The Party's Over!

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So – the party’s over. As Tony Blair left the stage – that shiny vision of new Britain’s new dawn is dead. I know, it’s a bit of a romantic,sort of through a looking-glass view of the Blair ascendancy – but that’s what it felt like when New Labour swept in to power and swept out the Nasty Party way back in ’97.

Of course – in the end – there was no new dawn and in fact, it was a rather old and destructive dawn where we entered an era of unparalleled spin. Trust in politics and politicians died. Ironic really – that Blair’s parting words were about the noble causes that politicians strive for and the respect he really, really had for the House of Commons! That respect was rather in short supply when he as PM had one of the lowest attendance, speaking or voting records in that very same House!

A great showman in the Commons Chamber – he played it to perfection to the end. ‘That is that. The End’ he said with a small hand gesture – and he was gone.

So now – there’s a cold wind blowing through the corridors of power as the dour Brown era is ushered in to the backdrop of terrorist attacks. Brown’s ‘change’ agenda – given his brooding, controlling, centralist track record – is questionable – just as are the sudden protestations about new Gordon, relaxed Gordon, decentralising Gordon, happy chappy Gordon all dressed up in talk of challenges – new challenges,challenging the challenges to bring new change so that change and challenges will change our challenging world.

However, events dear boy, events. In times of threat to our national safety, we want to believe that serious Gordon will see them off. We want to believe that serious Cabinet Government will replace informal and disorganised kitchen cabinet Government. We want to believe Gordon when he says he will come first to Parliament to make announcements. No longer will the media be the first to know and Parliament the last. We want to believe that the era of spin is no longer. We want to hear that we will fight to win the hearts and minds of all our communities so that there is no hiding place for anyone who wishes harm on our citizens. We want to believe Gordon when he says that he will not remove our civil liberties without great reason and caution – and not just to catch the next set of headlines in the next news cycle.

He is right to want to ‘change’ the atmosphere of governance. He isright to promise a new kind of politics. He is right to set himself up as an opposite to TB.And yet, and yet … he was there at the heart of New Labour all the time. Let us not forget that this is the same Brown who agreed with going to war in Iraq illegally and signed every cheque; wasted millions on consultants for PPP for the tube, wants to spend billions tagging innocent people with ID cards that won’t catch terrorists rather than using the money to put more police on our streets and more resource into intelligence and security and closed hospitals and health services.

Leopard and spots are the words that come to mind. Only time will truly tell.

Ming makes us laugh at Question Time

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So – Gordon’s first PMQs. Ming scored today – with a joke! Gordon was saying that his door was always open to Ming – and Ming said ‘Yes – a trap door’. It doesn’t quite come over in print – but it rocked the House with laughter – the right sort of laughter. As for Gordon – I thought he was much as you would expect – serious, slightly ill-informed on some issues (as he said – he had only been in the job for five days – but excuses don’t go down too well in the HoC) and he was trying to be conciliatory saying to most questioners – I will consider the points the Honourable Member has made. So – dullsville really!

Treehouse Trust's birthday

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With Lord Clement-Jones at the Treehouse Trust birthdayYesterday I went to a big reception in the Lords for the 10th birthday of TreeHouse. TreeHouse (Trust) is the most fabulous of organisations. Basically – ten years ago two mothers of autistic children got together to say that their kids were not getting the right care and attention – and set up TreeHouse. Lord Tim Clement Jones (Lib Dem colleague in the Lords) leads from the front on this – and together with very committed group of people has taken this idea through to creating the best ever school for autistic children that there is. But it’s not just about the children lucky enough to go to TreeHouse – it is a Charitable Trust which works on improving the case for all autistic children and research etc.

My involvement – well mainly that when TreeHouse were looking to build the proper bespoke buildings they came to my constituency and Muswell Hill. At first local residents were a little concerned about this proposed school on a green site – but it wasn’t green, green – it was land actually covenanted to educational purposes. And the staff are phenomenal – and if you could visit and see the work, the care and the love that these children receive – you would take TreeHouse to your heart the way we all have done. Treehouse has gone out into the community of Muswell Hill and earned its affection. In fact, the birthday cake was from the local bakers and now – we are all as proud of punch to have something this excellent on our patch.

