Lynne's Parliament and Haringey diary

To devastate the BBC, the judiciary and the government in one fell swoop is quite an achievement. Who says Labour doesn't deliver?

Off to the Chocolate Factory - no nothing to do with confectionery! It's an artists' colony in Haringey - studios for artists, illustrators, performing arts etc with low rents and a real community. Absolutely fantastic - there should be one in every borough.

However, this is nothing to do with work. My nephews are rock musicians (nocturnal animals) and they have done up one of the spaces as a recording studio and practice space. Tonight was the opening!

I think they will really flourish with lots of interaction with other artists in the 'colony'. They get quite a lot of work - but the elusive record contract remains elusive so far!

Labels: chocolate factory

Meeting with Haringey police commander to discuss progress on opening Muswell Hill police station's front counter to the public.

Haven't really believed 100% up 'til now that his heart was in it - but I come out from the meeting convinced that it is firmly on the road to re-opening. Hurrah. I expect it may take until the autumn before we cut the ribbon.

Labels: muswell hill police station

Off early to the Met Police Authority for full authority meeting and pre-meeting interview with London Today. Today was the day that cannabis would be declassified from a B to C drug.

I had issued a news release about asking the Met Police Commissioner how he was going to make sure that the confusion surrounding the new law was clarified for all officers so that people would not be subject to 'postcode policing'. Whatever you think of this move - it is clear that you simply cannot have people treated differently in different boroughs or simply by different police officers. Nightmare scenarios.

I did the interview and tackled Deputy Commissioner Ian Blair in the meeting. He tried to reassure the Authority that there would be equal treatment and that the guidelines and training were in place. I still think confusion will reign and that this move by the government is neither fish nor fowl - but a step in the right direction.

I then rush back to Stroud Green to stomp the icy streets knocking up to try and get our supporters to go out and vote. Stomp around to 9pm when polls close - except for one minor disaster. Get a phonecall on my mobile from youngest daughter to say she has arrived home from school and forgotten her key and is freezing on doorstep. Panic - as don't have any means to get home and let her in and don't want to lose any time on the door steps.

Luckily, another activist was just going home by car and offered to take me to Highgate where I live.

Found daughter shivering and nasty colour - let her in and fumed off. Dug my car out (hate driving at best of times let alone in icy conditions and my road was pure ice) and drove back to Stroud Green Committee Room.

I was waiting there when the polls closed to take anyone straggling back to the Town Hall for the count. Simon Hughes turned up at about 9.10pm, having been babysitting for a woman whose door he had knocked on and who had said she couldn't vote because of the baby. So he had said he would sit with the babe while she voted. Which he did! Typical Simon!

Then I drove a car load to the Civic Centre for the count. I was up in the gallery watching as were the other parties who were not actually down in the chamber itself as counting agents. Very soon after the first ballot box was emptied it was clear we had a landslide victory - but I was in shock.

Had not really felt this astonishing result looming on the doorstep. At about 6pm I had begun to feel we might possibly just win - but we won hugely with a swing of 29%. Massive - delivering a real body blow to Labour and for that matter, the Greens who had this as one of their top targets in London.

Laura Edge, our LibDem candidate got 1135, Labour 408, Greens 403 and Tories 166.

An amazing result - so we all skidaddled back to my house for some champagne. It was a really happy night!

Labels: ian blair, laura edge, simon hughes

A burst of thunder and lightning and the snow blizzarded down. Within a really short time at least two inches of snow had fallen. I had to go out to give a short speech at Highgate Library to celebrate the publication of a new book on 100 Years of Highgate Library. I decided walking was much safer than driving and set off to virtually slide down the hills to the library. Amazingly quite a good number of people came and it was really pleasant.

A couple of facts from the book itself amused me.

In 1902 when the library first opened, 3,750 invitations were sent out to Highgate ratepayers to come to the opening. 2200 actually turned up. Imagine getting that level of response today!

Also - there was apparently a lot of fuss made when the site of the library was chosen - because it was in a posh area. Some things don't change - as if everyone doesn't have a right to have their library in a nice place...

Then I slogged up the hill home - wondering what on earth would happen in the Stroud Green by-election the next day. Would people brave the weather and come out and vote and if they didn't, what would that do to the result?

