Highgate – parking chaos must stop now, says Lib Dem leader

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Liberal Democrats and local residents in Highgate have condemned Haringey Council for failing to stop parking chaos in the area and for ignoring the views of local residents.

Lib Dem Leader Neil Williams, who represents Highgate ward, says that the Miltons area of his ward, north of Hornsey Lane, is experiencing parking chaos due to the introduction of Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs) in neighbouring streets – schemes that the Council has known about, but which they have so far failed to address with their own proposals.

The area now has the only streets within easy reach of the Whittington Hospital that does not have parking controls, resulting in displacement parking chaos and misery for local residents.

Residents in the area were consulted on the introducing of parking controls last year, and are thought to favour the introduction of a controlled parking zone. However, Haringey Council has not yet even released the results of this consultation, let alone designed a scheme to put to the residents.

The situation was set to worsen further this weekend, when Haringey Council gave notice that it would vigorously enforce parking restrictions in the area, despite an earlier pledge to Highgate councillor Bob Hare that they would adopt a “light touch” while the present problems persisted.

Cllr Neil Williams comments:

“Local residents in the area are now facing parking chaos, which is only set to worsen. The Council is ignoring requests to help sort out this situation. It is absurd. Where there appears to be local support for parking controls, the Council dithers, while wasting its time on unpopular parking schemes elsewhere in the borough.

“Haringey Council needs to reprioritise its work plans, and get some relief to the residents of this part of Highgate as soon as possible. The present situation is totally intolerable, and cannot be allowed to continue as long as July.”

Gun and gang culture

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A gunDid the Politics Show on gun crime in London today. It is the big story at the moment, courtesy of a spate of killings and the shocking ages involved – but gang culture and guns have been running for years.

So – yes it’s right to look at lowering the age at which the mandatory sentence for being in possession of an illegal gun can be prosecuted from the current 21 to 17 or 18. But don’t just put them in prison – where youngsters can simply learn in crime’s best university how to be on the wrong side of everything for the rest of their lives. Use that period also to invest in trying to give them real rehabilitation and pathways to a better life.

The one bit of the proposals from Blair that I thought was spot on was the need to introduce protection for witnesses that come forward to give evidence against members of a gang. But neither legislation nor police powers will change the real malaise. These gang members need such a range of support – from somewhere to go, alternative adults to care about them if their parents or parent don’t, life chances and real commitment for long periods from others. There was a guy on the Politics Show from Boyhood to Manhood, who work in South London. We need to ensure that more of that work is going on to support and sustain the individuals and the communities. It’s no good just appointing blame. This has to be about bringing support to lone parents and creating means for fathers to be with their children even if the partnership is long gone – or indeed never was. And this gang and gun culture (and I had a bit of bother saying that on TV – it came out gung!) is specific to this particular criminal culture. It is not endemic across all communities. But we all have to help resolve and resource this long term – not just now the spotlight is on it. One idea I would like to see tried more widely here is an American one – where they started something called something like ‘dads and doughnuts’. These are evenings organised by schools to bring in fathers with their children – not the mothers. Particularly useful where the parents has split up and aren’t getting on as this way – rather than only the mother attending parents’ evenings and the like – the fathers are more involved and engaged with the school and the progress of their child there.

Combined with the UNICEF report that puts our children at the bottom of the rich nation heap – it has been an eye-opening week. We are doing badly. I don’t think you can conflate the two – the gun and drug criminal culture is way beyond the norm. However, we do have a ‘behaviour crisis’ in terms of the more general findings of the UNICEF report – and I hope it is a wake-up call.

I have some sympathy with the Government in as much as so much of the damage was done under the Tories – and the Labour Government has at least made tackling child poverty one of its priorities. The child tax credits, for example, were not a bad idea – just badly executed.

However, it is clear from the report that we, all of us adults, had better have a look at ourselves and our behaviour – because we are letting our children down.

Are drive-by booknappings by joyriding offspring from neighbouring schools a problem in your area?

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I A fingerprintonly ask, because that seems to be the logic behind many of the fingerpriting systems in use in schools around the country. As I say in my latest newspaper article:

The technology being used on British children is similar to the identification systems used in US prisons and for the German military. This system is now being used in thousands of UK primary schools up and down the land – sometimes in conjunction with digitised photographs – to replace library cards and – so it is argued – to increase efficiency of library management.
But, in my view, treating children like criminals is unlikely to be the best way to imbue the sort of values we should be instilling in the next generation. Fingerprinting and digitised photographs for protecting the Crown Jewels – fair enough – but fingerprinting and digitised photographs for a children’s book about them?

The full article is here.

Labour forced to rethink on CPZ charging plans

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Haringey Council’s top ‘Watchdog’ Committee has asked the Labour-controlled Council to reconsider its consultation plans for new parking charges. The move by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday 13th February 2007 was the result of a Lib Dem instigated ‘call-in’ of the Council’s plans, and saw Labour members of the committee disagree publicly on the issue.

The move followed protests from the Lib Dems and some Labour members that Haringey Council had opted for only the bare minimum of consultation for this significant overhaul in Control Parking Zone (CPZ) charging.Moreover, it was revealed last night that the Council had intended to do no more than put a few notices on lampposts and place legal notices in local papers.

In a further development, Councillor Brian Haley, lead member of environmental services, and no stranger to CPZ controversy, revealed that the whole scheme had been brought forward by Labour against his own wishes, and would offer no explanation for this. The news confirms Lib Dem suspicions that the scheme has been designed to plug a short-term whole in Labour’s budget rather than to secure the best possible benefit for the environment.

