A loyal Tory writes about Brian 'Mr Toad' Coleman

"I have recently witnessed Mr Toad's bad behaviour at a meeting. He was reading other unrelated paperwork and playing with his mobiles. Then he chirped up with comments totally unrelated to the topic.

When I commented to a council official that he was very badly behaved ...they said that that is how he aways behaves.

I am a loyal Tory but this man is an embarrassment."

This was a comment left yesterday on the 'Brian Coleman (aka Mr Toad) has got to go' Facebook group page.

Jokes still allowed at Barnet Council

With the news today that Barnet council have banned mother-in-law jokes, I feel I should point that Barnet is far from being some sort of humourless place as it is often portrayed in some sections of the media.

Indeed, some jokes are positively encouraged at Barnet.

Take the recent leadership contest. Without doubt they were just fooling around in staging a leadership contest where some young upstart nearly takes the crown from such an established councillor. We were never really going to believe that of course - but it shows that humour is alive and well at Barnet. And what about the deep irony implicit in the massive pay hike joke voted through by Coleman's Conservatives. As if anyone could really be that greedy? How we split our sides. And of course there's the long-running and much-loved comedy partnership of Brian Coleman playing the straight man to Robert Rams' buffoonery that keeps us laughing all the way to the polling booths.

So now, in tribute to Barnet Council's comedy genius, and in line with the new policy of the outlawing of mother-in-law jokes, I'd like to present to you a selection of Brian Coleman jokes that I stole adapted from the Sun newspaper's joke page. NB - that link is NSFW if you work for Barnet council - but these, on the other hand, are perfectly acceptable:

LAST week my wife and I went to buy a car and the salesman asked if I wanted an airbag. I said: “No thanks. I already have a Brian Coleman.”

WHAT’S the difference between Brian Coleman and a vulture?
The vulture waits until you’re dead before it eats your heart out.

I TOOK Brian Coleman to Madame Tussaud’s chamber of horrors and one of the attendants said: “Keep her moving sir, we’re stocktaking.”

DID you hear about the man who threw Brian Coleman into the lion’s den at the zoo?
He’s being sued by the RSPCA for cruelty to animals.

WHY did Brian Coleman cross the road?
I don’t know, but it was an ugly sight.

WHAT are the two worst things about Brian Coleman?
His faces.

I HAVEN’T spoken to Brian Coleman for 18 months ? I don’t like to interrupt him.

I ALWAYS know when it’s Brian Coleman knocking at the door ? the mice throw themselves in the traps.

Brian Coleman and I were happy for 20 years.
Then we met

Brian Coleman's Freudian projection

Hot on the heels of the enormous fiasco over the Tories voting themselves a massive pay-rise (a proposal viciously whipped through by Brian 'Mr Toad' Coleman), and the consequent embarrassment caused by the resulting leadership challenge - Coleman's Tories have yet another embarrassment.

According to The Guardian, a report to the Audit Committee has just ordered Barnet to come up (finally) with a business case for the savage cuts they are planning to inflict on our services - including selling our libraries and sacking the wardens in our sheltered housing.

But hang on a minute, you may be thinking. This is Coleman and Co's flagship policy. Have they really failed to even get a business case for it?

I'm afraid so.

In the interests of fairness however, I should point out that although they may not have a business case of any kind, they are in possession of bags and bags of Thatcherite dogma. Will that do?

Understandably, the unions and Barnet's residents are more than a little furious about having their services cut simply to satisfy Coleman's Thatcherite urges. They had a successful meeting last night of around 200 angry people determined to mount a campaign against Coleman's monstrous foolishness (Click the link and scroll down for information about the next of these meeting).

And yet, in the Barnet Times, Brian 'no business case' Coleman has called them: "a complete shambles" and "a group of no hopers".

So what has all this got to do with Sigmund Freud and his theory of Freudian projection? Well, Wikipedia helpfully explains that an example of Freudian projection might be "...blaming another for self failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and redirect their libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or "projecting," those same faults onto another."

Far be it from me to suggest that Fruedian projection is at the root of Coleman's behaviour of course. Its not as if he's going around accusing other people of being odious toads or anything.

Oh, hang on a minute...

The wisdom of Brian Coleman. An open letter to councillors.

With Barnet's Tories to vote on the leadership contest tonight, here is an open letter, published in full, from their former Chairman:

_______________
Dear Councillors

Many years ago, when I was Chairman of Chipping Barnet Conservative Association, I dared to criticise Brian Coleman who was supporting the first of Lynne Hillan’s failed attempts to become leader of the council.

Cllr Coleman saw me walking in the street and stopped his car for a quiet chat (this was in the days before his driving ban when taxpayers subsequently had to provide him with taxis). Speaking in the understated manner that we have all come to know and love, and with only the very slightest finger gesticulation, our Brian told me clearly and unequivocally: “In order to rebuild, you must first destroy”.

