Lynne's Parliament and Haringey diary

Off to Islington as link member for the Metropolitan Police Authority for the Chair of the MPA's borough visit. The local commander updates us (the MPA) on what is happening in the borough. But the real interest was the gossip that Labour are going to play fast and loose with the GLA list.

The GLA member for the area, Meg Hillier, has been selected for a safe Labour seat at the General Election. If she stands for the GLA elections in June and then steps down at the General - this will cause a by-election for the GLA seat. It would obviously be better for Labour if this didn't happen.

But the stories are that she doesn't want to not stand in June - even if it does then cause a by-election after the general election. However, the rumour now is that she will be switched to the GLA list (where if you leave the Assembly during the term of office, there is no by-election but simply replacement by the next person on the list) and that they will put another Labour member from the current list to stand for the constituency GLA seat.

Don't know if it is true or will actually happen, but wouldn't surprise me as Labour use their list members to meet their control and command needs - nothing to do with being elected to their position on the list. Unlike the LibDems where we are on the list by the virtue of one member one vote across London and any fiddling with positions on the list by the centre would be tantamount to war.

No such qualms in Labour. Fixing is a way of life for them!

Labels: mpa

Brief meeting of the London Assembly. No real business - but the Tories and Labour have put down a motion on the SRA proposals for Chelsfield. They are obviously furious that the LibDems have already held a public meeting - so they hijack the normal processes of the Assembly - which dictate that the relevant committee acts on the outcome of the motion (a motion which we all support).

They refuse to allow the Transport Committee to respond to the consultation on behalf of the Assembly and decide that one of their own will do it instead. Abuse of power and a really shocking display of insults from especially the Tory Leader. No wonder they are still viewed as the nasty party.

All hell has broken loose in Chelsfield. Where's Chelsfield? It's a small rail station, just part Orpington - a commuter village where almost all the population rely on the train to link them to their work in Central London.

But the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) has put out to consultation their plans to make the railways more "efficient". In real terms they are proposing large cuts to the peak hour services.

As I travelled down to chair a meeting with local residents, I have to stand all the way. The driver announces that there are seats down the front of the train - so I make my way from the back towards the front. Three carriages on, I give up.

There are packed carriages with standing passengers everywhere and it is, in the end, impassable. If this is what it is like with 6 trains - no wonder life as Chelsfield has known it will end if they cut the numbers.

The meeting is packed with over 150 people. Simon Hughes (as LibDem spokesperson for London) is there, as is Chris Maines, the Leader of the Opposition on the local council, and Duncan Borrowman - the LibDem GLA candidate. We all agree, despite the fact that the LibDems have organised the meeting and form the panel - that all political parties need to act and stand together to fight these proposals.

A couple of hours later the meeting agrees to take it forward in a variety of ways. My role is to champion it at GLA level and respond to the SRA from the LibDem GLA group. There will be people counts at the station and representations at all levels.

The SRA are an outrageous body who seem to care nothing for regional needs and support unquestioningly the Train Operating Companies whose only interest is the profit from long-haul journeys. That's why it is vital that London has its own Commuter Rail Authority. Peoples' lives and life choices are based on the ability to travel into central London - but the SRA couldn't care less. Given their constant failure to make any headway with our rail industry - their days must be numbered.

What's more, Mayor Livingstone has singularly failed to get anything out of them with what powers he does have. We had all the players into a scrutiny of the Assembly Transport Committee last year and they assured us that the best way forward was to rely on the very good working relationship between the Mayor and the SRA.

But the 'working relationship' has delivered nothing but reduced rail services for London. Time the Mayor used his teeth and issued directions rather than guidance - which are the two powers he has under the GLA act - but he won't!

Labels: ken livingstone, simon hughes

Gun crime, murder, drugs and gangs have given Green Lanes in Haringey a bad reputation. A lot of work has gone on to change this - by the police, the Council, the local traders and the communities themselves. Today the police have organised an event in cooperation with partners to bring everyone together in a 'Harringay Unity Event' to celebrate the good things in this area.

And what a successful event it was. Music and food and dancing and speeches from all involved showing that the good far outweigh the bad - and if we all pull together this area can flourish and be safe. The Turkish community were out in force and it was a wonderful display of togetherness - I am very optimistic about this sort of approach in terms of fighting crime.

