Don't Call Me Dave Does Dallas!

Fans of TV soap Dallas will recall that one of the leading characters, Bobby Ewing, was killed off in a car crash, only to return to the show a year later. The explanation turned out to be simple: there was no car crash. Bobby’s wife Pam Ewing, played by the gorgeous Victoria Principal, had simply had a bad dream!

Readers of Not The Barnet Times may have had a similar nightmare recently. They may have dreamt that this blog had changed into The Citizens Chronicle only to wake up and find that, in fact, nothing had changed.


For those who prefer a more realistic explanation of the events of the last few days, it appears that Blogger does not allow for two separate blogs to merge into one. Whilst it was possible to copy all of the old blog posts into the new one, it wasn’t possible to copy over the code that allows readers to search the old blog’s archive.

Don’t Call Me Dave is aware that many readers regularly read older postings, and he did not want to loose that facility. The choice available to him was to either run two separate blogs, or simply wind the clock back a week. The latter was the simpler option!

DCMD would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to his readers / fellow bloggers who changed their RSS subscriptions / blog links. He will now go and lie down in a darkened room.

Lest We Forget

Remembrance Sunday is one of the most poignant days of the year. A day to remember with gratitude all those who fought and, in many cases, made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

This year the occasion will be even more sombre following the steep rise in casualties in Afghanistan. We can only hope that the many religious and civic services which take place across the UK and beyond will bring comfort not just to those injured in the line of duty, but also to the families of the bereaved.

For those of us born after 1945, we too often take our freedom for granted. But for the sacrifices made by others, the free press as we know it would simply not exist; bloggers would be permanently silenced and our politicians would not be in the privileged position that they are today.

Given the heavy price that we have paid for our freedom, it was simply unforgivable for our unelected Prime Minister Gordon Brown, without any mandate from the British people, to have signed away to an unelected bureaucracy in Brussels, our hard fought right to self determination.

To compound the insult, our troops are regularly sent into battle woefully ill equipped for the task at hand. 14 military personnel were killed in 2006 when an RAF Nimrod crashed because, according to the independent report, a culture of penny-pinching introduced while Gordon Brown was Chancellor, had replaced an emphasis on safety.

So when Mr Brown steps forward at the Cenotaph on Sunday morning to lay a wreath, the entire nation will be justifiably repulsed by the image. His presence on this most solemn occasion is an insult to the living and the dead.

You know when you’ve been quango’d!

As our national debt heads towards a staggering £1 trillion (that’s £1,000,000,000,000 in real money), it is worth considering how much taxpayers’ money is wasted each year.

Last May, the Taxpayers’ Alliance estimated that there were 1,162 quangos in the UK employing 700,000 bureaucrats with an annual running cost of £64 billion (£64,000,000,000). It doesn’t take a genius to realise that eliminating or reducing the cost of quangos will go some way to restoring the country to good financial health.

The main problem with quangos is that they are completely unaccountable to the public. Their chief officers receive eye watering salaries and bonuses which are not performance related. A recent investigation by Channel 4 News revealed that the expenses bill from the board of just 24 quangos came to almost £1 million for the last 3 years.

Channel 4, which is a state owned corporation, was itself in the spotlight in this week’s episode of Tonight on ITV which revealed that Kevin Lygo, C4's director of programmes, was paid £1,136,000 last year - five times more than the Prime Minister.

The programme also revealed that Network Rail’s chief executive, Iain Coucher, earned £830,000 and Joanna Killian, chief executive of Essex County Council and Brentwood District Council was Britain’s highest paid town hall boss with a total salary of £247,164.

The usual justification for paying these ridiculous salaries is that you have to pay the best to get the best. But nobody ever tests the theory. Are we really supposed to believe that you can’t find someone suitably qualified to run Channel 4 for “only” half a million quid a year?

There are many thousands of unemployed, but highly skilled, executives who would willingly and competently do these jobs for a fraction of the cost.

David Cameron says that there will be a bonfire of the quangos if the Conservatives win the election. Hopefully he won't renege on this promise, but he may well face fierce opposition from within his own party, because politicians are not averse to sitting on a few quangos themselves.

Barnet Council leader Mike Freer, who hopes to be MP for Finchley, receives £14,000 a year from the London Development Agency for attending a strenuous 8 meetings, and a further £10,248 a year from London Councils for just 1 meeting a month. Adding his council allowances of £55,487, brings his total taxpayer funded income to £79,735 a year. Kerr-ching!

