Category Archives: Blog

Memories of my days at school

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Guest of Honour at my old school – South Hampstead High School – for a prize giving for years 7-10.

I go first to the Head’s (Ms Jenny Stephen) which is in the first classroom I was in – Upper III as I recall. That’s why I’ve never really understood which is which year these days – even for my own children – as it is different from when I was a lass!

About 400 girls, teachers and prize winners’ parents are gathered in the Hall as we, the platform party (albeit there’s no platform), walk in. The girls are all standing and sit only after we are seated. It was quite nice, actually, to be called by my surname – Ms Featherstone.

Ms Stephen gave a really excellent speech- and to my relief a balanced speech – yes exhorting academic achievement but also all the other things that make someone a proper person.

We were treated to a really lovely musical ensemble, poetry and then a presentation on issues around water. The last – extraordinarily pertinent – in terms of the real battlegrounds of future wars as water becomes scarcer and scarcer.

The speech I gave – outside of amusing anecdotes about my time at South Hampstead (of which there are many – and some I dare not tell) was really about social justice. South Hampstead is a wonderful school and the girls who go there have an advantage – and therefore a responsibility too. They must realise too that the world is hard and gritty – and that isolating and insulating yourself from the world out there is not the answer. So – I hope they enjoyed my rant. I certainly enjoyed going back.

It’s funny really – I had only gone there because my Headmistress at Highgate Primary School had told my mother that I was a clever little girl and could probably get a scholarship. My parents would never have paid for education – they didn’t really believe in it. Getting out and earning a living was important to them. However, my Head (Ms Jobson) won the day. She sat me in her office for six weeks to teach me herself the things I would need to know to take the scholarship exam. I won a scholarship – and so that is how I ended up at South Hampstead.

Memories certainly came flooding back – but they are all another story…

The art of waving

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Lynne Featherstone at the Hornsey CarnivalSaturday was Hornsey Carnival day – and myself and Mayor Alan Dobbie are transported in a white open-topped car at the front of the parade. The sun came out – and for over two hours we waived and smiled as we passed very slowly along the carnival route – behind the float carrying the Hornsey Carnival Queen and Princess.

The organisation of this annual event takes quite a lot of doing and raises money for charity. In the parade are Carnival Queens on their floats from other areas of the country who come for the occasion – just as ours go to their carnivals.

There is something very wonderful about parades. People bring their children out to watch and we wave and smile – and everyone waves and smiles back. And it is, bizarrely, a very cheering and happy feeling that works both ways. Now a veteran of waiving and smiling – I have discovered that virtually however grumpy a person walking along minding their own business is – if you catch their eye and give them a genuine smile and waive – it is almost impossible for them not to waive and smile back – even if some are a little sheepish about it.

There are a lot of people out to see the parade – and despite it being Women’s Final day at Wimbledon – the morning rain has cleared to deliver perfect sunshine for the parade.

The funniest people to wave at are the poor souls who are driving along and find themselves stopped by the police to allow the parade to pass. You can understand why they can look very grumpy – particularly if they were in a hurry. But again – as I catch their eye and smile directly at them and wave – on the whole they smile and wave back and cheer up.

Even in a population that mainly likes to keep itself to itself and is intensely private – no one can resist human relationships – and we all want to come out of our shell. When someone inanely waiving and smiling at you comes along for no reason – somehow the absurdity (at one level) breaks down the normal barriers and we respond despite ourselves. ‘Cos in the end – that’s what makes the world go round – human relationships.

Haringey's health services

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Surgery, then met new Head at Hornsey Girl’s School (what a great new head!), then had my usual meeting with David Sloman (CEO of Whittington Hospital – who assures me that my endless banging of the drum on how patients are treated in terms of care and compassion is now top of the list) and then on to Haringey’s new Sixth Form Centre to present a prize to one of the Haringey Heroes. This is an awards event for young people across Haringey who have showed exceptional talent, or caring, or leadership in their lives. For example – one was a carer’s award for children who have (on top of everything) to care for parents with disabilities. It is one of Haringey’s better efforts – and I was very happy to be there.

Thinking further about local health services – and watching Lord Darzi talk about the NHS plan – I am struck by the contrast between what he says – which is that polyclinics are about providing extra services – and what people are most worried about locally – which is that their doctor will be plucked from their current location and put in this amorphous ‘polyclinic’ further away.