Meeting in All Bar One in Crouch End for a drink with a local group called Crouch End for People. They are a group who were born in a fight against a CPZ proposal by Haringey Council who held a huge public meeting.

Although that issue went away (rejected) they have maintained that they have a mandate to speak on anything concerning Crouch End, in this instance the future of Hornsey Town Hall. There is another group called 'Friends of Hornsey Town Hall who are composed of cross-party local councillors and are also working on proposals for the Town Hall with the council and local people.

Although as far as I can see both the two groups both want the Town Hall to be developed as a community facility for arts and help - there is divergence about the car park, the possibility of a new school on the site and a few other issues on which they have not been able to resolve their differences to date.

I have offered both groups my expertise on transport issues - as whatever gets developed it is crucial to get the public transport, car access and travel planning right from the beginning.

It is a really good meeting and they are excellent people, who as far as I can see just want something really good to come out of this and who have been scared of anything Labour-run Haringey Council produces (rightly in my view).

I do explain, however, that when it comes to funding, no funding agency will fund a divided project and will not back a freelance ad-hoc group. So my advice is unequivocally for the groups to unite.

There is only one key point of difference which comes out in our talks really - and that is the development of the car park. I give them my view that the car park is not something either group should be focusing on anyway. The first priority is to work out what is to be provided on the site and that will dictate to a great extent the transport needs of that site. There may or may not be a need for some car parking - and if there is and there is room it should be provided. Equally, if the idea is to attract a 1,000 people on a night to a theatre or whatever, the site could not sustain a car access emphasis.

So I leave them with the advice to join forces and move forward together - that way I think Hornsey Town Hall could be developed as a fabulous resource both for the local community in Crouch End and the wider area.

Labels: controlled parking zones

Go on the tube to Green Park. Red lipstick, high heels and the Jubilee line are not a great combination - but needs must. Totter down Piccadilly to hotel and into reception. Immediately gravitate to table seating plan to find I am on table No 2 (not quite the ticket - yet!) as a guest of Transport for London.

The evening is the London transport awards ceremony. The Robert Gordon University (which is basically David Begg who is Labour's top adviser on transport and generally all-round good egg) had previously done this at the national level - but this was the first London one.

Of course, given that London and Transport are currently synonymous and sexy - this was a very over-subscribed event with over a hundred people wanting tickets that were sold out very early on. All the transport stars were there - Peter Hendy (MD Street Management, TfL), Tim O'Toole (MD London Underground/TfL), John Weight, (Chief Exec
Metronet). Dave Wetzel, (Vice Chair TfL Board), Derek Turner (ex TfL and the man who introduced congestion charging to London) and many others including John Snow - who was to compare the awards themselves.

Chitter chatter, chitter chatter at the pre-dinner reception. Tim O'Toole had clearly been reading this blog and was laughing (I think laughing) about my references to him as a schmoozing American lawyer type. He said that I made him sound like a snake-oil car salesman! And why couldn't I have mentioned that he managed train companies. I explained it was meant to be a compliment (I like smart Americans who schmooze). Actually, I have a very high regard for him and Peter Hendy in their management skills - that doesn't mean I won't give them a hard time - that's my job!

Peter Hendy had left a message on my 'phone the previous evening saying he wanted to brief me on the bendy buses that keep bursting into flame. So he came over to ask why I hadn't called him back. Basically, I had just been tied up non-stop. However, I did appreciate that he had called to brief me. I think the key point about the bendy buses is that as far as I can gather they are not bursting into flames because they are bendy - but because there is a manufacturing fault of some sort. So a manufacturers' recall is a good thing!

Into the dinner. I am next to Peter Field who has the power to give and take away from bus franchise companies outside of London - an interesting dinner companion and on my other side, Ben Plowden who is borough liaison for TfL. Dinner passes happily barring my losing a filling and half a tooth - which while not painful in itself is cutting my poor tongue to ribbons.

Then we come to the awards themselves. I won't troll you through the lot - suffice to say that the best innovation, the best borough, the best this and the best that were all sponsored and awarded. I was pleased to see appropriate recognition of the companies and authorities who are putting real effort into advancing transport in London. Of course, one of the big winners of the evening (I think it was for most innovative) was Transport for London for the Congestion Charge - rightly deserved in my view!

