LIB DEM ACTION ON STATION CLEAR-UPS CONTINUES

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Lib Dem councillor Lynne Featherstone has continued her campaign to clean up Haringey’s scruffy railway stations by successfully pressing for a major clean up of Harringay Station.

Local residents were delighted to see waste contractors leaving the station site with a skip full of litter gathered from in and around the area. The action follows months of effort byMs Featherstone who has successfully campaigned hard for the last year to improve four of the main stations in the borough – Harringay, Alexandra Palace, Bowes Park and Hornsey.

Cllr Featherstone is pleased with the steady progress that is being made with the improvements. However she has vowed to continue to press rail companies to bring the stations in the area to an acceptable standard.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“I am pleased that litter has been removed from Harringay Station. Both myself and my fellow councillor Laura Edge (Stroud Green ward) had received many complaints about the litter in and around the station.

“However, it is an ongoing problem and we will continue to work hard to ensure that this and other stations in the borough continue to improve and become more pleasant places for those who live near and use them.”

LYNNE SITE SHORTLISTED FOR ANOTHER PRIZE

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Lib Dem Lynne Featherstone has had her popular website shortlisted for the prestigious New Statesman Media Awards 2004. The Muswell Hill councillor, GLA member and Lib Dem PPC for Hornsey and Wood Green joins eight other UK politicians in the shortlist, six of which are MPs, in the ‘Best Elected Representative website’ category.

The awards, which will be presented in central London in July, are in their sixth year. The key themes this time are “innovation and efficiency” with the New Statesman saying they intend to award those who have really achieved something good for society.The news follows on from Lynne Featherstone’s blog (web diary) being awarded a runners-up prize in the Guardian newspaper’s prestigious awards.

Cllr Featherstone is pleased with the nomination that she says reflects the importance the Lib Dems give to communicating with local residents.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“I am delighted that the website has been nominated for this award. It is a tribute to local members and councillors who work hard ensuring it is kept up to date. The sharing of information and letting the electorate know what we are doing in the borough is something that we take seriously and I am glad that our website has been recognised as an invaluable source of information by local residents.”

HIGHGATE TUBE STATION

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Liberal Democrat councillors and stakeholders will meet this week (Monday 14th June) to discuss Highgate tube station issues in follow up March’s successful meeting. The discussion group, made up of representatives of London Underground, TfL, Tube Lines, ward councillors and residents, will discuss proposals on a number of issues including the fencing and replanting of the bank on Archway Road.

Residents had been unhappy with proposals to install a barbed wire fencing on Archway Road. In response Tube Lines have produced three viable alternatives to the original proposals, some of which will also reduce noise from the Archway Road.

Additionally, the group is to agree on replanting for the bank on Archway Road to replace the trees and shrubbery that was removed last year by contractors working on the site. This will largely be made up of laurel bushes and ten small trees, with planting taking place between November 2004 to March 2005 – although some reseeding will take place over the summer.

Lib Dem councillor and Chair of the GLA’s transport committee Lynne Featherstone is pleased with the progress made at the last meeting and is hopeful that a number of other issues will be resolved this week.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“I am delighted that the last meeting has been productive. Groups have gone away from the meetings and found viable solutions to the problems. I am confident that this group will produced more constructive solutions that will help resolve the problems. We also need to make progress on resolving the crash barrier issue.”

LIB DEM LYNNE ROMPS HOME AS PARTY VOTE CLIMBS YET AGAIN

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  • Lib Dem Lynne Featherstone is first London-wide member elected
  • Second highest rise in London for Lib Dem Wayne Hoban
  • In Euro-Poll, Haringey Lib Dems second, as vote more than doubles

Haringey’s Liberal Democrats have been celebrating their huge progress in the London and European elections this weekend.

Lib Dem GLA member Lynne Featherstone was first across the capital to be elected as a London-wide member on Friday. In the poll for the Enfield and Haringey constituency, local councillor and Lib Dem Deputy Leader Wayne Hoban was the only major party candidate to increase his share of the vote, securing the second highest rise for the Lib Dems in London.

The Lib Dem vote was also up substantially up in the ‘London-wide’ part of the election, where local Lynne Featherstone heads up their party’s list of candidates.

In the European election, the only election where figures relating solely to Haringey have been published, support for the Lib Dems more than doubled as the party confirmed its position as the main challengers to Labour in the area.

