I wasn’t much surprised by the selfish and underhanded activities of Barnet’s new mayor Councillor Hugh Rayner, although I know that there will be those who were.

As a resident of Hale ward I was deeply upset that he and a fellow party member won their seats in the first place, but had these revelations come out prior to the recent election, I wonder if the results would have been the same. I feel the electorate was denied knowledge that would certainly have assisted us in making an informed decision at the ballot box (though people should be well informed enough not to vote Tory in the first place).

Of those who were willing to overlook the party’s policies of privatisation, deregulation and cronyism, there are surely those who would have changed their minds about voting for Cllr Rayner, had they known what kind of person he truly is.

I’m not surprised that the Conservative party would allow someone like him to stand as a candidate as they have a long history of this kind of thing. This is just one example of the vestiges of the paternalism of High Toryism having been eroded by Thatcherite parasitism, especially now that there is no Red Tsar in the East to provide a favourable comparison for the Neoliberal States. I want a by-election and I can’t be the only one.

Daniel Brooks

Fairmead Crescent, Edgware