At the event at the Lords, several of the children came and played some music and sang songs. If you don’t know an autistic child – then you will have no concept of just what a momentous achievement those seemingly simple songs were. I take my hat off to everyone involved – a truly moving occasion and such a worthy cause.

Then a quick meeting with the Missing Cypriots lobby opposite Parliament – where I meet up with Susie Constantinides from my local patch where she mother hens the Cypriot Centre. I meet a group of mainly women bearing photographs of young men strung around their necks. These are the missing Cypriots – their husbands, sons and brothers – who disappeared so many years ago and who have never been seen since. Altogether 1,619 Greek Cypriots – including civilians, women, children and old people – have not been seen since August 1974 and their fate remains unknown.

It is our business!

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Huge rent rises threaten our local shops each time they come up for review. But it is our local shops on the high streets such as those in Muswell Hill and Highgate that are the hearts of our communities. Without our local independent shops all we would have left would be the drab hand of centralising uniformity that comes with the big national chains, driving out the local vibrancy and variation that is the true heart of a local community.

A recent slew of rent rises has threatened the future of some of our favourite businesses in Muswell Hilland it was not that long ago the Raj’s corner shop inHighgate Village was under threat.

No one says that landlords should not raise rents when the five-yearly or whatever reviews comes around, but just sometimes you have to say that they appear to really push it – often to the point of pushing out the local independent business who has been a good tenant for years. Such businesses cannot always afford the massive hikes put forward and they decide to give up as the rent hike takes virtually all the profit they have struggled to make in a whole year’s workat a stroke – and we lose our long-serving and much loved community shops.

Contrary to a view I hear expressed from time to time about businesses coining it, most of the small businesses I know find it pretty tough to keep going against the ever-increasing burden of bureaucracy, costs and competition from multiples. Yes – there are those that make a decent profit – and good luck to them – but I bet most are just holding their heads above the water.

My Liberal Democrat colleague, Cllr Gail Engert has been out and about talking to some of the shops in Muswell Hill Broadway where there are a number of shops who are facing or have faced this problem. At Dod’s Newsagent, they had their rent raised from £14,500 to £31,500 in January 2006. And this is the amount that it was lowered to after they went to arbitration. But arbitration costs a lot of money, as you have to use specialists like surveyors in order to prepare your case – and Dod’s costs to go to arbitration were around £6,000. Another shop in Fortis Green underlined this point and said that they go through a rent review every four years and have to go to arbitration to get the proposed hike lowered. These little shops also have to pay high business rates for which they get very little service or say.

The loss of a shop providing a local choice of an important service is not only a tragedy for the local community but affects individual lives as well. The invaluable hardware shop, Bond and White, on Muswell Hill Road, will be closing on 31 July due to a huge rent rise and the demand for a new 25-year lease. This closure will result in the loss of 10 jobs for experienced staff.

You could take the view that it is a free market and if the landlord can find someone to pay more – then he is entitled. I don’t take that view. The market doesn’t work fully and effectively as many of the costs and benefits involved are not reflected in the market prices – for example if the loss of small local shops makes more people travel to big shopping centres, the congestion and pollution that can cause doesn’t get costed and included in the rent level negotiations for the small shops in the first place. Moreover, there has to be some fairness in the system – and the little businesses cannot pay the key money to get into the market or the high rents that the multiples can afford. That sort of obstacle to small businesses competing with large firms is another market failure, and that’s why we need policies to address them.

Two in particular appeal to me – landlords should be more willing to let small and new businesses pay a smaller proportion of their rent in advance, until the business and the cashflow builds up. In addition, just as we are used to the idea that property developers should provide some affordable housing when making housing developments, why shouldn’t shopping developments have similar conditions – if you get to make a big new retail development, part of the quid pro quo could be that you have to provide some affordable retail spaces. And in the cases of Muswell Hill and Highgate, please please Haringey Council finally learn the lesson – and properly consult with local businesses and residents before you next come up with parking plans in the area!

(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2007

Back to blogging

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You may have noticed a gap in the last few days when my blog postings were not appearing. Sorry about that, but Blogger wasn’t playing ball.