Get home to watch slanging match between Alistair Campbell and Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight over the Hutton report. As pleasing as it was to see Jeremy on the run - I thought Alistair Campbell really vicious and triumphalist given the gift Hutton had just delivered Labour.

Anyway - think they have mishandled this and whilst may have won the battle will lose the war of public opinion.

Labels: jeremy paxman

Budget day at the GLA. Such a rigmarole as it is quite clear where we will end up. The process is thus. The Mayor presents his budget and the level of precept he wishes to impose on London (9.9% in this case).

Each of the party groups then puts down an amendment to his budget: the Tories at 3.56% (I think), the LibDems at 4.9% and the Greens would reduce the precept by doubling the congestion charge - not taken seriously and didn't add up anyway.

At the end, we vote on each amendment and each party supports its own amendment and votes against the others. Really stupid!

Labour didn't put an amendment to the Mayor's budget as they are now as one and have no opinions other than the Mayor is right about everything.

However, as the Tories and LibDems were quite close in numerical terms, we then put a joint motion asking the Mayor to make sure that the precept didn't rise above the LibDem figures. If Labour had supported this, we could have forced the Mayor to lower the precept - but of course - Labour voted against and are therefore responsible for the cost of the precept on our Council Tax.

Guest at the RAC (Royal Automobile Club) dinner at the Science Museum.

I walk in to the reception to discover that it is me and about 300 men - whilst for a single gal these proportions might look promising, in reality it is quite daunting, even for me who is used to talking to people I don't know.

The RAC hold this dinner annually to present their report. So we were herded up into the IMAX cinema for the presentation of their findings. Very difficult to make head or tail of the stats as the variables across the country are so wide.

One broad finding they presented was an answer to the question - if motorists were to have to pay more through some mechanism what would they prefer? The majority by a long way opted for tax to be added to the fuel cost alongside the removal of tax disks etc. Hmmmmmmmmm I am sure last time there was a rise to fuel prices we saw the car and lorry lobby picket and strike! So I am not sure what motorists say and what they do are quite at one.

The dinner was very nice and the speaker was Professor David Begg, who is the Commissioner for Integrated Transport, and at least is an amusing and relatively witty speaker. I sat next to Ann Skey who is Head of Public Affairs and really excellent at doing the sort of stuff the motor industry needs. Lots of good work with schools and education. The RAC is (as motoring organisations go) extremely responsible about its need to be committed to reduce driving, congestion and pollution. Visit its website - lots of good reports on all the motoring issues of the day.

PS Pick up news that Barbara Roche after all her media appearances to say she would vote against top-up fees, switches sides again and votes with the government. That will not go down well as was heralded as the 'first time Hornsey & Wood Green MP had rebelled'. And she didn't!

Meeting with some guys at City Hall from Dunlop something or other about the magic speed hump I am looking into.

This hump deflates and lies flat if you go over it at the set speed, but acts as a hump if you drive over the speed limit. So it rewards good drivers. They have made lots of improvements and I am going to go to the Transport Research Laboratory to see it tested with emergency vehicles and buses. This all feeds into my scrutiny on road humps. (You can read more about it in my column on the subject).

Campaigning in the Stroud Green by-election all weekend. A Labour resignation before Christmas has led to this and it is a battle and then some. A win from Labour for us gives us 16 to their 14 councillors in the constituency of Hornsey & Wood Green - already a target seat for the next General Election.

One small break from campaigning on Sunday night, when I am one of the guests of honour at a Burns Night celebration by Holborn & St Pancras and Camden LibDems. Scots Piper and Haggis!

I was giving the Reply for the Lassies - which is meant to be short and funny. Not easy to be funny - especially as joke-telling is kind of a boy thing. However, I was risque and hopefully amusing enough - and finished with probably the only joke I do tell:

'What do women in politics make best for dinner?'
'Reservations!'

It's better with wine!

Stop and Search scrutiny session at the Metropolitan Police Authority. Before us came Doreen Lawrence, mother of Stephen. What an impressive, intelligent and coherent woman she is.

This was the penultimate session of our scrutiny - just the Deputy Commissioner, Ian Blair left before we go into our deliberations on the evidence and come up with our recommendations. I suspect they will be pretty robust.

