Author: Phil

Last night saw some 80 people at Greenford Hall to select a prospective parliamentary candidate for Ealing North. It was a windy, wet night which may have kept some people away but the turnout was perhaps a little disappointing given the level of interest it had received in the local press. Stephen Pound had joked about turning up, that’s what he does, but it was his Liberal Democrat opposition from the last election, Francesco Fruzza, who did actually turn up on the night. Steve Still from the Gazette was there too.

At the end of the evening when the time came for the formal adoption of the candidate it became apparent that over half of the attendees were party members. The general feeling was four good candidates but Gibb resonated best. Here is how the four came across:

Ian Gibb offered his “real world experience” and gave a very personal performance in front of a home crowd. He tripped up a bit when talking about the NHS; his call for a period of stability sounded a bit producer interested to me, but otherwise he did well. His local knowledge as a long-serving local councillor and current portfolio holder came across well. Ian was perhaps the most hesitant and least fluent of the candidates but he came across as being authentic.

Hero: William Wilberforce
Villain: Tony Benn
Private member’s bill: Support for the family

Aidan Burley talked of “leading from the front” and claimed to be a West London boy, having lived in Hammersmith for 5 years. Aidan was well prepared with good local knowledge and some well aimed knocks at Stephen Pound, the sitting Labour MP. I am not sure how the audience warmed to the idea of a management consultant who works in the public sector. He made some good points about health and law and order but many will have felt that smooth talking consultants were part of the problem with the public services.

Hero: Ronald Reagan
Villain: John Reid
Private member’s bill: Repeal top-up fees

Mimi Harker promised to give up her day job if she was selected. She oozed “personality” but to some tastes she would come across as plastic fantastic. Extreme, extremely and passionate were favourite words. Harker offered her background in marketing and advertising as a strength. When talking about Europe she joked that she would fight to get rid of the Pound, Stephen Pound.

Hero: William Hague
Villain: Peter Mandelson
Private member’s bill: Create mother and baby units for teenage mothers

Sheela Mackintosh was last up. Mackintosh came across well, perhaps coming second in the authenticity stakes, but had the weakest answers to questions. She hesitated over her choice of villain and gladly accepted an audience suggestion. When interviewer Stephan Shakespeare offered Ken Livingstone as a possible villain she suggested that Livingstone is OK with her as he stands up for what he believes in.

Hero: David Davis
Villain: Margaret Beckett
Private member’s bill: Repeal inheritance tax

Stephan Shakespeare, co-founder of the yougov polling organisation, did an excellent job of being interviewer. Chatting to him during the count he told me that he was raised in Northfield. Hopefully he will be available if we want to do an open primary for Ealing Southall.

Tonight West Ealing Neighbours, a relatively new residents’ association that covers the West Ealing area, held a very well organised public meeting to discuss the future of West Ealing. Chairman David Highton introduced the session and then it was over Cllr Brian Castle, cabinet member for Regeneration & Economic Development, and Brendon Walsh, Director of Regeneration and Community Development, to tell us about what the council was doing to to regenerate West Ealing and the Green Man Estate. About 100 people turned up at Dean Hall to see what was going on.

The public raised a range of questions. Parking was an issue. A few people asked about cultural outlets. Green Man people wanted to be consulted ASAP. Some people were fed up with street trading.

It was striking that 8 of the Tory councillors turned up. Brian Castle had to be there as he was talking but Ann Chapman (Walpole), Colm Costello (Hobbayne), John Cowing (Walpole), Joanna Dabrowska (Ealing Common), Ian Gibb (Cleveland), David Millican (Northfield), Ian Potts (Ealing Broadway) and Phil Taylor (Northfield) all could have been somewhere else. WEN have done well to get people out and the councillors welcomed the chance to hear what they had to say. WEN has in the past suggested that the Ealing area committee system should be revised to recognise West Ealing. WEN proved tonight that they don’t need endorsement from the council. They are their own special creation!

Ealing Times is reporting on the Ealing North primary today (somewhat belatedly). This process is an import from the US. The idea is if you ask all voters to choose your candidate, rather than just your own party members, then you get a more generally acceptable candidate. So anyone who lives in the Ealing North parliamentary constituency can take part, so long as they are registered voters and register with the Ealing North constituency (see below).

There have been quite a few comments on the Ealing Today forum and the Conservativehome website if you want to find out more about the candidates and the issues.

The Public Meeting will be held on Wednesday 9th May at Greenford Assembly Hall, Ruislip Road, Greenford, UB6 9QN. Doors open at 6:45pm, and the meeting will start promptly at 7.30pm.

