Category Archives: Blog

Don't risk getting AIDS

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Two events today. First is to open the Polish and Eastern European Communities Open Day in Wood Green. What a wonderful community this is too. Less high profile than some – but full of children and families all absolutely delightful. Some of the older members sang carols and then there was a reception with fantastic Eastern European food. I’ll be lucky to get to Christmas without putting on half a stone before!

The pounds piling on were then not helped by equally delicious food at the reception following the lighting of candles for World Aids Day outside Wood Green Library. The heavens opened just as the ceremony was starting – but we all stayed to show that this is an issue that we care passionately about and it needs attention.

At the reception at the Winkfield Resource Centre afterwards, I said a few words about the situation re AIDS and HIV. My visit to South Africa was one part but the other was about the appalling rate of new infections we are now experiencing in London – more than ever before. And awareness has clearly gone down.

When AIDS hit the UK, the campaigns that were run to get us all to be aware and have safe sex were headline news. Now people seem to have relaxed and be thinking it won’t happen to them. But I can assure them it will – if they don’t practise safe sex. Don’t risk it!

Any Questions?

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Off to Leek in Staffordshire for Any Questions? yesterday. What a week to be on!

You have no notice of questions for these programs – but it ain’t that hard to guess. I guessed right on Labour donors, Teddygate, Brown’s decline, Oxford Union debate – but didn’t see the question on the Diana trial.

Matthew Parris is always good value – witty and brief. Geoff Hoon (in unenviable position) defended the Labour government and Brown competently. In fact he turned the tables on Conservative MP Caroline Spelman very neatly by batting back the donor issue to asking her to defend the Midlands Industrial Council – it takes money from donors and then gives it to the Conservative Party – but by acting as a middleman, it means the donors are less open to public scrutiny than if they gave money direct to the Tories – sound familiar ?! Virtually pot and kettle.

And before any indulges in the usual nonesense about the Lib Dem donor Michael Brown – we are in the clear in terms of the Electoral Commission finding that we did all the necessary the checks correctly. And there’s never been any suggestion of him getting any favours in return for having donated to us.

Anyway – good fun discussion all round and got home at 1am!

A disaster a day keeps Labour in dismay

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Minced by Vince! Poor old Gordon Brown in Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday – from ‘Stalin to Mr Bean’ is a perfect description of the PM’s journey thus far. As one who thinks PMQs is just playtime for little boys – I have to say that ‘soundbite’ did make me smile (to my chagrin). The Labour Party woes know no end. A disaster a day keeps Labour in dismay. The faces of the Labour troops on the benches told it all. They must be devastated by such goings on. Vince and Chris Huhne have now asked the police to investigate.

Also yesterday, attended the Parliamentary launch of the report that came out of our trip to South Africa to look at business and how it is dealing with the AIDS and HIV pandemic. It is an excellent report from Business Action for Africa – so congrats to them and to SAB Miller, Anglo American and Meurk who were the key three companies involved in our trip.

The recommendations are about how to make partnerships work – as it is clear that the South African governemnt, NGOs, donors and business all need to work together to really create a proper delivery of health services to the nation.

It’s just the beginning – but it is an excellent report. John Hutton (Secretary of State) was there as we want him to use Government influence to push this agenda – and hopefully he will be a strong advocate for this – using business as a full partner.

Interestingly, and unbeknown to us, John has a brother living in Capetown and is fully au fait with all the issues around AIDS there – so undertood the issues from his own personal experience.

Why I can't wait for us to end aid to developing countries

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Traditionally every Shadow Secretary of International Development has issued the same rallying cry: give them more money. There is general agreement that the government should increase the amount of aid they give to the developing world.

Let me say that I would like to be the first to buck that trend. I cannot wait for the day when we give absolutely nothing to developing countries in aid; after all, that will be the day when we finally achieve the development goals we have set ourselves over the last fifty years.

The British government has, for decades now, been pumping resources into international development, with little tangible effect. So what has gone wrong?

For the answer, read my latest article – for Public Service Review – over on my website!

How the DNA database threatens innocent people

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I’ve written before about the dangers in the government’s rather cavalier attitude to innocent people’s DNA records – and today’s news from the Telegraph is a salutary warning that these are not just theoretical problems:

Thousands of people could be accused of a crime they did not commit as a result of errors in records on the national DNA database, it emerged last night.

In the past year, more than 100 possible inaccuracies in the documentation of DNA profiles have been discovered, and a further 1,500 administrative mistakes have been logged on the system.

The full article is over on their website.

Haringey Parks Police under threat

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It beggars belief! Labour Haringey are planning to scrap the Haringey parks Police next year. That’s going to make people feel safer using our parks – not!

In order to save £200,000 the new plans from Labour propose to reduce the scheme to using wardens – who won’t have the power of arrest. Local Haringey Lib Dems and I have launched a campaign to stop Labour from disbanding the Parks Constabulary. For the last five years they have looked after us in the parks, petrolled, watched over evens and provided a police presence – which we need if we are to feel less vulnerable and make good use of our parks.

