Category Archives: Blog

Tories today!

Posted on by

Just watching the news as the latest revelations on MP expenses roll onwards. It’s the turn of the Tories with Alan Duncan and Michael Gove’s names in the frame. No doubt we will have our turn in due course.

On Sky this morning – it was the main topic of debate – and it is quite breath-taking at times. I think MPs who need a second home should have one – and a decent one – but have long time been on the record as saying that if you buy a house using public money to pay your mortgage then any capital gain (or loss) on sale should go to the House of Commons. What makes for such shameful reading is that public money is used to do up places, name them as primary homes to avoid capital gains tax and then sell for a profit. That’s where it is so wrong. And I guess the other glaring bit of the expenses debacle – is the idea that it’s ok to employ a gardener at the tax payer’s expense.

This will run and run.

Will Pike

Posted on by

Will Pike is a young man in his late twenties. He is in a wheelchair and will be for the rest of his life. He was injured in the Mumbai terrorist attacks – and his story is in the Observer today because Will is campaigning for British victims of terrorism abroad to be given the same support and compensation as they would get if they had been injured here.

Will isn’t just doing this for himself. He is the worst injured of those hurt in Mumbai – but there are many others.

I have written to Gordon Brown to point out that we have a moral obligation to our citizens – wherever in the world they come under attack. I have asked for a meeting for Nigel (Will’s father), Will himself and me.

Let’s hope he doesn’t fail to respond! Perhaps he will have learned his lesson the hard way from not responding to Joanna Lumley – warrior head-mistress!

Other elected Liberal Democrats online in Haringey

Posted on by

A quick reminder / round-up of my Lib Dem colleagues on Haringey Council who are online themselves:

Matt Davies (Fortis Green ward councillor) blogs at mattdaviesharingey.blogspot.com
Karen Alexander (Harringay ward councillor) is on Twitter as @karenjalexander
Neil Williams (Highgate ward councillor) blogs at neilwilliamslibdems.blogspot.com
Fiyaz Mughal (Noel Park councillor) has a website at fiyazmughal.org.uk
Richard Wilson (Stroud Green councillor) blogs at www.richardwilson.me.uk

Happy birthday to us!

Posted on by

I’ve been celebrating this week: I’ve just turned 4 – in MP years, of course!

This called for cake with friends and my wonderful staff. (Thank you, one and all.)

We remembered my four very eventful years so far, as Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green – here’s looking forward to the next five – hopefully!

Happy birthday to us!
(Pictured with Crouch End councillor Ron Aitken)

Simon Mayo

Posted on by

Hazel Blears must have known what she was writing in that article. ‘Lamentable’ and ‘You Tube if you want to’ are hardly accidental insults.

At PMQs, David Cameron went for Gordon – sensing a weakened and beleaguered Prime Minister – somehow he managed to mess it up and come over like a bully-boy – unpleasant and over-political. Every one of his six supplementries was attacking Brown. So whilst Brown was wooden and unable to make quips – he didn’t suffer the way he ought to have given his fragile state and the week from hell just passed. He was desperately trying to be a serious man for serious times – coming back at Cameron for not asking a single question on policy or the economy. Underwhelming on both sides I thought.

Actually – the duel was deeply depressing. Red / blue, blue / red – same old same old. About time we had a different way of doing politics! Yes – us.

The only really decent questions (apart from Nick Clegg – obviously) was about the Gurkhas and the complete failure of Brown to understand the mood of the nation and somehow believe that rattling immigration bars (no doubt guided by focus group) would somehow trump the hearts and minds of British people. our souls are built on fair play! But Gordon doesn’t get it.

So – we ranged over this in Simon Mayo – and ID cards (waste of money and won’t work), swine flu (briefly thank goodness) and the Gurkhas again – and the demise of Gordon. Doom and Dust!

It’s a great program – and I note that Simon ‘I’m being made to tweet’ Mayo (last time I was on re twittering) now finds it irresistible!

Road repairs, Haringey Council style

Posted on by

It’s ridiculous but it’s true – Haringey Council has been tarmacing over manhole covers when repairing roads with the result that (1) dealing with leaks etc becomes much harder as the manhole cover is covered in tarmac! and (2) it makes for a weak road surface, with the tarmac breaking and causing potholes more quickly than would otherwise be the case. As I said – ridiculous! My colleague Martin Newton (Fortis Green councillor) spotted this one on Fortis Green Road:

Fortis Green Road manhole cover

As Martin puts it, “Residents are rightly fed up with a system that plasters over the cracks rather than carrying out a proper job which would make our roads better, safer and, in the long run save Haringey Council money.”

One hour bus ticket campaign

Posted on by

Was out campaigning in Wood Green over the Bank Holiday as part of a London-wide Liberal Democrat campaign to get a one hour Oyster bus ticket introduced – the idea being, you pay for one hour travel and can hop on and hop off as many different buses as you need during that one hour without having to pay for a new ticket each time:

(You can also watch this video on the YouTube website.)

It’s the sort of thing that’s popular and effective in many other cities. It’s also just the sort of policy that’s win all round: it would stop people being put off those journeys where at the moment you run up the costs by having to change a lot, so encouraging more bus use, but also by taking a little bit of traffic off our roads, it would help everyone else needing to use the roads too.

If you agree – do sign our petition at ourcampaign.org.uk/1hourbusticket

Haringey's lies exposed!

Posted on by

So – Haringey Council knew that Baby P’s mother had a boyfriend – in fact they had a video of her talking about him. And there was a record in the case notes. And yet when asked during the furore of the first trial – as ever – they denied that they knew that he was living there . Just when we think this horrific tragedy will have bottomed out – and there surely can’t be any more shocking revelations of Haringey’s incompetence and lies – we find out there are.

Panorama revealed the existence of this video interview with Baby Peter’s mother last night – a video made by a senior social worker.

Yet another reason why we still need a public inquiry. So far, the spotlight has more or less remained on the Children’s Services department at Haringey – but given how much is still surfacing – just imagine what lies beneath in terms of how Haringey is working (or not working).

There has been no real examination of the gagging clauses that prohibit staff who leave from speaking about their former department. There has been no examination of Haringey’s arrogance in its failure to listen to whistle blowers, the family or opposition politicians – all who raised real concerns about child protection in Haringey. There has been no examination of the budgetary issues that gave rise to a reported memo instructing the department not to take more children into care. There has been scant attention to Ofsted finding Haringey ‘good’ when it wanted to make them look good – and then ‘bad’ when heads had to roll. (Panorama did at least touch on this – possibly because when I did an extensive background briefing for them I emphasised the lack of scrutiny of their role). The health team has thus far got off virtually unscathed – with its management bullying unquestioned – even though there was a locum doctor who failed to recognise a broken back and ribs. Why was there a locum? Why had all the paediatrician’s left in the previous two years? And so o and so on………

Without a public inquiry – much of what went wrong will stay wrong. Moreover – allowed to fester under the radar – the culture which was the rotten bottom of what goes on at Haringey will remain.