Labels: peter hendy, tim o'toole

Battle stations! A meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) with a hot, hot item on the agenda.

At a meeting of a sub-committee of the Authority, a majority vote granted funding to eight Haringey police officers to apply for judicial review of a coroner's verdict of unlawful killing on the death of Roger Sylvester in custody. The eight are currently suspended following that verdict.

Coming from Haringey myself, where there has been more than one black death in custody - I am acutely aware of the community's opinion of policing and discrimination.

My colleague on the MPA Graham Tope is one of the ones that voted the funding for the officers through. Having taken advice - it would seem that the situation is that there is a presumption to fund officers to fight their legal case if what they are accused of happened whilst they were carrying out their job.

The Home Office guidance, which I read, appears to allow 'discretion' on the part of police authorities but advises that the presumption is in favour of funding.

All the night before I am mulling over the rights and wrongs of all of this. I want to fulfill my duty as a member of the MPA but feel very strongly that I cannot simply vote through funding that if taken to its conclusion may result in the verdict (although having to be redone) being overturned - when I feel that this man did die because of rough handling.

On the other side - if (as is the case) a judge believes that there were so many flaws in the legal process that he has given the officers leave to apply for judicial review - then I as a member of the Police Authority must facilitate justice.

In the meeting we are given legal advice to guide us - it helps not one bit - and end up juggling 'discretion in terms of duty to fund' versus 'our responsibility under the GLA act to have consideration to the effect of our actions in terms of equalities'.

It is clear that every single member of the Authority will speak on this. As we go around the table there are many and very strong views. When we come to Peter Herbert, a black member and judge, he gives an impassioned speech against the funding - but appears to go completely over the top and other members feel insulted by his angry rant. He later says that he just was so angry he could not help himself. He is completely supported by Cindy Butts who speaks next and says that if we (the authority) make a decision to fund the officers and the Sylvester family, who are present, that is a cop out.

I didn't feel it was a cop out - I thought it was a just solution - and in the end that is the way the authority voted. We will fund both the officers and the family (if the latter is legally possible - and if it isn't, then we will fund neither).

For myself - I felt it my duty to facilitate justice and would fund officers to defend themselves. I cannot imagine that had these been black officers that there would be any question of not funding them. However, I believed it equally my duty to make sure that the family could fight this on equal terms by funding them. Perhaps, more to the point for me, was that I do not want any question mark hanging over the coroners' verdict. It was a milestone in race relations with the police that this verdict was arrived at. If it survives a judicial review and a re-verdict - then no one will be able to question its authority and only then will the force and the politicians look at the issue around restraint and how to quantify 'reasonable'.

I think we came to the right solution - but there in the room was a lot of real nastiness and many agendas on display. I sometimes feel quite despairing about race relations. You can only ever succeed if you deal absolutely straight with what is - and the forces of evil are definitely around on both sides on this one.

Labels: mpa

Highgate tube summit!

This is the meeting (finally) for which I had to do some serious banging of heads together to make happen. Anyway - Tube Lines, London Underground and Transport for London grandees all in attendance. And in the yellow corner - representatives from the residents groups around the station where London Underground's works to save Archway Road from falling down the embankment have turned the site into earthy hell - nothing but desecration, lost trees and vegetation and mud!

A hectic and quite emotional meeting (at least from the residents' side) then ensues - the upshot of which is that the powers that be agree to return to the table in about a month with proposals that meet the residents' concerns. Said concerns are about the re-vegetation, the fencing which needs to be aesthetic and stop noise and the placement of
the bus stop and bins.

It may sound prosaic - but we in Highgate will have to live with all of this for the next century - and it is exactly the sort of rough ill-considered finishing that I am trying to protect residents from. London Underground are functional (which means they would simply put up a barbed wire topped chain link fence to stop kids climbing over) - they are not usually designers of attractive work which enhances the area. We will see what they come back with.

Penultimate meeting of my Transport Committee at the London Assembly. Can't believe the four years is already up!

We are meeting briefly in formal session to run over our 'continuity' paper which will go forward into the new term of office and summarizes our work over the four years. Apparently we have produced virtually twice as much as any other committee of the Assembly - no wonder I feel knackered.

