Italy: time to declare war?

In recent years, the West has launched military campaigns against dictatorships, or actively encouraged citizens living under such regimes to rise up and overthrow their oppressors.

Yet amazingly, these same Western leaders actively supported the removal of Silvio Berlusconi as Italian Prime Minister, to be replaced by an unelected ‘technocrat’ Mario Monti.

Whatever Berlusconi’s faults - and he had many - he also had a democratic mandate to govern. He may have turned Italy into a laughing stock and economic basket case, but the Italian people knew who and what they were voting for when they elected him.

The new Prime Minister, Signor Monti, has announced that his new cabinet will be comprised of fellow technocrats. Not a single member will have been elected by popular vote. This is an affront to democracy and, given Italy’s not too distant history of dictatorships, a dangerous precedent.

To the unelected and unaccountable EU bureaucracats who are desperately trying to prevent the Euro from collapsing, Monti’s appointment is like manna from heaven. They cannot bear the idea that the voters of Europe, who must now pay for the reckless folly of the Euro zone, should actually have a say as to how to resolve the crisis.

Berlusconi might not be missed on the international stage, but his replacement sends out a chilling message that democracy will no longer be tolerated in Europe. Will David Cameron commit British troops to help restore democracy in Italy, or will he simply roll over like a puppy and do as he is told?

Freedom of Expression, Trotskyite style

Article updated: See below

Don’t Call Me Dave stopped writing blogs about Barnet Council some time ago because (a) it was taking too much time to research stories thoroughly and (b) there were plenty of other bloggers out there doing a far better job. See the panel on the right hand side of this page for a selection. Not blogging about Barnet does not prevent DCMD from posting comments on other blogs when the mood takes him.

All the bloggers welcome DCMD’s contributions, even if they disagree with him, with the exception of Mrs Angry who regularly refuses to publish his comments. The irony will not be lost on readers that in a blog posted today under the title Freedom of Expression: another victory for the Barnet bloggers, Mrs Angry refused to publish one comment from DCMD, published a second and then removed it shortly thereafter.

Mrs Angry’s blog was a commentary on the excellent investigative work by Rog T who had forced Barnet Council to admit that it had lobbied the Information Commissioner in an attempt to silence opposition from local bloggers. The importance of Rog’s exposé cannot be underestimated. It is the first act of a tyrant to try and silence those with whom you disagree. And so it has proven to be the case, yet again, with Barnet’s leading Trotskyite, Mrs Angry.

At this point, dear Readers, you may be wondering what seditious commentary had DCMD tried to post to the Broken Barnet blog? The answer is that he merely pointed out to Mrs Angry that every time he tried to report that Barnet’s chief legal officer Jeff Lustig had signed off the contract to the Underhill sale - a transaction that was subsequently ruled illegal by the High Court - the dear lady refused to publish the comment.

DCMD refuses to believe that Mrs Angry was simply too lazy to read the many public documents relating to this matter which have been published in local and national newspapers (to say nothing of the esteemed Not The Barnet Times blog) for verification of the facts. The simple truth is that the transaction in question took place when Mrs Angry’s beloved Labour Party were ruining running Barnet. In the world of the swivel-eyed Trot, it is quite acceptable to post comments berating the evil Tories, but all criticism of Labour Administrations must be suppressed.

You cannot claim to support freedom of expression but then remove a comment that is lawful and relevant to the debate. You either believe in freedom of expression or you don’t. Now we know in which camp the fragrant Mrs Angry sits.

Update: 7th November, 2011

DCMD temporarily took down this blogpost yesterday as a gesture of goodwill to Mrs Angry so that he could consider her complaint that it was an unwarranted personal attack. Mrs Angry contends, and DCMD accepts, that she has no knowledge of the facts surrounding the Underhill sale. Without being availed of the facts, Mrs Angry’s argument is that she does not want to open herself up to legal liability in the event that someone posts a defamatory or libellous message. That is fair enough, but only to the extent of dealing with unknown persons. Perhaps unintentionally, by removing his comments, Mrs Angry was effectively saying to DCMD “I do not trust what you have written”.

The facts of the matter are publicly available, and have been for several years. That Mrs Angry exercises her right not to read these documents does not make them any less valid.

Mrs Angry believes that DCMD’s comments about Jeff Lustig are an attempt to re-open the debate about the Underhill sale. They are not, and despite him telling her so several times, she still persists in this belief. The issue is one of corporate governance.

Mr Lustig was the council’s senior legal officer in charge of the Underhill sale. It is his signature which made the contract legally binding. In the private sector, if an employee carried out a transaction which caused his employer to incur losses of hundreds of thousands of pounds - if not millions - and then suffered the ignominy of that transaction being declared unlawful, he would be summarily dismissed. Not so in Barnet. Mr Lustig was not removed from his post, as he should have been, but promoted to Head of Corporate Governance and given a salary rise.