Councillor Martin Newton, Haringey Lib Dem spokesperson for transport, put forward positive Lib Dem proposals for a revenue neutral scheme, with more consultation, and a better banding structure that would encourage more residents to switch to lower emission vehicles.

Cllr Martin Newton comments:

“We are fully behind using taxation to change people’s behaviour to prevent climate change – and the pressure is now on Labour to allow more time to come up with a better scheme. We need to take people along with us in the process of introducing this scheme.”

It's criminal

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If we are now saying that fingerprinting children is the best way of ensuring that they get their library books back to the school library – then the world has clearly gone mad! But this is what is happening both nationally and locally.

One of my local schools was catapulted into the media this week for having fingerprinted its children and retained the fingerprints on file – even though in this case the scheme had to be dropped because it didn’t work.

The technology being used on British children is similar to the identification systems used in US prisons and for the German military. This system is now being used in thousands of UK primary schools up and down the land – sometimes in conjunction with digitised photographs – to replace library cards and – so it is argued – to increase efficiency of library management. Each child is required to place a thumb onto an electronic scanner, and the identity of the print is then stored in a computer.

In my view, treating children like criminals is unlikely to be the best way to imbue the sort of values we should be instilling in the next generation. Fingerprinting and digitised photographs for protecting the Crown Jewels – fair enough – but fingerprinting and digitised photographs for a children’s book about them? That is a hideously disproportionate response to the issue – and a sense of balance and judgement is one of the many things we should actually be teaching children!

Remember also that the infant book-borrower is not a random passer-by – I don’t think even in the most extreme media world stuffed full of crime wave scares have we got into drive-by booknappings by joyriding offspring from neighbouring schools. So schools have things like name, address and contact details on record already – which means it is not as if some sophisticated identification and checking system is needed.

And yes – children do lose their library cards; but learning not to lose things is part of becoming a developed grown-up as is taking the responsibility for borrowing a library book and then dealing with the financial penalties if it is not returned.

That the Government is encouraging this is perhaps not surprising – given that this is the very same Government that wants to spend billions of pounds on mandatory ID cards – tagging the innocent rather than putting the resources into catching the guilty. Who knows – perhaps there is a view that they need to get kids used to being monitored and tagged at an early age so that when they come to voting age they will think nothing of a Big Brother surveillance state!

The Government is belatedly bringing out some guidelines for schools and encouraging schools to seek parental consent. It is all rather half-hearted so far, and the retention of this very sensitive and personal information on a computer database also raises the spectre of security (how many schools have the IT expertise to keep their systems really secure?) and future use and abuse.

So I have signed an Early Day Motion at Parliament (sort of a petition for MPs) against this growing practice. (If you aren’t one of my constituents, you can lobby your own MP too very easily via www.theyworkforyou.com). We need a proper debate – with teachers, parents and children involved – and then effective and comprehensive new guidance if such a system is to be used at all.

And we need it soon – because imagine the temptation to keep on expanding the use of fingerprints and access to them. Otherwise it won’t be long before security and safety are rolled out as reasons to give the security services and the police access to the fingerprint records. And then – remembering Labour’s public backing for so-called “early intervention”, which means identifying those children at risk of becoming criminals later in life – it could so easily be extended to monitoring children, however young, thought at risk of one day becoming a criminal. And then of course you wouldn’t want to leave out any child would you, because what if you assessed the risk wrong and the one you didn’t fingerprint went on to commit a crime? So it’d be full fingerprinting and monitoring across the board. Not so much Big Brother as little Kid Brother perhaps – but just as bad. And all because someone wanted to make sure they got their library book back.

(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2007

Valentines Day

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Having received no Valentines (yet!) today, was cheered to receive one from Adam Boulton in the form of his 2007 10 Most Fanciable MPs. Now, when I was a just a young lass and burning my bra – a wolf-whistle from a workman was to be reviled, put down and spat back – let alone appearing in a ‘top totty’ poll. However, age has mellowed me. Now – I am just grateful!

Forced marriage

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Wedding ringsThat’s the topic of my latest newspaper column (Asian Voice on this occasion):

Hanging together in the face of adversity – and often in the face of having a community flung into different parts scattered around the world – is an admirable trait. But it can lead to some customs, traditions and religious practices that cross a line of what can be accepted in a civilised society – and so where the state does have (in my view) a duty to intervene and prohibit.

You can read it in full on my website.

Back from the Westminster Hour

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Back Lynne Featherstone MP on Radio 4from the Westminster Hour! Tonight was – is Ming too old (Lord Owen’s comments in the week)? No – say I – just a grumpy old man (Lord Owen not Ming).

Then it was on to Ming and his profile on Facebook – which already has over 200 friends. I’ve just got one too – follow my leader! – but with only 23 friends (so far!).

Then David Cameron – does he have a right to a private life? Yes!

Then – should the Government take note of the online petition on the Number 10 website signed by around one million people about road charging? Yes – of course. Clearly folk are not happy and whilst the overall intention of the policy might be right – there ought to be a lot of work going on to find out how to mitigate the problems people see with the proposal. Also – it cannot be about revenue raising, only about sorting out our traffic and transport.

And then it was on to the Tories approaching our Lib Dem David Laws to change sides. Go away – he said. But I am not surprised that the Tories are trying to seduce our brightest and our best! They need a bit of talent on their benches – but b****r off – you can’t have ours!

On arriving home find a listener who has taken pity on me having heard my friend count and become my friend. Thank you Anna!