Barnet Alliance for Public Services - residents, local organisations and trade unions campaigning for high quality public services in the London Borough of Barnet.
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Has anybody seen our banner?
Has anybody seen this banner? It is pretty big: 4 foot by 9 foot, and, one would have thought, quite hard to miss. It is a garish yellow-green in colour with the following motto: “Our libraries, our NHS, our schools, our homes, our wardens our streets, our land, our old, our young, our past, our future - Hands off our Barnet!”
When last heard of it was in the possession of a man going under the name: Father Adrian Benjamin, said to be rector of All Saints Church and responsible for the Friern Barnet Summer Fair. He said it was like a bomb, intended to destroy the good work of the council and therefore he had a right to seize it, break it or get rid of it. On the other hand the laughing priest also announced that he had given it to Brian Coleman who had taken it to Barnet Town Hall, from where we could recover it. When questioned, he claimed that he had been lying and that actually he had lost it. He had left it in a corner of the marquee where we had been manning a stall he didn’t approve of. A gang working for him had knocked down the table, broken the banner’s support pole, run off with it and left it in his possession. When he came back for it next morning, it had gone. There have been plentiful rumours as to its actual whereabouts. A member of the Summer Fair committee said that it was in the church. Gang members said that they were going to leave it at the park gates. (It wasn’t there when we looked.)
If anybody can give any information as to its whereabouts, Father Adrian would be most grateful. He needs to dismantle it. A ‘bomb’ of such power that it can destroy a council’s good works is capable of doing a great deal of damage lying God knows where permanently at large in the community where any unsuspecting citizen can inadvertently come across it – a vulnerable elderly person perhaps or a child with no children’s centre or a disaffected youth with nowhere to go and nothing to do! This could be even more dangerous than when it stood innocently behind a stall inside a closed marquee for half a day.
Please email – in confidence – barnetalliance4publicservices @gmail.com if you have any information about our banner.
2 Comments
McBeath
Sep 08, 2011
If you think that your emerging witch hunt against a Reverend who has passionately supported the local community for decades will gain you support from the people you claim to serve, you are terribly mistaken. I urge you to drop your bullying tactics against a fundamentally good man with a proven track record of public service and goodwill. James McBeath, a born and bred Barnet resident.
ba4ps
Sep 09, 2011
Thank you for your comment, Mr McBeath. I can assure you we don't want a witch-hunt of anyone. This report is written in a certain style which you might well not like, but it is not intended to witch-hunt anyone. The simple fact is that Barnet Alliance has been stopped - at the last minute: we were told initially that we could have one - from having a stall at Friern Barnet summer show because of political objections. We support democracy: we want people to have arguments about policies. Reverend Benjamin told the Ham & High newspaper that we wouldn't like it if the Conservative Party had been handing out leaflets at the Friern Barnet show. Quite wrong! It would be wonderful if they would come and explain what they think to residents. They just don't do that. For example, the One Barnet outsourcing Programme was not in the Conservatives' manifesto for the council elections. Very little was, in fact. How do they know that we want it? We think politics is respectable, something that people should talk about in public. Then there is the matter of the banner. Reverend Benjamin had our banner removed and then lost it. He told the Ham & High he hoped it had been taken to the dump. Fair enough, he doesn't like what was on the banner and he doesn't like us. But we have a right to be angry that our £80 banner has been destroyed. Some of the remarks Reverend Benjamin made to the Ham & High were intemperate and offensive, comparing us to terrorists, and calling Mr Silverman "a rogue". None of us has time for w a wtich-hunt even if we wanted to try and conduct one. Why? Because we are too busy defending amenities that the council is cutting and closing, and council services from being privatised. That is what the Barnet Alliance is about. I'm sorry if we've given you the wrong impression. Best wishes, Vicki Morris for Barnet Alliance for Public Services