Sunday 24 August 2008
Freer Gets Tough On Toffs
Cementing his Brownite credentials, Council Leader Mike Freer has used his blog on the Barnet Times to launch an astonishing attack on those he describes as armchair critics “cosseted by family money.”
I can’t imagine that David Cameron or Shadow Chancellor George Osborne will be pleased to read that, given their backgrounds. Nor Mayor of London BoJo who has just given Cllr Freer a cushy job with a juicy allowance attached.
Cllr Freer wants to be the Tory MP for Margaret Thatcher's old constituency. In an interview some years ago, Lady T said that she wanted a state “in which people own houses, shares and have a stake in society, and in which they have wealth to pass on to future generations.”
When Tony Blair became Leader of the Opposition, he realised that Labour would never be elected if it continued to demonise and punish the hard working wealth creators whose taxes fuelled the economy. Hence New Labour was born.
Mike Freer seems to be stuck in a 1970s Socialist time warp. As someone who is totally dependent on the taxes paid by us to fund his lifestyle, he would be well advised in future to remember the old adage of engaging brain before opening mouth.
If you do make it to Westminster Mike, I hope you enjoy the back benches.
(P.S. Thank you Michael H for pointing out the minor error in the first draft of this posting)
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13 comments:
Money doesn't make you a toff!
David,
Although I know what you are getting at, I think I really should stick up for 1970's Socialists as it is not fair to compare the to Freer.
We all knew where we stood with Healey, Wilson etc. They said what they wanted to do and they did it. No stealth taxes there. If Dennis Healey wanted to raise income taxes from the rich, he put it up to 98% no problems.
I stand by my theory that they are Stalinist Beanites. You yourself have become a non person in the Barnet Conservative Party. I await the visit from the airbrusher to paint you out of the old photo's.
What puzzle's me is who they actually do represent? They don't like toff's, they don't like the existing residents, they don't like each other.
It's all about protecting their precious allowances. It isn't about public service, it's about the public trough. If the Barnet Labour party ever gets itself organised and motivated, I suspect Barnet is there for the taking. It is sad that the opposition councillors couldn't even be bothered to keep up their blogs.
I wonder what would happen if Barnet Labour announced that in the face of the unprecedented attack on Barnet, they were going to put partisan policies aside and concentrate on saving Barnet from the bulldozers? If they were going to clean up the council officers and set up a new system of transparent and open administration.
It isn't going to happen, but it would most certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Dear Anon
I agree, but a headline “Freer gets tough on hard working families whose taxes fund his opulent lifestyle” just wouldn’t have had the same ring to it!
The point of my article was to highlight that personal wealth was no longer a political issue. The class war is over, except in the land of Freer.
Class war is over .. says son of a Baroness ... ha ha ha
And the name of the Prime Minister who has created more Peers than any other in history? Step forward Tony Blair.
Rog
I take your point - Labour in the 70s did what it said on the tin. When Dennis Healey said he wanted to tax the rich until the pips squeaked, he wasn’t kidding! Thirty years on and nobody believes anything any politician says, but is it any wonder? Labour promised us a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. It never happened. Mike Freer promised to halt big housing schemes, but the schemes just get bigger.
When a politician says “we have no plans to…..” you can be sure they have every intention to do so when they think we have forgotten.
The answer to your question “who do they represent?” is simple. Themselves. Mike Freer was only elected as a councillor for the ward of Church End. He was not elected Leader of the Council by popular vote of the people, or even by members of the three Conservative associations in Barnet. He therefore represents just 30 or so councillors.
There is a huge democratic deficit, not just in Barnet but in every council which now operates a cabinet system without the protection of a directly elected Mayor.
We have discussed this before, but I don’t think the system will improve until the politics is taken out of local government.
As for me being airbrushed out, Mike Freer’s attack poodles should bear in mind that I still have plenty of support amongst ordinary party members who are not particularly impressed at these anonymous and cowardly attacks on my mother, like the one above.
David,
It may not surprise you to know that I am not a supporter of hereditary peerage's. Being of a Labour persuasion, I would like to see an elected upper house.