The Lib Dems finished ahead of the Conservatives across Haringey, whose attempts to challenge Labour once again fizzled out.

Newly re-elected GLA member Lynne Featherstone comments:

“I would like to thank everyone locally who came out to vote for the Lib Dem team. These have been further significant advances for the party, which augur well for the General Election, particularly in the Hornsey and Wood Green seat.

“In more doubling our vote in Haringey, local people have sent Labour the clearest possible message that they are dissatisfied with their performance at every level of government. The Iraq issue in particular has been a big factor in this election.”

Aftermath at City Hall

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All the party groups head into City Hall for their own group meetings and then the ‘negotiations’. The arithmetic has delivered the unsurprising fact that only the LibDems and the Tories combined have a majority and all the ‘positions’ on the Assembly are decided by simple majority. The further arithmetic conunundrum for the Mayor is that he needs 9 votes in support of his budget to get it through. There are only 7 Labour members in their now reduced state – so undoubtedly they will be trying to buy the Greens’ two votes.

We have our group meeting, set our objectives, elect our leader – all say what we want out of the next term, etc.

Then, of course, both Labour and Tories want to come and talk to us and be our best friend. I am on the negotiating team with Graham Tope so for the first time witness how it goes. Jolly interesting. We are at the listening to what the others offer us stage at the moment – and as I write that remains the case.

Election results

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I don’t go to the Ally Pally count – but head off to City Hall. The campaign team are using our offices (as are all the groups) as the nerve centre of the day to receive all the counts, results and to put together the lines and the data so we can see how it’s going.

My sister joins me for the day at City Hall. I don’t have a partner or parents – and she is a good person to have around on such a day!

It’s all good. Nothing much until the afternoon when the GLA constituency counts begin to come in. In our two key targets we have made significant advances – and on the list vote – and we get our ambition of an extra LibDem member taking us from 4 to 5.

Icing on our cake is Labour’s decline from 9 to 7 members and the Greens from 3 to 2.

Obviously, the arrival of 2 UKIP members is a bit of a new scenario – and has clearly affected the votes of the other parties – but that’s democracy.

Toby Harris, the Labour leader, loses his seat as does the Tory leader Eric Ollerenshaw and the Tories failed to gain the Enfield & Haringey seat which they had been very cocky about.

As for the Mayoral contest – Ken is back. Simon fought a fantastic campaign – but it just didn’t take off in terms of votes. What a pity.

So the new term will begin with a completely different dynamic and tomorrow we will begin to look at how the land lies. I don’t think London would want us to sell our soul to the Mayor by being bought off. I think London would want us LibDems to stand full square in holding him to account – but all that is for tomorrow and next week.

Seconds out and counting

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I had to resort to a Marks & Sparks birthday cake for my daughter this week.

This breaks a long tradition of me producing artistic masterpieces on both my daughters’ birthdays. Let’s not pretend I am a cook. I don’t cook. I never have – probably never will. But twice a year to salve my non-cooking conscience I have rolled up my sleeves, cheated only slightly by buying Betty Crocker ready cake mix for the chocolate sponge bit, and let the creative force be with me.

I used to be a designer and on birthday cakes I give full vent to my old creative tendencies. Over the years this has delivered a chocolate rat cake (my oldest used to have pet rats – clearly I am a liberal parent!), a tower in the form of the Jenga game, a football pitch, numerous cartoon characters then in vogue and many more – but this year I have failed. The birthday coming three days before polling day, I couldn’t do it. Too many leaflets to deliver and doors to be knocked on.

By the time you read this, the votes will all have been cast – and the electronic counting machines are whizzing as the Ham & High hits the streets today. Tonight we will know who is Mayor, how many Assembly members from each party have been elected and tomorrow, Saturday, all the parties meet at City Hall and the hard negotiating will begin.

I’ve drawn the short straw with this column – having to write a political column before an election – but which will be published just after – is always a tricky one.

But almost regardless of the result, life on the London Assembly is likely to be quite different for the next four years. Last time, we Lib Dems held the balance of power and both Tories and Labour wanted to be our best friend.

If the same happens again, the decisions will be harder. After the last elections in 2000, Ken was still the devil incarnate for the Labour group on the Assembly, but since he rejoined Labour they have become his number one fan, tabling wildly sycophantic questions to him at every opportunity.

