Lynne's Parliament and Haringey diary

Meet two women in Muswell Hill who contacted me about an idea they have for helping mothers cross the barriers back into work. Brilliant idea - as ever - I am enthused and will try and find funding streams for them to tap into. Funding is always the key (and the full stop to brilliant ideas).

In the afternoon, meet the key senior officers involved in the Muswell Hill (and a bit of Fortis Green) Safer Neighbourhood Team which is about to roll out. Hurray!

This is what residents want. Dedicated neighbourhood teams on the beat. But we need them everywhere - otherwise you get displacement of crime.

And what about poor old Highgate - split between three boroughs? I am working on bringing that together - and have made some progress following my lobbying of the Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA). A methodology and trial is afoot in Bexley - and then once the wrinkles are ironed out there the model can be used for Highgate and any other areas of London where there is a neighbourhood split across different boundaries.

Labels: crime, mpa

Action morning in Hornsey and Bounds Green wards finishing off delivering any leaflets we haven't got out so far in the month. A really good crowd turned up to help. Attraction must be lots of young people and suggestion that post-delivery we could all meet up in the local pub!

Snow made it a bit nippy. I like delivering - but being the prospective candidate - spent my time canvassing.

Out canvassing in the afternoon. Positive response on the doorstep - there's clearly a very large group of disillusioned Labour voters who are thinking seriously of voting Lib Dem. It's not just about Iraq - though that has been key in breaking people's trust of Blair.

Labels: iraq

I've often heard the expression that 'politics makes strange bedfellows’. Watching Andrew Neil's political programme when I get home I am astonished to see Tariq Ali telling the nation that he is going to vote Lib Dem to oust a pro-war MP in his constituency and basically recommending everyone else to do same.

As he lives in Highgate this means he says he will be voting to get Barbara Roche out.

So Tariq Ali will be voting for me ... !

Albeit a tactical vote, I am obviously delighted - not least because he was an intellectual revolutionary when I was younger - stirring stories of my student days. Memories...

Tonight it is the London Region Conference of the Liberal Democrats. I am down to be one of three speakers at the 'Gold Star Rally' at the end of the evening where we three (Bridget Fox / Islington South, Chris Maines / Orpington and myself / Hornsey & Wood Green) rally the troops to come out and help us.

I start the evening chatting in the cafeteria to Sarah Teather MP (Brent East). We discuss tactics for the election.

We are joined by Jason Beattie, Evening Standard lobby correspondent, who is chairing a session with Sarah and Ed Davey where questions are put by the audience.

When it comes to the rally, I go on last and really enjoy it. Just for once I don't have to talk about transport or Ken - and can give a really political speech - which I do. Current bugbear - not surprisingly - the Tory and Labour efforts to be tough on immigration and asylum - for political gain more than anything else.

The sub-text of both Labour and Tory seems to be to scare residents into the view that it's all their (immigrants') fault. So groups of poor and underprivileged people fight and blame each other rather than turn the attack where it should be placed fairly and squarely on both Labour and Tories for not providing a decent house-building programme over the last two decades. It is very easy to turn need into blame and then scapegoats are created in that ferment.

Anyway - I am appalled by Blair's sabre-rattling for the election. He has obviously seen it work for Bush - and believes it will work for him here.

Labels: ed davey

Meeting with Victor Olisa, who is seconded from the City police to the Home Office working group on Stop & Search. We are looking for a way to tackle some of the issues that might stop recruitment of ethnic minorities into the police. Looking to hold an 'event' at some point in the relatively near future with young people in London.

Then rush home to host a fund-raising dinner. The guest this time is the party's Campaigns Director, Paul Rainger. His boss (the party's chief executive) did a similar event a few years ago, so there’s some good-natured rivalry about their relative fundraising performance.

I don't cook - a local member thankfully does - and boy can she cook. It is a lovely evening. And I think that there are not that many occasions when members of a political party can have a high-level political conversation with a top party insider like Chris or Paul (and previously Lembit Opik and Vince Cable). Anyway - it seemed to go very well.

I tell Ken my daughter’s suggestion – that he be sent to brat camp. We are in Mayor's Question Time at City Hall having a jolly good spat over CrossRail funding. Ken is going on about how fab it is that the hybrid bill for CrossRail is at last going through.

I merely point out to him that having first worked on CrossRail feasibility about 27 or so years ago I won't get excited until the government puts its money where its mouth is. Ken, the way only Ken can, says that I must have been still at school when I did that work. I wish! Much hilarity in chamber.

