Kennedy's resignation – afterthoughts

Posted on by

So that’s what it’s like! Political assassinations since Caesar have been ghastly affairs. I am only glad that Charles’ exit speech was him at his best – that the last memory of him as leader will be such a good one.

Before I turn to what is to come – I have been reflecting on how it all came to be such a messy and brutal affair – in a party that is so nice.

When I arrived in Parliament as a new MP in May I have to say that I was shocked by the scale of the leadership problems. I was aware that Charles was brilliant at times – but then seemed to disappear and not truly have the hunger that is needed to drive a party forward. But as a fan of his, my view then – and for a long time after – was that the best option was support, help and encouragement for him to sort things out.

I remember one time I spoke to Charles. I said that I was glad that he had made a statement to the MPs about improving performance etc. – but that I wanted specifics. I wanted to know what would be different this time to others. And finally – that it would be disingenuous of me not to mention that I had concerns about his personal habits. He didn’t address the issue – just as on other occasions he didn’t. I’m not angry with him about that – for those with a drink problem, facing up to it is perhaps the hardest thing to do. But I am saddened that the previous unsuccessful attempts to put things back on track meant that, finally, in the last few weeks so many people (including myself in the end) felt that we were left with no alternative.

Had Charles’s announcement on Thursday been the start of the road, I have no doubt we would have all rallied around – but tragically, it wasn’t – things had gone on for so long already. In the end though, he resigned with dignity and I wish him and his family all the best at what must be a very testing time.

Update on Lib Dem leadership

Posted on by

Once I heard Charles’s statement on Thursday – as I said yesterday – it became clear to me that I could no longer continue my support for him to remain as leader. The hardest thing is trying to make your own mind up – to get your own thinking straight. For me, as a Charles loyalist, once my gut feelings told me that his position was untenable and that his ‘statement’ made with a gun to his head of exposure was calculated – it all got much easier.

Ed Davey had rung me around 8.45am yesterday morning to ask if I would be willing to be a signatory to the ‘statement’ by MPs and be willing to resign my front bench position unless Charles himself stepped down. I said in principle – yes – but that I would ring back later in the day. However, as soon as I put the phone down I rang Ed back immediately because I had made up my mind, and there was no point in buggering around so told him that he could count me in. At that stage there were not many yet signed up – so there was some angst as the day wore on as to whether there would be enough of us to force the issue. I spoke to Ed several times during the day as the numbers climbed ever upwards.

Of course, the phone did not stop going all yesterday or today with various media hounds after their stories. I decided that I would not go on television or radio to comment before Charles resigns. My hope is that he goes gracefully before Monday. I do not want to see him damage himself or the party further. Charles – according to the media – still believes that the wider party supports him staying and that he would therefore win a leadership contest. That support appears to ebbing away. Certainly following the statement I put on my blog yesterday (and emailed out to local members and helpers) – responses on the position I have taken are running at around 90% in agreement.

This is all very painful and uncomfortable – but I am now quite heartened by the feeling that at last the dynamic (or lack of it) that I have witnessed at Parliament will be banished. I have to say that I have been quite shocked by what I found going on at Parliament. Like the wider membership – at first I had no real idea of what the problem was. But what I found was a pretty dysfunctional Parliamentary Party, held in a limbo because of what is now clear – a lack of strategic direction from the leadership. Underwhelmed as I was by the early briefings to the media which I felt were disloyal – I have come to understand that Charles had been given every opportunity to improve performance and that a refusal to give that direction was compounding the challenges we already have to move ahead for the political life ahead.

And make no mistake – political life will move on very swiftly. Today – there will be announcements I am sure – and tomorrow – and Monday. Then we will see Charles go, hats in the ring and the political landscape shifts again. And if that happens I hope that, relieved of the burdens of leadership, Charles and his family will be able to put their lives back together again. He certainly deserves that after all the good he has done for our party.

Charles Kennedy's leadership

Posted on by

It’s a bit of a day today! So many people are emailing and contacting me about where I stand that I think it only right to put my thinking on the record on my blog – unadulterated.

I am pretty angry about the way things have happened over Charles Kennedy’s position as Leader – and have been since the beginnings of the public rumblings following the pre-Christmas briefings to the media. It’s not the way to do these things. Perhaps I am simply naive and these things cannot be done ‘nicely’ but the future of the Liberal Democrats matters passionately to me and I want to see us go onwards and upwards – and to replicate what we achieved in the election in Hornsey & Wood Green in many other seats across the country at the next election.

I have been a Charles supporter. I went out and campaigned for him to be leader. I think he was exceptional in his call on Iraq – the right position and a brave position – for which he took much flak in Parliament and outside. He was right about not taking part in the Butler Inquiry. And I have always enjoyed his style of leadership (not egomaniac and not spin) – something reflected in the polls which have consistently showed him very popular.

