Peter Zinkin says the new council budget will leave residents footing the bill for Labour’s “staggering incompetence”

Barnet Conservative leader Cllr Peter Zinkin

As Passover nears, Jewish families will gather, and children will ask, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” I find myself asking a similar question about Barnet’s latest budget: why is it different from all others? The answer is stark—Labour’s staggering financial incompetence has plunged our borough into a mess of borrowing, cuts, and despair, with residents left to foot the bill.

This budget is legally balanced, but only through a sleight of hand—borrowing up to £55million to mask a £50million deficit this year alone. As I warned in Barnet Post last September, Labour’s reckless spending has wrecked our finances in just three years. This isn’t balance; it’s a desperate gamble with your money. They’ve piled on a 5% Council Tax rise, hiked fees and will be slashing services, yet closing their deficit would still demand an extra £500 per Band D household. That’s the cost of their failure, dumped squarely on you.

Labour’s budget papers claim a £100million gap over the next five years. Absolute nonsense. Factor in the £55.7million annual shortfall rolling forward four years—£225million more—and the true gap is £325million. I challenged the leader and cabinet on this last week, demanding they face reality. Their response? Denial. No plan exists, and the papers hide the crisis’s scale.

Do they even grasp what’s at stake? In November, I wrote that this budget is “bad for Barnet”—it is. It hits pensioners, families, and our most vulnerable, raiding grants meant for struggling households to cover Labour’s blunders.

When Labour took power in 2022, they inherited £158million in reserves. As I’ve said repeatedly, they’ve torched £200,000 daily—squandered every penny. Last year, we exposed their fantasy savings, sharing our analysis with every administration member before the vote. Those illusions collapsed, draining our 24/25 reserves.

We proposed real fixes: fewer cabinet posts, a dedicated finance role, a 4.7% staff cut, saving £5 million, and scrapping Barnet First. They sneered, then botched adopting them later. Their finance appointee, Ammar Naqvi, was sacked in January after his UCL lies unravelled—a fiasco I demanded answers for in Barnet Post. Now, with a £59million bailout begged from the government, they’re still clueless, piling up pain for tomorrow.

Who suffers most? The vulnerable. Labour has siphoned family support grants—hidden for months until we forced the truth out—to prop up their administration. I asked cabinet: who bears these cuts? They shrugged—“not a good use of officer time.” Do Labour councillors even know what they’re endorsing? Our streets will suffer too—less cleaning, fewer community skips, reduced weed sprays, and patchy grass cutting. Libraries weaken, and fees for parking and green bins skyrocket. This is Labour’s Barnet: dirtier, costlier, diminished.

I’ve warned in the Post of their “decimation” plan—10% staff cuts loom, as reported in November. We’d urged efficiencies years ago—trimming comms, cabinet, and staff costs. They mocked us, now scrambling to slash jobs. Their £97million road repair borrowing? Potholes still surged 66% by February—I wrote that patching fails without smarter tech. Even their Golders Green planters wasted cash before a 2023 U-turn, as I flagged. No vision, just chaos.

We’re not tabling an alternative budget. Why bother? The crisis is here, and Labour offers no answers. Since 2022, they’ve proven financially incompetent. With a Labour mayor and government piling on—VAT on school fees, stamp duty hikes hitting first-time buyers—they’re toxic for Barnet. Their budget doesn’t just fail; it punishes. It’s a betrayal of residents who trusted them to manage our borough, not drive it into ruin.

Come May 2026, I hope Barnet’s voters make Labour pay at the ballot box. This isn’t governance—it’s a disaster. Our borough deserves better than a council that borrows to survive, cuts to cope, and shrugs at the consequences. The numbers don’t lie; Labour’s leadership does. It’s time for change.

Cllr Peter Zinkin is leader of Barnet Conservatives. The council’s Labour leader Cllr Barry Rawlings defends the budget here.

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