Like Hovis, the words of Brian Coleman are as good for you today as they have always been.

As you embark on yet another leadership election, ask yourself this. Are you happy that, save for one notable exception, you have brought the Conservative Party into disrepute? Do you think loyal party members will be impressed that you have reduced Barnet Council to a laughing stock?

It is no good blaming inexperience or alleged bullying tactics employed by certain individuals. You are grown adults, not children, and you are all quite capable of thinking for yourself. You know the difference between right and wrong and even if you had only been a councillor for five minutes, you knew that the decision to hike allowances for Lynne Hillan and her cronies was morally wrong and indefensible, yet you voted for it anyway.

You have let down the public who elected you to office, as well as all the hard working volunteer members of your associations who gave their time and money freely to support your campaign.

Unless you want to see the Conservatives wiped out in 2014 along with your own political ambitions, you have to do what Brian Coleman said all those years ago. Destroy the old and rebuild.

Yours sincerely

David Miller
______________

Top Barnet Tory: Coleman and Co are “immoral, disgusting and vile”

“immoral, disgusting and vile” - That's the view taken by no less a dignaitary than the Chairman of the Hendon and West Hendon Conservative groups, Adrian Murray-Leonard - who has bravely stuck his head above the parapet on the issue of Coleman and Co's naked greed.

In a Barnet Times article this morning he continues:

“Most of them are in it for themselves. They are living under an illusion of grandeur. Most of the people who are getting whipped to make the decision should stand up against it.”

Mr Murray-Leonard - hats off to you sir. There are loads of decent Conservatives like you around. But, as you rightly point out, Coleman and his cronies are "greedy vultures" with whom you do not want to be associated. Its no wonder that Chief Toad Coleman is such an embarrassment to the Conservative Party.

• 
  Sign the Barnet Times' Reject the Rise petition at: http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/reject_the_rise/

Coleman Balls

I see Mr Toad is in Private Eye. Again.

PM launches 'The Big Pariah'

The Prime Minister: David Cameron was in Barnet yesterday - responding to the antics of long-time embarrassment to the Conservative Party: Brian Coleman - by launching his concept of the 'Big Pariah'. Here is his speech in full:

It’s great to be here in Barnet.

Before I get into the details, let me briefly explain who the Big Pariah is and why it is such a powerful idea.

You can call him Brian. You can call him Coleman. You can call him the king of bling. You can call him Mr Toad. I call him the Big Pariah.

The Big Pariah is about a huge freeloading councillor…

…where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, in their workplace…

…don’t bother turning to officials, Barnet Council or the London Assembly for answers to the problems they face …

…but instead feel the pain of repeatedly paying out enough for Coleman and his fellow councilllors to help themselves.

It’s about people paying for his massive hikes in pay. Londoners forking out for his endless taxis. Constituents coughing up for yet more hikes in pay.

It’s about amphibious liberation –the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power from the man and woman on the street to the Toad in the council chamber.

It’s time for something different, something bold - something that just pours money down the green-skinned throat of the ward councillor for Totteridge.

The Big Pariah is that something different and bold.

It’s about saying if we want Brian Coleman for the long-term, we need people to come together and hand over the cash together – because we’re all in this together.

Daily Express lays into 'Fat Cat' Coleman

The comment piece in the Daily Express today blasts 'fat cat' Coleman and his nose-in-the-trough behaviour. Here are some extracts:

"LIKE many people I’ve never been quite sure what David Cameron means by the “Big Society” but I am pretty sure it is not encapsulated by the figure of Conservative councillor Brian Coleman.

He is no volunteer giving up his time to serve his community.

It was revealed yesterday that Mr Coleman is pocketing £114,322 a year in allowances – more than the salaries earned by junior ministers in the coalition government. He receives £34,000 for sitting on Barnet council, plus £53,439 for sitting in the London Assembly and another £26,883 for being chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority.

While MPs have quite rightly been lambasted over the past year for their greed and excessive expensive claims, local councillors have been quietly feathering their own nests – and getting away with it. In fact, the worst of them are beginning to make MPs look models of self-restraint."

"Barnet, which this year increased allowances for its councillors from £17,454 to £27,580 and that of its leader from £40,893 to £47,027, was revealed earlier this year to be one of the lousiest councils in the country for carrying out adaptations so as to allow disabled residents to continue living in their homes – with residents waiting more than five years.

The council has also done away with full-time wardens at old people’s homes, instigating instead a system of roving wardens who cover the whole borough. Councillors defended the scheme by promoting it as pioneering and an efficient use of money.

