Phil Taylor

Hugh Orde wrong again

Sir Hugh Orde is the relatively new chief shop steward for the police (AKA President of ACPO). In September Orde was railing against politicians wanting the police to be accountable, see here. Now he has resuscitated the idea of regionalising the Police. According to the Evening Standard today he says that police forces must merge to save money. It sounds like he is bringing back Charles Clarke’s failed attempt to regionalise policing back in 2005. It all collapsed luckily amidst claims that mergers would cost £600 million, see here. It sounds like Orde will have a hard time judging by this quote:

I have raised [mergers] with every political party and I do not detect any political will to deliver this in the foreseeable future.

Quite right. I don’t know why Orde is raising this now. There is no doubt that the police in common with all public services are going to be under financial pressure for a long time. The correct reponse to this is to look at solo patrolling, reducing police paperwork, holding down police pay, making use of cheaper staff, pooling back office functions across forces, procuring across forces and, for good measure, getting coppers out of limos. Once you have done all of that Mr Orde come back to mergers but for most people the police are distant and unaccountable enough without regional mergers thank you.

Uncategorized

Worthing daredevils

I was bought up in Worthing on the Sussex coast so I was thrilled to read about the exploits of Worthing boys Jake Scrace and Lewis Crathern who used yesterday’s stormy weather to jump over Worthing Pier on kite surfers. Stupid but magnificent. When I was their age I was doing coastal rowing based at Splash Point just east of the pier. Not quite so glamorous but equally wet and cold.

See the BBC’s video here.

Ealing and Northfield

Independent nastiness

Back in June West Ealing Neighbours (WEN) Vice Chair, Eric Leach, told us through the comments on this blog that he intended to stand as an independent candidate at the local elections due in May. At the same time he promised to announce where he was standing in September. I haven’t heard where he is standing so I guess that is his first broken promise up on the board. WEN seem quite happy to give Eric a platform on their newsletters and website. For how long I wonder?

Since the summer Eric’s public pronouncements have got more and more mean-minded. He seems particularly venomous about the Council’s plans to improve social housing in West Ealing. He opens the November newsletter from WEN with this diatribe:

Fiddling While Rome Burns?

‘National Debt stands at an unprecedented £824.8 billion (ONS*).
National Government borrowings for the first six months of this financial year to the end of September 2009 were £77.8 billion – the highest mid-year deficit in UK history (ONS*).
1 million UK homes are empty (TEHA**)
Green Man Lane Estate redevelopment by A2Dominion will cost £137 million (www.greenmanlane.co.uk).
A2Dominion is funded by National Government to the tune of £150 million/year.

HOW CAN WE ALL AFFORD TO BORROW THE MONEY TO BUILD THESE 738 NEW HOMES AND BUILD SUPPORTING SCHOOLS, HEALTH CENTRE AND POLICE STATION?

When Eric has done his homework he will find that the council is not allowed to have a current account deficit and is strictly limited by what borrowing it can do. Although the Council is heavily constrained both by the law and by its finances we don’t despair. We are actively working with social landlords to improve the social housing in West Ealing. Apparently Eric doesn’t like it. Talking about the Ealing Dean Estate on Wednesday Eric said:

Ealing Council Cabinet on 10th November 2009 agreed another chapter in its social cleansing of parts of the borough. Sherwood Close housing estate (known by the Council as Dean Gardens Estate) is to be demolished and the public land sold off to a property developer. The 209 flats (68% one bedroom) will be replaced by an increased number of bigger flats, some of which will be commercial for-sale properties. 49 of the existing flats are owned (leasehold) by residents.

Consultation so far had been very low key and confined to the existing estate tenants. The Council’s press release states that it will start consulting with local stakeholders in December 2009.

A bit of political advice for Eric: you usually ask the people affected directly first before you talk to other people about their futures. Eric’s phrase “social cleansing” seems rather unpleasant. It is hard to tie down what Eric means by it but I don’t think it conveys respect for his neighbours.

The Council is working hard to bring 1,000 high quality new homes to West Ealing, the majority of which will be socially rented, many of which will be larger family homes, and Eric is giving us earache. I can’t imagine that this is a good basis on which to stand in the West Ealing area – you need these people to vote for you. Doh!

National politics

Bad losers

Post author By Phil
Post date 13th Nov 2009
No Comments on Bad losers

This picture appeared on the Labour party home page today. Be sure that as Labour get nearer and nearer to political oblivion that they will get nastier and nastier. Playing the man will be a recurring theme. At least this is funny. Being led by a loser ain’t.

