FEATHERSTONE HAILS LIB DEM BY-ELECTION SUCCESSES

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Commenting on the extraordinary success of the Lib Dems in the two Parliamentary by-elections at Leicester South and Birmingham Hodge Hill, Lynne Featherstone, Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson for Hornsey and Wood Green, said:

“These sensational results are a real boost for the Lib Dems in Hornsey and Wood Green, from where many members went to help in both these by-elections.

“Like Haringey, Both Birmingham and Leicester are urban seats with diverse populations. They have shown, as we have already shown here, that in seats like these the Lib Dems are the only challengers to Labour.

“The voters have shown again that they are fed up with Labour’s failures over public services, and the war in Iraq. Both results augur extremely well for us in the Hornsey and Wood Green seat.”

Note:

To win the Hornsey and Wood Green Parliamentary seat, the Liberal Democrats need a swing from Labour of 12%. The Lib Dems secured swings of 22% and 27% in the two Parliamentary by-elections.

Result!

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Watch the by-election coverage. Fantastic result for the LibDems. If we get that swing in Hornsey & Wood Green- we’ll have about a 15,000 majority. Hurrah! That is the plan.

Mayor's Question Time

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Mayor’s Question Time. Ken launches into the Professor’s visit as part of his verbal update to the Assembly. He speaks very well and totally refutes (and I believed him) the allegations that have been made as to what the Professor did or did not say in terms of incitement to hatred.  Ken then goes into the sad reality that we are probably, in fact almost certainly, going to get more tube strikes in the coming weeks.  I have a go at him to get down and get involved as he has such influence with the unions. He refuses. I ask him if, as he says, this is the best deal ever on the table, whether he thinks it would be a good idea to put a camera in on the negotiations so that we Londoners can see who is lying.  He’s a clever bugger – ‘cos he immediately turns it back on me as Chair of Transport and suggests I invite all of them in for an argy bargy in my committee. I would love to – but bet they wouldn’t come. I can only invite outsiders like the unions – unlike the GLA family who I can actually summons. Still – I’m still thinking about it……….

Ken and I have a little rumba over the 4 x 4 charging issue. Ken is keen to jump on my bandwagon – but warns that the legalities will be very difficult. We’ll see.

 

We get to the motion at the end. There have been fevered attempts by the Tories, Greens and UKIP to get an all party motion instead of the one they have tabled as they have managed to realise that they have knee-jerked to the tabloids tune. However, they can never manage to agree amongst themselves – and so the LibDem amendment gets put and passed and the Green motion falls even with Tory support.  Two gentlemen from the Muslim Council are in the audience and we have a brief chat afterwards when I sweetly point out that I was right to resist

their pressures.

Leicester South

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I find that my 10.00 am meeting has been cancelled and so instead of going to City Hall, I carry straight on to Leicester to help in the by-election.

I am sat stuffing envelopes in an upstairs area near to our by-election guru’s office, Chris Rennard. As he spies me he asks if I will speak to a Muslim caller from the Muslim Council of Great Britain who is concerned about a motion going to the GLA the next day. I also have to speak to another representative of that organisation following a message from my office.  The hoo-ha is over a motion put by the Greens condemning the Mayor for receiving the Prof Al-Qaradawi at City Hall etc.  We (LibDems) have put down an amendment to the motion to basically say that The Assembly should be a forum for robust debate and we condemn all acts of violence, including suicide bombing, homophobia, Islamaphobia and domestic violence. The Muslim Council want us to withdraw our amendment and simply vote against the motion. They phone a number of times during the day and apply pressure. Totally resisted by myself. I am sure that our amendment is true to ourselves – and stick to my guns. See MQT for what happened next.

Finish stuffing envelopes around 4pm and wend way back to London on Midland Mainline – pretty punctual and pleasant I thought.

Hornsey Housing Forum

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Hornsey Housing forum – it’s the options again. The Government is insisting that councils consult their tenants over options for managing council properties. There are ALMOs (Arms Length Management Organisations), a couple of others and the status quo. If you ask me – it’s all a way of shifting cost and risk.  As for trying to get vast swathes of local residents to understand the variety of options – a massive task.  Haringey Council were putting on road shows for each estate, but were exposed in an email as suggesting that no one be notified much in advance of these exhibitions to avoid many people coming. You have to laugh – not!

More 4 x 4s

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LibDem Group Meeting. Huge agenda. Not a pig’s chance of getting through it before I have to dash off to do an interview with Carlton on my 4 x 4 issue. Now they really like a soundbite. As soon as I had said something like ‘if you choose to drive a fashion statement you must expect to pay to rectify the damage it does to humans and to the environment’  Simon Harris was off like a shot. In the can.

More Stop and Search

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Straight into long TV interview with a digital TV station for black and ethnic issues. They are interviewing me as Vice-Chair of the Stop and Search Scrutiny.

It is quite funny in that they are obviously operating on a shoestring and the camera man has to hold a hand-written intro next to the camera for the presenter to read – no money for autocue.

That doesn’t take away from the content. I thought it was fantastic to have a forty minute session with questions and answers that allowed some depth on the issue. It drives me potty to have to speak in continual soundbites for some news programs. This was a real opportunity to present the whole gamut and complex nature of Stop and Search and the issues the Met and the Communities face in its usage. I’ve described the scrutiny itself before in my blog – so won’t repeat it here – you can get it on the MPA website if you are interested.

Transport 2000

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Richard Bourne of Transport 2000 came into see me and have a chat about my intentions with the Committee for the next year and to brief me on Transport 2000’s take on this. Obviously, Richard is very keen on the so called ‘soft measures’ which include cycling and walking. I do my best on these (I am very keen on individualised travel plans myself) but flag up to him what I believe to be the real reason that cycling and walking are not getting their fair share of the booty – no one at Transport for London (in a really high-up position) champions those modes. They don’t really care about them. The right words are in the Mayor’s transport strategy but the budgets and the speed of progress show the true situation – bottom of the list. The TfL boys only really like the boys toys………

The gherkin

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A rare excursion for me as I accepted an invite to a celebration of the opening of the Glass Gherkin – that huge glass, cigar shaped tower not far from City Hall. I rarely go to ‘dos’ as I have so many meetings but I am such a huge fan of modern architecture that I cannot resist this opportunity.

What a fabulous view and building. From the top floor which is made for entertaining with a 360 degree view of London you can see our little City Hall.

Spending Review

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Announcement of the Government’s Spending Review preoccupies us all afternoon trying to see what is what. What is what – is that we don’t know how the money delineated will be controlled and on transport will have to wait for Alistair Darling’s further briefings. What is clear is that Crossrail is missing!!!!!!!