I recently wrote back to local constituents who had contacted me about the Climate Change Bill. But I made a small mistake – and included Al Gore (who I have had correspondence with, but obviously isn’t a constituent!) by mistake.
Rather sweetly he wrote back to me:
Even signed by Al himself!
Unbelievable – Haringey Labour issued a press release attacking me for saying that the Litvinenko House should be cleaned of radiation.
Local neighbours are worried – and Haringey has done sweet you know what since I wrote to them way back months ago.
Apparently Nilgum Canver, a local Labour councillor, is not at all interested in getting the house situation sorted – only saying that Haringey won’t pay for it.
I’m not sure local people will exactly be pleased with a council that says it is not doing anything – not even getting a reading or survey on the levels of radiation – if the council has to pay. It’s the householder’s responsibility they say. Well – actually it’s Haringey’s responsibility. They have the keys. They are the environmental health authority in charge. Clean it – get is sorted – and then the cost if legitimately solely the householder – claim it from them.
But above all – don’t leave local people worried, living next to a house with plastic protective sheeting on it – and do nothing.
It is absolutely shameful that both the Government and Haringey want basically nothing more to do with this.
It is me who is chasing the Litvinenko lawyer to get the insurance or finance for the cleansing. It should be them! As one reporter said to me ‘The only thing Haringey have done is issue a press release’.
The lawyer said he was now awaiting instructions when I spoke to him yesterday – and that he would get back to me as soon as poss. But not thanks to Haringey Council and the Labour councillors.
Some helpful advice from the police came in – so thought it might be useful to post it here. It’s about the Personal Property Register that the Met and other police forces are encouraging people to use.
It’s at www.immobilise.com and you can use it to register your mobile phone, iPod etc. Two benefits: if the police recover stolen goods, this register makes it easier to trace the rightful owners, and – secondly – you can use the site to register the theft of devices, and this automatically adds it to the police’s records of stolen equipment. With the theft of these sorts of devices one of the big crime problems in many areas, it’s a service well worth using and promoting.
One more event from yesterday I should have mentioned (and the real highlight as far as my children are concerned) – meeting and having a photo with Claudia Winkleman. This was in aid of the Global Campaign on Education who had a seminar in the Lords yesterday. She was excellent, talking about her experiences seeing things overseas.
Today I had an hour of training on safety from London Underground as I am to visit a station at 1.30 in the morning on Saturday (or Friday night) to see how it is being improved by Tubelines for my local constituents. Let’s hope the visit is worth the hours!
The 
event of the day for me was the celebration of the ante-natal screening of all newborns for Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia. In Haringey we have quite a high incidence as it is prevalent amongst some of our communities – but it has been a Cinderella disease on the sidelines. This move on screening puts it in the mainstream.
And because I have some local connection with the George Marsh Centre and because I put down Parliamentary Questions on the diseases (and get very little info back as the government don’t bother to collate statistics for the most part on this) I was asked to sponsor this event – which means host it on the organisation’s behalf.
Hurrah! My glasses were found in the back of the car that brought me back from The Westminster Hour – thank goodness. Tuesday has been a busy, busy day and I hate it when there isn’t even breathing space between events.
To highlight the best of the bunch: met with an interesting organisation called Waging Peace about the ever-deteriorating situation in Darfur. My take is that the world is standing by and letting genocide take place. The Sudanese Government is playing us for fools and toying with us suggesting that they are on our side against Al Qaeda when really they are not. The Arab militias continue to kill rebels and the suffering is spreading into Chad and Central Africa. We need action from the EU and the UN. Sanctions, travel bans and arms embargos would be a start and for goodness sake – China is applying more pressure than we are.
I also met constituents about the mess that the changes to the way junior doctors are employed have caused. It’s a terrible tale of diving in without a clue where it will end up – and now peoples’ lives and careers are being ruined. And are they stopping it? No. This is a nightmare for those caught up in the changes. This should have been thought about, piloted and rolled out in a measured way rather than being steamrollered through across the board.
More Maxitech good works as they start teaming up with Age Concern to deliver free computers and training to our older citizens. The event to mark this is held in the Lords and really it is quite clear that Maxitech has solved the problem of big corporations like HSBC, John Lewis and British Airways (all in attendance) who want to be good and give their old computers for good causes – but need to know that the computers will be properly wiped clean and they won’t be caught by legal liability issues.
Then onto Spurs to see the launch of the Bounds Green United football team – set up and initiated by the (police) Bounds Green Safer Neighbourhood Team. Spurs are doing their community bit – hurrah – and some of the wards in the borough are getting teams together to compete. The first match will be on Tuesday. It’s a great project and I get to stand one inch from the pitch – the hallowed turf. It is a tremendous feeling. Thanks to the police Safer Neighbourhood Team – without whom this just would not have happened.
Then on to the CASCH AGM (a Crouch End residents’ association). Nice to be able to get here tonight – as Monday and Tuesday nights are usually impossible but I try to get to all local events that I can. The new Met volunteer organiser is there – and talks to the members about perhaps joining the team. It is so great to see what feels like my ‘baby’ growing up. The re-opening of the front counter at Muswell Hill police station was fantastic and the volunteers who run it are fantastic – and now it’s the second generation organiser is in place. Very rewarding. As they go on to the business of the Association, it is time for me to run as I have a radio car coming to my house at 10pm to interview me on vulture funds.
Vulture funds are these companies that feed off the debt of the third world. The High Court ruled today to cut Zambia’s debt repayments to them:
A “vulture” fund seeking more than $55m (£27.5bn) from Zambia had its wings clipped in the high court yesterday by the judge who limited its claim to $15.5m and cut its award of costs because of its “dishonesty”.
