This is the second time this letter from Matthew Offord has been published in the on-line section. Look below.

It is bad enough having all of Offords distortions & half truths once.

I know a firm of tree surgeons very well who are familair with this stretch. This is cost saving by Barnet Council as most of these trees could simply have been pruned. This is a recurring cost however (you have to do it regularly), wheras vandalism and destruction of these trees is a one off cost.

Barnet pay lip service to Environmentalism. It all goes out of the window when they actually have to make difficult decisions.

What we need is politicians with a bit of backbone. Not these invertebrate careerists we seem to be ruled by.

Rog T

Backbone went out following the introduction of the Local Government Act 2000 and the awful Cabinet system we now have to endure. Prior to that, Councillors received a modest allowance of a few hundred £££ a year which ensured that only those committed to public service sought election. Now a ‘backbench’ councillor can earn a minimum of £9,735 p.a. just for showing his/her face twice a year. Cabinet members get an additional £17,000 and the Leader £34,000. Not bad money for a part time job! Councillors dare not criticise the Leader for fear of losing all their allowances.

The people who think that Councillors do it for the money don't know what they are talking about.

To be a Councillor you have to spend years pounding the streets handing out leaflets, dealing with residents’ problems, keeping informed of current affairs.
You have to give up most of your spare time either attending meetings, campaigning or planning your next piece of work.
Virtually nobody will ever thank you, but you will get plenty of abuse for your trouble.
Because you give up most of your spare time, you miss out on your family, you miss out on non-political social activities such as friends/sport/etc.
It costs money to be in politics, somebody has to fund the leaflets, the software, the badges, the props, the political agents, etc: and that money comes from the pockets of the councillors themselves OR the activist before he is elected.
And you do not get very much money for doing what is in effect a full time job, especially in London
So people who condemn councillors for taking expenses, should spend 8 years in the shoes of a political activist before they consider themselves qualified to comment.

Reality,

The bloke in Hale Ward who just got elected was 13 8 years ago. I don't think he's spent years pounding the beat.

You missed the point that Dave was making. Now it's a job, there are real financial risks to opposing council policy. If Offord went out on a limb, he'd lose his Cabinet bonus. Thats about £7 Grand, so it's not to be sniffed at.

That is why some of these guys lack backbone.

I don't think Offord got elected to decimate the natural habitats in Barnet. I suspect he knows he's wrong.

As I said above the problem is lack of backbone to go out on a limb. I don't think that a system of subservience does anyone any good.

Rog T, I bet you the Hale Tory kid has spent a few years doing donkey work aka local politics; and he'll spend every year of his councillorship working to keep it.

Reality,
I take it you agree with chopping down loads of healthy trees in a conversation area to save cash or are you just being pedantic?

Rog T, Are you ingoring the point about the work load of local political campaigners and the pitiful rewards or are just trying to make petty insults?

It certainly looks as though Rog T is wilfully ignoring the point about local politics being hard work which gets little reward, whilst trying to score cheap points against anybody who recognises a Councillor’s efforts .

Rog T IS making petty insults. He devalues all that he has to say, of whatever worth, by such low gibes.

Reality & Joh,
I'm sticking with the point of this thread i.e. chopping down trees, to which I really object, rather than indulging in silly arguments that are totally irrelevant to the issue which Matthew Offord wrote.

The trees are a sad loss.

some of the comments posted here today need to be challenged: making personal insults against commentators is pitiful and Rog T should not indulge in such practices

Perhaps these trees needed to be chopped down. After all, the only people speaking out against the axe are the awkward squad who can't stand differing views and look for any personal angle to attack.

So I'm the awkward squad am I. Why, because I happen to care about the Environment in Barnet?

I guess that is actually a backhanded compliment. If I'm the awkward squad, does that make you the extremely nice & servile squad?

Matthew Offord is the cabinet minister for the Environment in Barnet and so presumably he has access to all of the report which he could publish to refute my claims that these trees could have been pruned, if such things existed. If they don't then he's just blagging it. I know Matthew and if he shows me the documents, I'll post a retraction & say what a great bloke he is for doing a good job.

Matthew is a big boy and quite able to look after himself, without the help of his "servile squad". All of you faint hearted types rushing to his defence are clearly unfamiliar with the great British tradition of hurling insults at politicians. Winston Churchill, our greatest ever PM was the finest proponent of this. You should check his banter with Lady Astor if you think I'm bad.

