A night of two halves

Last night was certainly a night of two halves for me. Up first was the rally against the cuts to the on site sheltered housing wardens. When I arrived at Barnet House a noisy demonstration was in progress. I had been asked to speak on behalf of the Lib Dem group at the rally. I spoke about our opposition to these cuts. They are mean spirited and just plain wrong. The proposal before the cabinet meeting was a kludge designed to show that the consultation process had had some effect. The problem is that the kludge didn’t restore the site based wardens just the alarm systems.

After speaking I was standing in the crowd when I spotted a couple from a sheltered housing scheme in my ward. I went over to speak to them. It turned out that they were life long Tory voters until they moved to Barnet. Their disgust at the way the Conservatives run Barnet had made them vow never again.

At 7pm we all trooped up to listen to the cabinet meeting. There were so many people there that the meeting room was full as was two similar sized overflow rooms. It was clear from the start that the decision had already been made well before the meeting. The tabled questions were brushed aside with a level of rudeness and arrogance that shocked the audience. I can see why Barnet don’t record their meetings. If the tapes of this one got out the Tories would be staring into the abyss.

I had to leave before the decision was made as I needed to make it to part 2 of my evening. Part 2 was the Hadley Residents Association. A more polite and genial group of people it would be hard to find. The association has been active for 49 years and does a sterling job of keeping an eye on their beautiful surroundings. Even they have their problems with the Council. They produced a letter of issues that that had been raised over the last two years that the Council had not responded on until it was escalated to the leader of the Council!

The two Tory Councillors in High Barnet were also present. As I chatted to them just before the meeting started I told them where I had been earlier. They both intimated that they were not keen on the decision but that it was all the fault of the cabinet and nothing to do with them. Strangely enough when the issue was voted on I don’t remember them voting against the cuts.