Thursday 11 June 2009

Is Mike Freer a Tory?


Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, the Conservative leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, has written an article for the Conservative Home website in which he talks about the ‘principles of administration’ for Conservative councils.

One of his recommendations is to: "cut expenditure in all areas of council that does not support frontline service delivery (e.g. political advisers, committee coordination and communication)." Contrast this to Mike Freer’s Barnet which spent £85,360 last year on political assistants, £59,860 on a cabinet adviser, £300,000 on press and PR and £103,000 on Barnet First propaganda magazine.

Cllr Greenhalgh recommends using competitive tendering to drive out inefficiencies. In Mike Freer’s Barnet, the council is spending £31,000 of taxpayers’ money on a room booking system which could be acquired for £2,000 if they had bothered to look.

But most crucial of all Cllr Greenhalgh’s recommendations is that councils should: “be prepared to spend more money where your residents want to see better services.”

In Barnet, residents have stated loud and clear that they want the warden service retained. Mike Freer’s arrogant response was to tell residents that if we don’t like the council’s policies, we shouldn’t vote Conservative.

The public were consulted. The public said “we don’t like your policy.” Freer has told us not to vote Conservative. Clearly, he can’t be a Tory.

1 comment:

Duncan Macdonald said...

Given that Freer appears to have the unwavering support of all Barnet's Tory councillors, does that mean that there are no real tories in Barnet?