Having said that, I am disgusted by the personal attacks against you and your mother. One thing I am 100% sure of is that if you were four square behind Freer and his cronies, you would be lauded for your family background.
One thing is completely clear. Mike Freer and his administration is not Conservative. If they had Conservative instincts they would not attack the son of a Baroness in these terms.
On the bright side, if they are attacking you in such a nasty, peurile way it is clearly a sign of desperation. This means you are winning the argument.
Rog, my mother is a life Peer not a hereditary. Even so, I appreciate that there are many people who, on principle, object to an unelected second chamber. In theory, it shouldn’t have any place in a modern democracy.
However, in practice, debates in the Lords are civilised and self regulating. There is none of the yah-boo politics as found in the other place, and Peers recognise the primacy of the Commons over the Upper House. The Lords cannot interfere in finance bills and, by convention, Conservative Peers will not vote down any Labour legislation that was proposed in its manifesto.
The Lords is a highly efficient revising chamber that offers a superior scrutiny function than is found in many other legislatures around the world. In recent times, the Lords has proved its worth in trying to prevent the government from trampling our hard fought rights and liberties. Any reform must not dilute the ability of the Upper House to hold an overbearing Executive to account.
I think it is inevitable that the Lords will eventually comprise of at least some elected Members, but this will change the situation quite dramatically. Elected Peers will have a public mandate to challenge the Commons over everything and inevitably gridlock will occur on contentious bills which could cause a constitutional problem. If the Upper House is elected, the Parliament Act which allows the Commons to overrule the Lords, will have to be abolished.
The attacks on my mother by Cllr Freer’s poodles are beyond the pale. I don’t care what names they call me, but my mother has done more for the Conservative cause in London than almost anyone else in the Party, and most of these ungrateful councillors would not be where they are today without her help and support. They should be ashamed of themselves and I hope that the voluntary side of the party will deal with them appropriately when it comes to selecting candidates for 2010.
But let us not forget the original purpose of this thread. Mike Freer’s petulant and intemperate outburst about "family money" is the politics of envy and entirely unbecoming of a Conservative, especially one who earns at least £61,000 a year from other people's taxes.
David Miller writes,
"but my mother has done more for the Conservative cause in London than almost anyone else in the Party, and most of these ungrateful councillors would not be where they are today without her help and support."
And you are doing your best to undermine her work by attacking Tory Councillors.
Oh and Dave.... Finchley and Golders Green is NOT Margaret Thatcher’s old constituency.
I thought you would have known that given you were the chairman of Chipping Barnet Conservatives, to which a little part of said Constituency made up the rest of her seat!
If you are to have a go at someone, get your facts right first... even the simplest of facts!
It is Barnet's Tory councillors who are undermining her work by their sheepish loyalty to the Brownite autocrat Freer. I am merely bringing to the public’s attention their shameful behaviour. Councillors are elected to serve, not to rule.
Once again, Mr Anon, you completely fail to address the central issue of this thread - that Mike Freer, who pretends to be a Tory, is trying to fight a class war by attacking people for no other reason than they may be financially well off.
Anon, re your message posted at 10.06. Just three words in reply.
Barrel. Bottom. Scraping.
David,
It is great to see all of these comments posted by the FoF's (Friends of Freer). Do they really think that the grassroot Tory voters of Barnet are thinking "good show, leaving all of these anomymous comments about David Miller's mother".
I know many staunch grassroots Conservatives, my Dad was one. I don't know any (well maybe 1) who applaud bad manners. I don't know any who applaud cowardly sniping (well maybe 1).
I suspect that there is a smug feeling that the Tories can't lose now and they can do what they want. The political graveyard is full of examples of such arrogance.
One point Mr Anon may wish to consider. How many Labour supporters kept quiet in the early 1980's only to find their party hijacked by leftist cliques. Do you really think they were pleased they sat back and let it happen? I disagree with David about many things but at least he has the guts to say who he is and what he believes in. As far as I have seen he's made his case without insulting anyones mum, which is more than can be said about his opponents.
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