Category Archives: Blog

Charles Kennedy's leadership

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It’s a bit of a day today! So many people are emailing and contacting me about where I stand that I think it only right to put my thinking on the record on my blog – unadulterated.

I am pretty angry about the way things have happened over Charles Kennedy’s position as Leader – and have been since the beginnings of the public rumblings following the pre-Christmas briefings to the media. It’s not the way to do these things. Perhaps I am simply naive and these things cannot be done ‘nicely’ but the future of the Liberal Democrats matters passionately to me and I want to see us go onwards and upwards – and to replicate what we achieved in the election in Hornsey & Wood Green in many other seats across the country at the next election.

I have been a Charles supporter. I went out and campaigned for him to be leader. I think he was exceptional in his call on Iraq – the right position and a brave position – for which he took much flak in Parliament and outside. He was right about not taking part in the Butler Inquiry. And I have always enjoyed his style of leadership (not egomaniac and not spin) – something reflected in the polls which have consistently showed him very popular.

But following his statement yesterday – I think it has all gone too far to save him. And I myself, no longer feel inspired to support him. I feel let down because he has had previous opportunities to set the record straight privately and publicly. And the discontent in the parliamentary party is not just about the possible (and now confirmed) alcohol problem but also about the vision and drive which the party needs to make even more progress at the next election.

Initially, I thought the statement yesterday might deliver a strategic miracle – for a few moments – but then recognised that it will not stem the tide. And so despite the difficulties and the challenges ahead, I hope he reconsiders his position over the coming weekend.

He may even win a leadership contest if it goes to the membership. It’s important that we are a democratic party and that we have our leader chosen by our members – but it is also right that Lib Dem members know the views of those MPs who work with the party leader most closely week by week. That’s why I and many of my colleagues are saying that we want Charles to reconsider his position, and that we won’t hold office under him. In my case, that would mean resigning as a Home Affairs frontbench spokesperson.

From what I have seen of emails coming into me today – there are some who are angry, especially as the man made such a brilliant decision over Iraq – but the majority seem to be saying – reluctantly – that there is no way he can go on.

So – we will have to see how it pans out over the next few days. Parliament returns next week – and the first Parliamentary Party Meeting is on late Wednesday afternoon. It is just such a sad way to go.

New Year message

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2005 was a bit of a year – and then some.

As I look back over the year – I am thrilled with what we have been able to achieve. No – not just the General Election (clearly a stunning victory turning a Labour majority of 10,514 into a LibDem one of 2,395) but the causes and campaigns I and my LibDem colleagues have championed together with local residents. That’s what has made the difference in Hornsey & Wood Green.

Current battles ongoing perhaps sum up some of what I am trying to do in the constituency – which all boil down to making it a better place for local people to work, rest and play – to quote a famous old advertising tag line. I don’t think aiming for a clean, pleasant and safe environment is asking too much!

I’ll start with the Hornsey concrete factory planning application. London Concrete want to plonk a concrete batching plant on Cranford Way – right bang in the middle of a residential area – with schools and children and narrow streets – just the sort of place for over 300 HGVs per week to wreck the local ambience! I and my LibDem colleagues have been campaigning against this application since the moment it was lodged – together with great local group Green N8.

We passed the first hurdle with Haringey Planning Committee refusing the application – but in the way of the world – the developer has appealed and as I write we are in the middle of the hearings by Her Majesty’s Inspector to whom I gave ‘evidence’ the week before Christmas. You can read the evidence on my earlier blog posting about the concrete factory plans.

I invited both John Prescott and Ken Livingstone to see the evil that would be done. Neither accepted my invitation. Holding baited breath now and crossed fingers – this David and Goliath battle will be settled by the end of January.

Another battle that engages me is the fight against sitting mobile telephone masts near vulnerable people – like young children. The idea is to bring forward legislation that would enable local councils to refuse planning permission on the grounds of the precautionary principle – until such time as we have proof positive of what these masts do or do not do to our health. This doesn’t just happen in Hornsey & Wood Green but up and down the land. And of course, we all do use mobile phones, so we can’t be overly pure. The Government is still proclaiming that there is no evidence of damage to health. I have challenged the Government through Parliamentary channels to do the scientific studies necessary to look at the incidence of cancer around mobile phone masts in situ for 10 years – without which we are all in anecdotal territory. They haven’t responded as yet.

Locally, of course, we occasionally succeed and see off a phone mast application – but they relentlessly return nearby or at the same site but from a different company. Good news though – recently in a statement by the local Head of Planning in regard to refusing a particular mast in Fortis Green, he went as far as to say ALL future applications for mobile masts in the Haringey conservation area will be an outright NO from now on! Watch this space.