If Simon Hughes is Mayor, Labour certainly won’t want to get on with the Mayor! And if Ken is Mayor, it’ll be hard for any other party to work with a Labour Party that has suddenly turned itself into a group of super-Ken loyalists. Meanwhile, the behaviour of the Tories over the four years was hardly endearing – with internecine splits and destructive behaviour.

So who knows what will happen? Until I get into City Hall tomorrow and see how the land lies, I can’t tell you.

What I do know is that the Assembly has done good work – not much publicised – both in holding the Mayor to account and raising issues of importance to London. Four years ago in the first campaign – I would knock on a door and have to explain what the Assembly was. This time, at least everyone knows it exists. Last time it was an idea, a piece of legislation. This time, people know about it. They don’t always know much about what it does – but they know it is important and that London government isn’t only about the Mayor.

So, hopefully my cake sacrifice will not be in vain – and London will have a strong LibDem voice to fight her battles and look after her.

Election day

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Election day dawns and I am up with the lark to deliver some early leaflets. It is such a beautiful day and time of day. I rush back home to change into something more suitable for knocking on doors the rest of the day and then onto a polling station in Campsbourne School. Great atmosphere, everyone very friendly and cheery.

Then out knocking on doors to see if our supporters are going out to vote, more leaflets, more polling stations, more everything with a final push, helped by one of our Euro candidates – John Stevens – to do some final knocking up in Muswell Hill which is my own ward and where I always like to finish my day.

I let out a great cheer at 10pm – it’s been a long, tough campaign – and I am super-glad that the work is over. I go home to watch the local elections coverage from the rest of the country. It is great to see Peter Snow again – this is the first time in ages I have not had to be at a count the night of an election and been able to watch on TV.

Sadly, whilst I have the opportunity and our results including taking Newcastle are absolutely brilliant, after only an hour or so, my 4am start catches up with me and I drift off to sleep.

Only one day to go!

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Thank goodness only one more day. Five to six hours of delivering leaflets a day is beginning to take its toll. On the other hand, I have a fabby tan and toned muscles. I do always regard elections as a get fit opportunity – a counterweight to the meetings I sit in for most of the time.

The BBC telephone me and want to come and film me to go out on the news. Now, I am dressed somewhat informally in shorts and T-shirt – but decide as this is meant to be politic real, I will stay thus dressed and be seen ‘au natural’. I telephone Wayne Hoban, the LibDem GLA Enfield and Haringey candidate to join me as they want someone else on the knock as well.

Happily, he too is dressed in shorts. And we knock on doors. No preparation – no set up – but wonderful happenstance. The first door was an elderly Asian man who was voting LibDem. The next – there was a crisis with a baby, then a few ‘outs’ and then, the piece de resistance, a young bloke who had always voted Labour but this time, for the first time, was voting Lib Dem. And he gave the reasons: Iraq, top-up fees, loss of trust – the list is becoming endless.

I was pleased, because I had told the camera crew that this was what was happening on swathes of doorsteps – and here was a real life example of what I had said was the case being demonstrated in fact to be the case. Hurrah!

PS Several comments to me on my legs following broadcast of campaigning Lynne on doorstep – in my old feminist days I would have been insulted – with advancing years I am just grateful!

LIB DEMS CALL FOR ACTION TO BE TAKEN OVER STROUD GREEN 'STREET GARAGE'

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Lib Dem Councillor Laura Edge (Stroud Green) is calling for Haringey Council to take urgent action over a local garage in Stroud Green which residents say has regularly been dumping broken down cars on Upper Tollington Park, N4.

The residents in the road, which lies within the Finsbury Park CPZ, contacted Cllr Edge after failing to get satisfactory action from the Haringey Council on the issue. The Council has attended the site and removed some vehicles on a number of occasions butresidents claim that as soon as the Haringey Council leaves the cars are back on the street.

The Haringey Council has claimed that it is devising a ‘multi-agency’ approach to tackle the problem but Cllr Edge is concerned at the length of time this is taking. She wrote to the Council at the beginning of March but to date has not seen any details of any proposed strategy to resolve this problem.

“The Haringey Council must take tough action to prevent these persistent abuses which are blighting the lives of residents in Upper Tollington Park.So far, they have been to slow to address the problem,” says Laura Edge.