Category: Ealing and Northfield

The Ealing Times is reporting on the new cabinet, see here. This information was published on the Ealing Council website. Like most things on the website it is a bit obscure but it is there! Follow this link to see one of the papers for the Annual Council meeting next Tuesday.

The Annual Council is a short formal meeting which marks the start of the municipal year, sees the election of a new mayor and deputy and ratifies the council leader’s choice of cabinet. He has asked me to take on a new portfolio called Customer and Community Services. This incorporates most areas of the council where we deal with the general public, everything from the help desk to libraries.

Today the Healthcare Commission has published various summaries of its latest patient satisfaction survey, see BBC coverage here and Ealing Times. Amongst this wave of numbers is a report detailing Ealing Hospital Trust’s performance, as judged by its own patients, follow link.

According to the BBC Ealing is amongst the worst ten hospital trusts in the country. The Ealing report makes pretty poor reading. In 44 out of 62 questions Ealing was in the lowest 20% of NHS trusts. It was at the bottom of the class in the following seven areas:

• Did you have confidence in the nurses treating you?
• Did a member of staff explain the risks and benefits of the operation or procedure?
• Did a member of staff answer your questions about the operation or procedure?
• On leaving hospital, did hospital staff tell you who to contact if you were worried about your condition?
• Did you feel you were treated with respect and dignity while you were in the hospital?
• How would you rate how well the doctors and nurses worked together?
• Overall, how would you rate the care you received?

Last month I jokingly drew comparisons between Ealing’s food re-cycling scheme and the Charlton Heston sci-fi flick Soylent Green.

BBC TV coverage yesterday seems to indicate that there is nothing sinister happening at Biogen although they might want to think about their name, sounds like something from another bad sci-fi movie.

Click through for pictures of ECT collecting food and lush crops and electricity being generated from it.

Richard Barnes increased his personal vote by 65%. From 45,230 to 74,710. Congratulations Richard. Here is a photo I took of Richard this afternoon when he was already pretty confident of keeping his seat.

Alongside yesterday’s mayoral election Ealing held a by-election for the Greenford Broadway ward where ex-Labour group leader Sonika Nirwal resigned due to the the birth of her second child.

The ruling Conservative group on Ealing council increased its majority by 2 today when Maureen Crosby was elected. It was a really close result:

Maureen Crosby, Conservative 1790
Tim Murtagh, Labour 1770
John Maycock, Lib Dem 529

20 votes! Still not as close as 2006. In May 2006 the current Conservative candidate Maureen Crosby was only beaten 1408 to 1400 votes by Sonika.

Apparently 4,180 people voted, a total turnout of 38.24%. Pretty disappointing considering it was a closely fought mayoral campaign plus a by-election.

Ealing Council now has 43 Conservatives, 23 Labour and 3 Liberal Democrats.

Our MP raised himself to speak in Parliament yesterday, asking a patsy question at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Given that crime in London has fallen in recent years, does my right Hon. Friend think that it is now time to cut neighbourhood policing teams?

The mendacious Brown used it as an opportunity to continue his police cuts slur against Boris.

Neighbourhood policing has been so successful in London that it is now used in all parts of England. The reason that crime has come down is that there is a visible police presence in these areas and local people are in touch with their local police forces. That is why, under the current Mayor of London, crime has fallen by 15 per cent. and there are 6,000 more police officers and 4,000 more community support officers. The one thing that would put the policing of London at risk is the election of a Conservative Mayor.

This was only the fourth time that Sharma has spoken in the Commons since he was elected in July and the first time in almost six months. It seems that both at Ealing council and at the Commons he thinks an appearance about once every six months is a reasonable work rate for an elderly man with two jobs.

I acknowledge TheyworkForYou.com as the source for the Parliamentary stats – great job, again.

Council leader Jason Stacey has today roundly swatted Labour Hobbayne councillor Phil Greenhead for issuing a press release that has been exposed as a load of twaddle. The press release issued on the 23rd April by the Labour Group on behalf of Cllr Greenhead stated that:

The Conservative Leader of Ealing Council, Jason Stacey, has been referred to Ealing Council’s Standards Committee.

Apparently, no such referral has taken place and no formal complaint has been made to the Council’s Monitoring Officer. The Labour press release also claims that the matter would now be considered by the Council’s Standards Committee. In reality no formal referral or complaint has been made. In response Stacey said:

Why would Cllr Greenhead issue a statement on the 23rd April saying I have been referred to the Council’s Standards Committee when this is not true? When challenged on this the following day by a journalist she attempted to change the thrust of her story by claiming that she was actually seeking advice. This is very different and certainly not what she said the day before.

In the past couple of days Cllr Greenhead has thrown a lot of loose words around without any attempt to back them up. She has accused me of lying but is unable to say how. Cllr Greenhead should be careful before she throws around false and defamatory accusations.

You may have seen the stories in Ealing Times here and here.

The Gazette today talked about 30 Hanwell lamppost protestors outside the council meeting on Tuesday but their photo only showed 22 people. Experience shows that photographers of such groups do their best to get everyone in so it is usually useful to judge such “crowds” by the number you can count in the photo. These guys say they are apolitical and I have no reason to doubt them but they have been wound up by someone and Labour activist Lauren Wall appears in their group photos and Cllr Greenhead is visibly making mischief. The way this issue might have been amicably settled some time ago would have been for Cllr Greenhead to make representations to Cllr Stacey not try to make a point after this issue had been discussed at length. It sounds like Greenhead was asleep and is trying to make it look like she can “add some value” at this late stage. Stirring it more like.

A little bird tells me that our MP made the Three Line Whip blog run by the Telegraph on Saturday. Could it have been the same little bird that pointed Jonathan Isaby at my blog?

According to Isaby:

Ealing Southall by-election winner, Virendra Sharma, has remained on Ealing council since entering Parliament last July, but until last week, the last time he’d shown his face at a meeting was in October.

Had he not rolled up at the most recent Education Scrutiny Panel, he would have faced ejection from the council for six months’ non-attendance — but he’s still claiming the £9,000 annual councillors’ allowance.

“He does plan to get to more meetings in the future, but if anything the many constituents who contact him get a better service because he is an MP as well as a councillor,” insisted his spokesman.

The spokesman will be Cllr Bell I guess.

Sharma didn’t make it to the council meeting on Tuesday and tonight the loquacious Cllr Bagha substituted for Sharma – returning the favour as it was Bagha that stood to one side to allow Sharma to collect his £4,500 cheque earlier this month, see previous posting.

Sorry for the lack of posts over the weekend – I have been busy with the election.

I spent an hour before lunch today leafleting Murray Road. I chatted to a chap at the east end of Murray Road who wanted to write to council leader Jason Stacey to tell him how much he appreciated how the council had been able to get things done on his street. He liked our recycling initiatives and pointed to a new street tree outside his house. I talked to three or four residents on my way. My line was: “If you are happy with Jason Stacey’s Ealing, you’ll be happy with Boris Johnson’s London”.

As I finished off there was a street cleaner energetically using a narrow brush to sweep between parked cars. Just as I got to Junction Road one of the Safer Neighbourhood team went by on his bike. It’s all simple stuff but its what people want. Ealing works.