I happen to hate the type of bland, passionless, namby pamby debate you lot would have us all stick to.

Much as I dislike Brian Colemans politics, the one thing I like about him is he is unafraid to be very rude to people who he thinks are idiots. We need more of this not less.

If people do not want to be called spineless , they should either retreat from public life or develop a backbone.

If they don't want to be called pedants they should not start leaving pedantic posts on local paper websites.

I've been called everything from a Loony Lefty to a fascist on this site in the last few months and I couldn't give a monkeys, I find it quite funny.

If Matthew wants nice comments, he could always do the job he's paid to do and protect and nurture the natural habitats in Barnet by bullying the treasurer of Barnet for some money to pay for it. It's called going out on a limb and that is where the backbone comes in. Comprende?????

Intellectually bankrupt is what springs to mind when thinking of Rog T.

When somebody actually said that Councillors of all persuasions work very hard and might deserve some reward, his emotion couldn’t bear that and so he made dismissive personal comments rather that tackling the point in question.

When multiple postings pointed out that his personal comments demeaned his whole argument, he reacted emotionally.

Obviously he can only react emotionally and does not think his argument through: ergo he is intellectually bankrupt.

To compare himself to Churchill is so lame: more of a Hague than Churchill if truth be told.

The public are often right especially in groups.

The far left and the fascists are but two faces of the same beast: National Socialism.

A telling trait of National Socialists is when they don’t like the opinion of a person, they attack the person.

In fact, the only difference between the two sides is that the fascists have better parties.

We need beware the person who reacts with violent emotion and makes petty attacks.

Rog T freely decares that the public have called him Left and fascists.

As otherwise said, the public are often right, especially when many people come to the same decision.

True




.

true, bro.

Heh, Heh, Heh, the three stooges ride again !!! Did you lot ring up to coordinate your overwhelming response (3 whole responses in 1/2 hour)

Left & Fascist? I guess with you guys I now know where the Moron in Oxymoron comes from.

So come on guys, answer the question which seems so difficult. Do you think that the Council should have chopped down sa load of healthy trees on a site of scientific importance to save a few quid? do you support this sort of vandalism or not. STop squirming like worms on a hook and answer the question.

I see that Rog T continues to indulge in personal abuse.

And I see that Reality Bits finds it impossible to answer a simple question. I'll stop calling you a moron when you stop acting like one and answer a very easy question.

I'm surprised you haven't rang your mates and got them to join in this time

The continual desent into personal abuse just shows that Rog T has no basis for his argument.

He should be ashamed.

Rog T has already admitted elsewhere that he likes seeing the BNP standing in elections.

BNP supporters are not interested in the truth, only in what satisfies their idle emotional whims.

They shouldn't let BNP supporters post messages on this site.

To answer Reality’s original message, you are talking complete and utter rot. Most of the funds raised by the Tories come from loyal party members. Only a few councillors dig deep into their own pockets. The last time Cllr Finn turned up to a fund raising event, Queen Victoria was still a child!

For generations, local councils ran very well with elected members receiving only nominal allowances. Everyone who knows anything about local government knows that it is the officers who do the day to day work and they, quite rightly, get paid for it (even if some are grotesquely overpaid). We, the people, were never consulted about the changes that allow some councillors to claim over £40,000 a year. In Barnet, more than £1 million of our money is spent on these allowances. Are we getting value for money?

People used to stand for election out of a sense of civic duty - just as some give up their spare time for charitable purposes. What sort of society is it if we only seek to serve our local community if there is a pay check involved? How many of the current councillors could honestly say they would stand again if the present allowances were scrapped?

Commentators talk about the ‘democratic deficit’ and nowhere is this more true than in Barnet with the unhealthy powers of patronage afforded to the Tory leader. Labour elects its members of the shadow cabinet. For the Tories, cabinet posts are in the gift of the leader. For proof of how damaging this is for democracy, you only need to witness the disgraceful treatment of Cllr Christopher Harris who was sacked for having the audacity to stand up for the residents who elected him by opposing Mike Freer’s proposals to flog off Hendon Football Club. No wonder, Cllr Offord does his master’s bidding.