But now it seems some of the money saved will simply be disappearing into councillors’ pockets instead. It is extraordinary that at a time of severe financial constraint a council which promotes itself as a super-efficient flagship authority can be awarding itself pay increases.

Far from nearly doubling councillors’ allowances a council which truly cared about giving taxpayers value for money would be abolishing them altogether."

"Anyone who genuinely cares about how their local community is run does not need to be paid for attending a couple of meetings a month and making decisions."

" It is disgusting that public service has been debased by a generation of councillors merely out to line their own pockets."

Coleman squares up to RMT over northern line

Not content with burning his bridges with the Fire Brigades Union, Brian 'Mr Toad' Coleman has been further indulging his second* favourite activity (union-bashing) by squaring up to the RMT over the northern line. The Ham and High reported recently that:

He has sent a memorandum to London Mayor Boris Johnson calling for drivers to be scrapped permanently, a move which he believes, would break the power of Britain's largest transport union RMT.

What a pants motive!

Mr Toad - you may be interested to discover that the northern line actually runs from High Barnet (my flimsy excuse for the pictoral pun above) - through Totteridge and Whetstone - on its way to London Bridge station. From London Bridge station its just a short walk to City Hall.

However, rather than joining the 28.3 per cent of your constituents who already use the tube to get to work, you choose to squander the money we fork out each and every year for the all-zones travelcard that you fail to use - and add insult to injury by racking up thousands upon thousands of pounds worth of taxi bills that we also have to fork out for. No wonder you're such an embarrassment to the Conservative Party in these time of austerity.

"All in this together"? Not quite all Mr Osborne.

So here's a suggestion Mr Toad. How about you start actually using the tube before you start banging on about how it should operate?

Fool.

*Toad's favourite activity

Coleman rides the gravy taxi

As George Osborne delivered the toughest budget in years today, news broke of yet another Coleman-caused embarrassment to the Conservative Party.

Proposals for a self-awarded 9 per cent pay rise would you believe, and a new title: 'Supreme Chief Toad and Eternal Croak Leader' (or some such).

Adam Bienkov has the scoop at the Tory Troll blog.

Does the new title come with any bling Adam?

Has anyone told Brian Coleman?

A kind contributor has pointed me towards the letters page of yesterday's Daily Telegraph, in which Richard Tracey: Transport Spokesman for the London Assembly Conservative Group, offers these words of wisdom:

SIR – The Olympic Delivery Authority’s promise to minimise disruption to London’s transport is a step in the right direction. We must hold it to this pledge. After all, it proposed Olympic lanes through the Blackwall Tunnel, only to retract the idea later.
To keep London moving during the Olympics, we must encourage the thousands of international visitors and sports officials to use the Tube, the buses and river transport. There is simply no space for their chauffeur-driven limousines.

Commenting from his passenger seat this morning, Coleman sing-songed, "La-la-la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you-la-la-la-la-la", before blowing a raspberry and directing his driver to take him to another free dinner somewhere.

Brian Coleman attacks the elderly

Not the Barnet Times carries a great piece today about how Brian 'Mr Toad' Coleman and his Conservative friends at Barnet Council are planning to scrap the essential warden service for those living in sheltered housing. Written in the first person, and from the heart, the piece describes how Coleman's cowardly and villainous plot is striking fear into the hearts of the elderly. You should read it - really. However, I can't resist giving you the paragraph devoted to Mr Toad:

"And to £103,000 a year Brian Coleman, who said of the warden cuts: “The sensible nature of Barnet's changes is becoming more evident every day”, I say go. Just pack up your gold chains and get out of this borough. We are all sick and tired of your big mouth. You are arrogant, pompous and hopelessly out of touch with reality. You are an embarrassment to real Conservatives."

Quite.

So now you've bravely attacked Gypsies and the elderly Mr Toad. Which marginalised group of people is next? The mentally ill? They should be an easy target. Or how about small children? They don't even get a vote so you can surely pick on them with impunity.

To campaign against Coleman's cuts - see the Barnet TUC website - with all the info on protests past, present and future.

Tories say - Knickers to Brian Coleman!

Word has reached me that Brian Coleman flounced out of Mayors Question Time today, leading fellow Conservative, Deputy Mayor Richard Barnes to announce: "I regret that Brian has left to adjust his knickers."

This is the latest (and funniest) in a whole string of direct attacks on Brian 'Mr Toad' Coleman from members of his own Party, making him an increasingly isolated figure both at the GLA and in the Conservative Party as a whole.

Paul Waugh notes recently in the Evening Standard for example, how Boris Johnson "couldn't resist referring to Coleman's own double income as a councillor and a Member of the Assembly".