National politics

Give ’em enough rope

I promise you that the biggest news story over the next week is going to be BBC pay and expenses. In an extraordinary unforced error today the BBC published the pay and expenses of 100 of its senior staff. There is a lovely video of Konnie Huq and Caroline Thomson, Chief Operating Officer, here, discussing the disclosure. These people are so entirely out of touch that they will be surprised and hurt at how angry the public get about this issue.

The details are here. What is really eye watering is the penny pinching meanness of these idiots. Take Director General, Mark Thompson. Although he earns £664,000 per annum, with a total remuneration package of £834,000, he is still willing to claim over 60 times, pretty much every working day of the quarter covered in the report, for the odd few pence on a parking meter. I guess he got his expensive PA to do the paperwork. I suspect it cost the BBC £10-20 to process each of his claims for £1.20. What a complete and utter fool? I am speechless.

These idiots will feel the wrath of the public over the next week.

National politics

PM visits Ealing

The Prime Minister made yet another attempt this morning to set the agenda. He came to Ealing to talk about immigration. Listening to the PM programme on Radio 4 just now he managed to register the third headline after stories on dementia drugs and swine flu.

His two main proposals seem to be a review of student visas and a probationary period for new citizens.

In a speech (see here for the insomniacs amongst you) of 4,300 words you will not find the words sorry, apology or regret. Typical. Apparently this speech is designed to take ground from the BNP so that they cannot call it their own. Brown will not achieve this without acknowledging fault. It was only last month that Evening Standard journalist Andrew Neather casually let the cat out of the bag, describing how government immigration policy had been formed around 2000:

But the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural. I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.

Brown’s speech was delivered in the Nelson room of Ealing Town Hall. He used his speech to acknowledge local MP Virendra Sharma who had turned up to bathe in the reflected gloom. It was nice of him to pay a visit to the Town Hall. Last year he claimed £9,480 in allowances but only turned up to 7 of the 21 meetings he was supposed to.

National politics

Local MP playing the man

On Wednesday night I went on Petrie Hosken’s show on LBC radio. They do a political hour at 8pm on a Wednesday. I was on with Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush MP Andy Slaughter and Hornsey and Wood Green MP Lynne Featherstone.

We talked about new (and unwanted by me certainly!) powers for local councils, MPs’ expenses, the successful appeal of Baby P killer Jason Owen and routine arming of the police. All very tabloidtastic.

One of the things we will see more and more of as Labour see power slipping through their fingers is that they will get nastier and nastier. Local MP (not for long) Andy Slaughter did his bit on Wednesday. This section stood out:

… they (David Cameron and George Osborne) have never done a proper day’s work, they have never suffered in their lives, they have never had any hardship… The Tory front bench is stuffed with old Etonians.

I don’t know how losing a disabled child very young fits into this view.

I told him he was talking nonsense and so it is. Not only nonsense but in his case sheer hypocritical nonsense. He failed to mention that he himself attended elite Hammersmith public school Latymer.

Yes, the Tory front bench is stuffed full of people from good schools as is the Labour front bench. Our “bog standard comprehensives” regrettably don’t provide enough members of either cabinet or shadow cabinet. Famously Harriet Harman went to St Paul’s Girls School. Blair went to the “Scottish Eton”, etc, etc.

Of course chief Labour dodgy story teller and dividing line drawer, Gordon Brown, has previous on this issue as on so many. When he said a couple of years ago that:

I’m an ordinary guy from an ordinary school who managed to get to university

he was, typically, not telling the truth. His old school, Kirkcaldy High School describes itself as a comprehensive school today but at the time that Brown went there is was a highly selective, elite school, the equivalent of an English grammar. With a history going back to 1582 Kirkcaldy had a public school ethos complete with a house system and rugby matches against old boys (which is how Brown had his sight damaged).

Expect to hear much more of this rubbish from Labour in the next few months.

Customer Services

Customer Services slow this lunchtime

Post author By Phil
Post date 30th Oct 2009
2 Comments on Customer Services slow this lunchtime

If you click on the Customer Services category link on the right hand menu you will see that I regularly check the performance of our Customer Services organisation.

I did one of my mystery shops this lunchtime. It was perhaps predictable that lunchtime at month end and week end would be a bit slow.

I arrived at 12.10pm. There were 6 or 7 people waiting for the meeters and greeters but it only took a minute to get past them so I got in the queue at 12.11pm. Inside there were about 50 people waiting which is quite busy compared to previous visits. There were two cash office windows open with two customers being served and no-one waiting. The perking permit queue (I always put myself in this queue) was 6 people but it went up to 10 whilst I was there.

I was seen at 12.34pm so had a wait of 23 minutes. Long but in no way hideous considering it was three times over a bad time to visit. There were 5 staff covering parking with two off for their lunch break.