Of course Freer’s package pales into insignificance when compared to the daddy of all troughers, Brian Coleman. Last year, Not The Barnet Times reported that Coleman had amassed allowances totalling almost £103,000. For most people, this would be quite enough. But not for our Brian.

In August, Coleman was appointed chairman of the Fire Service Management Committee with an allowance of £10,266, and chairman of the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire & Rescue Services, paying £5,130. Kerr-ching, Kerr-ching!!

When Don’t Call Me Dave last attended a meeting of the Chipping Barnet Conservatives’ Executive Council, Coleman told party members that if we want the best people applying to be councillors, we have to pay good money.

The problem with that argument is that we are already paying good money, but we are getting crap rubbish politicians in return. And if we have to suffer crap rubbish politicians, we should only have to pay them crap rubbish allowances.

Tory MP in Nazi slur shame

Don’t Call Me Dave was not planning on writing a blog today, but feels compelled to put digit to keyboard after reading in the Daily Telegraph that disgraced Conservative MP David Wilshire has compared the public treatment of MPs to the plight of Jews under the Nazis.

Wilshire was heavily criticised for paying £100,000 in expenses to a company he owned with his partner. Consequently he “decided” to stand down at the next election. However, in response to a letter sent to his constituents (at taxpayers’ expense of course) one resident, Mr Christopher Frazer - who stood as a Conservative candidate in 1992 - wrote to Mr Wilshire suggesting that he stand down immediately.

The MP responded: “The witch hunt against MPs in general will undermine democracy. It will weaken parliament - handing yet more power to governments. Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to Hitler's gas chambers.”

The public are entitled to be angry at the rampant troughism of MPs, but to suggest that our anger is even remotely comparable to the Nazi atrocities where six million Jews were brutally murdered proves that people like David Wilshire are totally detached from reality. His deluded sense of entitlement makes DCMD nauseous.

Whilst many people will be glad that he is stepping down, it is regrettable that our system of government does not allow voters the opportunity to properly express their dissatisfaction by throwing this greedy self serving parasite out of office immediately.

11:00 PM UPDATE: The Daily Telegraph now reports that David Wilshire has apologised for his revolting comments, having been ordered to do so by David Cameron. However, a forced apology is frankly not worth the paper it is written on.

The Telegraph has further revealed that Mr Wilshire also compared the plight of MPs to black Americans murdered by the Klu Klux Klan. As Conservative candidate Louise Bagshawe said: “David Wilshire's remarks are grossly offensive. We're well shot of him.” Quite.

Blogger Of The Year

The Not The Barnet Times award for blogger of the year 2009 goes to Mr Niall Connolly (pictured right) who writes the Muck & Brass blog.

Even though there are two months of the year remaining, it is inconceivable that any other blogger will come close to matching Mr Connolly’s efforts which have resulted in 11 of Somerton Town’s 15 councillors resigning en masse.

Mr Connolly said the councillors had “only just discovered democracy” and described a council leaflet regarding voting rights as “more like a Nazi call to arms or an invitation to ethnic cleansing”


There can be no doubt that blogging has changed democracy forever. The public, completely disenfranchised by the troughing political classes, are now embracing modern technology in a way that allows for proper scrutiny of the political process.

No longer can our elected representatives hide behind the establishment wall. No longer can they keep secrets from we, the people. No longer can MPs and councillors say one thing, do another and hope not to get caught out.

As the next election approaches, politicians will discover that blogging is but just one tool in the public’s armoury and those luddites who refuse to embrace change will no longer be able to treat the public with complete and utter contempt and expect to get re-elected.

Coleman slapped down in X-Factor row

Barnet’s resident big mouth, Cllr Brian Coleman, has waded into the row surrounding the X-Factor house in Golders Green, in an attempt to divert attention from his recent disgraceful outburst when he called a Labour GLA member an “odious toad”.

On Thursday Coleman told the Barnet Times:

“This whole thing has got completely out of hand: shouting and screaming in the street, graffiti scribbled over gates and fences, and people running out in front of moving traffic. X-Factor’s producers need to recognise their responsibility to my constituents. I shall be writing to Simon Cowell this afternoon to say: if they can’t be good neighbours then they should move to a more secluded location where they are no bother to anyone else.”