Although when I contacted them, Google eventually replied saying “There’s nothing wrong” (and asked me to check things I’d already told them I had checked!) lo and behold next time I tried, it worked. Lucky coincidence hey!

Helping make peace in the Middle East

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Heard that one of the Haringey Lib Dem councillors, Fiyaz Mughal, has been given a really fantastic award – Ambassador for Peace. The prize is handed out by the London-based Universal Peace Federation, in recognition of his bridge-building work between the Israeli and Palestinian communities. The award also recognises Fiyaz’s economic support for the region, in the form of promoting micro-finance, especially for businesswomen. Well done Fiyaz!

Swimming to Ealing Southall

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Last stop of my day is Ealing Southall by-election. I should have swum there – it would have been quicker. The heavens opened, lightning struck Southall (according to the radio) and trains out of Paddington were cancelled. So I drove – and it took two hours. I parked by our HQ, opening the door of the car to find that I was in about 10 centimetres of water. But hey – I was wearing boots – and I though this would be a good test as to whether they were waterproof. They were. Numerous drowned rat activist were returning to the fold – and the rest of the evening was spent on clerical work. Lib Dems aren’t put off by bad weather. No faint hearts here!

Remembering Roderick Benziger

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After my school visit this morning, it was on to the Memorial Service at St Mary’s with St George church at the bottom of Cranley Gardens for Roderick Benziger – a long, long standing Liberal Democrat – and general community – activist.

When I got involved in the Liberal Democrats in Hornsey & Wood Green back in ’94 – it was stalwarts like Roderick who were keeping the party flame burning – when there was no electoral success nor prospect of it. So without Roderick (and Mo Chadirci – also sadly deceased) I would not be the MP and we would not have 27 councillors. Roderick was a man of real principle, integrity, intellect and commitment – and liked nothing better than a drink in the pub after campaigning where we would find something mutually agreeable to vehemently disagree about.

Roderick represented me at a meeting long ago for the Hornsey Hospital Campaign Group – and he campaigned with the group and myself for years extracting from the Trust the promise to replace the hospital. That fight to deliver what local people want goes on today.

He was also a school Governor at Muswell Hill Primary School and a keen poet and member of the Highgate Poets. The service was lovely and everyone clearly had a deep affection for Roderick. He had such character and was a Liberal to his toes. The Liberal Democrats and I send our love to Diana, his partner, who has been his love and his strength throughout the years.

Big PFI bills hits Haringey schools

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Met with the Head, Roz Hudson, and the Chair of Governors, Steph Gold of Alexandra Park School about the massive bill (around £300,000 in figures given to my Lib Dem colleague Cllr Gail Engert) that has landed on their desk courtesy of the Government’s PFI for schools program and the appalling PFI contract, negotiated by Haringey.

This contract, it appears, allows the PFI contractor (in this case Jarvis) variations. Well variations are not unusual – but these are not discussed or agreed with the school – they are just landed on the school. And it’s not just Alexandra Park School – it’s all of the secondary schools in Haringey.

In answers to questions posed by Gail, Haringey Council confirmed that Haringey’s secondary schools would be liable for PFI back payments totalling over £2 million.

Our schools are striving hard to improve performance and meet targets in Haringey. Alexandra Park School is doing brilliantly and meeting its targets. If Haringey and the Government refuse to acknowledge that these extra costs – for which they give no extra funding to the schools in their budgets to meet – are their liability and not the schools – then it will mean that pressure on schools’ budgets will harm the service that schools are providing to children in Haringey.

So – these are the PFI chickens coming home to roost. However, it is not the schools who should foot the bill for Haringey’s poor contract negotiation. I am writing to the new Schools’ Minister, Ed Balls, to ask that he review the situation in Haringey’s schools and together with Haringey Council come up with an financial rescue plan that either pays the bills or puts extra funding into the school budgets to meet the costs.

As the years go by – we will find more and more problems with these PFI wonders. At the time, it was Hobson’s choice. Schools either accepted the PFI deals set up for them – or there was nothing – absolutely nothing for them. And the sting in the tail for the Council is that the next ten years of funding for schools’ buildings – called Building Schools for the Future (BSF) – won’t kick in until these bills are all paid.