I ask him if he knows how much the government is going to pay up for CrossRail and does he have it in writing?

Once again he tries to joke - so I say to him, "Do you know what my daughter suggested last night? That you should be sent to brat camp." More hilarity.

But more seriously – it still looks as if the government has not firmly committed itself to funding CrossRail. Ken wasn’t able to point to any firm promise.

Labels: ken livingstone

Ken's press conference at City Hall. Trailed as being likely to see the expression of 'regret' by him for the comment he made to an Evening Standard journalist.

He arrives and in best nasal tone states that having considered everything and read everything about the 'incident' - he has decided there is nothing to apologise for.

Anyone in that position who gives offence - even if inadvertently - should be able to say sorry for any offence caused.

Not Kenneth. He turned it around. It wasn't what he had said, it was:

- the journalist's fault
- the Mail Group's fault
- the Evening Standard's fault
- Brian Coleman (Chair of the Assembly's) fault
- the Tories' fault
- the Standard Board of Great Britain's fault

... and you can guess whose fault it wasn't ... our 'I'm a loveable rogue and can say what I like' august Mayor of London.

Talking about this with my oldest daughter that evening, she came up with what I think is the best idea so far. 'Send him to brat camp'. She suggested I tell Ken this the next day at Mayor's Question Time.

Labels: ken livingstone

You can tell there is an election in the offing as the level of abuse mixed with panic from the Labour benches rises to even more unedifying heights than usual at tonight’s full council meeting.

Particularly irksome to them, apparently, was our motion suggesting that the PFI deal with Jarvis for the Whittington Hospital was a problem. It's a bad tradition of Haringey Council to let Labour submit "delete all and replace with..." amendments – despite what the rules say. Needless to say, that's just what Labour submits this time too.

The snow is coming down thick and fast as we leave Haringey Civic Centre - so instead of a debriefing at a public house - we all head straight off home.

Labels: whittington hospital

Rustle up a team of helpers to get out an extra leaflet (on top of our normal heavy schedule) in Highgate. Everyone turns up and the leaflets fly out - hurrah!

Chair the Stop & Search Implementation Panel which is overseeing how the MPA's recommendations from last year's scrutiny are being implemented - or not. This session we have the Home Office, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Met Police as witnesses.

The first part is taken up with an update on the Met's new policy on Stop & Search. Their 'vision' statement now addresses the issue of 'disproportionality' in Stop & Search - and I am extremely glad we were able to persuade them to put this in and that they were intelligent and brave enough to do so.

('Disproportionality' is the issue of people from some communities being more likely than average to be stopped and searched; is this because of good policing reasons or because of bias in the implementation of the policy? There's a lot more about this on the MPA website.)

The next battle is over a recommendation in the scrutiny that asks for a special department to run the Stop & Search brief - at present it is one (or a couple) of men and a dog. This proves a sticking point for me and I will ask for this to come back to next meeting with Tim Godwin (bigwig) and the new Lead for the Met on this, Brian Paddick. The MPA is not going to let this one get away - it is too important.

In the afternoon, do some canvassing in Highgate and Hornsey wards - despite cold and rain. It feels pretty good on the doorsteps. Later, an evening of paperwork and email and envelopes.

Labels: brian paddick, mpa

It's a Metropolitan Police Authority Away Day - and we are 'away' in a hotel in Piccadilly. Without boring you to death over the whole day’s proceedings - the basic thrust of the day was that we have to get smarter and tougher in calling the Met to account.

I have learned an awful lot in the nearly five years I have been on the Authority and think that considering we were only 'born' then, a tremendous amount of change for the better has come in that period.

I suggest that the 'strap line' for the MPA should be – ‘Making Police Accountable (to London)’.

In the evening, it’s my regular surgery for residents. It's so full I cannot get through everyone in time before Muswell Hill Library closes. So many problems for residents of humungous proportions – it’s a sound reminder of why it is worth fighting for better services. You might not always be able to deliver the outcome someone wants - but you can treat people well at all times.

Then rush around dropping off leaflets to deliverers (and remember to return a DVD to the video store) before it’s our local branch executive meeting.

You can tell things are hotting up because the attendance is good, the people's reports are more or less all there and everyone is on the ball. Fundraising is high on the agenda - and the new fundraising group has put together an Auction of Promises, which is where people give something (an example is use of a flat for a weekend during the Edinburgh Festival) and then we will have an auction of those 'lots'.

The nitty gritty about printing schedules, policy working groups, council business etc takes most of the evening and I rush home to try and catch the late night broadcast of Desperate Housewives. Pure escapism.

