Category: Ealing and Northfield

I got a letter today from Darra Singh, the unelected Chief Executive of Ealing Council. Of course I was not the only one. He was writing to all councillors and candidates. He was wanting to get in our diaries, assuming we are elected on May 4th.

On May 6th he wants 3 hours to take our photos, get our details on the pay roll and sort out whatever electronic toys we might need. He is then proposing to take up 6 evenings over the next two weeks on briefing the new councillors on the council’s services and internal organisation.

In the event I am elected I don’t want to devote this much time to being told what to think by the council’s officers. I want to spend as much time as possible working out how we are going to implement our programme and telling the officers what is expected from them.

Or have I got this whole election thing back to front?

The London Communications Agency, a PR agency specialising in London based clients, has got together with Tony Travers of LSE to produce a set of predictions for the outcome of the local elections in London. For Ealing they predict:

“Lab is likely to hold Ealing though they will be squeezed by David Cameron’s impact and more responsive local Cons.”

As one of the “more responsive local Cons” I think we will do more than squeeze given Labour’s poor record of achievement in the last couple of years. I don’t think LCA and Tony Travers are fully au fait with the Audit Commission fiasco, the paying off of our last Chief Executive, the Response programme and the 2nd biggest rise in council tax across all London to name just a few.

Although the current Labour council has had 12 years to improve services it seems it is waiting until a few weeks before the election to announce service improvements:

• 3rd April Garden waste recycling cheaper and easier for library users
• 28th March More residents to benefit from food waste recycling scheme
• 22nd March Ealing Council doubles benefits to residents in one year
• 21st March Refurbishment to revitalise Central Library
• 8th March Council budget gives huge cash boost to beat envirocrime

Many of these stories are repeated in the £457,000 a year Around Ealing that arrived on my mat this week. It seems that to fill up the space in their little mag they are going to print a two page list of councillors and MPs every month for 12 months a year.

It appears that Labour’s Ealing councillors are so bad they have had to retire over a third of them. Analysing the candidates list for Ealing this morning it looks as if fully 18 out of 48 Labour councillors will not be standing again. The equivalent numbers for the LibDems are 1 out of 4 and for the Conservatives 2 out of 17. Being a councillor is a heavy responsibility and people cannot keep doing the job forever but clearly Labour feel the need to have a big spring clean.

All three major parties have fielded full slates in all Ealing’s 23 wards.

It appears that the Green Party has gone for an “odd Green” strategy (see previous posting).

Respect have fielded three candidates, all in Southall Green where we can expect them to concentrate.

There is only one UKIP candidate in all Ealing, in Southfield.

There are very few other candidates. In Acton Central there is an Independent and a Christian Peoples’ Alliance. Two more Independents, one each in Greenford Green and North Greenford. Another Christian Peoples’ Alliance in Perivale.

Looking at the list of candidates published in this morning’s Ealing & Acton Gazette it appears that the Green Party has gone for an “odd Green” strategy. They have fielded 13 candidates. On the whole they have placed just one candidate per ward, ie the odd Green. The only exception to this rule is the Walpole ward where they have produced a full slate of three candidates. I guess we can assume that we will see a concentration of Green efforts on this relatively comfortable central Ealing ward in the forthcoming local elections oin 4th May.

I inlcuded Labour Councillor Philip Portwood, representing East Acton, in the links section (Blogroll) of my blog as I thought that he might be a useful source of local information. Unfortunately, Councillor Portwood seems to be a bit of a lazy blogger. After a good January he has only blogged once since the end of January.

You are standing again Councillor Portwood. Tell us something otherwise you will have to go.

Tony Blair launched Labour’s local election campaign today by making three main points, the first of which was: “… the average council tax in the country is lower under Labour than under the Liberal Democrat or Conservative authorities.” This statement expands on a pretty bizarre press release from Phil Woolas the local government minister. The way they come up with this guff is by failing to compare apples with apples. Labour has more appeal amongst lower income communities who live in smaller, lower banded homes. The other parties appeal to middle and higher income groups that live in larger homes. So Labour is comparing someone who lives in a small home with someone who lives in a large home and claiming that they pay less.

In London the picture is the reverse of Labour’s specious claims if you only look at apples. The average band D council tax this year will be £1,218. The average Conservative borough’s tax is £1,147. The average Labour borough’s tax is £1,274. Of course Ealing is much worse than even the Labour average at £1,309.

Knocking on doors around Northfield over the last few months it has become apparent that the council is woefully out of touch. It is not hard to see why when you start to explore the backgrounds of the councillors who make up the dominant Labour group on the council. The councillors’ declaration of interest page on the council’s website is pretty informative in this respect. There were 48 Labour councillors out of 69 until two recently became independent! Of the remaining 46 fully 14 work for the government in its various guises.

Eight of our Labour councillors work in local government. In the Northfield ward two out of three Labour councillors work for other councils. It must be hard for councillors to represent the views of residents when their mindset must naturally favour the producer interest rather than that of the resident.

Two Labour councillors are paid by the government to support local Labour MPs – Councillor Julian Bell works for Piara Khabra and Councillor Bassam Mahfouz works for Stephen Pound.

Councillor Lawrence Evans works for the Health and Safety Executive so I imagine that he is not the world’s greatest slasher of red tape.

Councillor Jill Stokoe works for the QCA, effectively a part of the Department for Education and Skills that oversees our grade inflated examination system. She probably does not see anything odd about the money spent on Perceval House. She goes to work at government offices at Piccadilly every day (see location map). QCA have a great view of Green Park.

Councillor Stephen Sears is an interesting case. He does not work for the government. Apparently he manages to maintain his impartiality whilst being the Chief Executive of a company that has a number of large contracts with the borough. According the Guardian he is an ex-councillor so maybe it is not an issue any more!