Category Archives: Blog

Fun on the Today programme

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Radio 4 have a piece about disgruntled Labour activists – and they pick a group of Labour members from Hornsey and Wood Green.

Some of the comments from the Labour members:

“There’s so many things the Labour government does that I am in total, complete disagreement with. And it’s not just Iraq, it is the rightwards drift, it’s the attack on local authorities, it’s the attack on social housing. It’s the arrogant attitude that they have towards ordinary people.”

“I know dozens, literally dozens and dozens, of people who are Labour voters who will be voting Lib Dem. Because they are the party in the area that’s got some momentum behind it, and are the anti war party, and it is the war that has been the biggest issue for me.”

“For a Labour government to take us to war in that way is just for me unsupportable, but there are also the attacks on civil liberties, top up fees, the privatisation, galloping privatisation, it’s just more than I can bear and when they dress it up in this whole language of choice, and so on, well I’m sorry I cannot trust people who behave like that – I don’t trust them.”

All this from Labour party members! You can listen again to this on the Radio 4 website for a week.

Not so much a Mayor for London as a Mayor for Labour

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I go into City Hall this morning for two meetings. The first with my MPA officer and my police researcher to prepare the planning for the next meeting of the panel I chair on Stop & Search (implementing the recommendations of the scrutiny). We also discuss the speech I am to make to about 150 police officers including all the borough commanders on 19th April.

Then a meeting with a Transport for London officer about the shenanigans that have been going on with the Immigration Service ‘fishing’ at stations etc. TfL have now stopped the practise and developed an agreed protocol on operations. The Immigration Service were being opportunistic and lazy in my view – as the TfL chap said far better that they should spend their time trapping illegal taxi touts as opposed to people just using public transport.

Now, as you may know – I’m not always Mayor Ken’s greatest fan! Someone points out to me Ken’s revenge! He slags me off in the Socialist Worker. His ire has been stirred by Tariq Ali’s support for me in Hornsey and Wood Green to oust ‘warmonger Roche’. Ken used to be anti-war but now he’s a Labour man. Not so much a Mayor for London as a Mayor for Labour.

I run out of City Hall and dash back to the Muswell Hill roundabout for a briefing of a raft of Police Officers and Community Support officers who are part of the Safer Neighbourhood Teams.

1,000 officers across five boroughs are taking part in five one day bursts where a whole raft of measures are used to deter, detect and reduce crime. It was fantastic. I have never seen so many officers in Muswell Hill and passers by may have taken fright in case there was some sort of crime wave that officers had been brought in for! I look forward to seeing the analysis of this operation when it comes for monitoring to the Performance Committee of the MPA on which I sit.

Then I rush home, log on. I had forgotten what happens when a General Election gets called and I am the candidate – emails flood in as do phone calls. I check for emergency ones – and then dash out to deliver leaflets for a few hours.

Rush back to do a pre-record radio interview on tomorrow’s Mayor’s Question Time – more on transport – then rush out again for another few hours delivering leaflets. I do rely on the election campaign to get fit and lose half a stone.

And as ever – back for emails, letters and of course – this blog!

We're off

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30 days till polling day.

I’m not sure if I should be excited that we’re into the final straight, or scared that it’s so little time left!

On balance – excitement it is.

Hearing from an old friend

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I continue to think about the interview with Gilligan. He asked me about Ken and his stupid remark to a reporter about being like a concentration camp guard – giving great offence to the Jewish community.

A funny thing happened over that whole business – tangentially speaking. I got an email from a very old boyfriend (circa 30 years ago) who was Jewish. We lasted about two weeks when I was at college but became great friends. In fact he came to live with my mother and me when we left college – I left home to get a flat and he stayed with my mother for a further two years.

I lost touch probably over 20 years ago – but I suddenly get this email out of the blue. Peter has been looking at the GLA website to find out how to write to Ken to tell him exactly what he thinks of him and his concentration camp remarks.

That is the depth of feeling in the Jewish community that Ken has stirred – Peter was not easily stirred to action in my recollection. Ken apparently totally fails to understand what he’s done. I don’t know why.

Anyway – back to Peter. He stumbles across my name on the web-site and sends an email to me asking if I am the same Lynne he knows. He makes me smile because he puts a ps:

‘you never write, you never visit, you never call…..’

