Category Archives: town hall

Predators stalk the corpse of London’s failing private fire firm

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Not their vehicle but the symbolic state of AssetCo. Pic courtesy: TheScottishSun

Like encircling vultures, bidders across the globe are now looking  at the dying corpse of AssetCo, the floundering private fire company, for a cheap buy  as it shares hover around-3-5p mark.

Virtually all the bidders are potential asset strippers looking to buy cheap and then re-sell the company for a potential fast buck. Here is the full list, as far as I can glean. They have some interesting baggage as well.

Still with a bid on the table – but nowhere near the earlier offer of 14-21p a share- is Arcapita Bank  a Bahrain based company run by a wealthy Saudi.

The bank has run up big losses because of the credit crisis and lack of easy credit from financial institutions for private equity speculations. Its latest accounts (2010) post losses of $559 million. It is currently refinancing a $ 1.1 loan by raising cash from shareholders.

It makes its money in US, UK, Singapore and Far East and the Gulf by investing in firms for about seven yrs, restructuring them, and reselling them at a profit. (can be anything from clothing, aircraft manufacturers, retirement homes, dentistry and electricity).

Its most controversial investment is in Cypress Communications, a US high tech company, providing firewalls for US companies. Its bid became embroiled in a row when Arcapita’s chairman, Mohammed Abdukaziz Al Jomaih (27th wealthiest  person in Arab rich list) was accused of secretly financing Osama Bin Laden. His name is on seized list obtained in an anti-terror raid in Bosnia. He claims that he is not the person on the named list but that it is someone with the same name who is conveniently now dead.

Despite this Arcapita found itself forced to sign a National Security Agreement banning all but US nationals holding top posts in its acquired company and only US citizens able to handle sensitive network and security info. Don’t believe me. Read it at  http://bit.ly/j0z0gO .

Abdulaziz Hamad Al Joiah is vice chairman. Another Saudi Arabian. MD of Aljomaih Holding Co and director of Bank Al Bilad, Riyadh. He is chairman of Principle Insurance Holding – a Muslim car insurance company targeting 2 million Muslim drivers in UK –run on Takaful principles – a sort of Muslim mutual co-operative.

Another bidder tipped by Bloomberg is Florida based Seacor Holdings. The Fort Lauderdale company with international interests in supplying  the offshore oil industry  suffered a bad knock  in the wake of Obama’s ban on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil disaster. It is trading at a loss and has had to warn shareholders of potential future losses. Not a good bet.

According to City AM there are two other interested parties. Investindustrial, an Italian based company, that invests in a wide range of companies ( from chemical companies to Ducati motor bikes) from Italy, China, Thailand and USA  and again is interested in making short-term gains.

The only British firm is Consilia Partners from  Manchester. It describes itself as a turn around company  and AssetCo would join an Ipswich catering equipment distributor and an Egyptian marble company in Cairo as its other investments, according to the Manchester Evening News.

 None of this seems to me to bode well- particularly as AssetCo is facing a new creditor, the Northern Bank, with a demand for £1.3m. What seems more likely is  a serious tip-off from City Hall – that the London Fire authority may prefer AssetCo to go bust, go into the hands of an administrator, and be picked up by Capita or Serco , both mega British companies that target public services ripe for privatisation.

Otherwise the idea that the London fire brigade’s extensive fleet of engines will fall into the hands of an Arab company whose boss was once suspected of funding al-Qaeda; an US company in trouble over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill; an Italian firm with a reputation for quick fix investments or a Manchester ” turn around” firm is hardly the best news for Londoners.

MetPro: A damning indictment of a flagship Tory council

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One of three names for MetPro security company

Barnet Council: A damning report Pic: courtesy Barnet Council

The official audit report on  MetPro out this week – the bust security company employed by Barnet Council caught out secretly filming bloggers- is one of the most damning indictments of council incompetence I have ever seen.

The council’s own internal auditors have admitted that it had no business  spending £1.3m on  the security firm – under various titles and guises-  without carrying out basic checks or opening up the tender to competition.

 Frankly some of the findings are so damning as it to be almost unbelievable. Not only were basic checks never undertaken but officials even paid out cash without noticing it was going into an unauthorised bank account from those specified in the contracts and with the wrong VAT number on them. The council is even in danger of being prosecuted by Revenue and Customs for overpayments of VAT as a result. In other cases, there is NO  record of payments made to the company at all.  Any small business caught doing this would find the heavy hand of  the revenue turning them over.