The majority of the scandals recently exposed by Barnet’s Bloggers can be attributed to a failure of corporate governance. The Metpro scandal, for example, came about because nobody bothered to check the council’s own rules and regulations for the awarding of external contracts. When council employees see that the rules can be ignored with impunity and that the people responsible for major cock ups are never held to account, it is no wonder that standards fall.

But it is the job of the Head of Corporate Governance to ensure that standards don’t fall and that the letter of the law is applied to everything done in the Council’s name. In this regard, Mr Lustig has failed spectacularly in his statutory duties.

Rog T’s revelation of the attempt by Barnet to legally gag its opponents also has Mr Lustig’s fingerprints on, although Mrs Angry does not seem to accept this. The Council’s complaint to the Information Commissioner was based on a legal argument regarding the Data Protection Act. It is inconceivable that Mr Lustig would not have been aware of the action being taken in the Council’s name.

Mrs Angry doubts whether Mr Lustig came up with the idea of the complaint to the Information Commissioner. That may very well be so, but as the Council’s senior legal officer, he should have stopped the application in his tracks. It is his job to give advice on legal matters. Did he advise the council to drop the action? If so, why was he ignored?

Mr Lustig’s position is untenable as his credibility has been irreparably undermined. He is not employed to allow public funds to be used to pursue a vendetta against Bloggers. His job is to serve the people of Barnet and ensure that the council complies with the law. Until such time as he is removed from his position and replaced by someone who will carry out his duties without fear or favour, these scandals will continue to occur.

Mrs Angry is seemingly so determined to portray every council cock up as the work of the evil Tories that she sometimes loses sight of the bigger picture. It is to Mr Lustig’s good fortune that Mrs Angry will not countenance this debate on her blog.

Greece gives the World an overdue lesson in democracy

It is widely accepted that the Greeks ‘created’ democracy as we know it some 2,500 years ago in Athens; and it is to Greece again that we must give thanks for reminding the morally corrupt dictators of the modern world - Cameron, Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel, Berlusconi et al - that it is the public who grant politicians the power to govern. Not only do we, the people, require politicians to listen to us, we actually expect them to govern in our interests, not theirs.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has caused widespread panic in the global financial markets by declaring that the bail out package recently agreed by EU leaders (without any democratic mandate) must be put to a referendum of his electorate. What an outrageous proposal to let the people decide!

Given that the majority of Greeks have consistently opposed the country’s half hearted austerity measures, it seems certain that they will similarly reject the EU’s draconian proposals. This is causing the other EU leaders to shit themselves because they know that the consequence would not simply be the formal bankruptcy of Greece, and the subsequent default on its debts, but the beginning of the collapse of the Euro itself.

Greece should never have been allowed to join the Euro, but due to a deliberate cover-up of the true state of its economy, unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats were able to fiddle the figures and allow the country to qualify for entry. Now the rest of the EU is required to pay the consequences. Why should German taxpayers pay for the profligacy of another sovereign state? Why should the UK contribute to bail out funds when we are not even part of the Euro?

The reality is that the swivel-eyed Trots who have been running Europe for the last 40 years thought that Governments could just keep on spending forever, to keep alive their dream of a centralised European Super State. They simply can’t face reality and have decided instead to attack the Greek Prime Minister for his temerity in seeking the consent of the people who have to pay the bill.

Of course, bankruptcy for Greece will be painful for its citizens in the short to medium term, but that is the price to pay for living beyond your means for so long. Many Western banks will take big hits on the default of Greek bonds, but that is their own fault for being so greedy. If banks lends money without carrying out due diligence, it is their own fault. Taxpayers should not have to pick up the bill.

The West has been living on tick for far too long. In the UK, Gordon Brown almost bankrupted this country with his reckless spending spree designed for no other purpose than to win votes for Labour. The taxpayer funded party is well and truly over, and the sooner weak economies are allowed to collapse, the sooner a genuine rebuilding process can begin.

It would be nice to think that the West has learnt its lesson and will be more financially responsible in the future, but people probably thought the same thing in 1929 after the Wall Street crash. Politicians never learn the lessons of history.

Remembering Neil

Tuesday 11th October 2011 was a very important day. Not simply because it was the third anniversary of the Barnet Eye blog; it was the day that the world said goodbye to Neil Mosesson, aged just 52. Neil fought a heroic battle against liver cancer with such fortitude that there was a time when it appeared as if he was going to beat it. He never gave up hope, and his brave fight will give inspiration to other people suffering from the same awful disease.

Neil was a huge supporter of this blog, and gave me an enormous amount of help and advice in my many battles with bureaucratic officialdom. He was the champion of the small guy fighting against the system.