On my way out I used the loo. It was totally acceptable. Certainly as good as or better than the typical work place loos I have ever used. Certainly better than most pub/restaurant loos.

If you want to avoid the queues try paying PCNs, buying permits and vouchers online here. I just ordered some vouchers. Very easy. I am afraid I have had cause to pay a few tickets on line recently. Again, very easy.

Update: My vouchers arrived Wednesday morning (4th November). Less than three working days. Not bad.

Ealing and Northfield

Swimming in Northolt

Yesterday I popped up to Greenwood Primary School in Northolt to see the temporary pool we have been enjoying this term and welcome Boris. As a part of a London Mayor sponsored scheme called Make a Splash Greenwood primary school has been hosting a small temporary swimming pool in one of their halls. This is the first temporary pool delivered by this scheme and hopefully we will have another one back in the borough soon. This scheme is genius as it uses a tiny pool with the kind of plant you get in a home pool to get kids swimming. Something like 1,000 kids have already used the Greenwood pool so we can be sure that the new Northolt pool will have lots of new customers when it opens in January.

Thanks to MWB Business Exchange, the contemporary, serviced and flexible office space people, who have sponsored this programme. I chatted to their CEO, John Spencer, who was really enjoying seeing the programme in action. Commissioner for Sport Kate Hoey came across very well when we had a chance to say hello. Boris remembered me as a blogger but called me Paul. I am terrible with names so I don’t hold it against him. Local MP Steven Pound was there trying to look cheerful surrounded by lots of Tories and giving out his communications allowance pens.

Hats off to head Jim Britzman without whom nothing would have happened. Back in May I went with a group of officers from Active Ealing and the guys from Ealing Swimming Club to look at a similar pool at a primary school in Barnet. Again there the willingness of the headteacher and staff is what made the scheme fly. Once we saw what could be achieved we were determined to elbow our way to the front of the queue to get one of the first of these pools for Ealing. Thanks to Jim and Greenwood we succeeded.

Ealing and Northfield

Gunnersbury Park is not going to be built on (like it ever was)

Post author By Phil
Post date 23rd Oct 2009
2 Comments on Gunnersbury Park is not going to be built on (like it ever was)

Ealing Conservatives issued the following press release on Tuesday but true to form none of the local papers or websites want to publish the very boring story that Ealing Conservatives have always said we will not build on Gunnersbury Park. They didn’t want to mention this in April. They didn’t want to mention this in September. They don’t want to mention it now.

There is always a tendency to want to avoid responding to people stirring it lest you fan the flames. But, it seems that Labour, the LibDems and the Greens think that this is a good stick to beat the Tories with and don’t want to let the record get in the way of a good leaflet either.

CONSERVATIVES PLEDGE NO DEVELOPMENT ON GUNNERSBURY PARK

Ealing Conservatives this week welcomed the proposals for Gunnersbury Park that are outlined in the recent options appraisal and consultation. The same document proposed using the sale of land along Lionel Road as a means to fund these proposals. Such a sale is against previously stated Council policy, and Ealing Conservatives are happy to restate that any such residential development in Gunnersbury Park or any other Ealing park is not acceptable to this administration.

Councillor Phil Taylor, Portfolio holder for Customer and Community Services, said:

“Our Council has consistently said that it would not support residential development in Gunnersbury Park, or any other park in the Borough.

“Although it has caused some upset it was essential that the question was raised in the recent consultation questionnaire. The kind of enabling development outlined would be acceptable to funding bodies such as English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund. We can now negotiate with these bodies with the clear understanding that such enabling development is unacceptable to the public as well as this council.

“This administration has worked hard to fix Gunnersbury Park since it was elected. Very soon after we came into power we set up the Gunnersbury regeneration board jointly with Hounslow which has moved at a good pace to produce a conservation management plan and an options appraisal for the park. The recent consultation will allow us to gauge the public’s response to proposals for the park.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. Statement of Phil Taylor in council press release 1471 issued 11th April 2009:

“The concept of enabling development is extremely unattractive to our borough to the point of being unacceptable.”

http://www.ealing.gov.uk/press_releases/2009/april/pr1417.html

2. The following statement was issued to the Ealing & Acton Gazette on 8th September:

“As we have previously made clear there are no plans to develop the Gunnersbury Park and it is not the Council’s policy to allow development there.”

3. In the same month the following statement was issued to the Ealing & Acton Gazette on behalf of Phil Taylor:

“It is not the Council’s policy to allow development on Gunnersbury Park. The regeneration board is entitled to look at and discuss various options about how to regenerate the park but it will be the Council, in conjunction with our counterparts in Hounslow, who will make the final decisions on these issues.”