He always did have a good sense of humour. So as he gives a number, I ‘phone him and it is just great. Sounds just the same. He is of course amazed that I am now a politician as I was an art student and a designer last time he looked. Peter, coming from Rhodesia as was, was always somewhat right wing (mild description). He said he had voted for Blair in ’97 because he was the most right-wing politician in British politics!

Then go into overdrive in effort to get everything in order for the General Election. News of the Pope’s death dominates everything today. The party decides not to knock on doors today, but we have our internal campaign team meeting in the evening.

This will take place weekly now until the election and is at my house. We run thought where we are on our campaign plan and try and make sure any gaps are filled. Then more paperwork and emails – as ever!

Canvassing with Andrew Gilligan

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Action day in Bounds Green ward (and a bit of Alexandra) dawns and I’m off to Susie Oatway’s house where I have emailed people to come to help canvass. Bounds Green is one of the only four wards (out of ten) in the constituency that doesn’t have any Lib Dem councillors. We’ve been campaigning there for several years – and the volume of casework I’m doing for residents keeps on growing – but it’s still fairly new territory for canvassing.

Andrew Gilligan (yes that one!) telephoned me last week to say that he (and the Evening Standard) wanted to follow Hornsey & Wood Green constituency during the election. He wants to interview me and follow me while canvassing. He also asked to talk to the group of disaffected Labour members and supporters who grilled me in Stroud Green a couple of weeks ago.

I am both pleased that there is key media interest and nervous – but decide that it must be a good thing. We will go to a part of Alexandra ward, which was Labour and went Lib Dem locally in 2002 – to see how the swing is going. I particularly want to test a ward that has already gone Lib Dem to see how much further it can go.

With that in mind – my briefing to the activists who came to help was not to just come back with lots of Lib Dems identified – but to find out what people voted last time. We are looking to see what is happening to both the Labour and other votes to see how soft it is.

I had put out an email to a list of people who say they want to come out helping – and it goes out on other party lists too – but much to my amazement nearly 40 people turn out. That is really good news because if activists will come out for us – we will be able to deliver the campaign as we have planned both in terms of leaflets and in terms of a high contact rate with constituents in person.

A photographer arrives – but no Andrew. Susie and I are busy getting people in, giving them their kit, briefing them and getting them out the door – quite a major operation. Susie (and Mike’s) baby son (aged about 8 months) watches proceedings happily. Whilst delighted my children are way past that stage – have to say no bad thing having a baby around to make us all go googly.

Activists all active – Susie and I and the photographer head off to knock on doors. Andrew will join us later – he has been held up. The first door a chap opens it and says he will vote Lib Dem. He was Labour but now it’s us. His partner joins him – she is still deliberating between Lib Dems and Labour. I ask if they mind having a photograph (the photographer has asked that I do this). They agree. So where is Andrew to witness this early sign of swing? We canvass until one o’clock with a variety of responses but mostly us or soft Labour – and go back for lunch.

It’s beautiful weather – absolutely gorgeous. Mike has provided a cold lunch for everyone – and I sit out in their garden chatting. Then Andrew Gilligan arrives and we go into the garden for an interview. I won’t cover the same ground here – let’s see what comes out in the Standard later this week.

Then off we go with Peter the photographer to canvass once more. Same story as the morning really. A good number of Lib Dems and the Labour vote very soft. Very few Tories at all of any description, even in the patch which (many years ago now!) used to vote Tory in local elections.

Then Andrew decides he wants to take me to where I was first elected a councillor – Muswell Hill – to walk around introducing myself to people. It’s not my normal approach – I am usually either petitioning, canvassing, campaigning or handing out leaflets. I have had to do so many different and new things since I went into politics – that whilst this wouldn’t be my chosen approach – I am happy to give it a go.

We head into Crocodile (a local eatery with an outside cafe) and get a drink. Andrew points at a couple and says ‘them’. I introduce myself and ask how they might vote when the General Election is called. Both Lib Dem – and both swinging from Labour – albeit Ben voted Lib Dem last time – so he swung even before the war. They agree to a photograph at Andrew’s request.

And so we go on. We meet one aspiring writer still going to vote Labour – well 80% sure he will still vote Labour. Many of the people we spoke to were not local residents at all – just shows how popular Muswell Hill is and why (as I keep pressing the point) public transport links are so important. Full service for the 603 I say!