And this of course follows Boris Johnson's well-publicised carpeting of Coleman over his all-advised, (and wildly out of step with public opinion), arrogant stance on expenses - leading to Coleman's subsequent, embarrassing climb down.

Then there's the blogs. Take, for example the staunchly Conservative blogger: 'Don't Call Me Dave', whose excellent 'Not The Barnet Times' blog has post after post detailing Coleman's general unsuitability for office. Then there's Iain Dale. Or if you want a really straight-to-the-point view, look no further than the Tory Bear blog, which pulls no punches at all in telling it like it is.

But its not just Billy-no-mates Coleman's colleagues at the GLA and the bloggers who've had enough of him. Just look at the comments from the rank and file of the Conservative Party when he blogs at the Conservative Home website here and here and here. And bear in mind that two of those blog posts were for the purposes of congratulating the emergency services. That is a LOT of flak to draw from ones own party, especially when deliberatately trying to be as uncontroversial as possible.

Why all the flak and open hostility Coleman?

Its because you've been found out. Your arrogance and buffoonery and troughing only serve to help the other political parties. Boris Johnson knows it, Richard Barnes knows it, the bloggers know it and the Party rank and file know it. You are an embarrassment to David Cameron and an embarrassment to the Conservative Party, just as you're an embarrassment to the people of Barnet and Camden.

How long before your bad behaviour also becomes intolerable for Barnet MP Theresa Villiers and a millstone around the neck of Barnet Council leader Mike Freer's political ambitions?

Time to do the right thing for once Coleman. Go!

What on earth has Brian Coleman got against our athletes?

What on earth has Brian Coleman got against our athletes?

Last year he said that the entire Olympic team was 'tainted'.
Just recently he said women's boxing was 'distasteful'.
Now he's saying that national treasure, Kriss Akabusi MBE is not worth the money.
For a politician like Brian 'Mr Toad' Coleman to be so openly hostile towards athletes is always going to be a little uncomfortable for his Party. But when you consider that at the same time, Boris Johnson is doing his best to promote the London Olympics 2012, its a downright embarrassment.

As for Coleman's opinion on the value of Kriss Akabusi MBE, I must say that its pretty rich coming from such a renowned squanderer of public money. Even richer if you remember what he said a while back when trying to justify his outrageous wages and expenses claims - that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

You can't have it both ways Mr Toad.

Brian Coleman - an embarrassment to Boris Johnson of Olympian proportions

As the 2012 Games draw ever-closer, Brian Coleman looks set provide an Olympic-sized embarrassment to Mayor Boris Johnson once again.

You may remember his outburst at the last Olymic Games:
"If you are looking for young heroes and role models, forget the highly paid athletes who leave their consciences at passport control.....While Britain's athletes may have won more medals than usual they must remember that they are tainted with the blood of Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, and Roman Catholic priests"

To redden Boris Johnson's face even further, he recently put an official question to Mayor:
"Does the Mayor not think that the inclusion of women's boxing in the London Olympics is somewhat distasteful?"

No Mr Toad, it is not distasteful. Its called equality. What's distasteful is your implicit sexism - and it's not the first time.

Perhaps you are just sore that heavyweight freeloading is not to be included as an Olympic event this time around. Whatever the reason, I suggest you sort it out, or you may have to answer to the likes of the somewhat-more-tasteful-than-you, three-time ABA champion: Amanda Coulson (pictured).

Brian Coleman on holiday

I hear that Brian Coleman is on holiday.

Certainly, he could do with the break after the recent avalanche of negative press he's received. Just in the last month, he's been:

* Censured by the LFEPA for unlawfully making up the (un)democratic process as he goes along.
* Lambasted by the London Assembly Audit Panel over his abuses of the expenses system
* Found out by The Barnet Eye for apparently 'flipping' his expenses
* Caught out awarding a multi-million pound contract to a company which treated him to free food and a Harvey Nichols hamper
* Facing a misconduct hearing at Barnet Council (this blog awaits the results with interest).
* Shouted at by Boris Johnson who forced him, in an embarrassing climbdown, to reveal his 'ridiculous' expenses
* Publicly rebuked by members of his own party, notably here and here and here and (very pointedly) here.

Things have got so bad, that he's now refusing to answer the phone to journalists.

Yes, Mr Toad could certainly do with a break. And he's not the only one!

But the big question for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives has been this: Where can Coleman be sent where he's sufficiently remote to do little damage and, in these times of spin, where he can start to rebuild his political reputation?

It would need to be a place where there was another figure, more foolish, more prone to embarrassing gaffes and a bigger bully. It'll need to be somewhere with plenty of food of course.....

Ah! Got it!



Incidentally, I checked Addison Lee's website for a taxi quote between London N3 and sunny Torquay. Its £579.10 each way. So don't try it Coleman. We'll be watching!