This scandalous state of affairs would never have come to light without the combined work of Barnet’s bloggers – with particular reference to Mrs Angry’s  heroic and diligent work on the Broken Barnet website. See  here for her full report.( http://bitly.com/i13ngn )

As she points out the auditors’ finding are appalling: “No procurement exercise had been undertaken to appoint MetPro, in accordance with the Council’s CPR.
No written contract between the Council and MetPro could be found.
There is no record of an approval and authorisation for the use of MetPro for providing security
services.
In the absence of a formal procurement exercise, we could not locate the following
documents/confirmation for MetPro, which the CPR require:
 Financial viability of the company
 Equal Opportunities Assessment
 Criminal Records Bureau checks
 Confirmation of company’s Public Liability Insurance arrangements
 Confirmation of the company’s Health and Safety registration
 Confirmation on the SIA licence status of the Company Officers
 An agreed specification which outlined the service to be provided
 An agreed schedule of rates for payment of invoices
 A process for monitoring performance of service delivery to establish if the Council was
receiving value for money ”

 It goes on: “Our sample testing of invoices highlighted there had been payments of invoices in the names of MetPro Group and MetPro Emergency Response Ltd where a valid VAT number had not been quoted. However a full review of all payments of invoices should be completed to identify all instances where a valid VAT number had not been quoted and the implications discussed with HMRC. There were inappropriate changes to bank account details on SAP Financial System resulting in payments to an unauthorised vendor – MetPro Emergency Response.”

Download  the full report at http://bit.ly/kqWmR0 .

There are much wider implications from this damning indictment of this flagship Easycare council.

With the government pushing councils to contract out – there must be proper supervision or literally millions of pounds could go astray. And there need to be questions asked of  Barnet’s external auditors, Grant Thornton, who consistently give such an incompetent shower of officials a clean bill of health. The firm can’t be value for money if it misses such a  big black hole.

Sadly the signs are in the name of  localism this could proliferate. Current plans for audit reform by Grant Shapps, the local government minister, intend to encourage a light touch.  This will be good news for incompetents and crooks across the nation but very bad news for council taxpayers everywhere.

Readers top 3,400 for AssetCo, MetPro and green dirty tricks

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Last week visits to the site topped 3459 with massive interest in the fate of AssetCo, the collapsing private fire company which owns London’s and Lincolnshire’s fire engines. Two blogs attracted  over 2500  hits. A big number came from the Fire Brigades union (many thanks), but a significant minority are people picking up  the blog from three small investor sites – as speculators wonder whether to dump their shares or throw more money at it. With shares at just 3.50p at the moment the company is little more than junk stock.

A sudden rush on an older blog exposing how the environment ministry has biased its ” red tape” review of green laws and regulations to favour burdens on business at the expense of the benefits of the  law, has attracted over 940 hits. Thanks to environment campaigner, George Monbiot, for retweeting it and attracting extra trade and a  few subscriptions.

Expect now a pause in blogging as I am off  to the tranquil and peaceful delights of the Isles of Scilly for hopefully an accident free holiday ( after my fall there last time!).

Update: Now AssetCo’s financial saviour quits

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AssetCo's state of finances: Pic Courtesy:www.onenewspage.co.uk

 Scott Brown, the Australian financial whizz kid brought in to shake up the collapsing private fire company, quit AssetCo yesterday, it has just been announced.

His departure is the latest blow to the firm which owns and services London and Lincolnshire’s fire engines and provided a strike breaking auxiliary workforce in the dispute with the London Fire Brigade over shift patterns last year.

It came as shares fell to just 3.93p – a new low – which must mean the company is not long for this world.

Appointed only last October the 43-year-old was meant to help turn the company round and plan an expansion of its activities.

The official statement from AssetCo described his departure as part of ” the orderly transition in its finance area  ”  claiming “Mr Brown’s immediate duties and the finance structure is being managed day-to-day by a senior interim manager, who is reporting directly to Interim Chairman, Tudor Davies. ”

 Frankly this is balls. An orderly transition would mean that the company would already have someone  appointed in  his place – not some interim manager who probably has been appointed at the last moment.

 I talked to him  briefly on his mobile when the company was having to raise extra finance – and it was quite clear from the conversation that he saw the company having a big future – once it had got rid of hotchpotch of manufacturing firms  it acquired in the 1980s and could expand by offering its services to other fire authorities and abroad.