Labels: ian blair

Meeting with Haringey Chief Executive, David Warwick on three issues. Firstly - the development of Fortismere School left in its wake a real mess in Burlington Road. Additional to that, a number of issues around the planning conditions which were imposed to protect the local amenity were ignored - and the residents are rightly cross and can't get satisfactory answers.

He is not too sympathetic to this one - but agrees that if I write to him formally he will look into the issues and says he will personally visit Burlington Road.

On Muswell Hill Centre, which is this great youth centre which runs loads of really good sports, classes and houses Exposure (the magazine for young people in Haringey), I wanted to facilitate a meeting with Joy Wheeler who is the Chair of the Management Committee and a volunteer whose work and commitment have made it the success it is.

It really works for the local kids from the area who are pretty deprived and might well be on the streets otherwise.

People always assume that everyone in Muswell Hill is middle class and well off - which just isn't the case. And actually, if you are poor in a reasonably well-to-do area - you can find it even harder as there are scant council facilities in such locations.

Anyway - sorted out the new roof and hopefully the full time employment of a brilliant youth worker. The youth service in Haringey has been a complete mess for some time - but from what the Chief Exec said - is now on the road to recovery. Lord knows it needs to be.

Big transport day for me. Apart from informal meeting of Transport Committee in the morning - at which I was trying to get my colleagues to sign off a variety of issues - I was chairing a tram seminar from 1pm to 7pm and then hosting a reception.

The transport community of London was invited (and came) and the speakers covered many of the issues around trying to fund, obtain patronage, obtain local consensus and deliver these major infrastructure projects in our capital city. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

This seminar is a way of really raising issues for debate. Trams or other modal choices like guided busways or trolley buses are causing absolute havoc where proposed - like the West London Tram. The Assembly Transport Committee holds these seminars to try and take the debate out of the political fire and look at the complexity of trying to get transport choices right and supported for major new projects.

At the end - rushed to the reception. Guess what? Matthew Pincent (of gold rowing fame) was wandering around. He was about a foot taller than anyone else in the room, and dressed in regulation sports blazer with well groomed hair. I went across to him:

"Matthew - welcome! But are you here for the Olympic Bid reception?"

"Yes - thank you - it's very nice."

"It's very nice - but this is the tram reception. Olympics is on the 9th floor."

He beat a graceful retreat. Shame - but there you are.

Labels: olympics

Arrive in Council Chamber in Haringey to Labour baying for my blood. They cannot stomach the fact that
the funding has now been found following my lobbying of the Met for the restoration of the front counter at Muswell Hill's police station.

Typically, rather than welcome the good news Labour are trying to make out that it's not true. Unluckily for them, I have a copy of the letter from Sir John Stevens' office confirming the funding has been found, congratulating me on a successful campaign and asking me to notify Sir John of dates for the opening way in advance so he can come and open it with me.

I plonk the letter on the press table.

Seeing is believing...

Meet Italian mother with twin buggy, twins and local LibDem councillor at a bus stop in Surrey Quays. This poor woman has tried to get on many a bus with her double buggy - only to be left standing as bus driver after bus driver refuses her entrance.

I had already met London Transport's Peter Hendy and raised this issue around bus driver behaviour with him. He is thinking of removing bus drivers' discretion about whether or not to let on such buggies.

Obviously if the bus is full, it is not possible for a double buggy unfolded to be boarded - but at all other times they should be allowed on. Just another aspect of bus driver behaviour to campaign on - along with mobile phones, driving too fast, stopping abruptly and not putting down the disabled ramp.

Of course - these few rotten drivers - spoil it for the many very good ones who, Lord knows, battle against the worst that London can throw at them day and night and get pipsqueak wages compared to tube drivers who have really good conditions - and no traffic!

Labels: peter hendy

8am and I was at the corner of Archway Road and Shepherds Hill, having organised a meeting with Transport for London officers. It's a terrible junction. The Green Man phase just about allows me (fit and relatively able) to leg it diagonally across . Absolutely no chance of doing it properly one road at a time. And if you are old, disabled or with children or buggies - no chance!

At least the TfL officers admitted it was a sub-standard junction and it will be dealt with now by upgrading the electronics and adding a few seconds to the all green phase.