The Parks Police play a critical role in keeping local residents safe. Sadly all too often our parks have been the scene for anti-social behaviour – and the Park Constabulary, with powers of arrest, are the key to making the parks a venue for everyone.

Who is going to be on hand to take direct action when someone is tearing through a park on a motorbike in the summer or to check that our parks aren’t being used for drug taking and prostitution in winter?

We are proposing our own way forward including proper radio, CCTV links with police, training and more cover. We have been calling for greater integration of our local police and the park team, but Labour now seem to be working away from this. It is park users who will suffer and who are going to be unnecessarily put at greater risk.

Tackling bullying in schools

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This week was anti-bullying week, so it was the subject of my column in the Ham & High:

No school should tolerate it. No bully should get away with it. No child should experience it. And yet we know it goes on day in and day out in our schools.

There were two sets of bullies in my class at secondary school. They terrorised their victims with threats and intimidation. They were ghastly girls and most of us, who were not the target, just kept clear. There was also bullying of the ‘exclusion’ variety – less obvious but just as diminishing for the victim who was left out of everything and made to feel ugly and unwanted.

Most schools now (unlike then) actually have bullying policies – and bullying is taken much more seriously now than then. But it’s still a problem we have to face up to and work against.

This week is anti-bullying week. To highlight this locally Haringey Youth Council are marching today: about 250 young people, ending the march at Spurs football ground with a series of events.

It is fantastic to have a youth organisation taking this on and taking direct action on such an important issue. Congratulations to them.

Bullying damages lives – it isn’t just about harming a child’s schoolwork. Whenever I listen to programs on bullying (sometimes the subject of a phone in on the radio) and I hear adults – sometimes in their sixties or seventies – talking about having been bullied at school, what strikes me is that the hurt has never really gone. They often cry as they talk about those long ago experiences. Those are the psychological hurts that can and do blight entire lives.

You can read the rest of the column on my website.

The man who told the truth about Robert Maxwell whilst other journalists were cowed into silence

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One of the possible perils of political blogging is that you leave a trail of words behind you – on the public record – even as events and your own views may have moved on. So it was with a little trepidation that I went back to check what I wrote about the previous Liberal Democrat leadership election.

However, reading why I said back then that Chris Huhne was the right choice, I think the words are still just as relevant this time round:

Imagine the scene. It’s a few weeks before the next general election.

Gordon Brown – now Prime Minister – is reeling off another of his lists of economic statistics. He is about to launch New Labour’s general election campaign centred – as they have all been – on their economic record.

Who as Liberal Democrat leader could match him economic fact for economic fact in the debate in Parliament? Who will persuade leading journalists during the subsequent forensic media cross-examination as regards those key pocket-book issues?

For me, the clear answer is Chris Huhne.

Chris’s record as an economist, successful businessman and senior economics journalist give him the skills and expertise to do just that.

Of course credibility is not the only thing. Important to me too are the beliefs behind Chris’s economic credibility. A strong belief in the environment – to be protected and restored by taxing the activities that damage it while using the revenues to provide alternatives such as better public transport. A commitment to social justice, most importantly by taking the poorest out of income tax all together.

Chris has the right priorities for our party, and decades of experience campaigning for them.

But Chris also showed his strength of character long before entering politics. One of his first assignments as a journalist was reporting undercover from India during Mrs Ghandi’s crisis.

Chris stood up to Robert Maxwell – continuing to report his wrongdoings despite having four libel writs outstanding. This shows a certain bravery and principle that was sorely missing from many journalists who took the easy option and turned a blind eye to Maxwell’s crimes.

Now that’s the mix of principles and toughness we need in our next leader. Yes, Nick would make a great leader – but I think Chris’s record shows he would be even better. As The Times reported of him yesterday:

A FIGHTER WHO KNOWS HOW TO CAUSE TROUBLE
He would not fall for any of our [journalist] tricks because he knows them all, and more: interviewing Mr Huhne is like circling an intense, watchful cat that seems perfectly friendly but is probably quite dangerous.

When you look at the mess Labour is making of our running our country and public services – and the way in which Cameron’s Conservatives are so often aping Labour’s policies – it’s that sort of tough fighter we need to break the cosy Labour-Conservative consensus.

Who is against extending the period people can be detained without trial?

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Jail cellWell, I’ve blogged about my scepticism over the government’s case just once or twice before! But there’s also a good list of who has spoken out against increasing the current 28 day limit – and their key quotes – over on Liberal Conspiracy.

And these opponents are no starry-eyed people with their heads in the sky – they are hardened experts such as Lord Goldsmith – former attorney general, Ken Macdonald – head of the Crown Prosecution Service and Lord Woolf, former Lord Chief Justice. Given Lord Goldsmith’s willingness to back the war in Iraq then frankly – if even he thinks there is no need to go beyond 28 days, then that should give even the most loyal of Labour backbenchers pause for thought. I hope!