Simon Cowell must be trembling in his boots!

However, Councillor Andrew Harper, the Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport - and one of the three candidates for the vacancy of Deputy Leader when Lynne Hillan takes over from Mike Freer next month - adopted a more pragmatic attitude. Unlike Brian Coleman, Cllr Harper actually has responsibility for the roads in Golders Green. He told the paper:

“Frankly the council and, I believe, the majority of residents, see the presence of the X Factor in the street as part of life's rich tapestry.”

Residents told the paper that they were happy with the contestants living in their street and that the crowd had been very polite.

Don’t Call Me Dave thinks that if anyone should move to a secluded location where they will be no bother to anyone else, it should be Brian Coleman, not the X-Factor contestants.

Archbishop says the elderly are not a burden but a gift

Independent Catholic News reports the findings of a study into services for older people carried out by Middlesex University’s Social Policy Research Centre. That’s the university Barnet's resident big mouth Brian Coleman called "crap" before hypocritically accepting an honorary degree in 2008.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, said in response to the findings:

“Age is something that comes to us all…This is the critical message in providing care for the elderly…It enables us to see that behind all the political, economic and social questions of growing old is a human face, a life, a person – a mother, a father, brother or sister who is part of us and has helped to make us who we are. The elderly are not a burden but a gift – without them our lives and our society would be impoverished and diminished. They have a right to our resources and our care.”

It is impossible to disagree with Archbishop Nichols unless, of course, you happen to be Cllr Lynne Hillan - architect of the shameful decision to decimate Barnet’s warden service for elderly residents living in sheltered accommodation.

Coleman gets it wrong again!

Demonstrating that he knows nothing about running a business, Brian Coleman was interviewed by the BBC yesterday to discuss charges the Fire Brigade will impose if they are called out to rescue people trapped in lifts.

Landlords are required by law to maintain the lifts in their properties and there is nothing wrong with the principle of charging them for the cost of a Fire Brigade call out. But to knowingly charge less that the actual cost of providing the service, as Coleman has proposed, will not encourage landlords to comply with their responsibilities. Rather, it will do the complete opposite. Why pay a private contractor if the Fire Brigade are cheaper?

Rog T has some interesting proposals on his blog.

Oy Sole Mio

Some culture for a Thursday lunchtime.

They won’t like it at BNP headquarters!

The People’s Republic of Barnet

By all accounts, this recession is the worst in living memory. In the three months to August, unemployment rose to 2.47 million. But whereas 230,000 jobs were lost in the productive private sector between March and June, in the wastelands of the public sector 13,000 new jobs were created.

Not real jobs you understand. As fellow blogger Constantly Furious so eloquently puts it, we’re talking about Outreach Co-ordinators, Diversity Managers, Community Space Challenger Co-ordinators and Enviro-Crime Enforcement Officers. In short, interfering pen pushers and bureaucrats.

Comrade Mike Freer, never one to miss a socialist bandwagon, joined in the fun and appointed a Business Support Officer “in order to strengthen dialogue with local businesses in the borough”.

According to Freer’s report Responding to the recession in Barnet, this non-job will help the council to:

• Understand more about the experience of local businesses in the current economic climate
• Support local SMEs and enable them to be more aware of, and bid for, contracts from local developers
• Act as a conduit for support and advice
• Understand the skills needs of local businesses
• Encourage links between business and education
• Support contractors in the preparation and implementation of their Local Procurement Strategy documents

The position is funded by using what is known as “Section 106” money, paid to the council by property developers and intended to be spent on infrastructure improvements - not useless jobs for Gordon Brown’s client state.

Don’t Call Me Dave has a simple question for anyone running a small business in Barnet. If you need advice to help get through the recession, do you:-

(a) ask your bank manager

(b) contact the Federation of Small Business or

(c) call the council which sunk £27.4 million into failed Icelandic banks just as other councils were getting out? Or which spent £1.4 million on obsolete lap top computers, or £31,000 on a room booking system which could have been bought for £2,000, or £14,000 on five flat screen televisions for chief officers, or £5,000 for our glorious leader to be flown business class on a junket to America?

Mike Freer talks about copying the Ryanair business model, but even after 15 pints of the black stuff, it is hard to imagine Michael O’Leary coming up with anything as stupid as this.