It is still unclear to me – for example – whether our new local health facility (I doubt whether it will carry on being called a polyclinic) currently rising from a building site – will be only ‘additional’ as Darzi (and ministers) claim. When building is already taking place and this is still unclear, matters are far from as clear as they should be.

It is also still unclear what services will be provided on site and what say we the people actually will have. I have no doubt that the west of Haringey needs a new health facility and it is pretty difficult to get any money spent on us – as we are always in direct comparison to Tottenham where the need is obviously greater as an area of high deprivation and unemployment. However, there is plenty of need and unemployment this side too – and quite frankly – we all need and are entitled to proper health provision.

Haringey Council: 13 years behind schedule

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I think this press release pretty much speaks for itself!

Delays in Haringey Council making important decisions effecting residents’ schools, houses and key services currently total 4,937 days – or more than 13 years – it has been revealed by the Liberal Democrats.

Haringey Council’s monthly forward plan, which lists important decisions to be made by the Labour-run council in the next four months shows that only three out of sixty-three decisions will be made on time. Local Liberal Democrats have criticised Haringey Council for failing to decide on key projects and have said that residents will bear the brunt of the failure to deliver on time.

Cllr Robert Gorrie, Haringey Liberal Democrat Leader, commented:

“Haringey Labour have for forty years failed to deliver the services needed by residents in Haringey. Their history of delivering major projects late and over budget is legendary. Now we see that they can’t even manage the process of deciding what to do. Their performance is an embarrassment to the Borough.

“Decisions that would hopefully tackle major issues in Haringey have been delayed by the Council and residents will be the ones that will lose out as a result.”

Lynne Featherstone MP added:

“Haringey Council runs a lot essential services such schools, elderly care and services for people with disabilities; so no-one wants important decisions rushed. But when time and time again Labour procrastinate and dither about making choices that will have a real impact on people’s lives, it is the quality of these services that suffers.

“No organisation can function properly with such indecision at its top and sadly local residents bare the brunt.”

Top nine delays by Haringey Council (based on difference between original date and current date the decision will be made):

  1. Tree Policy and Planting programme (302 days late)

  2. Disposal of properties in NDC area (186 days late)

  3. Bull Lane/Pasteur Gardens (186 days late)

  4. Parks Asset Management Plan (150 days late)

  5. Markfield Park listed buildings refurbishment contract (136 days late)

  6. Electrical re-wiring to Winkfield Road N22 (136 days late)

  7. Accomodation Strategy (118 days late)

  8. Sports Club charges (114 Days late)

  9. Building Schools for the future (BSF) contract for John Loughborough School (100 days late)

MPs and money

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I wasn’t at the vote on MPs‘ expenses and salaries as I had to be somewhere else. But, as I have said before publicly, I will not vote on my own salary or expenses. I will vote for such things to be decided by an independent body – in just the same way as I have supported the independent pay review for nurses and teachers etc. And when the Government fails to deliver – I stick by what the independent pay board has recommended.

I think the MPs‘ system of pay and expenses is absurd. So – our pay should be set by an independent body. Our expenses – in terms of staff and office – should be set by independent body and administered by House Authorities. And no one should be able to make money out of public money by buying a house on public funds. Of course MPs have to work in both their constituency and in London, and those live too far to commute should have London accommodation – but any capital gain on a property accrued during years of service should return to the state.

What teachers are writing to me about

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Have been receiving letters from worried teachers about Big Brother! No – not the one on the television – but the fact that from September 2008, each child living in the UK will be issued with a unique number at birth which will be required to access services (schools, health visitors, housing, benefits etc).

If a family moves, the number remains “attached” to the child, so – the plan goes – children can no longer slip through the net, as in the case of Victoria Climbie.

A laudable intention, and whilst understanding the need to protect children and for agencies to have a robust mechanism whereby they can work together – not sure this isn’t baby identity cards. Anyway – needless to say – am tabling a raft of questions about this new database identifier to follow up on the letters I’ve been sent.

Ten most popular blog postings (2nd quarter, 2008)

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In traditional reverse order, here are the ten postings which have proved the most popular over the last three months:

10. The morning after the night before: the moment when it looked like Paxman might punch Johnson – one of the (few) TV highlights of the London Mayor election: Boris Johnson flounders over his bus policy.

