Month: Jan 2008

Ealing and Northfield Northfield Ward Forum

Outright porkies

LibDem porkies on ward forums

Another piece in Walpole FOCUS No. 14 was not so amusing. It was a bunch of outright porkies and the LibDems should know better. They are meant to be in favour of localism. The Cabinet proposals for ward forums are localism red in tooth and claw and the only people complaining about them are the weaker brethren amongst the councillors who are wary of making actual decisions and unwilling to engage with their voters. Decisions of ward forums will be susceptible to being thrown out by Cabinet in the same way that area committee decisions are currently.

Mayor Johnson

London Talking debate disappointing

Post author By Phil
Post date 11th Jan 2008
No Comments on London Talking debate disappointing

Boris Johnson came across reasonably well on last night’s London Talking debate as did Brian Paddick who quite impressed after a slow start. Livingstone looked tired and old and tried to blame the recent surge in teen murder on Thatcherism from what I could work out. Nothing to do with ten years of a Labour government and eight years of a Labour Mayor then.

I was disappointed by the audience to be honest. With only 12 per party they were all party representatives and horribly partisan. The candidates were models of reasonableness in comparison. In particular the questions from Labour and the LibDems to Boris were at best un-illuminating and at worst just insults. I don’t think many London voters would have been impressed by these questions.

Edmond Yeo Ealing councillor Ed Yeo was one of the Tory “audience”. He fluffed his question to the Mayor which came out essentially as: “Why are you being so nasty”. The Mayor was able to brush this off easily as he had indeed been pretty sweet through the proceedings. As we saw with the little helpers and leftie Muslim letters to the Guardian the Mayor can afford to sound reasonable when he has lots other people who can do the nasty stuff for him. So it proved with questions to Boris where a Labour activist raised the Darius Guppy slur and with a LibDem lady piling in too. Not very edifying when there are big issues of transport and policing to deal with.

The combination of children’s presenter Konnie Huq and a bunch of over-excited activists made for pretty jarring viewing.

National politics

Sharma still on holiday

Virendra Sharma I decided to check how local MPs had voted yesterday on the Tory motion that speaks out against Government proposals to reduce funding for those who already have higher education qualifications but want to undertake more study.

That this House is concerned that the Government’s decision to withdraw funding from institutions for equivalent or lower qualification students will have a disproportionate impact on the part-time sector in general and on specific institutions such as Birkbeck and the Open University; and urges the Government to consider ways in which it can minimise the damage this measure will do to lifelong learning and the delivery of the Leitch agenda objectives.

Local MPs Andy Slaughter and Stephen Pound both dutifully voted with the Government.

Northfield and Southall MP Virendra Sharma is clearly still on his holidays, see voting record here.

Mayor Johnson

I will return with my shield, or on it

Post author By Phil
Post date 10th Jan 2008
No Comments on I will return with my shield, or on it

Spartan Boris Johnson writes his last column in the Telegraph today. He has cut out all of his other commitments to campaign fulltime to be London Mayor.

The Independent reported yesterday that he would spend £1 million on his campaign.

Ex-Mayor Livingstone Mayor Johnson

Boris and Ken go head to head on Thursday

Post author By Phil
Post date 8th Jan 2008
3 Comments on Boris and Ken go head to head on Thursday

Konnie collects £4,750 After Parking Services on Thursday we can rush home and watch the Mayoral candidates doing a TV debate on ITV.

Konnie Huq’s London Talking will host the three main candidates at 11:05pm. They are expected to answer the questions of the studio audience Question Time style.

Ms Huq will have to work hard to be objective. The Times reports her many links to Labour here.

The tentacles of the Mayor’s patronage extend to her as well – she picked up a £4,750 fee, and a reprimand from the BBC, when she helped kick off the Mayor’s Hovis London Freecycle event last year. No wonder she was “the first person to sign up” for the event as reported by the Mayor’s £3 million a year self-promotion vehicle the Londoner, left.

Standard report here.

Ealing and Northfield Parking Services

More Parking Services this week

Post author By Phil
Post date 8th Jan 2008
3 Comments on More Parking Services this week

The fourth meeting of the Parking Services Specialist Scrutiny Panel will take place in Committee Room 2 at the Town Hall on Thursday 10th January. See agenda and papers here.