More seriously - transport has always been the issue of the day and there were a million more things I wanted to do - but time is always limited. Hopefully - I will be able to carry on next term of office. I will certainly remain LibDem Transport spokesperson, but as to whether I am Chair again - that will depend on the numbers of each party that the election on June 10 delivers at the GLA! (See www.londonelects.org.uk for more details about the elections).

Then we went into informal session to haggle about our road humps, tram and LTUC reports. Needless to say - there was a hot debate on our proposed recommendations for the hump report - so watch this space.

Meeting with residents of Burlington Road in Fortis Green, Haringey who have had their peaceful cul-de-sac turned into a school entrance to Fortismere and Blanche Neville.

Yes - when Jarvis built a new sports hall at the end of their road, Haringey Planning put conditions on the development so that this would not become an entrance or at least only for a small number of peripatetic teachers.

But being Haringey they failed to build the fence to stop children using it. They don't care that the school has put Burlington Road on its letterheads as an entrance and they show absolutely no intention of enforcing the planning conditions. No wonder the residents are feeling powerless against these broken promises.

I have already had one meeting with Haringey Council's Chief Exec about this and taken him to the site to show him the appalling state of the road - ruined by contractors' lorries. I have extracted a promise to really consult with residents over the replanting of the area and to review the state of the street.

Now it seems, I will have to go back into action to ensure the fence is built and the address changed. The Chief Exec's argument so far about the school using Burlington Road as an address is that they won't be able to get post if they don't. Nonsense - how does he think they got mail before this entrance was created?

Labels: fortismere school

Pack, pay and go to the Conference Hall for the last morning of debate and delight. The highlight is the much vaunted Leader's speech scheduled for midday. Will he make it?

Yes - of course - Charles is a trooper and delivers a bravura performance.

Rush back to London on rail replacement to Wigan and West Coast Main line to Euston (7+ hours) for remainder of Mother's Day. Actual remainder by the time I get home is about three hours 'til bed. But the kids are both nice to me and let me watch something I want on TV - almost unheard of.

Have breakfast with the Kingston mob at Lib Dem conference in Southport. Includes Jenny Tonge who was to be speaking in a fringe that evening on Palestine. Since her outspoken statements on the plight of the Palestinians she has rarely been out of the headlines. We have a discussion around the issues - and I get the impression that she is bullish but defensive about her position on the issue and definitely not keen on Charles K since he sacked her from the front benches.

Dash over to Conference Hall to listen to debates. Vince Cable (shadow chancellor) gives excellent finance speech. Then I chair Navnit's speech. Lord Navnit Dholakia is the President of the Liberal Democrats and (in the three times I have chaired for him) has never, ever run to time. I guess that is why he always gets the spot before lunch - so that if there is an overrun on his speech it runs into the lunch break rather than the scheduled program of debates!

Waiting to go on in the wings I have a chance to chat to Charles K. The Leader is always on stage for the Presidents' speech. He congratulates me on our tremendous victory in the Stroud Green ward by-election (30% swing Labour to LibDem - LibDem gain). Not unnaturally, I ask after his health. He assures me he is fine now, but you can still see the after effects of the nasty stomach bug. Can't stand the vultures gathering to see if will be able to get through his speech tomorrow.

Needless to say - Navnit's ten minute slot extends to 25 minutes - 15 minutes over the session end. On finishing, I remind the audience that the map in their programs is wrong. It shows the Conference Hotel (where the lunchtime fringe meetings will take place) in entirely the wrong location. And no - it wasn't the LibDems reproducing it wrongly - it was supplied by the Southport Tourist Office!

Duncan Brack (Chair of the Conference Committee and a good mate) comes up onto the stage at the end to have a chat and make arrangements to meet for dinner and comments on Navnit's overrun - and I say, "yes - but I couldn't stop him - you can't stop the bloody president...' at which point Duncan points out to me that I've left the microphone on and have just broadcast to not only the auditorium - but the exhibition halls too!

No doubt that cheers everyone up.

I run back to the hotel to speak at a fringe meeting on Young People and Transport and then drift back to the Conference hall for afternoon debates. The debate on euthanasia was one of the best I have ever heard. Stunning speeches, powerful emotions - on both sides. Although a supporter of euthanasia with living wills - I found myself swayed from one side to the other with the force of the debate. Fabulous. Had to leave before the vote to rush back to speak in another fringe.

