Big build up to the appearance and speech of Jody Dunn – who is our megastar candidate in the Hartlepool by-election which polls next Thursday. If rapturous welcomes mean anything – she’ll storm Hartlepool. Perfect candidate – mother of four, studied to become a barrister after having children, fighting to save local hospital and winsome for the media too! Half Finnish, an ex-disc jockey and a fellow blogger – way to go.
Category Archives: Blog
Parking in London
Lying in bed watching BBC news. Blow me if they are not doing a whole package about parking as a result of the announcement of the London Assembly’s investigation into parking enforcement in London.
I telephone the Beeb to ask if they can give out a number or email as they say there are hundreds of people contacting them with stories of unfairness etc. By the time I get over to the conference centre and go down to my press officer – BBC at conference are onto it and I do a number of interviews, TV and radio about the scrutiny. It would seem that both London residents and the media are very exited about this one. If you’ve got views yourself – let me know through my feedback form.
Later in the day, I put in a card to speak in the policing debate. You never know if you will be called, but you have to be in the auditorium just in case. In fact, I am called straight after the motion has been moved. My speech is really about the need for local response from local police to local people. I go through some of the work I have done on trying to get the Met to set up a system of call answering phone calls to the police locally. Far too many people say they can’t get through to their local police station at the moment. Finish on a happy ending – that our campaign to re-open Muswell Hill police station’s front counter has succeeded – Sir John Stevens (the Met’s top cop) is coming to do the honours on Monday.
Livingstone hikes our fares
Ken Livingstone announces that he will raise fares in London in the region of inflation + 20%. Lots of smoke and mirrors around peak hours and this and that – but bottom line – mega fare rise. And the bugger compounds this by stating that we can expect inflation busting rises for the next three years as well.
I do a rash of radio interviews on Ken’s dishonesty and broken promises before the election about fare rises. Also cover issue of having the most expensive fares in the world already and this would drive people off public transport and back into their cars. The low paid worker can ill afford to live in London already – this will just be another nail in the coffin.
In the afternoon, big debate on the party’s “pre-manifesto” document – Freedom, Fairness, Trust. Basically sets out the party’s overall policy for the general election – though more details will be announced closer to the time. You can see the top ten points on our national website.
Chairing a conference debate
Meet my aide for the conference debate I’m chairing at noon to have a first look at the cards in from representatives to speak. (People wanting to speak in our of the conference debates have to submit a card first – so the chair knows who wants to speak and can balance the debate between people for and against the different parts of the topic).
Lots of cards to choose from. The skill is to find the crux of the debate and hang the argument around that part of a motion or amendment. Then you need to balance the debate in proportion to the cards in, add geographic, gender, ethnic, and age balance and take any really convincing personal experience of the issue. As you can imagine on asylum – there were really lots of good points to be made.
I am always nervous about chairing at conference. Not only is the auditorium huge and fairly full and it is broadcast live on TV. The ultimate fear is that someone will call for a suspension of standing orders and whilst there are orders and procedures for every eventuality – remembering what they are under pressure is scary.
However, it all went relatively smoothly, with excellent speakers and to time. I had been told in no uncertain terms that I had to bring the debate in on time at 3.30pm exactly as I would be directly followed by a Q & A session with Charles K. Phew…
Getting information from Transport for London
Having attended Conference Committee to iron out any wrinkles in the arrangements for the debate I will be chairing the next day (interesting notions like who’s summating the amendments and what is the time split between mover and summator.) It doesn’t get more riveting than this. Then off to the Purbeck Suite where I am speaking in the Transport for London (TfL) fringe on traffic in London. Peter Hendy and Bill Hamilton are there for TfL and Lord Bill Bradshaw is there to talk about the Traffic Bill. I am covering congestion charging.
TfL have laid on wine and food – so it’s a good bet that the meeting will be well attended. As I walk into the room, my researcher tips me off that TfL are very cross with me as they’ve seen the speech I gave to the Institute of Civil Engineers the previous Thursday night.
I had merely pointed out that getting information out of TfL was akin to getting blood out of a stone, that they were anal retentive and that I kept coming up against the rubberised walls of TfL Public Relations. Having grabbed a glass of wine – I was ready for the attack. I disarmed them by saying I had heard that they were on the warpath – but that I stood by what I had said.
I suggested to Peter and Bill that I give them some examples of requests for information (details and dates) – so that they can track what happens their end. We will see if this prompts the answers I have been waiting so long for.
Then we got on with the debate which went really well (probably the wine) and the room was packed and there were lots of questions and comments – which always makes for a lively time.
Lib Dem conference starts
Off to the Lib Dem Party Conference. Bournemouth here we come! It is pouring with rain as the train draws into town. The cabbie is very cheery about us and a special fan of ‘Charlie’ – they always are.
Unpack and grab a sandwich in the bar before rushing to some training – I’m chairing one of the conference sessions later in the week. To do so – you have to have been previously fully trained and at every conference that you attend you also have to attend an update session. That session will either be practising the advanced preparations or role-playing events that could happen during the debate.
It’s a drag – but chairing can be quite hairy so everyone generally does turn up to do their bit. I will be chairing the Asylum and Immigration debate on the Monday.
Farewell to my PA
Have done endless interviews about: my comments on the Mayor’s dishonesty, the parking scrutiny and the West London Tram.
Today I go into the GLA for my wonderful PA’s farewell lunch. Jeni has been absolutely fantastic and I will miss her.
Coming back into City Hall, I realise I have forgotten my pass. Blow me down – the security guard wouldn’t let me through and made me go through the screening reserved for visitors rather than staff.