We go back to base and say our goodbyes. Andrew is heading off to interview a representative from the Stroud Green Labour people who grilled me to presumably see why they are going to actively support the Lib Dems and I go off to the pub for one drink (yes only one) before heading home.

New Crouch End school

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Delighted that my colleague Cllr Dave Winskill’s campaign to get a new primary school in Crouch End at the TUC site has at last come to fruition. When the TUC decided to get out of the site we ran a lobbying campaign and petition asking the TUC to not just flog the site to the highest bidder.

Of course – he doesn’t get the credit from the Labour council – but he should. Labour’s planning (or lack of) on school places is appalling – and it happens year on year. We put a new school for Crouch End in our key manifesto pledges three years ago – so good to see Labour forced into action. A cynic might suggest they’ve agreed to stump up some cash now to try to help their prospects in a marginal seat just before the election … well – whatever it takes to get our school!

Congestion charging up

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I think about playing a horrible April Fool’s Day trick on my children – but then decide to let sleeping kids lie.

I go to meet Antoinette in Cafe Rouge in Highgate Village. She is a photographer putting a book together on what people feel Nelson Mandela’s influence or effect has been on our lives. She is a really interesting woman – ex-fashion photographer – but now publishing books about people.

We have a coffee and a chat and then she takes me into Cafe Rouge’s little courtyard and shoots a whole reeal of film. I am extremely used to having photos taken – with broken paving stones, overflowing rubbish bins, dumped items and so on – but I have never posed for portraits before.

She suggests a variety of poses – and having been watching ‘America’s Next Top Model’ recently – I decide they must all have the patience of a saint.

We say goodbye – and I rush back to do several interviews on Ken’s 60% rise in the congestion charge. I love the congestion charge. It is one of the best and bravest policies introduced in recent years by any politician – but this rise is about Ken needing money.

There is no rise in the congestion in the central zone – indeed it has fallen further and already achieved Ken’s stated aim in raising the charge. The charge should be about traffic reduction and safety and not about raising money – otherwise such measures lose their credibility and ultimately fall apart (due to non-compliance) or get scrapped.

I would prefer to see the Mayor move his gaze from zone 1 and concentrate on introducing public transport in outer London so that the dreadful congestion suffered all over the place could be reduced. The central zone is now the last place that needs traffic reduction – while the rest of London still suffers from lack of orbital transport.

Transport Question Time

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Rush over to Centrepoint to be part of a ‘Question Time’ panel on transport and the balance of powers between Whitehall, the London Mayor and the boroughs.

Tony Travers and Peter Hendy and a councillor from Camden (Labour) were my co-panellists. I got into a right ding-dong with the Camden councillor as I was talking about how defensive the boroughs were about their parking fiefdoms. Cat amongst the pigeons!

Actually – it was an interesting debate – and continued with a lively discussion about consultation (do people listen to the results?) and the need for more powers for the London Assembly so it can exercise proper checks and balances on the Mayor.

Rush home to paperwork and emails and then dash out to distribute leaflets to deliverers ready for the general election being called. I think there would be a number of activists from all political parties who would throttle Tony B if he doesn’t call it next week!

How often should the police stop Muslims?

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Metropolitan Police Authority meeting – and the new Commissioner Sir Ian Blair got a right bollocking. No other way to express it. The members took him to task over his remarks on it being inevitable that more Muslims would be stopped under section 44 of the Terrorism Act – so basically they shouldn’t be surprised or make a fuss if they get stopped disproportionally.

Everyone was pretty outraged and wanted their two-pennyworth. It was an appalling lapse – and when it came to my pound of flesh – I said exactly what I thought.

Which was that the problem with saying something like that was that the police are still struggling to even admit that such a thing as disproportionality exists; because Sir John Stevens (Blair’s predecessor) would not admit there was racial bias in the Met; because of documentaries like the Secret Policeman – ethnic minority communities (and quite a lot of everyone else actually) believe that there still is plenty for the police to do to eradicate racism from their ranks.

And until the good stuff that is happening at some levels in the Met permeates to all levels – careless remarks will be taken badly as they were in this case.

Beating over – Sir Ian looked relieved as the topic moved on to his root and branch review of the Met. And that’s a whole other chestnut yet to come.