Category Archives: Blog

Munchausen by Proxy

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Meet Becky (World at One Reporter) at 9am to discuss my constituent’s case and campaign with regard to Munchausen by Proxy issues. The issues in this case – the man and his family were wrongly suspected of harming their child but persecuted along the way with accusations, lack of support and guidelines and procedures just not being followed.

The prevailing attitude from the Minister and thus the Government is that it is hard cheese if parents wrongly accused have a bad time – that’s the price of protecting our children. Bollocks! The Government have not a clue how prevalent this is. They keep no numbers – they don’t even try to collect this information. I have no idea if the small number of cases in the Consensus Report are the totality of those affected or the tip of the iceberg.

Of course protecting children comes first – but without a properly commissioned piece of research into the numbers involved, we don’t know how many parents are wrongly accused. Or how many genuine cases there are. Or how parents going through the process can be supported and what measures can be taken. And there is no proper analysis and audit of the procedures, complaints and whether they are being followed or not. We just don’t have a clue.

Prime Minister’s Questions sees the usual barney between the boys. You voted against this, you said that! I cannot bear the stupidity of this game.

Eleven Tim Henmans

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This morning am having an hour’s interview by the Audit Commission in Haringey about the Council performance etc for the Comprehensive Assessment. Where do I start? We run through everything from political bias to planning to education to consultation to housing and so on and so on.

The problem I always find in these interviews is to find the right balance. I can only give my own experience with real life examples from my surgery or postbag to illustrate the gaps in their services. The most damning part of Labour Haringey is that they often say the right things but on the ground they don’t deliver – and I see the wreckage that they leave by promised action which never occurs.

Nick Clegg (Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary) and I meet the Chiefs of Police from a number of American cities and criminologists etc in a round-table discussion. Lots of interesting ideas and notions – although it would be fair to say that I don’t think there was much common ground on minorities and how to deal with re-offending! But a really interesting group. It is always instructive to exchange views with those in the same field but from other countries.

Then I went to Millbank where there was a screen for the England match. As one colleague said at the end – it was like watching eleven Tim Henmans – i.e. agonising. Still we are through. Hurrah.

Sex offenders

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Crime continues – so to speak – with a session for the Lib Dem Home Affairs Team as a prequel to Home Office Questions at 2.30. We thrash around the issues of the day. At the moment with the Home Office in chaos and the Home Secretary is making policy on the run. We are rather spoilt for choice. We choose to go on Sarah’s List. As the emotive tensions rise and all of us who are parents, including me, wrestle with our desire to know where paedophiles are so we can protect are children, with the real fact that doing so is likely to send them underground where we have no idea where they are. This is about what’s effective – not what sounds tough or soft, but what will work to protect our children best.

Nick Clegg (Shadow Home Secretary) brings up the fact that in the USA where Megan’s Law (same thing) operates the number of offenders on the sex offenders list there has fallen to 30%. Here in the UK we have around 90% on the list. So – let’s keep cool heads and not jump to the News of the World – but on the evidence as to what works.

After Questions I rush over to Sky to do a pre-record on the news that will break tomorrow about an OFSTED report showing that our schools and councils are not keeping accurate records, nor always doing appropriate criminal record checks, on sex offenders working in our schools. After the hoo-ha when it was discovered that even four years after Soham and the Bishard Recommendations, sex offenders were still being employed – and Ruth Kelly nearly lost her job – this report that she was forced into commissioning reports its damning findings tomorrow.

It’s just a parents’ nightmare. Even if checks are carried out, they are not recorded or updated – and there are virtually no checks at all after someone has been employed. There should be a rigorous duty on checks and record keeping. And then we get into more nightmares if the Government’s Education Bill goes through as the community of schools breaks down and each trust school or foundation school or independent school looks to itself. Checking and monitoring will become even more disparate. We have to have a statutory duty for schools and authorities – clear and no lapses – on this.

Otherwise we will get lynch mobs, the Government will cave in to the tabloids and our children will be less safe than ever.

