Tory bruiser Brian Coleman in 'two old hags' outburst at council meeting

A local politician was at the centre of a storm today after calling two members of the public “old hags” during a fiery council meeting.

Barnet Tory councillor Brian Coleman faced calls to apologise after his outburst against the two women, who allegedly heckled him as he spoke about the authority’s cost-cutting project.

In footage posted on YouTube, the former mayor of Barnet is heard responding by saying there were “sad, mad and bad ... and a couple of old hags in the gallery”.

He is then seen laughing and smiling and the resulting uproar led to Barnet’s Tory mayor Brian Schama asking members of the public to show respect to the meeting.

Theresa Musgrove, author of the Broken Barnet blog who was in the public gallery, said: “Brian Coleman’s behaviour was reprehensible. To refer to residents as ‘sad, mad and bad’ is simply appalling.

"To use the phrase ‘a couple of hags’ was outrageous, sexist, ageist and deeply offensive.”

Alison Moore, the council’s Labour leader, has made an official complaint to its monitoring officer and Tory leader Richard Cornelius, who later said: “It was a difficult council meeting where feelings ran high. An individual councillor has to be responsible for his or her own words.”

Ms Moore said: “As a woman I found the reference he made to two female members of the public utterly offensive.”

Mr Coleman, who was found to have broken the council’s code of conduct in 2009 after calling a blogger “an obsessive, poisonous individual” in an email, was unavailable for comment.