Met yesterday with the developers (Acorn) who bought the bit of land that Haringey Primary Care Trust controversially sold off at the Hornsey Hospital site. The land shouldn’t have been sold off, but it was (regardless of local residents’ views). We haven’t even yet had in black and white that the monies will go on Hornsey Hospital – but as it has been sold off, I wanted to find out what the plans are now for it.

So – this meeting was with the buyers of said land. Undoubtedly they are approaching us locals with a softly softly approach to say their development means us no harm. It would be true to say that they are clearly professional and very keen not to run into trouble – and therefore appear to have gone to some lengths to meet possible concerns over planning issues. They are lucky that the vast majority of the site is not overlooked by residential properties and that Haringey Planning Department seems to have forewarned them of the likely list of objections. With their plans involving a good proportion of social housing – at least this isn’t one of the awful ‘ram expensive houses in the space where back gardens meet’ set of proposals.

As I said to them – the most important people in this are those directly affected, so when the application goes in we will see what they say. We desperately need social housing – but existing residents must first make sure they are happy with the proposals.

I had a good Good Friday. I didn’t do any work. Well – just a few blue envelopes for a good cause. Reading in the Guardian this morning Michael White‘s take on Brown’s modus operandi. Michael gets it right. Gordon won’t be pushed around by the media. He uses the example of the hoo ha over Brown’s stealth pension raid which rumbled on in the press from last Monday without comment from him, M’s thesis being that Brown waits ’til all critics have critiqued – then enters the fray to put a (hoped for) definitive full stop with no come back on the subject. Psychologically sound analysis of Mr Cautious Annie I say!

From the health of the nation to health locally (!), I see that the film for which I was filmed about Hornsey Hospital has made it to the net. Clearly a lot of work has gone into the film, talking to lots of different participants and editing it all together nicely. You can view it here.

We (Lib Dems) launched our ‘prescription’ for the future Hornsey Central Hospital.

I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues are supporting a bid from the local health trust to the Government for £7million of public money to deliver the long-promised replacement for the closure of the old Hornsey Hospital.

Well – this ‘replacement’ has gone through so many incarnations over the last six or so years that the original promises of what would be provided have changed and changed and changed. It is now envisaged as a sort of super-clinic and we want to ensure that this new facility (should we win the bid) will deliver additional and wanted services – and won’t simply be a reorganisation of existing services.

We must have additional health facilities – not just reorganised ones.

Moreover, we want the Trust to work closely with local people and local health professionals to identify what services are most wanted and needed – and to make sure that the new facility doesn’t detract or impact negatively on local GP practices and local pharmacists. And we want to jump up and down about public transport links to the site. The old W2 was taken away on the basis that there was no hospital there – well now we need it back and more access. No new facility should require people coming for treatment to either live next door or have a car.

We haven’t heard the result of the bid as yet – but it must be imminent as the Government has announced the first few successful bids for the ‘Community Hospital’ pot. So – fingers still crossed.

A very, very special memorial service at the war memorial chapel at Hornsey Central Hospital (which will be preserved whatever happens on that site)! I think this is the first time the memorial has been opened for years for the memorial ceremony and, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month – with so many of the names of those who fell there – it was truly moving.

I talked to one of the veterans who had served in the Navy. It was just extraordinary to think of what this one man saw and witnessed. I won’t reveal what he said about sailor’s reputations in regard to each port of call – still cheeky at 80-odd! But alongside the humour, he also told me that he and one other colleague were the only survivors out of eight men attacked in a gun turret. It is impossible to understand what that generation saw and survived. And every time I write the message to go on the wreath I lay – and I thank those who died that we might live – I am moved to tears.

Afterwards I was chatting to lots of the people who had come – and the last chap to nab me was very agitated. Basically he wanted to express his anger – as a serving member of the RAF – as regards how he didn’t think it was fair for lads to fight for their country but when they were in need of state support (housing) they couldn’t get anywhere because immigrants got all the houses. And did I think he was racist, and political correctness was ignoring blokes like him, and he would have to vote for the BNP – there was no alternative.

Now whilst I said to him that I didn’t think we were likely to see eye to eye – I don’t think it is racist to bring this sort of grievance to light. The BNP made huge inroads in the east of London because Labour ignored the ‘already heres’. I don’t think it is just white working class – which was his argument. I think it is a real battle between the entitlement people who have worked and paid into the system for years feel they should have against the needs of the newly arrived.

I wrote about this clash of the already heres versus newcomers. I wrote extensively on in my chapter in Britain after Blair because I think there is a real and unaddressed issue here. And that issue, above and beyond this hopeless unfit for purpose Home Office, is about the allocation of a limited pot of public resource.

So – this young man was very, very angry with a country that he fights for but which he believes no longer cares or listens to people like him. I didn’t agree with his more prejudiced remarks – but I do agree that these are the issues we need to resolve if we are to avoid the BNP finding any favour for its hideous bile. Breeding grounds for discontent – particularly when they have some validity – are easily swung to extreme views.

Anyway – at that point I had to go on somewhere else and so made my excuses, though as I left the young chap then said I was quite good looking for an MP – and would I like to go out for a drink! For me though it was off to the Lib Dem Council Group’s Away Day (they didn’t get very far as the venue is next door my constituency office in High Street Hornsey). I took a break out session on crime and policing and then giving a general talk on how to take the issues that matter to their ward constituents and turn them into action.

Met with the first of the local GP practices that I am hoping to see as part of the Lib Dem campaign to get a first-class health facility on the old Hornsey Hospital site as promised six years ago by those who closed the original hospital down.

The local trust is bidding for “Community Hospital” money from the Government – and it involves bringing a practice or two into the site itself and provision of lots of services that they hope all the practices will use for their patients. It will save lots of visits to hospitals too.

So I have written a letter of support for our bid – levering in the sort of money that we can get from this bid is, in my view, our best chance of getting this level of services into the west of Haringey and on the site of the old hospital. However, I want to make sure that the GP practices, who after all know the community and its local needs, are fully involved in the process and will be hopefully having further meetings in due course.