This fringe was for the geek brigade. No offence - but if you are not into techno campaigning, you would not have understood a word of the second half of the meeting. Happily for me - I was there as the light entertainment part of the proceedings. Since coming runner-up in the Guardian Political Blog of the Year my fame has spread far and wide and
I have been invited to address LibDems Online about my blogging.

So I give the low down on blogging, my blog, the pitfalls (i.e. people now read what I have said about them and get offended) and encourage them all to engage with the populace. And as I said - the rest of the meeting was for advanced geeks in techno terms. I didn't understand any of it - but they all seemed to enjoy themselves greatly.

Labels: duncan brack, navnit dholakia

Off to LibDem Conference in Southport.

The journey on the West Coast Main Line was a salutary travel experience for a Londoner used to berating the conditions of the underground. The tube is just fab compared to this travesty of a travel mode that calls itself a railway. I know the speed restrictions are in place for safety following Potters Bar and Hatfield - but how long does it take to repair?

Well - the journey took about 5+ hours at a crawl. But hey - then I was there by the English seaside. I thought it was very windy - and wondered how stoic you would have to be to actually holiday there as I was nearly blown off my feet every time I emerged from my hotel. I only found out later that the whole country had been swept by gales at 70+ mph.

My hotel which was the Conference Headquarters hotel was one of those grand old seaside hotels that had been so splendid in days gone by, but whose faded grandeur was now bordering on seediness. Not withstanding this decline, I plonked myself in the lounge bar on arrival, and did what you are meant to do at Conference - reacquainted myself with colleagues from the length and breadth of the land and had a couple of gin and tonics in lieu of lunch.

Crossing from bar to chair, I encountered John Craig, Sky's political presenter and his colleague Fiona. So I joined them for chat about the greater issues of the day. For John that meant how ill was Charles really? Well - there's no use pretending - that was the big story!

I might very well want the media to concentrate on our policy of scrapping the unfair council tax - but in pecking order it was - Charles' health (or lack of it ), our debate to allow porn for 16 year olds, banning smoking in public places and euthanasia. I've given up worrying about what the media cover - just do the work and it will all be alright.

Following dinner with my campaign manager, during which we like to reminisce how far we've come in Haringey and how far we want to go (this is a tradition - hugely enjoyed by both of us) I sneak off to my room to watch the last episode of Sex and the City. Couldn't miss it. Cry through entire episode. Thank goodness it was the ending we girls would have wanted.

Meeting with Simon Hughes (LibDem Mayoral Candidate) myself and Tim O'Toole (Managing Director of London Underground for TfL).

A number one on the LibDem list for the London Assembly elections in June, I accompany Simon to many of his meetings with the transport top brass as he consults them on his ideas for his manifesto or statements to make sure they are robust and make sense to those working on the frontline of providing public services.

One item Simon brought up was the issue of enabling mobile phone use on the underground. This is something that is being worked on by TfL currently, but the tragic events in Madrid in which a mobile phone was probably used to detonate the bombs, means a rethink maybe necessary.

Tim thought that the safety provided by letting travellers use mobile phones more than outweighed the bombing risk. He pointed out that terrorists could use any method of detonation. Indeed, as I pointed out - given terrorists looked like being caught from tracing contacts on the one mobile phone that didn't detonate its bomb, it probably wouldn't be the
method of choice next time.

Anyway - as I said - these meetings are confidential so that we can discuss frankly policy ideas in advance of any decisions on what policy to put in the manifesto before June's elections, but Transport for London virtually immediately (and certainly very suddenly after the meeting) issued a press release on mobile phones and their future on the underground following the Madrid bombing. Bad behaviour indeed!

Labels: simon hughes, tim o'toole

I a speaking at the Muswell Hill and Fortis Green Residents' Association AGM - combined with the local Buswatch group. I am invited on the strict condition that I keep it non-political and am there as Chair of Transport of the London Assembly.

I had a wonderful romp through all the transport issues of London - under the title of 'The Good and Bad News'. I talked about the transport challenges of the first term of London Government. It is so wonderful to be able to speak for an hour and take questions on my specialist subject - a rare opportunity in British politics.

There was a fantastic turnout and I am sure that was because so much of what I do on transport at the GLA has a real effect on local issues. It's a bit like being a doctor going to a party and all the guests telling you their symptoms. There isn't a person in London who doesn't have a transport issue that affects their lives.

