Hendon firefighters: we won't let the bad press get us down

I went up to the picket line at Hendon fire station today, for the start of the firefighters' eight-hour strike (10am to 6pm). There seemed to be more people attending than last time, probably a mark of how much the bad press they have been getting has increased their determination.

One woman firefighter told me: "You just can't let it get to you."

The turnout was particularly impressive given that this was mostly of people from Hendon, whereas for the strike on Saturday 23 October, firefighters had attended from all over Barnet in the expectation that an AssetCo crewed fire engine would be based at Hendon.

In the event, on 23 October, a fire engine had driven four times past the station, but evidently thought better of trying to operate from there, and drove off. Today the rumour was that an engine was headed for Barnet fire station. I wonder if it ever arrived.

The firefighters were getting a good reception from passers-by. There was very little hostility, and most people - many of them students heading into lectures at Middlesex University - were happy to take a leaflet to find out more about the dispute, if they weren't already declaring their support.

There should be a good presence of firefighters at the lobby outside Hendon Town Hall tomorrow night, Tuesday 2 November, from 6pm, for the council meeting which starts at 7pm. Please come and join us if you can.

Press coverage

As it happens, the Times series has given the Hendon firefighters some fairly good - at least, fair - press. Article here.

And here is an earlier item about the trades council's support for the FBU.

Bob Neill "not too fussed"; Coleman's incendiary rubbish; Barnet unions answer back

A government minister, Bob Neill MP, has found time in his busy schedule to visit Barnet council, point at a scale model of the Brent Cross scheme, and tell everyone he is

“not too fussed” about concerns raised by external auditors Grant Thornton no business plan has yet been drawn up for the Future Shape programme.

Good for him, but then he doesn't have to live here. We who do are quite "fussed". The Times series has the report.

They also report Brian Coleman defending weekly rubbish collections on the grounds that fortnightly collections are likely to lead to more fires. We'll hold him to that!

Last but not least in my shameless pillaging of Times series stories, Barnet trades council's secretary Austin Harney replies to Coleman's recent slurs against the borough's trade unions. Austin says:

We are not bosses but grassroots trade union representatives who sacrifice our spare time for all people living and working in the London Borough of Barnet.

Under "Easy" Barnet Council, support for the communities and the residents could easily disappear and exacerbate the poverty levels. It seems that our council is attempting to destroy any progress.

I, kindly, ask Brian Coleman to reconsider his criticisms and listen to our communities and residents who could be suffering from these cuts in council services.

Attempt to smear the trades council is laughable

If you read my blog yesterday you'll have had advanced notice of this feeble attempt to smear the trades council in the Times series.

I'll repeat here the comment I made on the Times website:

Ladies and gentlemen of the Times series, I can't believe that you dignified this "story" with column inches/webspace. A pathetic attempt to smear the trades council over what was at worst a misunderstanding in the organising of a public meeting that was, in the event, a great success.

The timing should have made it completely obvious to you that Coleman was trying to distract from the public meeting last night - 200 plus residents and workers against Barnet council's cuts and privatisation agenda.

I think it was your press night, but you did not send a journalist to cover that - the Barnet Press did. Instead, we get this, frankly, crap. I'm embarassed (once again) to be in the profession.

Vicki Morris
Barnet TUC publicity officer and NUJ member

And here is yesterday's post, getting my rebuttal in early! My prediction was utterly correct.

Lynne Hillan refuses to meet the press

Times series reporters attended Barnet council meeting at Hendon Town Hall tonight and asked to interview Lynne Hillan. They wanted to present her with the paper's "Reject the Rise" petition bearing nearly 1,600 signatures, collected from Barnet residents against the allowances rise. But Hillan would only meet with the paper's group editor - our intrepid reporters weren't senior enough for her. (And they looked so smart in their suits!)

Hillan wasn't snubbing the reporters - she was snubbing the residents who have signed the petition.

Times series' irritating audio adverts

Every time you click on the Times newspaper series website at the moment there is an irritating audio advert - for a prep school, what is more!

Sometimes people have good reasons for not wanting some sound suddenly blurting unbidden out of their computer - sleeping babies, eg.

Times series, please drop this kind of advertising.

Advertising is so obtrusive, we are often not consulted on what we will wear and what we won't. For example, the video adverts projected onto the side of the Tube tunnel - to avoid watching them, you have to look at your shoes. Or the boring video adverts that hem you in as you go up some escalators. To avoid looking at them, you have to narrow down your field of vision in a most unnatural way - staring at the people travelling down the other side!