But following his statement yesterday – I think it has all gone too far to save him. And I myself, no longer feel inspired to support him. I feel let down because he has had previous opportunities to set the record straight privately and publicly. And the discontent in the parliamentary party is not just about the possible (and now confirmed) alcohol problem but also about the vision and drive which the party needs to make even more progress at the next election.

Initially, I thought the statement yesterday might deliver a strategic miracle – for a few moments – but then recognised that it will not stem the tide. And so despite the difficulties and the challenges ahead, I hope he reconsiders his position over the coming weekend.

He may even win a leadership contest if it goes to the membership. It’s important that we are a democratic party and that we have our leader chosen by our members – but it is also right that Lib Dem members know the views of those MPs who work with the party leader most closely week by week. That’s why I and many of my colleagues are saying that we want Charles to reconsider his position, and that we won’t hold office under him. In my case, that would mean resigning as a Home Affairs frontbench spokesperson.

From what I have seen of emails coming into me today – there are some who are angry, especially as the man made such a brilliant decision over Iraq – but the majority seem to be saying – reluctantly – that there is no way he can go on.

So – we will have to see how it pans out over the next few days. Parliament returns next week – and the first Parliamentary Party Meeting is on late Wednesday afternoon. It is just such a sad way to go.

DNA DATABASE CONTENTS VERY CONCERNING

Posted on by

On the day that the Government announced that the national DNA database has over three million entries, new figures revealed by Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson, Lynne Featherstone MP, shows that there are 139,463 people who have a DNA profile on the national DNA database (NDNAD) who have not been charged or cautioned with an offence.

Commenting Lynne Featherstone MP said:

“This is an intolerable infringement of liberty and personal privacy.

“There is no purpose or justification for keeping the DNA record of anyone who is not charged with an offence. We cannot be absolutely certain that there will be no misuse of the DNA Database. There are no real safeguards in place to control it.

“With the growing concern about racial profiling and disproportionality in criminal investigations, the need to keep innocent people on the DNA Database is questionable.”

Note – Hansard 20 Dec 2005 : Column 2890W

DNA Profiles

Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people who have not been charged or cautioned for an offence have DNA profiles stored in the police national database; and if he will make a statement. [34330]

Andy Burnham: There are 139,463 people who have a DNA profile on the national DNA database (NDNAD) who have not been charged or cautioned with an offence.

This figure comprises: 124,347 people who have a DNA profile on the NDNAD who have been arrested and subsequently not been charged or cautioned with an offence. This information was provided by the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) and obtained from the police national computer (PNC) which is linked to the NDNAD; and 15,116 volunteer sample profile records retained on the NDNAD.

A volunteer sample is a DNA sample taken from an individual in relation to the investigation of an offence for elimination purposes and not as a result of the individual having been arrested in connection with an offence. The volunteer must give written consent to provide the sample; and can also volunteer to have their DNA profile held on the database by providing separate written consent for this. Volunteer samples may be taken from, for example, the victim of a crime, a third party, a member of a population identified for an intelligence-led screen or from an individual at their request.

New Year message

Posted on by

2005 was a bit of a year – and then some.

As I look back over the year – I am thrilled with what we have been able to achieve. No – not just the General Election (clearly a stunning victory turning a Labour majority of 10,514 into a LibDem one of 2,395) but the causes and campaigns I and my LibDem colleagues have championed together with local residents. That’s what has made the difference in Hornsey & Wood Green.

Current battles ongoing perhaps sum up some of what I am trying to do in the constituency – which all boil down to making it a better place for local people to work, rest and play – to quote a famous old advertising tag line. I don’t think aiming for a clean, pleasant and safe environment is asking too much!

I’ll start with the Hornsey concrete factory planning application. London Concrete want to plonk a concrete batching plant on Cranford Way – right bang in the middle of a residential area – with schools and children and narrow streets – just the sort of place for over 300 HGVs per week to wreck the local ambience! I and my LibDem colleagues have been campaigning against this application since the moment it was lodged – together with great local group Green N8.

We passed the first hurdle with Haringey Planning Committee refusing the application – but in the way of the world – the developer has appealed and as I write we are in the middle of the hearings by Her Majesty’s Inspector to whom I gave ‘evidence’ the week before Christmas. You can read the evidence on my earlier blog posting about the concrete factory plans.

I invited both John Prescott and Ken Livingstone to see the evil that would be done. Neither accepted my invitation. Holding baited breath now and crossed fingers – this David and Goliath battle will be settled by the end of January.

