Briefed on local elections as will be covering one of the BBC slots on results shows for Thursday’s elections. Now there are some folk in each party who can name every constituency in the country and give you the general and local election results there since the dawn of time. However, I’m not one of them! Which means I have to study and retain what any particular result will mean for the prospects up or down for each of the parties.

Being that we (Lib Dems) started with such great results four years ago in the national local elections for England and Wales and it’s more or less the same seats up again – we have a high base to start from. Labour are expecting a mid-term bashing and the Tories have to gain a lot of seats for Dave C to hold his head up high!

‘One Community, Many Voices’ was the apt title of the conference organised by JAN (Joint Association of Nissa Trusts) on community cohesion. As one of the keynote speakers I was delighted to hold forth on this subject as it is so fundamental to making life work for the multitude of communities that choose to make Haringey their home.

It was also about tackling extremism and eradicating radicalisation of young Muslims. On my way to the conference, I heard on the radio that new figures showed a 300% rise in race crimes in the last few years – so the need for social cohesion, vigilance and non-stop, day in day out work is vital. Overall, we do pretty well in many respects on these issues in Haringey – and after 7/7 there was not one single race incident in Haringey and because so much work has been done by the politicians, the council, the Race Equality Council, The Peace Alliance, The Faith Forums, JAN Trust itself and the many organisation who work to ensure that no community is isolated.

With new communities arriving, we need to ensure that our history of funding separateness (with the best of intentions) is now mutated to fund togetherness. There is lots of good work going on. And our local police team is a great bonus in that they are so engaged with the community. For example the Police Amateur Boxing Club is doing outreach with Muslim boys from the Wightman Road mosque.

And we are blessed with our local mosque and the elders who reach out and invite the local community in.

Anyway – JAN Trust itself does brilliant work with women from a number of different ethnic backgrounds – helping them access public services, teaching English, IT and sewing skills and giving advice on jobs and careers. Rafat Mughal, who started it and has run it for 17 years, is the driving force – nagging, begging, cajoling and pleading for funding to keep this important pathway for women into the world.

Congrats to all!

I blogged previously about the Amnesty / Southall Black Sisters report into the plight of refugee women and illegal immigrants who are victims of domestic violence but who are trapped in abusive situations because benefits rules prevent them running away – a classic and tragic case of bureaucratic rules gone wrong.

Well – this week Southall Black Sisters held a protest at Parliament:

Hundreds of women protested outside Parliament today to bring attention to the immigration law that provides “no safety net to vulnerable women”.

Southall Black Sisters, human rights groups and other organisations from around the country began the day with a silent protest outside Portcullis House wearing masks and black clothes to expose the injustice of women who are turned away from their local authority because of the no recourse to funds requirement.

The demonstration follows a series of reports on the rule that prevents women who have travelled to the UK legally, with a work, spousal or student visa, from accessing state benefits or social housing if they experience violence or abuse by their partners…

Hornsey and Wood Green MP, Lynne Featherstone, of the Liberal Democrats, said: “With no real or secure support from the Government, these women face a bleak choice between destitution or continued dependence on their abuser. The devil and the deep blue sea doesn’t quite describe what a grim choice this is.”

The nice folks over at Sky have added me to their blog roll over on http://blogs.news.sky.com/skynewscom – particularly good of them as they’d just asked me to appear and I wasn’t able to make it. I do like their best of the (often quirky) web stories round-ups – whether or not they’ve got me in to talk about them! The latest collection is here.