I am also still keeping up the pressure on Haringey Primary Care Trust (PCT) over the future of the Hornsey Central Hospital site. Following a long campaign against closure of the old hospital and then a long process of working with local residents and other interested parties – proposals for a new health facility finally came forth from the PCT for a mix of local health services and elderly care. However, dogged by funding problems caused by the withdrawal from renting some of the space by the Health Trust etc delays and fears about its future have crept in. So I recently met yet again with the Chair of the PCT and received personal assurances from him of his commitment to ensuring that the project goes ahead. But there must remain, until the public meeting in the New Year that he has promised me, concerns over what of the original promised facilities will actually proceed and get built.

As for policing – Safer Neighbourhood Teams are what we all want. They are what we have always wanted. But whilst London is promised complete roll-out in the next year – some ‘neighbourhoods’ are being left out. I have long campaigned to get a team into Highgate – and at last am encouraged that we are on our way to success. Highgate is split between three different boroughs. Now no police commander I know – despite their protestations about cross-border working – is willing to commit him or herself to an actual cross-border Safer Neighbourhood Team. So I have brought this to the Metropolitan Police Authority on several occasions. And am helped in my quest by Crystal Palace – ironically. Crystal Palace is split between five areas – and so the MPA are running a pilot there which if successful will be applied to neighbourhoods like Highgate which suffer from divided ownership. The sooner the better!

So – with obviously lots more going on than I can possibly begin to convey in this message – not to mention the fight of our lives against Labour’s attack on the fundamental principles of liberty and justice in our land – I look forward to a challenging and pretty energetic year ahead.

A very Happy New Year to you all!

Growing numbers of homeless people

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Good coverage in the media (such as here) this morning for the shocking homelessness figures I’ve unearthed – up by two-thirds in London since 2000 and across England there are 100,000 families spending Christmas in temporary accommodation.

And with that – I am blogging off until January 9th when Parliament returns. However, if anything monumentally interesting happens – I will post in the interim.

Merry Christmas!

Wrapping up for Christmas

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On Thursday, got text from office saying that the emergency surgery I was to have held this morning is unnecessary as only one person needs to ‘see’ me before Christmas and he is happy to talk on the phone – which I do. And having listened to a very long and complicated benefits (or lack of them) history – he tells me he has a file a mile thick. We arrange to meet early in the New Year to go through the history in more detail. So without surgery I continue to try and get my paperwork etc up to date for the break – but still the mountain stares relentlessly and resentfully at me!

Run into constituency office to sign last casework letters to make sure they get out and hopefully arrive before Christmas. Though you can’t really be sure at this point of the year! Have a chat with all at the office. They are a an absolute A team in terms of quality and quantity of work they get through – and more than that – really committed to serving the public which matters more than anything in this sort of office – and even more than that – a really nice group who all get on with each other.

Ed is my diary secretary and caseworker and runs the everyday stuff at the office as well as my assistant at surgery half the time. He has turned out to be an absolute star – and cares passionately about all of it.

Thuranie is a part-time caseworker and has been with me for five years now – since I first got elected to the London Assembly and could no longer cope on my own with the volume of casework when she used to come to my house one day a week. She has the most wonderful way with people and endless patience.

Charlie works almost exclusively on immigration casework as well as being my assistant at surgery the other half of the time. He now knows the ins and outs of the Home Office (who have to be the worst and most inefficient organisation known to man).

I have an intern, Angela, who is learning and gaining experience with the office. Hopefully when she has got some experience on her CV she will go on to get the job she wants.

And the last person in the local office part of the time, split between working in the constituency and in Parliament, is Andrew who is my Head of Office. Andrew just knows everything – knows how Parliament works, how constituencies offices need to be run – and has the patience of a saint.

At the parliamentary end – I have Mette. Mette is Swedish and just full of energy and enthusiasm – and loves doing ‘amendments’, Mette not only runs the office administration at the Parliamentary end, helps with PQs (Parliamentary Questions) etc – but has to work out the amendments to any Bill that I am taking through committee. She has a brood of interns – no more than one or two at a time (as they come and go according to gap year arrangements or whatever) – to help her with the sack loads of correspondence that arrives – up to 400 letters a day at times. The correspondence is opened, sorted and directed to appropriate place to be worked on – whether that end or constituency end.