Even when he knew that the end was not far away, and his physical strength was failing, Neil insisted on putting his affairs in order so that his wife would not have the stress and worry of having to deal with them. His mental strength was truly remarkable in the face of such adversity.

The world would be a much better place if there were more Neils around. It will be a far lesser place without him. He is survived by his wife, daughter (aged 5) and by his mother and four siblings.

Not The Barnet Times is dedicated to the memory of Neil.

For Fox Sake!

The biggest political news story of the week was the resignation of Defence Secretary Liam Fox, whose position had become untenable following disclosures that his friend Adam Werritty attended numerous meetings with Fox, despite not having any security clearance or an official government position.

Fox, afflicted by the hubristic malaise typical of the political classes, tried to cling on to his position seemingly oblivious to the impropriety of his actions. It proves that David Cameron, when in Opposition, was correct to warn of the danger of the influence of lobbyists - leaving aside the hypocrisy of his failure to address the problem once elected to office.

There is, however, an unpleasant undercurrent to this story. Newspapers have published photographs of Werritty as Fox’s best man at his wedding. Other pictures show Werritty dressing similarly to Fox. The media has implied, and we have inferred, that there is more to their relationship than mere friendship. There is no evidence for this which, in any event, is totally irrelevant when compared to the more serious failings by Fox in the conduct of his ministerial duties.

Even if the innuendo was founded, it would not be the first time that a Conservative MP has married in order to disguise his sexuality; but in the 21st Century most electors cast their vote according to the perceived ability of the candidates rather than who they might be shagging.

It is rumoured that Mike Freer MP, who failed to be elected in Harrow West in 2005, fell out with the local Conservative Association over claims that he had tried to hide his sexuality from them. Don’t Call Me Dave finds this story hard to believe. Freer has always been open about his sexuality and, indeed, his Civil Partnership ceremony was held in the most public of venues - Barnet Town Hall.

In 2010 Freer was elected as MP for Finchley & Golders Green - a constituency in which the orthodox Jewish community makes up a significant part of the electorate. It is often claimed that people with deeply held religious convictions consider homosexuality to be a sin (Leviticus 20:13 and all that). However, it is self evident from Freer’s election that voters have more important things to worry about.

LibDem MP David Laws resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2010 after less than three weeks in office because he tried to cover up aspects of his personal life. Liam Fox was forced to resign because he too tried to cover up aspects of a personal friendship. MPs wishing to hold on to their jobs should take a leaf from Mike Freer’s book.

Cameron is frit!

As most readers are aware, Don’t Call Me Dave is not the biggest fan of LibDem Prime Minister David Cameron. However, in a speech which Mr Cameron was due to give to the Conservative Party conference, DCMD is in full agreement. What a pity that the Prime Minister chickened out and changed it.

In what is now being described by spin doctors as a misinterpretation, the original speech called for householders to pay off store and credit cards because “the only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That means households – all of us – paying off the credit card and store card bills.”

Unfortunately, Mr Cameron gave in to pressure from the retail lobby and dropped this section from his speech. As Margaret Thatcher would have said: he’s frit!
The simple and undeniable truth is that we are all spending beyond our means, individually and collectively.

It is very easy to place the blame for the current economic crisis on greedy bankers, but they are not the only culprits. Gordon Brown is partly to blame for his irresponsible and inflationary expansion of the monetary supply which reduced the cost of borrowing, creating an artificial boom. But we, the people, must accept our share of the blame also. Nobody put a gun to our heads and forced us to borrow more money than we could afford to pay back.

The banks were utterly reckless in issuing credit cards like confetti, but consumers were equally reckless for accepting them. It was insane for banks to grant mortgages of 125%, but we were insane for borrowing more than the asset was worth. You did not need a degree in finance to realise that this could only ever end in tears.

House builders now sell their new homes with fitted carpets and kitchens and all the so called mod-cons. If buyers think about what they are doing, they will come to realise that they are taking out 20 year mortgages to pay for a washing machine. They will still be paying for it long after it has gone to the great laundry in the sky!

The public are not alone in this cavalier attitude to credit. In the People’s Republic of Barnet, the council has borrowed money to resurface the roads with repayments spread over 20 - 40 years. But the roads will require resurfacing again in about 10 years time. Future generations will be left paying the bill for something they never had. Government PFI contracts are nothing more than credit time bombs providing short term gains for politicians, to be paid back by future generations.

Our forefathers did not rush out to buy the latest consumer goods on tick. They knew very well that you only bought what you needed and what you could afford. The latest flat screen TV might look very nice on your wall, but if you haven’t got the money to buy it, then you will just have to make do with last year’s model.

