Phil Taylor

Our main local paper, the Ealing & Acton Gazette, needs to sharpen up its act a bit.

On page 4 of today’s issue they manage to use the names of one of the new Conservative councillors and his running mate on a caption under a photo of two musicians. Obviously, Conservative candidates are multi-talented but there is a limit.

On pages 6 and 7 they cover last week’s local election. Apparently ex-mayor Potts is now called Tan rather Ian. The three Conservative councillors in Northfield, including me, have crossed the floor according to the Gazette and gone over to Labour.

Journalist Lucy Proctor perhaps betrays her own political allegiances. In the piece covering the LibDem performance she fails to convey the information that they lost a councillor.

The Evening Standard last night printed figures (see Parking Account 2004-5.xls) from the Department of Transport giving financial performance of councils in respect of their parking accounts. They are not supposed to make a profit on these but their surpluses are available for use in road and safety improvement schemes. Ealing was ranked a rather pathetic 29 out of 33 in the 2004/5 financial year. Apparently they took £15.1 million and left a surplus of £886,000. You might think that it is not good to make surpluses but think on.

£15.1 million is the equivalent of 377,500 £40 tickets. In other words 377,500 of our residents and visitors have had that moment of teeth grinding fury when you realise that the parking attendants have got you. They cannot console themselves that at least all the road safety schemes we need in the Borough are well funded because Parking Services have spent it all on their workforce and can only come up with a surplus of £866,000.

In business language Ealing’s margin is only 6%. 24 councils manage a margin of 20% or more with Kensington & Chelsea ranked first with a margin of 61%.

According to Ealing Times “The Conservatives have stormed to victory in the local council elections wrenching control away from Labour.” See their coverage.

Although it was a great night nationally for the Conservatives, it was a stunning night for Ealing Conservatives. We won an overall majority on the council, taking 37 out of 69 seats, an additional 20 seats. One of those who lost seats was the Labour leader Leonora Thomson.

In Northfield our hard work was transformed into a winning margin of 890 each on average. The count was a new experience for me. It was very friendly and civil. It is a shame that more people who are cynical about politics cannot see how local politicians behave close up when they are tired after a long day and the stress of the build up. All candidates seemed very fair-minded and respectful of the verdict of voters. In particular our Labour opponents handled themselves with great dignity in spite of being rejected by the voters.

I left after the Northfield declaration as my wife needed to get to bed in order to be fit for work today so I missed the excitement of the rest of the evening. It is not quite the same hearing about it through the media.

The Conservative group of councillors will be meeting tonight to start to implement our programme for Ealing.

It is a naff phrase but we call it knocking up. The process of getting your vote out. Not many voters know how the politicos work. Canvassing is the process of asking people how they will vote and recording their responses. In passing you may chat to voters about the issues, try to get your point across and listen to their issues but the bottom line is you want to find out how they will vote. The canvas returns tell you who your “pledges” are, ie those people who have promised to vote for you. Having canvassed for a week or two before the elections you spend election day knocking up. In other words you go round all your pledges and remind them to get to the polls. Our team of four started at 8.30am and went through to 7.30pm with a short break for a late lunch at the Plough in Northfields Avenue.

Most of the pledges I talked to had voted or intended to vote. Some women were waiting for the their husbands to come home before they went together. One lady was organising a BBQ so it looked like she would not get out. I met one family coming out the door for an evening stroll to the polls. A few people did not realise you get three votes, one for each councillor vacancy. One Polish guy I talked to was worried about having made a tick rather than a cross – that is fine as long as your intentions are clear. He also pointed out that he had only ticked one box. Uh oh! Two wasted votes.

My opposite number in the Labour group, Simon Woodroofe, and I are both a little worried about being low in the alphabet. We have one odd Green standing so if too many people vote one Green and two Tory or Labour we might drop off the bottom. Doubt it though. I have only met a very small number of female Green voters. No men.

I met two of the Labour group mid afternoon. It looked like they were just starting. Too late guys. My prediction is that Northfield will be Conservative tomorrow.

The Evening Standard last night published a political map of London showing how Labour could suffer in London today. Using new figures from Tony Travers of the LSE they painted Ealing blue and suggested that the Conservatives would have 15 London councils, a gain of 7 over today’s number.

As a candidate for Ealing council I have been trying to find out what the current councillors do beyond their council duties and Googling them all. Too many councillors seem to be satisfied just to just be councillors as the only urls that come up are Ealing council or Operation Black Vote or other directories of councillors. A few have made enough impact in their work life that their names come up at work sites and a few more have been active in the Association of London Government or the Local Government Association and a few references come up that way. A few, especially ex-mayors, come up in the papers, especially Ealing Times.

It is hard to find out much about the councillors themselves. Beyond the Councillors’ declaration of interest page of the council’s website there is little out there and essentially no councillor has an active website of their own. I am not saying that every councillor needs to be a nerdy blogger who is feverishly posting inane chit-chat on a blog everyday. On the other hand it might be useful to have a few words of background, an idea of what they do for a job and how much time they devote to the council. It is all very well knowing what committees people serve on but we should also be able to find out what their individual priorities are and what they are campaigning on.

No opposition councillors have any kind of web pages. The Labour Acton Central councillors shared a blog that has not been updated since November. Similarly, the Labour Elthorne councillors shared a blog that has not been updated since December. Labour Councillor Philip Portwood has his own blog but again has been quiet since February, perhaps since he had some IT problems with his council supplied PC. Finally Labour Councillor Gurcharan Singh, and apparent contender for Labour leadership after the elections, has his me, me, me photo site.