Archive for the 'Barnet' Category

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Parliamentary Hustings at Hendon Mosque – video

Published on 7 April 2010 in Barnet, Islam and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Last Thursday, on behalf of the Barnet Muslim Forum, I organised a parliamentary election hustings at Hendon mosque for the Hendon constituency. Present were the candidates from the three main parties: Andrew Dismore MP (Labour), Matthew Offord (Conservative) and Matthew Harris (Lib Dem).

No major gaffe’s from any of them, that I recall…. but a number of “interesting” answers that I wasn’t expecting. A couple of Labour party members present afterwards accused me of being a biased chair, against their candidate. That view was not shared by others present (including other Labour party members) but I apologise if this was the case: it certainly was not my intention to be partial, though in hindsight the seats could have been better spaced out! Anyway, judge for yourself.

Parliamentary hustings at Hendon Mosque – 1 April 2010 on Vimeo.

Update 04 May 2010: If you are browsing from an iPhone or another device that doesn’t have Flash you can view it in HTML5 at the Daily Motion (ad-supported).

The next events in this series are:

  • Wed 7 April 2010: Finchley & Golders Green parliamentary hustings at North Finchley Mosque, 8pm – to be photographed by the Official Artist for the 2010 General Election
  • Tue 1327 April 2010: Barnet Council hustings at Hendon Mosque, 8.30pm – featuring the local party leaders.

Coleman caught with pants down (metaphorically!)

Published on 9 September 2006 in Barnet and Transport. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

For some years now Cllr Brian Coleman has stubbornly campaigned against any measures deemed ‘anti-car’. As a dinosaur on the Conservative GLA group he remains resolutely opposed to the successful Congestion Charge. More locally, he was a vociferous opponent of the previous Labour administration’s policy of introducing speed humps in Barnet and, with his Conservative friends who now run the Council, has been responsible for digging up all the roads (again!) just to take the humps out.

Now we know why.

Last week’s Hendon Times contained the story Safety Councillor banned for for speeding (for some unknown reason the article is not available in the online edition so I can’t link to it). Apparently Brian Coleman managed to lose his license after being prosecuted (twice!) for driving too fast. What makes this selfish and arrogant behaviour particularly shameless is that, as the Cabinet Member for Safety, Cllr Coleman has presided over Barnet gaining the dubious honour of having amongst the highest road death rates in London (particularly for children).

I should clarify that I understand road humps are no panacea. Often they can be counter-productive. But these decisions should be made on an individual, road by road, basis, not by pro or anti-car dogma. The previous Labour administrations were perhaps over-zealous in putting them in whenever a road needed resurfacing. But the Tories have been wasting money digging up otherwise perfectly good surfaces, just to remove the humps. In doing so, they’ve often been riding rough shod over public opinion.

Cameron might be successful in achieving a makeover for the Conservatives nationally, but in London too many of them are still bonkers. No wonder they can’t find anyone credible to be their candidate for Mayor.

I hope Cllr Coleman is suitably embarrassed. If he’s not going to change his selfish pro-car ways I hope he realises it would be best for him to be replaced by new blood at the next election (both Borough and GLA).