The key item for discussion on Thursday is the draft of recommendations, see here. This document is very much a work in progress but shows where we are going with this panel.

We will also be looking at the results from some parking questions added to the regular panel survey undertaken by the council. Some 1881 residents took part, see here. The chart below, click to enlarge, shows what issue people think Parking Services should prioritise. It seems that people feel that quite a range of issues should be considered. Even that supposedly unpopular activity, raising cash, was rated third and considered by 15% of people to be a reasonable top priority for the service. I guess the 15% are non-car owners!

Ealing and Northfield

The wife’s a Brit too now

The largest part of my morning was taken up by accompanying my wife to her citizenship ceremony, the last step in her becoming a British citizen. She is excited at the prospect of being able to vote Mayor Livingstone out of office on 1st May.

Oath of allegiance The ceremony took place in the Norwood Suite at the Town Hall. This is one of the smarter parts of the building and the ceremony was on the whole well run and moving even. As the participants were registering a selection of appropriate music was played including Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance and “I vow to thee, my country”. It would have been nice if Duncan, the registrars’ assistant, had been wearing a tie. At the end the usual one verse of the National Anthem was played and I had to sing on my own as I don’t think anyone else in the room knew the words. My wife was a bit sheepish about not singing. It was a shame that the celebrants couldn’t rouse themselves to at least mouth along.

The oath you have to say is reasonably full-on even for a product of New Labour:

I (name) swear by Almighty God that on becoming a British Citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second; Her Heirs and successors according to law.

I will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its democratic values. I will observe its laws faithfully and fulfil my duties and obligations as a British Citizen.

One thing I was very impressed with was the two well turned out ladies from the Library Service. They introduced themselves during the registration and helped people to fill in applications for library cards. They then gave out completed cards after the ceremony. A brilliant service and it is great to see the Library Service using some imagination and panache to recruit new users. They managed to give out 16 library cards. Big well done.

Mayor Johnson

Boris Johnson launches on teen death toll

Post author By Phil
Post date 7th Jan 2008
1 Comment on Boris Johnson launches on teen death toll

Boris Johnson effectively launched his mayoral campaign today with a hard hitting column in the Evening Standard, a full page ad in the Standard and a redesign of his own website which brings his campaign themes into sharper focus. He has chosen to major on the wave of gang-related teen killings that plagued London last year ands looks like being repeated this year with two deaths to-date. Johnson is quite right to raise this issue. It is one that the Mayor and the Met Commissioner have consistently ignored because it flies in the face of their “we’ve cracked crime” mood music. If you look at the figures in any kind of detail it is easy to see that they are essentially talking rubbish, see previous posting.

Johnson’s ad in the Standard pretty much says it all. There is some argument about the actual number 26 or 27. I believe this arises from one of the cases which happened just outside the formal GLA boundary, see Assembly Member Roger Evans’ comment here. The Standard and Boris are going with 27. The BBC and I are going with 26.

Ex-Mayor Livingstone

Jasper at it again

The Evening Standard’s Andrew Gilligan continues his one man campaign against the egregious Lee Jasper tonight. His latest revelation is that Jasper, who is meant to be a City Hall employee pulling in a £117K salary has, somewhat laughably, been running his own “talent” agency called ibubble25. It seems Jasper’s main talent is promoting himself and lining his own pockets. His latest project, peddled by ibubble25, is a talk show hosted by Jasper on BEN TV, a tiny station you weren’t have heard of which has received cash from … yes, you guessed it the GLA. See full story here.

Ex-Mayor Livingstone

Admission of failure

I guess this is as near as we will get to the Mayor admitting that his young person’s concessions may not be wonderful for everyone, certainly not grown ups trying to get around on London’s buses.

The Zip card seems to be a half-hearted attempt to restore some discipline to young persons’ bus travel.

It is almost certainly also an attempt to counter some of Boris Johnson’s more resonant lines about respect and civility and making it more pleasant to live in London.

Ross Lydall of the Standard seems to agree.

If the Mayor had any sense, or any guts for that matter, he would turn all of the Zip cards off at 9pm. For my money if a young person wants to be out after 9pm they should be using their own cash – not mine.