More to the point he is  shrewd enough to quit before it goes bust. A check on the land register shows he has a large house in Barnes, south London which he and his partner Elizabeth Hackett-Brown bought for £1.425m in 2009 with a mortgage from HSBC. He won’t want as a director  to  put that at risk if the company goes bust.

 He also is the key man negotiating with the banks – so I just wonder how well the negotiations for extra cash are going.

I have a feeling that it won’t be long before  London Fire Brigade’s shiny engines will be in the hands of the administrators.

Assetco and MetPro: Stains on London’s political masters

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Coleman and Assetco: stain on London fire Brigade

Metpro-stain on Barnet Council

Politicians at the London Fire Brigade and Barnet Council should be hanging their heads in shame for awarding multi-million pound contracts to two private contractors, MetPro and Assetco – one of which is now bankrupt and the other only valued as junk  stock .

Both scandals have featured on this site before but the situation is going from bad to worse.

An extraordinary statement from Assetco -owner of London and Lincolnshire’s fire engines and a strike breaking auxiliary force for London’s firefighters – basically admits that it does not have the cash any more to meet capital repayments needed to run its contracts with London, Lincolnshire and the Middle East.See http://bit.ly/mP5WFa .

The key paragraph reads:  “The main issue that the business is facing is the capital repayment profile not matching the long-term nature of the Company’s contracts. Whilst the Company is cash generative and can meet its interest costs, it does not generate sufficient funds to meet all the repayment of capital as currently scheduled. The banks are supportive regarding the short-term financing situation and are awaiting our proposals on a financial restructuring but in the meantime we are in breach of our banking arrangements.”

This sorry state has been brought about by its former founder John Shannon who last month was summarily dismissed by the company.

Shannon had landed the company in court facing a winding up order for millions of pounds of unpaid taxes from Revenue and Customs-something they don’t do lightly- and a huge £1m unpaid legal bill from Nabarro’s.

No sooner had these been settled by diluting the share price in a £16m offer to new investors then more grief was to follow. The share price  is now down to a junk figure of 4.65p a share –  when it once sold at 66p. Market capitalisation at £11m is now less than the value of its PFI contracts in London and the Middle East.

Yet Shannon and his former co-founder are trying to recover £1.1m from the collapsing firm while facing a counter-claim from Assetco for £8m for ” breaches of fiduciary duties”. A bloody legal battle  is on the way distracting it from its business.

 All this might not matter if they did not own all the fire engines  in the capital and Lincolnshire. But the London Fire Brigade has reacted to the crisis with breath-taking complacency. Gareth Bacon, performance management chair, believes there is no serious problem.

 Brian Coleman, who was wined and dined by Shannon as well as receiving a gift of a £350 Harvey Nicks Christmas hamper, is silent about the fate of his dining companion.

Yet consider this.Would it be appropriate for a public body to avoid paying taxes and be so reckless with its finances so it can’t repay its capital loans to banks? And for the authority to be in a such a bad way that it has had to hire financial staff to sort out the mess. Heads would roll.

Barnet Council is in a similar mess over the bust private security firm MetPro who owed £250,000 to Revenue and Customs for unpaid tax, VAT and even pay roll tax deducted from its employees.

 The fate of this company would not have come to light if it had not been so reckless by filming bloggers and members of the public without their knowledge or permission as they came to watch the council implement cuts.

But now Barnet have admitted they were UNAWARE of the financial plight of the company which got £1m of business and glowing references from them on its website  (now finally removed) and appears to have avoided any public tendering process to get the business.

There is a link to both these scandals and he is called Brian Coleman. He has been the key advocate of the government’s privatisation agenda and cheerleader for the company -particularly the disgraced John Shannon. He is also the big wheel on Barnet Council- Cabinet post for the environment- and must have had some knowledge of the bankrupt MetPro. And there is even a bit part for the complacent Gareth Bacon in all this – his division at  Dutch consultants MartinWardAnderson has made £75,000  (£12,600 a month) over just a six month period in 2010 – providing temporary finance staff for Barnet.

Can anyone do anything about this? Yes- firefighters employed by the London Fire Brigade could ask for a due diligence investigation by the district auditor Michael Howarth-Maden over the handling of the PFI contract, alleging the authority had employed a company involved in proven tax avoidance

 Similarly residents of Barnet could demand an investigation by its external auditors,Grant Thornton into the hiring of MetPro. Here the crucial question should be -how they got the contract in the first place.

It is really time action was taken – the scandalous behaviour of both firms is a stain on London’s politicians.