Members of the press including photographers will be welcome. Please make yourself known to one of the stewards.

Anyone wishing to attend must register. To do so, residents should write to Ealing North Conservative Association, Courthope Road, Greenford, Middx, UB6 8PZ, call 020 8578, 5912 or email their name, address and telephone number to ealingnorth@bluesky.org.

Local girl Rupa Huq has failed in her bid to win the Labour selection process for the Bethnal Green and Bow parliamentary seat (see previous posting). So did London Assembly Member John Biggs. We can expect to see her trying her luck in Ealing Southall before long.

At Tuesday’s council meeting it was announced that the council would increase spending on road and pavement resurfacing from £1.5 million last year to £3.5 million this year. Today the council leader Jason Stacey is expanding on that announcement in his weekly column on the council’s website. He lists the roads affected.

This will impact Northfield as follows:

• Earlsmere Gardens £33.9K
• Mayfield Avenue from Midhurst Road to Northcroft Road £27.6K
• Midhurst Road £72.9K

Residents will be aware of other roads that need treatment but will probably agree these are the worst in the ward. There is very little new paving in the ward after 12 years of Labour neglect. In their last year Labour only spent £1 million in the whole borough. The Tories increased this by 50% last year and have now added a one off £2 million.

The main business of last night’s full council meeting (see agenda) was the motion proposed by Labour’s Cllr Greenhead on adult services which in effect called into question our commitment to adult services.

It was stange for Labour to raise this issue now as it was only two years ago that the previous Labour administration had a poor adult services operation on their hands (see rating from the Commission for Social Care Inspection’s ratings for Ealing).

Cllr Green, portfolio holder for Adult Services & Housing, widely acknowledged as a capable and effective political leader of this service, was visibly angered by Labour’s cheap shots. He described Cllr Greenhead and the Labour front bench as the weakest of a weak bunch. Maybe he should not have taken this personally but his emotional response reflects his personal commitment to the service.

He was particularly angered that Greenhead had tried to suggest that the recently departed (and respected) Director of Adult Services, Mun Thong Phung, had gone from Ealing to Haringey because Haringey was a Labour council and that he did not want to work for a Tory council. This is rubbish and the kind of thing that councillors must never suggest unless we want to politicise officers. See Haringey’s press release and make your own mind up about Greenhead claims.

I managed to catch the Mayor’s eye and speak directly after Cllr Green. I said:

Cllr Greenhead wants to talk about Adult Services. So do I. I want to highlight how ineffective the Labour Group have been on the Health, Housing and Adult Social Services Panel.

These scrutiny panels are a way that opposition councillors can hold the council to account. This panel also has the ability to hold health service bodies to account. It is a shame that Labour can’t be bothered to turn up to these meetings. It is understandable why they don’t turn up. These are long meetings with thick papers. In the municipal year just finished the Conservative members turned up 98% of the time.

Now let us examine Labour’s record. Their members have failed to turn up at all one third of the time. One of their members only turned up twice all year [out of 8 meetings]. There was one meeting where no sitting Labour members turned up. They managed to send one alternate who did not say anything. Therefore the panel was discussing issues such as the key estates strategy and services for older people without any contribution from the Labour group.

Cllr Greenhead turned up on this panel twice as an alternate. On those two occasions she failed to notice or advertise a £200K cut in the CAMHS budget imposed by a Labour government or the fact that Ealing PCT had been forced to lend the Secretary of State £29 million. Indeed on her second appearance she managed to show her commitment to these issues by turning up 40 minutes late and leaving early whilst not making any contribution whatsoever to the meeting.

Labour may say it cares but it needs to turn up if anyone is to believe them.

After I spoke the deputy portfolio holder, Mark Reen, who is also one of the three Northfield councillors, gave a measured and confident speech which among other things highlighted how Labour managed to stop spending on disabled facilities grants in October 2005 only half way through their last year in office. Cllr Rosa Popham gave a maiden speech and pointed out Labour’s poor record in tackling disability issues. When Labour left power only 3% of the council’s buildings were accessible. In our first year in power we managed to push this figure up to 50%.

Labour were so put out by their rough handling that they refused to attend the traditional drink up in the Mayor’s Parlour afterwards.

For all the apparent disharmony all councillors agreed to everything else on the agenda. They unanimously agreed to:

• ensure that the forthcoming parenting strategy is linked with the community safety strategy – Labour motion
• oppose the proposed third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow – LibDem motion
• allow council employees to retire when they were ready, not arbitrarily at 65 – Tory motion.