Another battle that engages me is the fight against sitting mobile telephone masts near vulnerable people – like young children. The idea is to bring forward legislation that would enable local councils to refuse planning permission on the grounds of the precautionary principle – until such time as we have proof positive of what these masts do or do not do to our health. This doesn’t just happen in Hornsey & Wood Green but up and down the land. And of course, we all do use mobile phones, so we can’t be overly pure. The Government is still proclaiming that there is no evidence of damage to health. I have challenged the Government through Parliamentary channels to do the scientific studies necessary to look at the incidence of cancer around mobile phone masts in situ for 10 years – without which we are all in anecdotal territory. They haven’t responded as yet.

Locally, of course, we occasionally succeed and see off a phone mast application – but they relentlessly return nearby or at the same site but from a different company. Good news though – recently in a statement by the local Head of Planning in regard to refusing a particular mast in Fortis Green, he went as far as to say ALL future applications for mobile masts in the Haringey conservation area will be an outright NO from now on! Watch this space.

I am also still keeping up the pressure on Haringey Primary Care Trust (PCT) over the future of the Hornsey Central Hospital site. Following a long campaign against closure of the old hospital and then a long process of working with local residents and other interested parties – proposals for a new health facility finally came forth from the PCT for a mix of local health services and elderly care. However, dogged by funding problems caused by the withdrawal from renting some of the space by the Health Trust etc delays and fears about its future have crept in. So I recently met yet again with the Chair of the PCT and received personal assurances from him of his commitment to ensuring that the project goes ahead. But there must remain, until the public meeting in the New Year that he has promised me, concerns over what of the original promised facilities will actually proceed and get built.

As for policing – Safer Neighbourhood Teams are what we all want. They are what we have always wanted. But whilst London is promised complete roll-out in the next year – some ‘neighbourhoods’ are being left out. I have long campaigned to get a team into Highgate – and at last am encouraged that we are on our way to success. Highgate is split between three different boroughs. Now no police commander I know – despite their protestations about cross-border working – is willing to commit him or herself to an actual cross-border Safer Neighbourhood Team. So I have brought this to the Metropolitan Police Authority on several occasions. And am helped in my quest by Crystal Palace – ironically. Crystal Palace is split between five areas – and so the MPA are running a pilot there which if successful will be applied to neighbourhoods like Highgate which suffer from divided ownership. The sooner the better!

So – with obviously lots more going on than I can possibly begin to convey in this message – not to mention the fight of our lives against Labour’s attack on the fundamental principles of liberty and justice in our land – I look forward to a challenging and pretty energetic year ahead.

A very Happy New Year to you all!

Growing numbers of homeless people

Posted on by

Good coverage in the media (such as here) this morning for the shocking homelessness figures I’ve unearthed – up by two-thirds in London since 2000 and across England there are 100,000 families spending Christmas in temporary accommodation.

And with that – I am blogging off until January 9th when Parliament returns. However, if anything monumentally interesting happens – I will post in the interim.

Merry Christmas!

Wrapping up for Christmas

Posted on by

On Thursday, got text from office saying that the emergency surgery I was to have held this morning is unnecessary as only one person needs to ‘see’ me before Christmas and he is happy to talk on the phone – which I do. And having listened to a very long and complicated benefits (or lack of them) history – he tells me he has a file a mile thick. We arrange to meet early in the New Year to go through the history in more detail. So without surgery I continue to try and get my paperwork etc up to date for the break – but still the mountain stares relentlessly and resentfully at me!

Run into constituency office to sign last casework letters to make sure they get out and hopefully arrive before Christmas. Though you can’t really be sure at this point of the year! Have a chat with all at the office. They are a an absolute A team in terms of quality and quantity of work they get through – and more than that – really committed to serving the public which matters more than anything in this sort of office – and even more than that – a really nice group who all get on with each other.

Ed is my diary secretary and caseworker and runs the everyday stuff at the office as well as my assistant at surgery half the time. He has turned out to be an absolute star – and cares passionately about all of it.

Thuranie is a part-time caseworker and has been with me for five years now – since I first got elected to the London Assembly and could no longer cope on my own with the volume of casework when she used to come to my house one day a week. She has the most wonderful way with people and endless patience.

Charlie works almost exclusively on immigration casework as well as being my assistant at surgery the other half of the time. He now knows the ins and outs of the Home Office (who have to be the worst and most inefficient organisation known to man).

I have an intern, Angela, who is learning and gaining experience with the office. Hopefully when she has got some experience on her CV she will go on to get the job she wants.

And the last person in the local office part of the time, split between working in the constituency and in Parliament, is Andrew who is my Head of Office. Andrew just knows everything – knows how Parliament works, how constituencies offices need to be run – and has the patience of a saint.

At the parliamentary end – I have Mette. Mette is Swedish and just full of energy and enthusiasm – and loves doing ‘amendments’, Mette not only runs the office administration at the Parliamentary end, helps with PQs (Parliamentary Questions) etc – but has to work out the amendments to any Bill that I am taking through committee. She has a brood of interns – no more than one or two at a time (as they come and go according to gap year arrangements or whatever) – to help her with the sack loads of correspondence that arrives – up to 400 letters a day at times. The correspondence is opened, sorted and directed to appropriate place to be worked on – whether that end or constituency end.

