The flashing lights of police-cars flicker in familiar fashion from the corner of Woodside Park Road, and Woodside Avenue/Gainsborough Road. Two dented cars with pranged corners are pulled up to the side of the road, flanked by a good few bystanders. No one’s hurt, I’m assured. Good, since collisions are common on that corner. One road is straight and very busy. The other road curves down into the junction coming, in effect, from behind the cars heading for the tube station.

But half an hour later, two ambulances have arrived on the scene, and one of the drivers involved in the collision is being led away. She’s in tears and gasping. Yet she recognises me, and pleads with me to help. I promise her I’ll try, and she breaks down again. She then proposes to walk home, and I realise she’s still in some sort of shock.

For a start, I tweet the only ward councillor who’s on twitter. This is his reply: “There is nothing wrong with this junction, it just needs careful drivers, you cannot legislate for idiots.”

I won’t detain you with the idiocy of not recognising that legislating for idiots is probably nine tenths of the law. But I am going to linger over the idiocy of callous dismissal of your constituents. How does the councillor explain so many accidents on that junction? If there's nothing wrong, show me the figures! And anyway, how are the distressed victims of an accident idiots?

We in Barnet are forgetting what democracy is. The prevalence of self-aggrandising or careerist politicians is letting us lose sight of the point of representatives: to serve us, our interests, our wellbeing, and our community. We need a change, urgently.

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