With adverts on television, at least you have the option of switching over or leaving the room - here we are a captive audience and have no such choice. To all those that sell advertising, before you invent "new and innovative" ways for people to flog us goods and services, why don't you find out what the involuntary consumers of advertising think of it all?

The commercialisation of public - and now private - space has got out of hand. Times series, plesae don't add to it.

Petitions galore as even the Times series takes a stand

One of the local newspapers, the Times series, avoids getting on the wrong side of the council, so it is a mark of how much Barnet's Conservative councillors have offended that the Times series has now launched - very prominently - a petition: Reject the Rise.

Here they explain why. The wording on the petition, which you can sign here, is:

We the undersigned believe councillors should not accept pay rises agreed under the new allowance structure voted in by Barnet Council on July 13, 2010.

We call upon council leader Lynne Hillan to rethink the rise.

Personally, I think the wording on John Dix's petition is better, more concrete (and longer!). You can sign that here.

And Hendon's former MP Andrew Dismore has a petition as well. You can sign that here.

The more the merrier. Will Lynne Hillan take the slightest bit of notice? No, but David Cameron might.

Coleman pepped up over potholes

The Times series (what would I do without them?) reports:

The cabinet portfolio for the environment, which covers highway maintenance, was ...placed in the hands of Councillor Brian Coleman, who claimed his priority was going to be “roads, roads, roads”.

The first step seems now to be the setting up of the new “pothole elimination programme”, which aims to deal with the remaining potholes on principle [sic] roads by July 31, and all others by the end of October.

Cllr Coleman said: “This push means motorists will no longer need to navigate potholes on the borough's principal roads.

“I want Barnet residents to go about their business safely and smoothly.”

He said on average, the council repairs 1,000 potholes each year, a figure surpassed by the end of January.

The "pothole elimination programme", or PEP for short. I feel a series of puns coming on.

Where's MY Labour council?!

I've been too electioned out to pay enough attention to what happened in the local elections past the borders of Barnet, but news is slowly filtering through to me that Barnet council is almost unique (slight exaggeration) in not having fallen to Labour on 6 May.

Barnet Tory Don't Call Me Dave sportingly lists all the councils that have changed on his blog:

In neighbouring Enfield, Labour won 9 seats to take control from the Conservatives. In Harrow, Labour added 10 seats to oust the Tories. Labour also won control of nearby Brent, Camden and Ealing.

Frankly, looking at this list, I'm starting to feel cheated! Why, especially given the particularly arrogant attitude of Barnet's Tory administration, did our Labour group only manage to hold its own on Thursday and not sweep all before them?

I did think, when I read it, that Labour group leader Alison Moore's comment to the Times series reporter was strange:

“This is a dismal result for the Barnet Conservatives, and their leader Lynne Hillan, who talked of 'turning Barnet blue' in this election.

“I am delighted that we have kept all our hard working Labour councillors and increased the size of the Labour Group as well.”

In fact, the Labour group went from 20 councillors to 21. So, why did Barnet's Labour group not do better? It's certainly something to ponder - and rue.

2010 council budget - cuts, including to sheltered housing

The Times series reports on last night's Barnet council cabinet meeting which agreed its budget headlines for 2010-11.

£15m cuts to balance Barnet's budget while council tax remains static

By Sarah Cosgrove

ADULT and children's services and the environment are the main losers in this year's proposed budget as councillors struggle to keep council tax at current levels and cope with rising costs.

Read more.

I wish I had time to comment on the details; I do have time to mention that the council has had to put back into its spending some of the savings it had hoped to make on abolishing the sheltered housing wardens. This is because, owing to the legal challenge, they haven't been able to terminate the contracts they have with housing providers for warden services as quickly as they expected.

Please note, however, that they had expected to save £400,000 over the year, and have now budgeted that they will save £300,000. That means they expect to press ahead with their plans soon. Will they appeal the decision against them, as Portsmouth council has? Will they win an appeal? Would the political price be worth paying, in the run-up to the council elections? These are all calculations for them to make. For our part, we know what we will be doing - carrying on our campaign to save the wardens!

Postscript. I don't dislike the Times series half as much as the Barnet Eye does. I think the journos do a pretty good job under, what I suspect, is some political pressure, but I do wish they would sub their online articles better. Some of the budget article simply didn't make sense.