Campsbourne Play Centre

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Have gone into Parliament to talk to about 100 school children, about one-third of whom are from Highgate school in my constituency. They are to have a debate on obesity and food in school and I run them through the debating formalities that we observe in the Commons. They seem somewhat over-awed by the room we are in – which is one of the very grandest Committee Rooms on one of the corridors of power. I spend about half and hour explaining the niceties of terms of address – from Honourable Member (the normal) to Right Honourable Member to Honourable and Learned (if a member of the bar etc) to Honourable, Learned and Brave Member (if from the armed forces). That makes them smile…

Rush back to the constituency for a genuinely happy and heart-warming event. Last year, during the election or just before, Campsbourne Play Centre sent out an SOS to me to help them. With a Labour Council and at that point a Labour MP – residents only came to me as a last resort. Generally they try and work with Labour first – worried that it will upset the ruling party if they are seen to consort with me or ask for help. But desperate times meant that they called me in. The play equipment had been found wanting in health and safety terms a year or so before. No replacements were forthcoming. They had been promised and promised but nothing. So parents were removing their children; there was nothing to play with outside and the charges were rising and rising. Falling numbers could jeopardise the future of the whole play centre. Well – I know how to act. So I went. The parents came to meet me. We took photos. We got publicity. I wrote letters. I lobbied.

And today I went back to cut the ribbon and formally launch the new equipment. And it was gorgeous. The play centre had invited all the parents. There was a lovely buffet lunch and the new play furniture and the sandpit garden – which a loving parent had planted around with the most wonderful flowerbeds – was sparkling in the glorious sunshine. All events should be like this and all campaigns should have such happy endings.

Today also my column appears in Asian Voice – titled What does a white middle-aged woman know anyway?

Looking after carers in Haringey

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I am giving the keynote speech at the Haringey Carers Week Conference. It’s a pleasure and an honour as carers are unsung heroes saving billions by caring for their loved ones and often sacrificing their own lives and careers. I give my speech. Cllr Bob Harris gives his on behalf of Haringey Council Social Services. And then the carers in the audience have the opportunity to ask questions. Well – all the warm words were blown out of the water as each care-worn, exhausted carer explained just how much Haringey Council had promised and how nothing had been delivered. Carers cannot even get assessments and have to wait for months and months – without which they cannot get even a meagre allowance or be eligible for respite etc. And we heard how they cannot get respite without a major fight. And many of them are ill – so worn by the existence.

Bob gets it in the neck – which is quite right as it is Haringey Council who don’t call back and who make these carers struggle to get what should be their support – but he is only in post a few weeks. There is clearly so much going on in each individual’s world that I say after this bit of the conference I will come outside and anyone who wants to can talk to me then. When I get outside there is literally a queue – so I take names, cases and contacts and when I go back to my office I pass the details to my assistant to contact each one to make an appointment to come to see me.

Just before I leave this subject – the day started with theatre. A theatre group did a role-play of a woman carer with no English coming to an appointment with a social worker. Within minutes the social worker is shouting with frustration at the woman. It made it so vivid and all could see that this was not the engagement that carers need.

Later in the afternoon, have an interesting meeting with a guy from Hackney CAB. The issue is the behaviour of bailiffs. Now – no-one is going to be pleased when they come knocking. It’s a bit like traffic wardens – not going to be loved. But the stories mount about intimidation, no prior notification, swearing and inappropriate behaviour. So I wonder – who monitors the standards. What is the recourse a resident has? Who can advise the resident? Who regulates the code of conduct. The security industry has now, or rather is now, becoming regulated and licensed. Doormen and bouncers now have some form of accountability. So – a bit of investigation is called for methinks.

I literally run to Millbank to do a News 24 live interview on sentencing – which as it was 30 minutes before England’s kick off would have had a viewing audience of about five I reckon!

Then sadly I watch the England match against Trinidad and Tobago in my office. I would love to have been able to go home and watch with my kids – but not possible. Parliament is pretty deserted but although business in the Chamber miraculously finishes before 5pm – I am stuck because we are having a drinks with all the Home Affairs journalists at 7pm. At least England won and I go to the drinks happier than I would have been. Interesting talking to various of them. We try and talk about the great matters of principle and policy – and the journos say: sod that, give us real story!

My understanding now – over the speculation that the Government may have over-ruled the police who did not want to go in on the Forrest Gate operation – is that this was not the case. So, although it is very easy to believe the worst of this Government – that is misplaced on this occasion. However, that’s in part the legacy of the non-existent WMD that the Government used as a reason to take us into an illegal war. Your credibility suffers for a long, long time.