The only real ‘rule’ in the offices is that ‘the customer is always right’. I know it’s old-fashioned (and there are some real challenges on occasion to that philosophy) but it’s the way I was brought up and whilst none of us are 100% – the ethos is there and to me it is important that my office reflects my philosophy – which is being there to serve.

Haringey Council collections over Christmas

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Normal day for rubbish or recycling collection / Revised day
26th December / 28th December
27th December / 29th December
28th December / 30th December
29th December / 31st December
30th December / 3rd January
2nd January / 4th January
3rd January / 5th January
4th January / 6th January
5th January / 7th January
6th January / 9th January
9th January / 10th January
10th January / 11th January
11th January / 12th January
12th January / 13th January
13th January / 14th January

… and then back to normal.

A useful, if not exciting, posting I hope!

Drama in the bookshop

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Clearing up my emails, phone calls, paperwork etc. – and trying to make sure Christmas happens. I ran to Highgate Village this morning to the local bookshop – always a very good choice of books despite being tiny.

Suddenly the police arrived, put handcuffs on another browser – a young man – and marched him out. One of the policemen came back in the shop to say they had nicked the chap. The staff (two women) had seen a knife sticking out of his back pocket and he had been ‘browsing’ for about 40 minutes. Rather than tackle him directly they had called the police – quite rightly – but now one of them was saying she felt bad.

At which point the policeman outside yelled that they had found another knife in his rucksack. I told the staff they had done really well, and one of them said how quickly the police had come – within five minutes. The thinking was that the guy was waiting for the shop to empty so that he could then perhaps hold up the two young women. If so – foiled – thank goodness.

Anyway – I just wanted to put up a good news story – as we often forget – what a fantastic job the police do for the vast majority of the time. And when you spend your time looking for flaws in performance – it is really great to have the opportunity to put up a good news story. Well done both police and shop staff. And I bought 7 books!

Police restructuring

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Christmas is relentlessly approaching – and I’m not ready! Panic.

But not today. Today am on the front bench for the police restructuring debate in Parliament. As I arrive in my office, I find a sweet message from David Cameron on my email, inviting me to join him. Such a nice boy!

I reply thus:

Dear David,
Thank you so much for your very sweet invitation to come and join you and your colleagues. However, I must decline.
I wondered if the invitation is a sign that you are already feeling isolated. If it gets too bad, you can always come and join us.
Merry Christmas
Lynne

So now we know – all that baloney about new politics – and he is barely out of the starting blocks with a not very clever stunt. No change there.

More importantly – the police debate. The Government wants to merge police forces across the country so that they all average around 4-5,000 police officers – on the basis (they say) that current small forces don’t have the capacity for dealing with serious or organised crime. Now there may be a very good argument for restructuring on the basis of making the specialist resources pooled to serve a wider area than just one force – but wholesale restructuring to the size and distance the Government is talking about is bonkers. Everyone knows that the more local the police force is, the better the intelligence and the policing. To have a Chief Constable (incidentally the Met is not changing) miles and miles away and who has no knowledge of the territory is, as I say, bonkers. And if it isn’t bonkers – then the Government did not put forward any rational arguments to support their proposals. Moreover, the deadline for police forces to put in their views is 23 December and they will have had next to no time for something this momentous.

Mark Oaten was leading for us – as Charles Clarke led for the Government. I ‘covered’ the front bench. The chamber was full of those wishing to make their constituency case – whichever party they were from. Backbench speeches were cut to 10 minutes – and virtually every single speech begged for more time, and asked what benefit would really be delivered from such a merger. None that couldn’t be gotten a better way in my view. However, for reasons I truly do not understand the Government seems determined to railroad this through regardless of common sense or argument and at a punishing pace. And the police are against it – yes, the same police the Government said we had to listen to their advice re 90 days detention or die as a consequence.

Cranford Way concrete batching plant

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Here’s the statement I gave at the public inquiry this week into the proposals for a concrete factory in Cranford Way, Hornsey:

As Member of Parliament for Hornsey & Wood Green, the western side of the application will affect many of my constituents, who have made it plain to me – as I am sure they will also do to you, that they believe, and rightly in my view – that should this inquiry overturn Haringey Council’s decision to refuse planning permission it will mean that their quality of life will be greatly diminished.

Whilst there are issues of noise, pollution and ecology – I leave those to be argued by experts as to their calculated impact and to local residents as to their perceived impact but to speak to the areas where I have more specific knowledge – the Mayor’s strategies and traffic.

I want to start with the opening statement from Queen’s Counsel for the appellant.

The opening thrust of the statement was about the importance of sustainability and how the Mayor of London supports this scheme.