Plenary session of the London Assembly with two lots of witnesses before us - the LDA (London Development Agency) in the form of Chief Exec Manny Lewis and Chair Honor Chapman, and the Thames Gateway lot with five witnesses from various partnership bodies.

I was not supposed to be doing anything on the LDA bit - but opportunity knocked suddenly at my door. At our previous LibDem council group meeting in Haringey we had had a presentation by local residents who felt they had been ignored by Haringey Council in the development of proposals for the Haringey Heartlands scheme.

These residents and their associations had invested all their time and energy in trying to work with the Labour MP and the local Labour council administration. When finally they realised they had been ignored, they had come to us as a last resort.

So I'm sitting in the Assembly chamber and the Chief Exec of the LDA - which is funding some of the Heartlands scheme - is wittering on about sustainability being the absolutely vital condition of their funding and that this is paramount.

Yet many of the residents' concerns over the scheme are precisely about sustainability - e.g. there is no plan for education and skills, no clear idea where jobs would be created and there is a poor transport scheme which will turn the new area into one big rat run.

As I said, opportunity knocked, and I asked Manny Lewis if residents unhappy with the proposals on the grounds of sustainability could come to anyone at the LDA with their problems. He said the man to see was Tony Winterbottom, Director of Regeneration. So I went on ask could they come and see him directly and, of course, he had to say yes.

So at last, a chink in the armour - a breakthrough for residents to at least be heard. You can't guarantee the outcome - but at least now there will be an opportunity for residents to be heard.

Labels: london development agency

Tim O'Toole, Managing Director of London Underground for Transport for London and generally a good thing was required to present himself before my committee to answer for the tube.

A bit of a challenge - but he's basically up to it. Lord knows what it must be like to be a smart American lawyer and manager, and then to find yourself running the tube in London - particularly with its industrial relations.

But as I said, Tim's a smart cookie. He does a great version of pro-active breast beating. For example, last time I had him in to an emergency session of the Transport Committee to answer for the Hammersmith and Fulham and Camden Town derailments, he started by apologising for a 'parade of failures'.

It is always disarming to an extent when someone comes in and admits their failures when you are used to the vast majority of people in charge defending their position even when totally indefensible.

So once again Tim started by basically admitting that the tube was not performing that well - and that there was a need to lower expectations because the PPP didn't contract for it to perform that much better.

I thought I played a bit of a blinder myself, when I elicited the information that however well Tim and his boys (sexist but true) managed the tube and got the most you could get out of it through tip-top management techniques - the truth was that performance would still deteriorate because the best management in the world couldn't keep pace with the deterioration rate of the asset base.

Things can only get worse!

Well we knew that when Labour lost the plot on the tube and stuffed us with the PPP. And thus it is proving to be. My only hope is that there will be a renegotiated PPP contract or an add-on to the PPP contract that will be paid for by the Government to ensure that the standard contracted for in the PPP is raised. The new stations that will come on-line in the first 7 year tract of the contract will make it look better - but to us daily users reliable trains would be a boon.

I suppose we had two 'victories' from the morning's session. Firstly, Tim reported that they had at last found a way to give me what I had been asking for - an easy benchmark for overcrowding.

In Paris (and my own recommendation) the standard is 4 people per square metre. Sadly, Tim is not tempted down this route - but he stated that they have developed a way of adding seconds to the journey time based on levels of overcrowding. This slightly odd approach is based on the fact that penalties for the contractors come into play if journeys take too long - so turning overcrowding into extra journey times means contractors might get penalised. He hasn't unveiled it properly yet - just giving me a peek at the promised land.

The second piece of good news - also arising from that emergency meeting - was that London Underground have moved to address concerns expressed after the derailments by the unions that when staff raised matters of concern - management took no notice.

Both the infracos (the private companies now in charge of the infrastructure) have developed web based complaints and tracking so both staff and management can see what the complaint was and when logged, what was done, what the progress is and what the outcome is.

So two gold stars for the Assembly! Hoorah!

Labels: tim o'toole

Leap out of bed at 4am and into strange clothing appropriate for delivering leaflets in Muswell Hill ward for polling day. "Good Morning" the leaflets say - bright and cheery on doormats for when people awake.