Full marks I thought – in a week that has seen a complete farce in the security mess that appears to surround our key terrorist targets – the House of Commons and Buckingham Palace.
Transport business at the GLA
Heavy duty Transport Committee meeting which I chair. We had Transport for London, Ealing Council and a couple of learned professors to answer our questions arising from our trip along the route of the West London Tram and from the evidence we had taken from local people and groups.
Whether we will be able to get a consensus on the committee for our report – who knows. I would like to think it possible – if we stick to evidence-based recommendations rather than political rant.
The second half of the session was devoted to the future of rail in London. Fairly gloomy would be my judgement. The Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) and Network Rail were our witnesses. Didn’t sense any great shift in ATOC’s position – other than they have learned to talk using the right words. Whether this has a flying chance of translating into more services for us poor Londoners…?
But the real excitement was a two second item as the committee agreed the terms of reference for a scrutiny on parking enforcement in London. With a couple of amendments this went through – and all media hell broke loose.
With all the reports in the press of unfairness, wayward clampers, overzealous wardens etc, it seems to me a good idea to look at what the truth is – are the reports accurate or exaggerated?
Needless to say the boroughs are concerned that we are looking into their business (and a very good business as far as I can tell) and I haven’t heard what Transport for London (TfL) think yet. But what I do know, is that if enforcement has become ‘unfair’ then ordinary, decent folk start feeling angry and upset that life is becoming impossible – and unfairly so.
And many people who use public transport whenever they can – still at times use a car for journeys that are not covered or possible by public transport. And other journeys are really necessary for the disabled and other vulnerable people.
If parking regulations and enforcement are about resolving traffic problems and keeping proper flows and rationing scarce space – that’s great and quite right that money raised from them should be spent on improving traffic and transport in that borough. However if things have gone too far and this has turned into simple revenue raising – it is not alright.
Admittedly, boroughs have an incentive to bring in parking revenue as it is virtually their one funding stream that Gordon Brown and the Treasury cannot nick back. Other profit that a council might make is then deducted from their normal grant from Government – which may be the source of some of these issues.
But we are also looking at the plethora of times and signage, etc, that confuse residents as they pick their way through the minefield as well. No-one is as well-placed as the boroughs to design their own schemes to suit local needs and local people. However, just as we did with trying to look at the myriad of different boroughs approaches to Blue Badge holders – so we hope to be able to help flag up some issues for the boroughs to then hopefully work on.
Livingstone and fare increases
An early start to Mayor’s Question Time as Ken has to leave for Moscow at 10.50am.
He starts in good form – but as the thrust of the first question begins to bite suffers his normal deterioration in humour. The question itself is about an area in Spittalfields where the proposed route of CrossRail would mean building a ventilation and emergency shaft in the middle of a densely populated area with narrow streets.
Everyone is concerned about the well-being of this community.
Ken finally loses his cool with me. So no change there after his summer break!
We go onto a question about finances. There is a looming half billion hole in the Mayor’s budget. I’m highly suspicious that his intention will be to fill as much of it as necessary by digging into Londoners’ pockets by increaseing fares and his share of Council Tax bills (called “the precept”) in due course.
With Ken having just been re-elected, this is his “safe” period when he feels he can do as he pleases – with one election out of the way and the next a long time away. He informs us that he will make an announcement on his proposed fare increases next Tuesday at his press conference.
We had been informed earlier this morning that he has cancelled his visit to the LibDem conference due to – as his office put it – an ’emergency crisis budget meeting’.
I challenged him on his dishonesty pre-election when he promised time and time again when the fares were raised last January that he would peg the price of tickets to inflation.
This will clearly be broken next week and – given our fares are the highest in the world and the cost of living in London is making it a nightmare for key workers and the like – this is going to make things worse. Let alone making a nonsense of the benefits of the congestion charge in reducing traffic – when the fare hike could send people back into their cars.
I accused him of telling porky-pies and received a rebuke for using such langugate. Mind you, “porky pie” was mild compared to what I would have liked to call him!
We moved onto the ’emergency budget crisis meeting’. Ken laughed (as he does) and said it was simply a meeting with Transport for London to determine how the government’s grant would be spent – i.e. which transport projects he would have to drop given that raiding all of our little piggy banks through fares still won’t be enough to plug the hole and fund his wish list.
I rest my case – emergency crisis budget meeting was the right terminology.
Lib Dem election summit
Whole day of interviewing for new Chair of the London Transport Users Committee. One more day of it go on Wednesday – when we have to make our decision. Watch this space…
Rush home from day’s interviewing to pick up car to go to a weekend Liberal Democrat election summit. Fantastic location for me – I dislike driving myself, but because it was virtually on the A1 and the A1 is near me – I did it easily. I am a slow driver – but even at my pathetic top speed I arrived there in an hour.
Fantastic venue – really well set up for training needs and the staff were kind and helpful too. The weekend is packed with sessions. I don’t think I would be talking out of school if I said that I had spent the weekend in nervous state having been asked to give one of the two after-dinner speeches on the Saturday night.
The letter I had received from our Campaigns Department simply stated that the speech should be 10-15 minutes and ‘light-hearted’. I can do speeches on my portfolio subjects without a blink – but the idea of having to be funny or entertaining to my peers scared me to death. Thankfully – went down well.
Returned home on Sunday, full of beans and raring to go. Hartlepool is looking good (good to our candidate Jody is blogging too!) and there is a really buzz about our prospects at the general election when it is called.
Lynne Featherstone 