This explosion of cheap credit has resulted in massive over consumption by the West. The planet is being systematically raped of its natural resources to fuel our insatiable appetite for the latest gadgets and gizmos. We are not only risking economic collapse by our financial profligacy, but an ecological disaster as we consume precious resources at a faster rate than nature can replace them.

The Bank of England has today announced another round of quantitative easing - or printing fake money as it should be properly known - to the tune of £75 billion, in an attempt to stimulate the economy. This is on top of the £200 billion ‘created’ by Labour. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Boy George Osborne, is supposed to be a history graduate. Did he not learn about German hyperinflation in the 1930s caused by printing more money? Or post war Hungary where prices doubled daily? Or Zimbabwe, where just 3 years ago, inflation rose to more than 2 million per cent?

The politicians and bankers would have us believe that the solution to the economic crisis is to spend money that we don’t have to buy goods that we don’t need. This might help retailers in the short term and make the government popular, but the long term consequences will be catastrophic. Of course, Cameron and his cronies won’t care about that. By the time the shit really hits the fan, they will have long since left office and the next generation will be left to pick up the pieces.

Mr Cameron was correct when he said that we can’t borrow our way out of a debt crisis. The swivel-eyed Trots who think otherwise should heed the succinct advice from the gentleman in the video below.

Cameron takes the Conserve out of Conservative

Bernie Ecclestone donated £1 million to the Labour Party. Formula 1 was subsequently exempted from new advertising regulations introduced by the last Labour Government. Mr Ecclestone’s donation was then refunded with Tony Blair declaring that he was a “pretty straight sort of guy”. Blair was highly criticised by the then Conservative opposition - rightly so, given the subsequent ‘cash for honours’ scandal.

Now that the Tories have one hand on the reins of power, they are seemingly not averse to amending the planning laws to suit big property developers who have made substantial donations to the Conservative Party.

David Cameron is unlikely to repeat Blair’s mistake of claiming to be straight, given his previous £680 expenses claim to have wisteria removed from his home, so the only question which remains unanswered is whether the developers will receive their money back before or after the law is changed in their favour?

Predictable, Predictable, Arsenal

Arsenal have long since lost their “boring, boring” tag, but the result today against Newcastle was as predictable as it was frustrating for Arsenal supporters. Last season Arsenal threw away a four goal lead to Newcastle, having a player sent off in the process. Today, new boy Gervinho was dismissed for stupidly retaliating to provocation from Saint Joey of Barton.



Arsène Wenger was forced into playing the second string midfield with Jack Wilshere absent through injury and Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri left out pending their big money transfers to Barcelona and Manchester City respectively. This was a completely avoidable situation.



All 6.9 billion people on the planet, except Wenger it seems, knew that Fabregas was going to leave. It was obvious for all of last season that he wanted to return to Spain. Nasri’s refusal to sign a new contract should have set the alarm bells ringing. Instead of deluding himself that he could keep these players, Wenger should have sold them both at the end of last season and bought in replacements straight away.



Sir Alex Ferguson did most of his transfer business at the start of the summer, giving his new players time to settle in. He knew who was leaving and who was joining. Arsenal, by comparison, have left everything so late, that even if they do now buy the defenders they desperately need, the team will be unsettled for at least the first month of the season, if not longer.



Last season’s capitulation to Newcastle marked the beginning of the end of Arsenal’s Premiership aspirations. The season rapidly went downhill after that match and they never recovered their early season form. The consolation this year is that the only way now is up. But even allowing for new season rustiness, it is quite clear that Wenger has failed to address the ongoing problem of indiscipline amongst the team - Alex Song was lucky to avoid a red card for stamping.



Through pig-headed obstinacy, the Manager has allowed Arsenal to start the season from a position of weakness compared to Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City. Football has changed rapidly over the last few seasons, and Wenger has failed to adapt to the times. The so called Professor has lost his magic touch. It may only be the first week of the season, but it’s time for Wenger to go.

Crime and Punishment

If you steal a case of water worth £3.50, you go to prison for six months. But if you steal £680 from taxpayers to have your wisteria removed, you become Prime Minister.



What’s that you say Sooty? Mr Cameron repaid the money? Oh well that’s alright then. Taking something that belongs to someone else is OK as long as you give it back to them when you are caught.



How silly to think that the law makers should be subject to the same rules as the hoi polloi.

Eric's in a Pickle

When Labour were in power, the Conservatives rightly condemned Gordon Brown for selling off our gold reserves when the price was at an all time low.



Eric Pickles, Conservative Secretary of State for Local Government, has now instructed councils to dispose of their property assets when prices are not only low, but still falling.



It doesn’t seem to matter which political party is in power. None of them have got even the vaguest idea about asset management, and, as usual, it is the taxpayer who will pay for their mistakes.