Category Archives: Blog

Two new sports playgrounds in Highgate

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Visited my old primary school in Highgate on Friday to ‘open’ two new sports playgrounds. All the children came into the hall and then the dignitaries (Lianne Sanderson / Arsenal Ladies and England footballer), Anthony the amazing Deputy Head, Jill (the Head), Justine (parent governor) and a gentleman who had been Anthony’s right-hand man throughout the project (sorry, didn’t catch his name) all said a few words to the children.

There was a team of kids in red sports wear who were deputised to be in charge of each of us guests – and they did a splendid job. Lianne cut the tape – and then we went out into the snowy – but clearly fantastic – new sports playgrounds.

I asked the children who wanted to be an Olympian – and they all virtually put their hands up. I then asked who wanted to be Prime Minister – and much to my surprise – about half the hall put their hands up again. Amazing! Sadly – that enthusiasm may not last into adulthood!

My views on the stories that don't matter

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Pile of newspapersDeath of Anna Nicole Smith: tragic, but not an international news story that needs live coverage on rolling news channels.

Miliband’s “gaffe”: plenty of politicians I can think of have had a bounce in their popularity after they stood down – so his comment that in a future with Brown as PM people might be pinning for Blair was really just a statement of the extremely likely. About as newsworthy and gaffe-like as if he’d said there’ll be some sunny days this summer.

Politics and the media would all be much better off if we just grew up a bit and realised that stating the obvious or listening to views and changing your mind are normal, human, sensible things to do – not shock horror gaffes or embarrassing u-turns.

Are Liberal Democrat campaigners about to be put out of a job?

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We all know how Lib Dem campaigners just love rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in to dumped rubbish, graffiti and dog poo – metaphorically!

Well – it looks like we might all soon be partly put out of business thanks to this excellent new website coming along: neighbourhoodfixit.com

It lets you report these sorts of local issues direct to the relevant council, but without having first to find out for sure which council covers them (especially useful if it is something you spot away from home or you are in an area with more than one layer of local government).

Bad councils will of course still need good campaigners to nag them, harry them and expose their shortcomings … but if it makes it easier for people to take direct action themselves (and so also to gain a greater sensible of responsibility for – and power over – the state of their own neighbourhood) then that can only be for the good.

Saudi Arabia and corruption: Parliament debates

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It was the Liberal Democrat Opposition Day in Parliament today (where we get to choose the program) and we had two motions down – the first on the scandal of the dropping of corruption investigations into the BAe arms deal with Saudi Arabia, and the second on our campaign ‘We Can Cut Crime’.

The debate on corruption was clearly a red rag to Labour’s bull (Tough on crime? Only when it suits). The whole issue also embarrasses the Tories deeply – as the original deal was done when they were in power and because of the financial links between their party’s fundraising operation and one of the deal’s middlemen.

The Solicitor-General (Labour) did a very loud and aggressive ‘righteous indignation’ act. How dare the Liberal Democrats imply there was anything wrong.

Well – if you have serious allegations, a long investigation and mounds of evidences – you need to have a pretty darn good reason for not pursuing the case further. No amount of indignation can hide that nor the suspicious timing of events: investigators finally make serious progress, rumours of Saudis switching business to France, investigation dropped.

The Government likes to say it was the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) who made the decision to drop the case – but this is the decision of the Attorney General, and the Prime Minister had certainly made his views clear to the decision makers.

A big difficulty for the Government is that there are now conventions / treaties on bribery and corruption and you are not allowed to use jobs or relations with another state as a reason for dropping such an investigation.

So the Government called on ‘National Security’ in the public interest. Public Interest is a legitimate reason so long as it is really about the security of the nation. We all would abide by that. But hey – this is the Government of the dodgy dossier and WMD and we know that they are capable of misleading the whole country let alone Parliament when they decide that they know best and don’t have to play by the rules. (Though this time the security services have not been willing to let their name be taken in vain by the Government and have refused requests to back key parts of the Government’s case).

The damage Labour have done to our international standing through the war in Iraq and now this dropping of the investigation will come home to roost as our influence in the world declines thanks to an immoral government. And the turning of a blind eye to corruption in many countries in the Middle East is just what fuel violent opposition to those governments– the sort of violent opposition that in turn fuels the very terrorism Labour says we’re at war with.

New Secondary School: how the meeting went

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So – the second meeting of the ‘New School Bidders’ for the competition to take control and author a new secondary school in in Haringey. If you remember, we kicked up at the first meeting because there were only six were members of the public.

This time it was a packed meeting – maybe a hundred people. I had put out an email to my lists as I am never convinced that a notice in a local paper – which is the standard Council approach – really reaches everyone. It’s a good thing that other people did promote this meeting as Haringey Council did not even get round to updating their website pages about the new school to mention the second meeting. But this time we didn’t leave it to just the Council – and got a far, far better attendance. And as a result the bidders did better and the questions were more testing.

Without going into the minutiae of the presentations – there are three outside bodies bidding and one from Haringey itself for a community school. What is so hard for everyone (outside of the fact we shouldn’t be having a competition at all) is how do you decide? They all say they will be part of the community. They all say they will abide by the code of admission and so on.

Of the bidders I thought the Haberdashers gave the best presentation – but that may be because their Chief Exec was the best presenter. She certainly gave it life and talking to a parent afterwards who has a child who may well attend the new school he certainly felt that out of the four this would be the best.

Amongst my concerns is that whilst I can understand inviting outside management in when schools are failing and they need someone to come in and take it on – this is a brand new school to be built. But regardless of what people locally might decide they want – power really still rests with Labour in Whitehall. Labour dictates that its rules and its preferences have to be followed and its hoops jumped through to have a chance of new money.

In fact, the Government laid a statutory instrument (an amendment to legislation) on 19th January which means that instead of our local Schools Organisation Committee taking the decision on who wins the bid – the decision is being taken out of local hands and will be given to the Schools Adjudicator appointed by the Secretary of State for Education. So even less local say courtesy of centralising Labour, again.

So – my offer to the meeting was to lay down some Parliamentary Questions to find out how transparent the process with the adjudicator will be. What are the criteria? Will we see the reasons for the final choice? Can there be access to the consultation submissions? And Cllr Gail Engert, my Lib Dem colleague, also got agreement (subject to confirmation) that the Schools Organisation Committee which will meet to decide its view will be open to the public. There may also now be the opportunity for a further public meeting with the Schools Adjudicator so that the local people can directly voice there opinions.

It is important that everyone submits there views to this process (it’s all we have). You can email your views to the council at bsd@haringey.gov.uk – though please also copy me in as it’s useful to get a wide spread of feedback. You can use my contact form or post comments on this blog.

Good riddance: Charles Stimson

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Charles Stimson has gone.

You may well not have heard of him – but he is the US official who, appallingly, decided that not only did he think there was nothing at all wrong with what the US is doing at Guantanamo Bay, but also thinks that no-one there deserves any legal representation – and that any lawyer who represents someone should then be boycotted and driven out of the legal business. To me, it’s one of the basic tenets of any civilised legal system that you believe everyone has certain rights – such as to have their case heard and to have someone help them make their case.

I’ve not met Mr Stimson personally, and who knows – in other ways he may be a lovely man, a caring father and a record breaking charity fundraiser – but it’s certainly good riddance to someone who has so little regard for the rights of other people.