We filmed bloggers and Barnet residents for Tory council-Private security chief

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 Update: Barnet bloggers have called for full independent public inquiry into Barnet Council’s handling of the MetPro contract.

They say:

The only way that trust can be restored in Barnet Council, following the MetPro debacle, is to hold a full public inquiry. We the undersigned call on Nick Walkley, CEO of Barnet Council, and Lynne Hillan, Council Leader, to immediately engage an independent investigator, enjoying the confidence of Barnet residents, to look into the relationship between MetPro Rapid Response/MetPro Emergency Response and Barnet Council. We demand to know what Barnet Council asked MetPro Rapid Response/MetPro Emergency Response to do and what Barnet Council has done with any information about residents it has had access to as a result of MetPro’s work. Contact for more details: Vicki Morris vickimorris@btinternet.com

Did Barnet authorise the filming?

 

Or did the private security firm do it?

A former director of  a security company now bust with £400,000 debts – has  admitted that he equipped his security staff with security cameras so he could film protestors,bloggers and  residents – who came to Tory Barnet council’s meeting which approved cuts.

A scoop by Georgia Graham – a reporter on the Hampstead and Highgate Express  –  following up exclusives on this site and by Broken Barnet -(See this link to Broken Barnet for the latest story http://bitly.com/i13ngn )  got an admission from Kevin Sharkey, one of  the directors of MetPro. See http://bit.ly/frWGO1

In an interview today with me, he said: “Our staff normally wear clothing  with cameras so we can document what is happening for both sides. It is normal practice at football matches and where there are large crowds.” He said he was doing the filming for people’s safety and for his own staff’s safety to make sure nobody was hurt.

” In this day and age nobody would act without authorisation and we were asked to do this by Barnet Council. We were preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. In the event nothing happened unlike at Camden and Haringey councils.”

 He  said the main reason why people could not watch the meeting was because they had arrived late and said that he knew people who were there were up ” tricks ” to get other people into the chamber which would have breached fire regulations.

” We know what tricks people got up to like saying they were going to the toilet to free a place and then coming back.”

He also amounted an extraordinary defence of the ” dire state ” of his company – saying he was an employee not a director – despite being registered at Companies House as a director.

 He put the blame for the collapse on his partner Luigi Mansi saying ” he  was running the company and he is going to have pay back a lot of money for a long time.”

 ” Me, I haven’t got a penny to my name and I am living in rented accommodation. I am part of the community myself. I was working 130 hours a week to keep the company going but it owed a lot of money in tax.”

Barnet Council yesterday insisted that it had not ordered MetPro to do this. In a statement the authority said:

“MetPro has gone into liquidation and the council has terminated its contract.  At no point has the council ever authorised security staff carrying lapel cameras. 
 “Unlike some other London boroughs, the setting of the budget in Barnet at cabinet and council was held with the public present and at the advertised time and place. Every resident who arrived at Hendon Town Hall by the start of the meeting had a place in either the public gallery or the overflow room.”

Whoever is right this is a damning indictment of local democracy at Barnet Council. They have employed people who are equipped to film people at a public meeting. They have banned bloggers and residents from filming, tweeting or recording their own council against the  advice of Eric Pickles, the communities secretary. They also have paid over £275,000 to a private security firm that has ended almost owing all that in unpaid tax. They either don’t know what they are doing or don’t care.

Revealed: The £400,000 debts of Barnet’s blogger banning private security firm

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MetPro's fine lads: Owed £20,000 in unpaid wages

Documents filed by Mike Solomon, the liquidator of MetPro Rapid Response, the private security company accused of covertly filming and monitoring the borough’s bloggers, reveal that it went belly up owing over £400,000 ten days ago.

The biggest creditor is Revenue and Customs who are owed a cool £245,611.57, for unpaid tax, national insurance contributions, corporation tax and VAT.

 The company which took over £275,000 from the council taxpayers of the Tory borough to provide security and was used by the  council leader, Lynne Hillan,  to enforce a ban on bloggers filming or reporting the council’s big cuts meeting, could have been involved in tax avoidance.

The break down of the figures show that over £139,000 owed  is in PAYE and national insurance contributions and another £99,000 is VAT.

Employees are also owed over £21,000 in unpaid wages – and are top of the list to receive £8800 in payments if any money can be raised.

 The two directors of the company Kevin Sharkey and Luigi Mansi have put themselves down as creditors – saying they are owed £92,500 for loans they gave to the company. Other unpaid debts include £3400 to  their accountants, Bond Partners, the address where the company was last registered and a £4972 credit card debt to Barclaycard.