I have not seen the letter of support from Mr Livingstone. I would very much like to see exactly what his words of support actually are – not just that his plan supports movement by freight – but his words on this specific application. There is a substantive difference between the Mayor writing and saying ‘I support London Concrete’s application’ and the appellant claiming he has the Mayor’s support because the Mayor’s strategies for London recommends moving freight from road to rail. I believe that Joanne McCartney, the GLA member for Enfield and Haringey – who I spoke to on Wednesday morning – believes that the Mayor does not specifically support this scheme, and will be making a statement later today.

I would like to see what support the applicant actually has over and above the publicly stated strategic guidance for transport in London to see raw materials transport by freight rather than road – which if you will excuse me saying – is a no-brainer.

Having spent four of the last five years as a London Assembly member, prior to being elected to Parliament to represent Hornsey & Wood Green in May this year, I am well aware of the need to move from road to freight. It is the right strategic approach to planning. And it is indeed part of the Mayor’s strategy for London.

However, the nature of a strategic framework is such that it needs to be applied locally subject to local conditions. And I am sure the Mayor of London did not intend that this would give rise to a concrete factory in the midst of residents, schools and children walking to school.

And I am sure that the Mayor of London if he were fully cognizant of the local situation and came to see it for himself (an invitation he failed to respond to from myself) that the benefits of bringing aggregates in by rail three times a week will be completely undermined by the dis-benefits of the hundreds of HGV journeys per week it will spawn in the heart of this high density residential area.

As I understand it London Concrete have estimated 56 vehicle movements daily (which is a rate at only 50% of plant capacity). These are huge HGVs totally unsuitable for this location. Moreover, that estimate by London Concrete of the number of vehicle movements is hardly set in stone and in my view is more than likely to rise. Not only is there a history of a planning permissions starting with a particular number of movements and then going back within a short time with an application for more vehicle movements – but when questioned at one of the public forums, the representatives for London Concrete did not even know the size of the vehicles to be used.

It is completely spurious to use strategic intent to argue against local conditions and impact – and that is why the decision of the local planning authority and the overwhelming views of local residents are so important and which will, I hope, hold sway.

During my time as a London Assembly member, for four of the five years I was also Chair of Transport. I don’t believe that the transport study’s findings are accurate based on my own knowledge of the local traffic situation.

I believe that the transport report looked at the turn vehicles will have to make from Cranford Way into Church Lane. However, the report did not look in any substantive way at the turn the HGVs will have to make at the top of Church Lane – virtually doubling back on themselves to go down the other leg of the one way system into Tottenham Lane. This is a nightmare that, if allowed, will cause jams and possible accidents. I believe this particularly dangerous turning point for the lorries needing to exit the area back to a main road is not properly examined in the existing report. Church Lane residents will also have to endure a great impact in terms of traffic, noise, pollution and vibration – which will exacerbate an already worsening situation.

I would expect this, together with the base vehicle movements, the unsuitability of the roads and the other vehicle movements bringing staff and customers, to make this location unsuitable for this type of development.

There are times of the day when I believe that bus journey times in Tottenham Lane will increase substantively – and that is against the strategic thrust of the Mayor’s transport strategy.

Public transport and particularly the swift passage of buses have been and are the major priority in the Mayor’s transport strategy. I believe that the impact on bus journey times will be significant at peak flow traffic times of the day.

Moreover, this is an area with schools and children walking to school. The whole effort to create safe routes to school – a priority of the Council, the Government and the GLA which will be jeopardized and noise and disturbance will plague local residents.

I also have some difficulty believing that London Concrete’s claim that they will only sell and transport concrete within Haringey. Great difficulty – and wonder what happens if for the first year they supply Haringey and then expand their activities for example? What action will be taken then against them?

The working day will be 7am-7pm and include Saturdays. The amenity of the area will be seriously compromised by the operation of the plant.

Economic dangers also exist. Employment in Haringey is a key issue and the local economy is also threatened by this application. The current industrial estate has a few vacant sites. They are unable to fill such sites, as potential businesses do not want to take sites near to the proposed concrete factory. As I understand it, the meat business and possibly already others have stated that they will have to move out.

I leave noise, pollution and ecology – which are all in my view substantive issues where detriment will be caused – to those who know more about those areas and can argue the case more conclusively than I – but those issues to will impact on local residents.

In conclusion, I don’t believe there are any conditions that Haringey could impose that would make granting this application acceptable and ask you as the Inspector to listen to all of the argument and moreover, to use your knowledge of planning to uphold the decision of Haringey Council and reject the application for this inappropriate sitting of a concrete plant.