And as for those badly behaved motorists who block the yellow junction every phase - after next autumn they will get done by the camera which already watches the junction, but until the new legislation has not been able to issue tickets. That will start happening around October - so hopefully this particular junction will be much better.

Appeared on Carlton TV's 'The Week'. Always apprehensive before live TV. I was invited as the 'sweet voice of reason' and Chair of the Assembly Transport Committee - head to head with the Chair of the Association of British Motorists.

Needless to say we did not see eye to eye. He was clearly annoyed by bus lanes, speed limits, traffic wardens, congestion charging and so on. Lucky then that he lived in Kings Langsley and doesn't have to suffer the reality of everyday life for Londoners.

He wasn't all bad - just from another world where his and his co-motorists freedoms seemed paramount - regardless of road safety and congestion. He tried to argue that speed didn't kill. We batted statistics at each other for a while - but the truth is- common sense tells you that if you drive fast you are likely to have less time to get out of difficulties if they arise - and if you crash - that it will be more serious than if you were going slowly. I think that's where his argument fell down!

Anyway - it was good fun. Lasted about 5 minutes - which is a real insult to genuine debate. There were lots of good subjects that real need a bash around, but that format is really just entertainment masquerading as news and politics on a Sunday.

The make-up is fab though!

Actually had friends to dinner! Almost never heard of - a social life!

Reception held by Metronet and Tubelines, the two private consortia now running our tube infra structure. They made positive speeches about their effort and commitment and seemed so genuine. Such a shock and horror then when you see the statistics showing a deterioration in their performance since takeover.

They spent a good chunk of the reception saying that they didn't recognise the figures published in the newspapers and that they were not accurate. Well - they would - wouldn't they? That is one of the big problems on the tube - no accurate baseline. No accurate targets that are understandable. No measurable indicators for normal human beings.

Tim O'Toole (Transport for London's Managing Director of London Underground) was there too. I nobbled him in a corner because my scrutiny officers had said that he didn't want to come and give evidence to my committee 'again'. I had hauled him into to answer questions following the tube derailment - rightly!

When cornered - he gracefully conceded that of course he wanted to come. He didn't know where I got the idea from that he didn't Of course, it would be better if he came after his report on performance came out in a few weeks. OK! A compromise is fine by me.

Labels: tim o'toole

Mayor's Question Time with Livingstone and Transport Commissioner Bob Kiley this morning.

Wily Kiley! He is a clever operator. The Mayor, however, did a bunk on his westward extension of the congestion charge. I came out against the expansion months ago - wrong system, wrong place, £100 million outlay and no return - just hopeless. Not like the original and stunningly successful central congestion charging scheme.

However, the Mayor used the opportunity of my questioning him about priorities for this £100 million to begin his slippery slide into not going ahead with it. He conceded that it was no longer 'high priority' but now some sort of middling priority. So - it's basically off the agenda for now - as it should be.

Labels: ken livingstone

Bucketing with rain, pitch black - but the sun was shining inside as I ventured on the inaugural voyage of the 603, Muswell Hill to Swiss Cottage bus route.

It was fantastic. Loads of kids, parents waiting on the Broadway - and the bus turned up only a minute after the 7.30am schedule. There was quite a party atmosphere on the bus and lots of happy people, despite the appalling traffic delays created by a combination of foul weather and road works on Highgate West Hill tailing back to the roundabout at the Gatehouse Pub in Highgate.

I got off in Highgate to go and kick my own children off to school. But I gather the bus was quite behind time on the first run. However, later that day I got a message from a local mother whose boy had caught the bus back in the afternoon from Highgate to Muswell Hill saying, 'there was a load of South Hampstead and UCS kids on the bus and it was packed'. So I guess it will build and be a successful trial - the challenge being to then get it expanded to a full route which is what everybody wants.

But a great day for all who campaigned over the six years to get this far.

Labels: 603 bus

The by-election in Stroud Green ward continues apace. Apart from filthy weather for street stomping - things go well and people are very friendly to the Liberal Democrats and our local candidate, Laura Edge!