As dawn breaks over Muswell Hill, I race a milkman down Park Avenue North - he delivering milk, me Good Mornings. He wins. Back home at 7am to do a couple of hours of emails and then off to City Hall for the first of the Olympics Forum.

This is the bid team, led by Barbara Cassani, trying to engage with the key stakeholders in London to build the support needed for a successful bid. Although a PR exercise - I am still very impressed with her and indeed the thinking behind our Olympics bid. Will have my full support and effort. It would be tremendous if we won.

Then back to Muswell Hill LibDem committee room to start the knocking up. Knocking up, for the uninitiated, is when poor activists like me hound local residents who have said when previously canvassed that they will vote for us. So I go round for seven hours or so knocking on their doors to drive them out to the polls and to do their democratic duty.

Polls close at 9pm and its off to Haringey Civic Centre for the count. I am up in the public gallery with the team, whilst our counting agents and candidate Gail Engert is downstairs in the count itself. Craning necks to see where the crosses are on the first ballot papers to emerge, my eyesight fails and I haven't a clue what is on them. But it doesn't take long to know that we have a landslide victory.

What a fabulous result for us. This is my ward where I am a sitting councillor too - so extra pleasure in a result that delivers Gail a 57% majority.

The result is:

Gail Engert (Lib Dem) 1,739 (70%, +8%)
Labour 321 (13%, -6%)
Tories 278 (11%, +2%)
Greens 164 (7%, -3%)

Majority: 1,418
Turnout: 32%
Swing: 7% Lab to Lib Dem

Then everyone back to my house for champagne! I clearly drank too much of it as I am sitting typing this with what must be a hangover. I don't drink very much and two glasses is usually more than enough - but on a night like this, I guess I must have let my hair down and had at least four.

Labels: gail engert, olympics

It is the eve of poll in our local council by-election and tomorrow Muswell Hill will let us LibDems know what they think of us!

So, not the timing of choice, but I have a social fundraiser at my house for around 60 people and the guest of honour is Sir Menzies Campbell (or Ming as he is known). What a fabulous man he is. Whenever he appears on TV to comment on foreign affairs and in recent months, he makes me really proud that we are in the same party.

He commands respect across all parties. In his speech he, not unnaturally, makes reference to the LibDem decision not to join Blair's new enquiry behind closed doors into the intelligence that led to the Iraq war - the Butler inquiry.

Lord Butler aka Sir Robin Butler, Cabinet Secretary during the Thatcher/Major times was sent to Australia in the late 80's to testify at the Peter Wright (Spy Catcher) trial. Unfortunately, the Oz defence lawyer had a brain and was good with words. Butler was made to look a complete idiot.

Anyway - Ming did allude to the fact that Michael Howard has now seen the light and withdrawn the Tories from the enquiry. Better late than never. But he could have and should have never joined the inquiry at all. It was clearly going to not reveal anything that the government did not want revealed - but I think was mooted to get Blair out of trouble by being seen to be actively trying to get to the bottom of it. Hogwash!

So - the evening was a roaring success - food and alcohol consumed and money raised.

Labels: ming campbell

Peoples' Question Time with the Mayor and Assembly. This is the twice-yearly statutory duty to appear before the public so we can be asked questions in public. It's really the Ken show - as people want to question him as Mayor rather than us as Assembly Members. We ordinary members are sat in a row behind the Mayor - like some chorus line. Feel like the backing group.

Still - at last my long ambition to be on the stage is fulfilled by appearing at the Mermaid Theatre.

I am not sure that these occasions deliver anything new - but they do have an importance in that we are there in public to be grilled. Inevitably the audience want to question the Mayor on congestion charging, the tube, housing and so on. I gather from the later TV coverage that the highlight of the evening for the media was the ejection of a member of the audience who was shouting throughout the proceedings until he was escorted out. Difficult situation really - clearly someone with learning difficulties and it's never nice to have to eject someone - but the audience was turning on him because they couldn't hear what was being said.

Of course, that was the only bit that was reported. Just love the media, dontcha?

Labels: ken livingstone

Meeting between London Transport Committee transport leads and the chair and deputies of London Transport Users Committee. We discuss our differences and the problems they are having with understanding just what we mean by bringing their organisation into a modern and accountable framework. Suffice to say - LTUC are trying.