Total debts are over £400,000 while assets are just three motorcycles valued at £11,850; computer and office equipment worth £475 and security uniforms worth £1400. As a job lot Mr Solomon estimates he could sell them for £6000 plus a goodwill sum of £13,500 for anybody wanting the business.

The scale of the scandal raises questions about the due diligence employed by Barnet Council in appointing them in the first place, particularly as records show that voluntary liquidation involving the same directors has happened before. There could be a case for an investigation if a complaint was made to the district auditor about how the council tendering procedures handled their original appointment.

Since Barnet have been unable to answer a lot of questions from the public about this whole unhappy saga – may be they will feel they have to co-operate with auditors. Or may be not.

Private security firm that banned bloggers goes bust

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gone bust Pic courtesy MetPro Rapid Response Ltd

The row over  Barnet Council’s ludicrous decision to defy Communities

Some of the fine lads working for MetPro, the blogger busting co. Pic courtesy: Reasonablenewbarnet.blogpsot.com

Secretary Eric Pickles and ban bloggers and film makers from covering their cuts meeting has taken an extraordinary twist.

In order to enforce the ban the Tory council used MetPro Rapid Response – the council’s main private security contractors – to stop some residents and bloggers from entering the public gallery to see the council vote through cuts.

See footage on Broken Barnet website here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ3CsC7wrNg

Full story on Broken Barnet website. Link is http://bitly.com/i13ngn Mrs Angry also reveals that the company may have done covert filming of residents and may be monitoring Barnet bloggers and this blog. The council says it is ” not aware” of any blog monitoring.

The company  has received £275,889  for work from the  council taxpayer according to Barnet’s documents released on the Openlylocal website.  See http://bit.ly/eitGCW

It has also  received glowing tributes from the council. On MetPro’s website they quote Barnet Council as saying: ” MetPro has removed all of our safety worries at work thanks to their rapid response officers here in our building.”

 But now the company has just gone bust and is being run by a Liquidator, Mike Solomons, who according to the law firm handling the liquidation, Beavis Morgan, has put Barnet’s security staff contract up for sale.

Closer investigation of the MetPro has revealed some extraordinary facts. Its two directors, Kevin Sharkey and Luigi Anthony Mansi appear to have run a  string of companies which have gone bust before.

 The address of the firm until recently was a rented  multi million pound mansion in Totteridge Lane, Barnet owned by the  brothers Cyril and Edward Frey, aged 86 and 89, and a former lawyer from Finer and Company predecessor of Finers, Stephens, Innocent ( the firm defending the Wikileaks founder). The Land Registry entry confirms that the three owners can be contacted through them, though the law firm which handles multi million pound estates, says it does not manage the property.

Contrary to the glowing references from Barnet, its staff have received libellous comments on a security officers chat site. They are not surprisingly  hardly popular with a string of Barnet bloggers.

All this suggests that Barnet Council may  have more to answer than banning bloggers – and some explanation is required about what is going on and how this firm got the contract in the first place.

A Council spokesperson said: “Barnet Council is urgently reviewing MetPro Rapid Response’s position and will be liaising with the liquidators involved.”

Eric Pickles and Boris Johnson: Dirty Large Tricksters

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New Tory image: The Exhaust Pipe. Pic courtesy auto.howstuffworks.com

Remember  David Cameron’s greening of the Conservative Party with that lovely logo of a tree. It is beginning to look as though it has got leaf rot or some other nasty disease. Perhaps the symbol should be replaced with an exhaust pipe.

Pickles: A cunning little plan.Pic courtesy cyclingsilk.com

The rot set in when Eric Pickles decided on a crafty  trick  in the Localism Bill to ” devolve” the payment of European Union fines from Whitehall to town hall. The two likely areas where councils will start having to pay hundreds of millions of pounds are waste disposal and air pollution. Both are affected by EU directives and Britain has little time left to comply with them.

This has caused considerable anger among  Labour councils and even at the Conservative dominated Local Government Association. Authorities now not only face swingeing cuts but also fines unless they spend money to meet tough EU standards aimed at reducing pollution and waste. And if they have to pay the fines they will have to introduce even more cuts or get into expensive law suits with ministers over what proportion of the fine they should pay.