Labels: laura edge

Tottered around Alexandra Palace with Simon Hughes whilst LibDem Cllr Bob Hare briefed him on the upcoming debate in Parliament on the Palace. Haringey are trying to flog it off for 125 years - privatising the Pally because of their own incompetence in trying to run it. Debt is the only thing Labour in Haringey know how to build! And then they sure know how to pass on the cost to the council tax payers.

Simon was excellent and grasped the facts extremely fast. He will be one of the Members of Parliament speaking in the debate on Wednesday.

Labels: alexandra palace, bob hare, simon hughes

Banging headache - so laid in bed feeling sorry for myself. Eventually staggered to my computer and cleared emails and paperwork and then collapsed again.

Fortified with extra-strong, super-duper level Panadol, I get up to go to a Policing Planning Panel meeting. After that I would have to go straight onto the Mansion House for the Lord Mayor of London's Dinner for London Government.

I had telephoned Richard Sumray (a magistrate member of the Metropolitan Police Authority) and Chair of the Police Planning Panel the night before and left a plaintive cry on his message recorder. Something to the tone of - 'are you going to wear evening dress to the meeting and can we share a taxi to the Mansion House'. I usually feel extremely guilty if I use a taxi - but there comes a point on a rainy night, with no time between commitments and very high heels - when I gracefully give in.

Richard 'phoned back to ask which dress he should wear? Of course it was black tie for him (it's so easy for men) - but I decided that the short red cocktail dress was too much for a police meeting, and wore a more demure trouser suit with evening top. I know this is girlie stuff - but such is political life and the demands of dress code.

Of course, dress code didn't bother Mayor Livingstone. He didn't bother with black tie - in fact he didn't bother with a tie at all. The old judge sitting on my left nearly had apoplexy at the cheek of the bugger! He fulfilled all my prejudices about judges I have to say. However, on my other side was the chair of a big financial group of companies who was a
live wire - and who it was a pleasure to spend most of the evening talking too.

You are sooooooooo dependent on who you get sat next to. Over the five dinners for London Government that have happened since we were first elected, I have gone from very near the outlying tables at the far flung end to the inner ones at the top table end. At anywhere but the Corporation of London one might think this a random effect - but I think
it is deeply significant.

The think I love (and the reason I staggered from my sickbed) to this dinner is, whilst I trash tradition, eschew formality and all of that - no one does it like the Corporation. Men in uniform holding metal pikes adorn our avenue as we are announced. The service is impeccable and the processing and timing immaculate.

The rumours were that Mayor Livingstone would produce a 'surprise' in his speech. Well - surprise, surprise - the Government would come up with £200 million of PFI credits for the Thames Gateway Bridge. Staggered I was.
That the Government would seal its remarriage with a dowry!

Thereafter - a stirrup cup in the ante room - and then home to bed!

Labels: ken livingstone, richard sumray

Still suffering from the mother of all viruses that attacked me for the whole Xmas period, I add to my misery with two hours in the dentists' chair a la root canal. Not happy! Onto City Hall and our weekly Liberal Democrat Group meeting where we decide who will take up what issue and pose which questions. Transport, transport, transport! As always. The Mayor will come the following week as Chair of Transport to London to answer our questions.

But, of course, he is a Labour Mayor now - which changes the entire dynamic of the Assembly as Labour will now not hear a word of criticism against the Mayor, their new best friend! Simon Hughes called it 'a remarriage of convenience' - which I hope London sees for what it is. New Labour trying to stitch up an election - shock, horror!

Labels: simon hughes

And back to work - absolutely hate going back after Christmas break.

Time off has given me the illusion of normal life ... However, the first day is the worst, and with the logging on of my computer and the flood of emails, those funny, familiar shackles begin to fall into place.

The main task of the day was to get to them the quote requested by Transport for London for inclusion with Ken's quote on the start of the Muswell Hill to Swiss Cottage bus route which will have its inaugural journey on Monday next. Hurrah!

I give TfL a very nice quote saying a 'big thank you to Mayor Livingstone and to TfL' and blow me, what happens? The press release appears the next day minus my quote. Sweet mystery of life!

Never mind - concentrate on getting letters out to all the school children via the Fitzjohns' Avenue schools, local emails and letters to inform everyone it is starting and its starting times.

Labels: ken livingstone