Illegal immigration

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Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) sees a spat between Blair and Cameron over who voted for what on sentencing. Completely ridiculous exchange between two grown men. Sentencing is too ridiculous at the moment. I think it is the automatic sweeping reductions that shock us all. I am all in favour of having a screw to turn to help an accused decide to plead guilty and save us all the time and money in having to go through the court palaver to prove the case if possible. But we seem to knock one third off every single criminal’s sentence if they plead guilty – even if the evidence has them 100% banged to rights. It’s a tool to use when the evidence is a bit less conclusive – not a discount for shopping at a store.

And then – we are shocked because the other sweeping reduction is for half the remaining sentence for good behaviour. Once again I am all in favour of a tool to keep prisoners sweet and well-behaved – but automatically knocking half the sentence off seems a bit blunt and somewhat over-generous. No doubt the knees are jerking all over the Home Office and we will hear imminently that ‘urgent reviews’ and tougher regimes will be in place in the blink of an eye.

I have to dash off at the end of PMQs to do an interview for the World at One on the proposed (or not) amnesty for illegal immigrants. The Government is deciding to call an amnesty because it has done such a poor job on policing our borders, deciding on applications to remain and finding illegal immigrants. So – the estimated half a million can only be coped with and brought into the light through an amnesty. It’s an admission of failure.

The danger of an amnesty is that it then encourages people to believe that if they come and disappear for long enough into our grey areas, eventually the Government will give in and call an amnesty. In Spain they had a one-off amnesty. They are now on their fifth one-off amnesty. We do already have in legislation the right for someone who has been here 14 years to apply for leave to remain to be granted – and at that stage it is. However, waiting in limbo and working illegally for 14 years is hardly a path to be recommended. We need to get people to work and paying taxes if they have a right to be here and deported if they don’t. An amnesty is just a stop-gap measure for regularising life for those who languish here unresolved. So a cautious welcome for a good look at the proposal – but no carte blanche for all illegals.

Police reform

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Roundtable discussion on police reform. Put together by The Guardian and hats off – because the key voices were mostly in the room. As it was Chatham House rules I can’t tell you what was said – but it was interesting to hear the different stakeholders voices make their pitch for their patch. As ever, time ran out – but my understanding is that an amalgam article will appear based on the discussions but with unattributable comments.

Surgery

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Surgery again all morning until lunchtime – three in four days! Then back to the Three Compasses to meet Estelle, who campaigns for Kurdish rights and many other causes. Today we are discussing the coming review of the Terror Laws.

I agree with much of what she says, including the idea that sabre-rattling is the order of the day by the Government so they can continue to support the War on Terror and jump when Bush says.

I do wonder, given the stories now floating around about the police not believing the intelligence good enough to go in on Forrest Gate, whether the instruction came from the Government? Nothing surprises me any more.

Cyprus Day

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It’s hot, hot, hot! And I go off to St Barnabas Church off Trinity Road for a service for Cyprus Day. Inside this old church it is sweltering – like a sauna. Other dignitaries and myself are on a raised platform by the dais. It is the day of Pentecost and also St Barnabas day AND Cyprus Day – so the service will be very long. His Eminence Gregorios, Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain leads the celebrations and His Excellency the High Commissioner of Cyprus in Great Britain, Mr Petros Eftychiou was also there to deliver the speech of the day.

The whole congregation was fanning itself with the program. I don’t know how the clergy carrying out the service managed to survive in the heavy brocade robes – which were gloriously rich – but hugely thick. As the service went on the incense was pungent and the tones of incantation in foreign tongue mesmerising. I really enjoy religious services. They are always fascinating – and have so much in common with each other, including the collection for building repair. That really is universal! Mind you, Eric Monk, the local beat officer was next to me – and his uniform was no lightweight affair either. Really nice to see how well known he is amongst the community – full credit!

The High Commissioner of Cyprus in GB gave a speech – but it was not in English so I don’t know what the subject was – I can only speculate that it was about Cyprus and how to bring the island to prosperity for all. After about two hours the service ended and following photos with the Archbishop I departed homeward.