The only real ‘rule’ in the offices is that ‘the customer is always right’. I know it’s old-fashioned (and there are some real challenges on occasion to that philosophy) but it’s the way I was brought up and whilst none of us are 100% – the ethos is there and to me it is important that my office reflects my philosophy – which is being there to serve.

Christmas Fairy Tale, 2005

Posted on by

Once upon a time – not long ago or far away – one of the Golden Elves who had served for five long years in the Glass Palace alongside the handsome Mayor (more of a frog really – but for the sake of the story, Ill make him handsome) had, at the will of the people, been sent to another Palace – an older, colder palace along the water.

This Stone Palace housed the Law Maker Elves. And the Law Maker Elves were ruled over by a once powerful and strong-willed Prince who now grew weaker by the day.

The event foretold last Christmas Eve to fall on the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year of the New Millennium had come to pass – and the Dark Prince’s power was much diminished. Once he had relied on 412 Red Elves to serve his every wish – but the people of the land had culled this to only 356.

So the old order was changing. Part of the trouble had actually been of the Prince’s own making. Firstly he had plunged the country into a war at the behest of a mad wizard who lived in a White House across the water. And then he had proclaimed that he would abdicate around the dawning of the tenth year of the New Millennium. Before the proclamation had even left his lips – his power began to drain away. Desperately searching for a worthwhile legacy to leave his people, the embattled Prince did what rulers since the dawn of time have done – he sought to limit their freedom. By iron rule would he forbid dissent.

The Prince declared that no person would any longer be able to walk the streets by right. Each subject would have a magical device planted behind their ear. Without rhyme nor reason, Law Servers would be able to stop anyone at will and with another magic device read all the private details of their life stored on the first one. Moreover, the Prince declared that for the peoples’ own protection, he would be able to put them in prison for 90 days and 90 nights without proof – just on suspicion.

One of the Prince’s jolly lieutenants in charge of these devilish schemes had been willing to see if there was a better way through – but even though he was large and cuddly like a teddy bear with very cute stick-out ears – the Prince would have none of it and over-ruled him thus making the jolly lieutenant’s voice rise an octave.

Now – whilst the Golden, Blue and Red Elves normally disagreed about everything – on the rightful freedoms of the citizens – many of them did agree. And they joined hands to fight the Prince. And for the first time in the whole of his rule the Prince was royally defeated.

And as the Prince’s power continued to ebb away, the dark, brooding and jealous figure of the Red Scottish Elf who lived next door was ever present, skulking in the wings (except when things were difficult, when he hid under the table and said nothing to anyone until finally he would whisper a few, quiet words of support for the Prince) – waiting and wishing for the day when he would be Prince.

With a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning – a new Chief Blue Elf suddenly appeared and offered his hand in allegiance to the Prince. The Blue Elf was very sweet and terribly well brought up having been to a very, very posh school for Elves and kept on saying how much he wanted to agree with the Prince. The same could not be said of the Prince’s own Red Elves who were busy being very troublesome and disobedient indeed. However, with the very welcome support of the Blue Elves the Prince would now be able to get all his evil edicts through.

That now left only the Golden Elves to fight for the people of the land against the now malevolent prince. The Prince decided he must weaken them too. He asked the Chief Golden Elf to come for a Christmas drink – and then sent a message to all the Town Criers through the land that the Chief Golden Elf had had a drink. And the Prince was helped in his mission by a few very ambitious Golden Elves whose heads were much, much bigger than their brains.

And then a very strange thing happened. On Christmas Eve as the snow began to fall – the Prince was walking homeward to his very nice house at No 10 Downing Street. And he had a revelation. Clearly if the brooding Scot became Prince – that would allow the Golden Elves and Blue Elves to grow stronger. Middle England was where the Prince’s power came from and Middle England would be frightened by the dour, brooding Scot.

It was his duty to stay – to fight his way back to complete power. The people needed him to stay! He would stay. And he wouldn’t just be prince – his mission was clear – he would be King!

And I’m the Christmas Fairy!

Happy Christmas.

Haringey Council collections over Christmas

Posted on by

Normal day for rubbish or recycling collection / Revised day
26th December / 28th December
27th December / 29th December
28th December / 30th December
29th December / 31st December
30th December / 3rd January
2nd January / 4th January
3rd January / 5th January
4th January / 6th January
5th January / 7th January
6th January / 9th January
9th January / 10th January
10th January / 11th January
11th January / 12th January
12th January / 13th January
13th January / 14th January

… and then back to normal.

A useful, if not exciting, posting I hope!