(From The Guardian)
Debt relief was a good move – and it is horrifying to think that anyone would prey on these countries and exploit a legal loophole. We need a government that takes action – not just wrings its hands ineffectually as this one is doing.
Then get a message that there is no radio car available to come to where I live – so go home to bed!
Chaired a session at the ‘Make Roads Safe’ event in Westminster early afternoon. The RAC had got me involved in this as part of a week long campaign on the issue that is part of the UN Global Road Safety Campaign.
My session was about whether Road Safety should be one of the Millennium Development Goals. Not sure whether you could actually add in new ‘goals’ – but I think the main point is that (a) it should be and (b) the goals for improving health are not achievable unless road safety in the developing world (well the whole world actually) gets proper attention.
Because road deaths tend to happen spread across numerous small incidents, they often get relatively little media coverage – and so it is easy to underestimate their volume.
One telling statistic – in the 1980s more Americans were dying each year on the roads than died in Vietnam in total, but you didn’t get nightly stories of carnage on the roads.
Road safety has – thankfully! – improved massively since then in the US. Looking round at other countries today though, road deaths around the developing world kill more people than malaria or TB for example. Stories about the fight against malaria pop up in our media, the overall story are the larger numbers being killed on the roads barely features.
The human tragedy is by far the greatest part of the problem, though – and forgive the harshness of this – it does also bring a financial burden, whether it is care for the injured or support the relatives. This all adds up to a significant financial drain on countries that are often struggling financially.
So – the importance and priority there should be on this issue seemed clear. I chaired a panel of three expert speakers who all gave excellent presentations on the costs – human and financial. All the panellists were quite clear that roads had to be built in order to develop and the situation in developing countries around the pros and cons of road building was quite different from those in a developed country like the UK. There are of course environmental costs of more roads (in terms of ending up with more vehicles and vehicle usage) and successful development requires much more than just roads – but those are issues for another day as this event was tightly focused on the question of safety.
Mark Rosenberg (one of the speakers) pointed out that if you replace a traffic light intersection with a roundabout you can reduce road accidents by something like 90% (from memory) – and switching to more roundabouts is just the sort of change that is practical in many places. Although we have loads of roundabouts in the UK, we’re pretty unusual in that regard – so who knows, perhaps UK firms will become global leaders in the roundabout field!
I asked the (very large) audience at the end if anyone disagreed with the proposition that road safety become one of the Millennium Development Goals – and to raise their hands if they did. Not a hand was raised. So I turned to the panel and said: ‘You won them over!’
You 
Transport for London would like to make it a 24 hour service, with buses running in both directions, every half hour, throughout the night.
Obviously this will benefit many people, as it will help night-shift workers to get home without having to drive, which should bring down the amount of night-time car noise and pollution. It will also help party-goers get home safely and should discourage people from drink driving.
However, the buses themselves could also cause more night-time noise and vibrations and some people on the route might be worried that their sleep could be disturbed.
Transport for London are currently consulting on the plans and I really think that local people’s concerns should be part of that. I believe that decisions are always best made at a local level, by the people who will be most closely affected.
So if you have any opinions on the scheme, positive or negative, please let me and I will pass them on to TfL. Their consultation finishes on 27 April 2007, so please get back to me before then – either by commenting below or by contacting me direct.
The Westminster Hour got quite rowdy last night. The topics were: the Labour Leadership, Lord Goldsmith (cash for peerages) and Cameron’s debacle over Greg Dyke. On Lord Goldsmith – he is in an untenable position with regard to cash for peerages being the Attorney General, a donor to the Labour party and a lord. He must not be the person who accepts or rejects the recommendations that come forward arising from the police cash-for-peerages investigation. My Liberal Democrat colleague, Lord Oakeshott, will be putting questions on this in the Lords this week.
In other news – lost my glasses – either at the BBC or in the car they sent me home in! Damn.
Thought this might be a useful point at which to update progress on my ‘Teachers Without Borders’ campaign. It’s the Liberal Democrat proposal to make education to part of the humanitarian response to disasters and crises – and something that Save the Children have put at the forefront of their campaigning this year.
Affectionately now called the ‘Ed Cross’ – as it is to some extent an education version of the Red Cross – I have had a pretty good response from people emailing in via the website.
Basically there was a real welcome for the idea. There was some debate about whether it needed teachers and teaching skills as opposed to other sorts of skills. Some concerns were raised about the importance of having sustainable solutions – and just a short burst of teaching – and also not being colonial in our approach.
I have to say that the whole idea is to form part of the humanitarian response and is about filling the gap while local services are put (back) in place with local personnel. Many like the idea of this being an international force, where member states can supply volunteers to be deployed. Some suggestions were made that it would work best via the big five NGOs, who already coordinate their own humanitarian responses well when they need to spring into action. I’ve lobbied Hilary Benn (the minister) on this and got positive responses. Also pleasantly surprised by how many teachers said they would wish to go. All in all, a very good start and more consultation with NGOs to come.
Had recorded on Friday for this morning’s GMTV program with Steve Richards. Having woken up early, I actually watched myself – which is something I do not usually do.
We ranged over local elections, the Liberal Democrats’ right to the environmental crown, Ming’s leadership and how to hold seats won against Labour at the same time as holding on and gaining when Tories are the opponents. All handled OK I thought – though why is it always after an interview that one thinks of the best things to say – the most succinct, the wittiest or whatever? In this case, I forgot to mention that in a seat like Hornsey & Wood Green, ex Labour voters who switched to me because of Iraq or PPP or tuition fees (the list is a long one!) would have no reason to suppose that Brown would be different to Blair. It was, after all, Brown who signed all the cheques and is the architect of PFI and PPP. Labour’s record over the last decade is his record too.
Lynne Featherstone 