9. The real lesson of the 10p tax rate fiasco – it wasn’t just the tax policy that was wrong, it was the whole way we do budgets.

8. What will Boris Johnson be like as Mayor of London? – no prizes for guessing the topic of that piece!

7. The London results – yes, Boris is Mayor.

6. Olympics protest – I joined the protests as the Olympic torch passed through London.

5. Crewe & Nantwich by-election: are the rules wrong? – should election campaigns really be rushed through at the convenience of the incumbent party rather than giving the public time to find out about the candidates and their policies?

4. Iris Robinson – homophobia is certainly still alive in Northern Irish politics.

3. Nine years in a squalid and infested flat – a tale of failure that should make Haringey Council ashamed.

2. David Davis and his resignation to fight a by-election.

1. What did you think of the BBC TV local elections results program on Thursday night? Not a lot by the looks of it, though given the amount of traffic to this post long after the poll has closed it’s clearly an issue still on some people’s minds!

No surprise to see the London elections features so heavily in the list – but interesting to see that several of these posts are very brief and basically just me saying what my view is on an issue of the moment. I guess people have read them either because they’ve been very timely – or perhaps because they do want to know my views on issues!

Visiting St Ann's

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Go to St Ann’s Hospital to celebrate its Lordship Ward becoming the 300th ward of the national ‘Star Wards’ project. David Lammy (MP for Tottenham) is on the visit too.

We start by meeting Marion Janner. Marion is a service user from Haringey and is a vocal campaigner and mover on the Star Wards project. This is a national project started to begin to address one of the great challenges of mental health care – that on an inpatient ward the boredom is enough to drive you to madness. It is totally counterproductive to a therapeutic outcome – and so Star Wards begins to address some of those challenges.

St Ann’s is only at the beginning of its program to generate and implement Star Wards – but judging by the enthusiasm of both staff and patients that I met this will deliver real improvement. I also visited the ‘healthy living’ part of the equation and met patient and trainer in the gym.

St Ann’s has had a difficult recent history in terms of administration at higher echelons – but as they move towards their application for ‘foundation status’ with their new Chair, Michael Fox (who I met later in the day at Parliament – coincidentally) they have hopefully moved onward and upward. And there certainly was a very positive attitude around the wards and the patients and the potential.

Two notes of discord did surface. The first was a desperate plea for me to tell the Government that they don’t want, and can’t cope with, endless new initiatives. They feel that they are barely given time to get a new directive in place and begin to embed it – before it is changed and the next headline initiative rolls in – and it’s all change, thereby never reaching a point of proper implementation and smooth running.

The second was about the service provided by the crisis centre – which deals with emergencies. The problems ranged from being answered by an answerphone (not great if you are suicidal) to being told to ‘pull yourself together’.

As I said, later in the day, I met with the new Chair of the Mental Health Trust who seems very determined to turn St Ann’s into a modern and exemplar service deliverer. There will be a need to sell around half the site to fund the new building etc. My criteria – as I told him – was about what would be provided post development, how real and thorough the consultation would be (we are sick of faux consultations) and so on. St Ann’s is not a great layout for a hospital – but it is friendly and human scale. So – we will see how all this develops over the next period.

Campaigning with Helen Duffett

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Big event of the day Sunday was – no not the footie – the Centenary of Hornsey Bowling Club. To celebrate one hundred years there was a tea and a match with the Francis Drake Bowling Club.

What a great institution this is. But as the members said – they need some new and younger blood. It is such a lovely sport – with the pure, manicured bowling green. Thank heavens I wore wedge shoes – as heels are a no no!

I only had to go on the green for the ‘spider’. This is where they place a spider on a white bowl – and then everyone stands around the edge of the green and rolls their wood to try and knock the spider off the white bowl. I didn’t get mine anywhere near – so thank goodness it’s the taking part that matters.

I talked to lots of the members who were there – and it is quite clear – that for many folk (particularly those who at this stage of their life find they are on their own) that this fulfils a really important social function. Sadly – no photos – as my batteries had run out.

Lynne Featherstone and Helen Duffett inspecting street signLater I went over to Ilford and Cranbook ward to help Lib Dem Helen Duffett campaign in a council by-election.

Given that this is virgin territory for Liberal Democrats – it was very positive on the doorstep.

And as you can see from the damaged street name sign – lots of work for to take up and run with!