gas debacle. The committee's key recommendation was that National Grid pay householders more compensation for the days they spent without gas.

For me the stand-out part is not where committee chair Brian Coleman offers to stand Jack Cohen a dinner, but where he says the council can recommend what they like, but have very little power to make National Grid do anything.

“We can't give them a time limit, we've got no authority over them. We are suggesting they do it but they can say yes, no or mind your own business.

“They are a private company responsible to shareholders and directors.”

I have seen the Future Shape of Barnet council and it doesn't work terribly well?

East Barnet gas debacle - report of the scrutiny committee meeting

National Grid could not cope when a water mains burst cut gas supplies to 3,500 East Barnet homes and businesses over Christmas.

The energy network operator came under fire at a meeting of Barnet Council's scrutiny committee last week (4 March).

National Grid told the commitee it struggled to bring the emergency under control as water gushed through the gas mains and into some households. And it said that two national call centres had failed to keep up with calls for advice during the crisis.

Barnet Council officers claimed advice letters that should have been sent out to the East Barnet community had been 'sat on' by National Grid lawyers. A National Grid spokesman claimed, however, that the letters had been delayed because of a technicality and because "it was too dark" to deliver them on December 23 - four days after the gas supply was cut.

The company again snubbed calls to increase compensation to householders and businesses.

Benard Walsh, of Brookhill Road, who spoke on behalf of residents said:

I am staggered that, despite National Grid's admission that it could not cope with this crisis, the company is refusing to re-consider its compensation offers. The figures paid out have varied by £500 from neighbour to neighbour. Some of the shops have lost thousands of pounds but National Grid is only prepared to offer them £50 a day. These small businesses had to pay employees' wages with or without gas.

The Scrutiny Committee presents its conclusions at a meeting at Hendon Town Hall on March 18th at 7pm.

Report by Bernard Walsh

East Barnet gas debacle - come to the scrutiny committee (guest blog)

Two and a half months after a gas breakdown plunged 3,500 households and businesses in East Barnet into Arctic temperatures, Barnet council launches an inquiry into the emergency on Thursday night. Bernard Walsh, of Brookhill Road, orchestrated a campaign aimed at bringing those responsible for the crisis to account.

The meeting of the council's scrutiny committee will examine why shivering residents and shop owners were stranded as utility companies, local authority officials and emergency services failed to communicate with them during the crisis.

The loss of gas caused severe problems during the festive period, but the total lack of communication exacerbated the problem.

National Grid appears to be using pre-agreed compensation guidelines to ride roughshod over people's needs. This gas breakdown cost people money, hard cash from their pockets. All National Grid are offering is £30 a day compensation for households and £50 for businesses. The £multi-billion organisation threw in £100 per day for homes cut off on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

National Grid has ducked calls for increased compensation to make good the anguish caused by failure to tell people what was going on. And local councillors also went into hiding - until I called for a public meeting two weeks ago. It's a pity those councillors couldn't knock on a few doors to communicate with people during the breakdown - they'll be doing just that in the next month or so in the run-up to the election.

Following the public meeting at New Barnet Community Centre, National Grid held two and a half days' of surgeries at East Barnet Baptist Church, to track down all 3,500 premises affected by the cut off - around 350 people made it to the surgeries.

Scrutiny committee chairman Cllr Brian Coleman has snubbed calls to hold the meeting in or close to East Barnet, meaning many of the vulnerable people who were left high and dry by the communication breakdown will again be denied the chance to have their say.

The meeting takes place at Hendon Town Hall, the Burroughs, NW4 4BG at 7pm on Thursday 4 March. Official papers available here.

Bernard Walsh

P.S. Notice of the meeting in the Times series today.

No time to be cold

I hope the residents of East Barnet get their gas supply back soon, or at least an adequate supply of electric heaters - and enough power in the grid to keep them on! You can read about this story in the Barnet Press and in the Times series.

It probably wouldn't be the Christmas that cold East Barneteers would ask for, but can't Barnet council show some initiative and offer to put on Christmas meals and celebrations in some public place for those that want to come? It's a time to think big.

We hear about the shocking number of people these days who eat Christmas dinner alone, this could also be an occasion to make the case for more sociable Christmases - for those that want them.

***
The snow in Kent thwarted my plan to visit my dad today, but not before I'd stood around in chilly Charing Cross station for an hour. I should make it to my mum's tomorrow, however, as the railway line to Rochester is open.

Both my parents have freezing cold houses, but I am not good in the cold, I think I am part lizard. Merry Christmas!