Is Mike Freer registered on Second Life?

Mike Freer in Israel working hard

Mike Freer Says
"Anyone who knows me knows I am a worker and that is what this constituency needs."

Rog T says

Unless Mike Freer is registered on Second Life and runs a virtual council where everything runs smoothly and he does a great job, he is clearly a fantasist.

If he's such a hard worker, how com the following has happened when he's leader :-

Barnet lost £27.4 in dodgy investment schemes in Iceland? He says he never checked them (Very hard working).

The latest budget attempted to raise the charges for burying dead children by 10% because neither Freer nor his scrutiny cabinet bothered to read it. They only realised when David Miller started a campaign. Freer's equally hard working lackey, Brian Coleman commented " none of the council officers told me about it"

The Aerodrome road Bridge project went Millions of pounds over budget, gobbling up Council resources. Less than a year ago, on his blog in the Edgware Times, Freer said it was on budget and he'd done a great job. He's in charge of Barnet resource management.

His last job, which he clearly worked so hard at was as a banker. Under his stewardship, Barnet Council borrowed hundreds of millions of pounds. This is now sitting in accounts earning minimal interest, meaning the Council taxpayer has to pay the difference to make up the interest. Even in his chosen field of excellence he fails.

I thought I'd dig a bit deeper and have a look at Mike's website (or Should I say the Finchley Conservatives website, which has morphed into a Mike Freer Hagiography).

Clearly if he's a hard worker, he'd be running lots of local campaigns and have lots of pictures and stories of him standing up for local people. There would be lots of pictures of him with smiling old ladies who'd had their taps fixed through his efforts. So what do we get - Click HERE TO SEE.

Yup, what we get are six campaigns

1. A link to the Central Conservative website urging small businesses to take up rates relief - No input from Mike. Interestingly, elsewhere on his website he has a picture of his launch of the Barnet bond. This is a stealth tax on businesses. I suppose it should also be noted that when I last appealed my business rates, it took nearly three years to be heard. Eventually I got a few thousand pounds back - so much for helping small companies.

2. A note about the Equitable Life scandal. Mike posted a letter on his website. As best I can tell, he seems to say Theresa Villiers has done a fine job on his behalf chasing it up in parliament.

3. A campaign to keep some post offices open. He's asked us to send him an email. Part of the national Tory campaign against post office closures.

4. A few paragraphs saying Mike doesn't like the Council tax revaluation and disagres with the Government on HIPS. Again a national Conservative Party initiative.

5. A few paragraphs about his support for the national Tory campaign against bin tax.

6. A link that doesn't work about Gordon Brown getting his sums wrong.

All in all, whatever you might think about Mike, surely there are real local issues in Finchley and Golders Green he should be campaigning about. If he was, surely he'd post them on his website? Surely he'd have a few testimonials from people he's helped? I don't know if the issue is he's got a rotten website or that he's as lazy as it appears? Either way, given that he's clearly a bright guy, you'd expect a hard worker to be on top of this.

One final example of the hard work of Mike Freer. Check out the LEADERLISTENS.COM blog. Mike Freer got this vanity project set up by the Council at a cost of over £400. This year he's posted one item on it. Not exactly prolific. As a contrast Conservative GLA member and deputy mayor for young people - James Cleverly - has a free blogspot blog, which he's posted to 14 times. Now I'm a Labour member so I don't agree with much of James Cleverly's policies, but it's a good blog (and it's free to taxpayers). I've also got a link at the side to Tory GLA member Roger Evans blog, again worth a look to see how it's done. I should also note that these guys always seem to respond to comments, Mike has not moderated at least 50% of the comments I've left. Now there are plenty of Councillors, etc who don't have blogs, so it's not a "must have". I would however say that if you get one set up at cost to the taxpayer, you should as a minimum a) update it regularly and b) respond to your comments. If you can't be bothered, don't go around boasting about how hard you work.

Mind you he's been recognised for this achievement with a "Banker of the year award" from Private eye, for elevating incompetence to new levels. The only areas of Barnet Council which run smoothly are the ones he leaves well alone, such as education. Everything else is in turmoil due to his "Bonkers" future shape scheme.