Monthly Archives: Jun 2008

Labour abuses non-partisan meeting on gun and knife crime

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Amongst various meetings, briefings etc yesterday I popped into the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Guns, Gangs and Knife Crime. Massive meeting with lots and lots of young people – excellent!

The APPG is chaired by Dawn Butler – a Labour MP. I could only stay for half and hour – and Vernon Coker (the Labour Minister) certainly made a decent speech. Various members of the audience contributed too – in the usual way.

But looking around the audience I noticed they all had a printed piece of literature in front of them – pinky purple in colour. Clearly it had been distributed to them – but then I realised what it was – it was Labour Party literature (their pamphlet for young people) including a request to join the Labour Party.

Well – this is a no no! APPGs are just that – non-partisan – but you can’t get much more partisan than handing out leaflets praising one party! Indeed, it is strictly against the rules to distribute party literature. The Conservative member of the panel is writing to the Speaker and when I spoke to him later that night in Parliament he said that there were three other serious transgressions which he would also report. I had also reported it to our Chief Whip to take further.

Just before the meeting I met a very genuine and successful peace campaigner who works tirelessly with young people – but who was leaving rather than going to the meeting. I asked why he was leaving and he said because he couldn’t sit through another one of those meetings where people just talk – not again.

I still think these type of meetings are worth having – even if they are mostly talk – as they engage quite a lot of young people and the more people we can engage the better. But it’s just not on to use young people as Labour fodder. And that is what the whole thing looked like to me. Anyway – I’m going to meet up on my own with this peace campaigner to see about action not words!

Extending Oyster: one person persuaded!

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Keith Flett kindly wrote in the local newspaper about my push to get Oyster more widely accepted on train services:

Full marks to Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, for raising the issue of pay as you go Oyster Card use on rail networks in Haringey. At the moment they can’t be used on the line from Finsbury Park through to Hornsey and beyond, although the train operator First Group seems to be happy for this to take place on its services out of Paddington.

Meanwhile on the other side of the borough, recent changes means that Oyster can be used on services out of Liverpool Street to stations in Hackney which includes Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale, but not beyond.

How visitors and tourists make sense of this glorious mess one can only wonder.
– Keith Flett, Mitchley Road, N17.

Now that I've read Cherie Blair's book…

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Over the last week I’ve read Cherie Blair’s autobiography. This follows on from my appearance on Radio 4’s Any Questions? where it came up and I defended the idea of her having written it – saying that everyone should be able to have their say, especially someone like her who has been on the receiving end of judgements from so many other people over the years without really being able to answer back.

But she’s lucky I didn’t read it before I went on air – because having read it – what a dreadful book it is! I mean it’s not dreadful in the sense that the English is awful – or that Cherie doesn’t take us through her life. But she says nothing of real interest.

It’s an I went here, went there, did that sort of autobiography with a smidgen of resigned saint attitude to the unfairnesses done to her.

She was at the heart of ten years of British Government married to the Prime Minister – and it leaves out any of the real, real tensions and pressures of that decade. Sure it covers the Iraq war and says how difficult it was for Tony – but it says nothing real. If you’ve not got much to say – then don’t write a full book! What a let down.

The problems with Gordon Brown's article on detention without trial

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So – Gordon Brown flows over many column inches in The Times today defending his insistence on introducing 42 days detention without charge.

He holds forth in fulsome manner over the ‘compromises’, the judicial oversight, the need to come to Parliament for a vote if time beyond 28 days is necessary etc. There’s much to disagree with on the grounds which he chooses to argue – such as how meaningful will Parliamentary oversight really be if we’re all asked to vote suddenly after a new terror horror or scare? Those are just the circumstances in which you get rushed judgements, faulty information (think how often the initial media reports get major things wrong when there is a terrorist incident) and bad or blind decision making.

But what’s really striking is what’s missing from his piece. All those column inches today and not one single example of an instance where more than 28 days was needed. Not one example of where something went wrong because the 28 day limit was reached. Not one example of where something nearly went wrong until a a lucky break just before the 28 day limit was reached. Just not one example to back up his case. That gives it all away.

Instead, he tries to scare us with stories – about the thousands of hours of work now needed to sort through many aliases, many computers, many countries. And yet – no word about employing more people or more computers instead to speed up investigations

When you’re proposing to curtail our liberties – to say it’s OK for innocent people (because yes, many people arrested do turn out to be innocent) to be locked up for long periods – you really do need to make a careful case, with evidence and examples and explaining why the alternatives aren’t sufficient. Do that – and I’m all ears. Failed to do that – and no, I’m not persuaded.

Post Office closures: Labour admits they're making profits

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Watching Labour minister Pat McFadden on TV yesterday (Andrew Marr show) state what we have all been screaming – that even profitable sub-Post Offices are being closed in the relentless decimation of local public services.

I’ve always argued that you can’t judge local public services simply on the basis of direct cash profit and loss – there are indirect costs and benefits too, and many of the benefits are not cash but in other forms. But it really takes the biscuit to be told that even Post Offices that are making a profit on a narrow cash basis are being closed!

For those that aren’t making a direct cash profit – with an open mind and a bit of determination it is not beyond the wit of man to make more of them profitable by introducing other services.

In Highgate, for example, the Highgate Society did a cost / benefit analysis. They obtained from the Post Office the proposed savings from closing that outlet.

And what did they find? Savings from central services around £25,000. Cost to local people in terms of extra time taken to go to further away Post Office alternatives – around £300,000.

So – the cost is to us and the benefit is to the Post Office. Did the Government not think that some of us think the £150 million ‘subsidy’ was actually a subsidy worth paying until more services could be brought in to up the profit of each branch? They are certainly happy enough to throw zillions at useless things like ID cards.

Also – there are fifty councils looking to try and help Post Offices stay open by putting council services through them. I attacked George Meehan (Labour leader of Haringey Council) when I did my surgery from our threatened Salisbury Road Post Office on this – and he promised to look into it. I have, since written to him to ask same. No reply as yet.

You should be able to use Oyster on trains north of Finsbury Park

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Extending the use of Oyster to First Capital Connect’s overground train services running north out of Finsbury Park is the subject of my latest local column:

To us public transport users in London it seems as plain as the nose on our faces that Oyster should be extended to our local overground rail (and everywhere actually) – so we can go boldly and easily wherever we choose! But no – we still have to put up with a two-tier ticket system if we want to use our local overground stations like Alexandra Palace and Haringey.

We are stalled because First Capital Connect are holding back from extending Oyster north of Finsbury Park station. Having to get separate tickets to travel in the same city is akin to Soviet-style bureaucracy – not what you expect in a world-class city like London.

These days we’re no long train travellers but customers – but whatever then happened to putting the customer first? This sort of bureaucratic small mindedness does rather make a mockery of their slogan, “Your Journey, Your Choice, Your Railway” – but not “Your Convenience” or “Your choice of ticketing” it would seem.

Other train operators like First Great Western and South West Trains have already committed to making their passengers happy and will install the Oyster pay-as-you-go system in the next year – and they are putting First Capital Connect to shame.

Recently I met with the Oyster specialists Cubic – who delivered Oyster for our tubes and buses – at Alexandra Palace overground station and they are keen as mustard to get on with it. So I’ve written to First Capital Connect calling on them to get on with it – and you can too at Freepost RRBR–REEJ–KTKY, First Capital Connect, Customer Relations Department, PO Box 443, Plymouth, PL4 6WP.

But before you do – you can read the rest of the piece here.