And while we are on the subject of democracy, how is the council allowed to get away with making members of the ruling party chairmen of key scrutiny committees? It makes a mockery of the whole system. Scrutiny chairmen with aspirations of joining the Freerloaders in the Cabinet will simply not rock the boat. In Westminster, the key Finance Committee is always chaired by an opposition MP. By the same token, Barnet’s Cabinet Overview & Scrutiny Committee should be chaired by Labour.

On the subject matter of trees (the original point of this thread), take a look at the excellent letter in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph from His Honour Judge Simon Brown, Master of the Garden of the Inner Temple: http://www.telegraph

.co.uk/opinion/main.

jhtml?xml=/opinion/2

008/05/03/nosplit/dt

0301.xml#head2

To suggest that Councillors do it for the money is to ignore the years of plodding required, the surrender of significant amounts of spare time and the relatively low expences. Political activists from all parties have to do years of plodding.

But to return to the overriding purpose of this thread: We've been having some great fun with Rog T, lets not spoil that.

I've just checked out your letter in the Telegraoh: I agree it make a very good point, well argued and sensible, we should embrace the principles expressed.


PS, nice to have a reasonable human being expressing 'green' ideas, rather than the annoying Green party and other lefties

Just in case anyone didn't read my comments regarding the BNP, I stated that I was glad they stood in Hale because they got soundly thrashed and that shows everyon how little support they have got. I didn't see any of you lot arguing against the BNP on the thread referred to. I guess that is because you secretly agree with their agenda. You clearly followed it. What a sad pathetic bunch you are.

That point was clearly a little too subtle for the Moron squad. Either that or they have a complete inability to tell anything other than porkies.

Well Mr "Reality Bites" (Nice name is it rhyming slang?) and Mr Donald et all.

Why can't you just answer a simple question regarding these trees?

You might find people trying to ensure that Barnet stays a green leafy borough "Annoying green lefties". You always do until something affects you then you morph into "outraged of Berkhampstead" or wherever you come from.

So what is your view on green issues. Come on boys, develop some Gonads and tell us what you stand for? Surely you know.

Lets hear it for Mr Rog T, he's such good value...

Poke the little lefty, go on poke him - he's great..

Just as I suspected, no answer to the question.

Do you actually have any thing intelligent to add?

Who Knows Where,

I suspect this is the only poking you'll be doing for the forseeable future

instant gratification, that's what I like...

Yes I suspect the only gratification you get is instant and self administered

they say it's good for your prostrate.

Who, Where

Well you must have the healthiest Prostrate in Barnet then.

By the way, why aren't you posting under your usual monica? I'd recognise that turn of phrase anywhere

go on then, guess who?

We both know, don't we. As I recall we've had this conversation before haven't we?

Here, I've got a great idea for you. Why don't you and your mate Boris use your respective hallowed positions to launch a Prostate health campaign in Barnet & London.

Well Rog T you've been a blast, great value.

But know it's time to say Thank You, Thank you and good night.




Elvis has left the building.

Heh, Heh, Heh.

To quote Greg Lake

"And I woke with a yawn at the first break of dawn and I saw him right through his disguise."

I just wonder why you don't put the effort into looking after the environment that you do into getting your mates to post stupid comments on this website?

Until we meet again ....

I was just at my 83 year old, disabled mum's place having a scotch with her and she showed me a very old letter which the then plain MP Margaret Thatcher sent her. At the time my mum was the secretary of the Hendon Overseas Friendship Society and Lady Thatcher was the Honoury president. The organisation concerned itself with helping Au pairs in the area who were having a variety of problems with rather bad employers, often suffering terrible conditions and even abuse.

Reading the letter, it struck me how intelligent and compassionate Lady T was. Not qualities we would always associate with her later public profile. At the time she was a hard working local MP doing her best for people in her constituency who didn't even have a vote.

Now as you probably can tell from the postings above, I am not a Tory, but the Lady had class.

Maybe this is a lesson the modern Barnet Tories could learn.

I would suggest that the Candidate for Finchley would especially benefit from his predecesors example.

Rog T

There is more chance of the Pope's wife giving birth to triplets than there is of the Conservative candidate for Finchley emulating the success of his illustrious predecessor. Thatcherite he ain’t!

Whilst Maggie contracted the hubris syndrome after some ten years in office, Mike Freer already has it!