As Baroness Margaret Eaton, Conservative leader of the LGA said:  “ Changing the goalposts now to make councils liable for fines is unfair to them and unfair to the local residents who may have to foot the bill. The Government must amend this unfair, unworkable, dangerous and unconstitutional legislation.” See full press release at http://bit.ly/g2W7EP

But there has been another extraordinary response from Boris Johnson which seems to suggest the solution is NOT to implement the new  EU anti-pollution measures so we don’t have to pay the fines anyway. Flushed out by Murad Qureshi, Labour’s environment spokesman at City Hall, he disclosed that David Cameron and Eric Pickles want the EU to defer new tough air pollution measures for four years until 2015 so major conurbations including traffic ridden London don’t have to do anything yet.

Murad Queriashi is not impressed: “: “London’s air is literally killing thousands of people prematurely every year but it just doesn’t seem like Boris Johnson appreciates this. Improving air quality standards is one area where the mayor of London can, with a bit of will, make a real difference to people’s lives and especially to the lives of children. The statistics obviously haven’t had much effect on Boris – hopefully the threat of a big fine will.”

All this calls into question whether the Tories are really committed to the environment.

 Basically Pickles has devised a very cunning plan. Make councils pay EU fines which will make the EU unpopular. See if you can delay anti-pollution measures which are affecting health – try walking across the Euston Road in London or near Birmingham’s inner ring road  – so we don’t have to bother anyway. If that fails, it doesn’t matter, because it will be the councils who pick up the tab.

Robert Neill, the local government minister, gave it away earlier this year by blaming Labour for signing up to the Lisbon Treaty for councils having to pay fines. But as far as I know there was no provision in the treaty saying councils must pay.

Perhaps Pickles, Neill and Johnson aren’t really bothered by pollution – so an exhaust pipe rather than a tree would suit them.

Praise be Pickles: Pity about your party activists

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eric pickles- the bloggers friend; Pic courtesy cyclingsilk.com

 

Lynne Hillan- Barnet Tory leader- Queen Canute rather than Iron Lady. Pic courtesy: Barnet Times

Normally I don’t approve of the judgements of Eric Pickles, the  communities secretary, the man Westminster jokes is so much larger than life that he can be spotted on Google Earth. However in a  blog for Conservative Home last week http://bit.ly/i1cKAV the scourge of local government  bureaucrats penned an article backing the idea that councils should open the doors to bloggers and citizen journalists who should be able to tweet and film  to their heart’s content. He of course cited outrageous Labour councils who had banned this. He also praised the work of Maidenhead and Windsor council .

 He wrote: ” Conservative-run Windsor and Maidenhead recently decided to allow members of the public to video local meetings. This week, I wrote to councils encouraging them to follow suit, opening up public discussions to all forms of multimedia. Citizen journalists have as much right as anyone to attend and to share their views, and council ‘monitoring officers’ shouldn’t hide behind bogus concerns about ‘data protection’ or ‘human rights’.

He goes on to describe this new freedom right back to the Blessed Margaret Thatcher who introduced the right  of the press and public to attend council meeting way back in 1960.Isn’t it then doubly ironic that tomorrow night (March 1) Barnet Council, whose citizens returned the former Tory leader to Westminster, should be doing the very thing that Eric Pickles deplores.

 This Tory controlled council has banned videos by the public of the public council meeting saying it is ” against the council’s constitution” and I am told people can be ejected if they are caught tweeting , even though councillors are free to do so.

Indeed bloggers are not welcome at all. Lynne Hillan, leader of the council,  told the Barnet Times:

“The only thing we will do is consider responsible media requests, and they are the only thing we would allow at this stage. If we had a request I would expect an officer to approach me about it. I do not think we would consider a request from bloggers . Only respectable media would be considered.”

This dinosaur attitude from a Queen Canute  is breathtaking. Her ignorance about how the modern world works is absurd. Presumably her next step as Barnet leader will be to table a motion condemning Lady Thatcher for allowing the public by law to attend council meetings.

The best riposte to her comes from the mouth of Eric Pickles himself. ” When councils make these sorts of petty decisions, at best they look foolish and out of touch; at worst they look like they have something to hide.”

 Need I say more. You can. E-mail her with your views at leader@barnet.gov.uk or phone her direct on 0208 359 2059. Her fax is: 020 889 7464.

Update: Barnet kept its word in blocking bloggers and filming at the council last night by employing some rather heavy looking security guards to limit who could get a seat to hear the council introduce cuts and higher parking. According to Mrs Angry, a blogger who did get in, they appeared to be able to overrule local police officers. See her report and pix of  the heavy bouncers employed by the Tory council on her blog at http://bit.ly/i13ngn