Labels: mpa, muswell hill library

Rush down to chair a meeting of the East London Line Group. It’s a brainstorming session for the key stakeholders on the northern extension planned for Phase 2 of the project.

Phase 1 has now got the go-ahead and funding is arranged, but it leaves the parts that some of us need most for Phase 2 - particularly the extension on to Highbury and Islington. For details see the TfL website.

We brainstorm away - and the key issues surface pretty quickly. More capacity is needed - otherwise we can’t cope with both the freight demands on the North London Line and the needs of Phase 2 of the East London Line extension.

It is clear that there are decisions being made about signalling on other parts of the line that need to cater for this. The contributors were really excellent – so I end the meeting hopeful.

Later, I get a call from the Hornsey Journal to inform me that ex-councillor Tory Peter Forrest has announced his candidacy in the General Election in Hornsey and Wood Green and would I like to comment. Apparently he has launched himself by calling Barbara Roche (the incumbent MP) a 'Blair babe' and myself a 'Stepford Wife'.

Apart from the obvious low-grade tone he apparently intends to bring to his campaign - I am astonished that he is standing given that he has already admitted that the Tories can't win. He went into press a few weeks ago saying that it was a close race between Featherstone and Roche...

Anyway, I finish the day delivering more bundles of clerical work to wonderful local people who have volunteered to help me. Zip around having chats, dropping or picking up envelopes and getting promises to display posters.

Mayor's Press Conference at City Hall, with his tirade at an Evening Standard journalist still fresh in everyone’s minds. This was a Ken masterclass in how to try and front down the massed ranks of the media and win the day. He didn't quite make it - not because it wasn't a masterclass in political dodging and weaving - but because his fundamental, stubborn refusal to at least 'regret any upset he had caused' just came over as a spoiled child.

What did astonish me was the depth of vituperative attacks on the media and particular individuals. Even if warranted (and Ken's version of history is not always correct) it was wrong for him to have let rip in such crass style. Ken said, in response to the almost astonished gasp at his outbursts, that that is why the public love him - 'cos he says what he thinks.

What a shame that someone who is in a way so talented is also so flawed.

The Olympics were rather shoved into the background and the only other 'announcement' was about the capping of Oyster Card. Hurrah! Let's be clear (because I have been lectured very soundly by Jay Walder - finance head for TfL) on promoting the wonders of Oyster card and not being a mean, nasty critical politician. So hats off to Oyster. I do believe it's the future - but capping has been a long time overdue.

Up until now people making lots of journeys have gone on being charged so that their daily tally could add up to lots more than the most expensive travel card. This 'capping' will now mean that you will never pay more than the cheapest way of making your journeys. So - at last - well done.

Labels: olympics

Before Ken Livingstone's outburst, the previous big row over anti-Semitism had been over Labour's flying pigs advert. I thought about it again when writing my latest newspaper column (on another topic) as I nearly used the phrase "and pigs might fly" before pausing to consider if it was appropriate given the heightened sensitivities over that phrase at the moment.

Anyway, much to my surprise I found that the posters in question are still on Labour's website.

I thought they'd been pulled?

UPDATE: They've gone now. Someone must have noticed...!

More at the Assembly today on Livingstone's rant at an Evening Standard reporter ("What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal? ... You are just like a concentration camp guard"). The Assembly voted unanimously to condemn him. Remarkably Ken didn't even see fit to apologise for his comments.

You can read his comments in full on the Standard website - they are so over the top that if they'd not been caught on tape I think many people would have doubted their accuracy.

Bizarre footnote: Ken claimed that anyone who worked for the Standard deserved criticism. Now guess which newspaper Ken used to write restaurant reviews for...

Started on Thursday with a mad dash around Muswell Hill, Highgate and Hornsey taking clerical work to a raft of new helpers. Next day out again, this time with both clerical work and our latest leaflet to get to helpers. Bit of variety on Saturday - more deliveries of leaflets to our helpers but this time rounded off by a couple of hours folding and stuffing letters in front of the TV for evening entertainment.

Finally, today - wrote my next newspaper column, this blog, thank you letters, paperwork, emails and for a special treat - I am just off out with the last of the batches to get to our helpers.

Transport Committee at the London Assembly - and the Association of London Government (ALG), the Leader of Islington Council, Pulp Faction and the Parking Adjudicator are all coming before me to give evidence to the Parking Enforcement scrutiny.

One of the ALG reps made it quite clear that in his view London should put up or shut up. Clearly sick of the continued innuendo from punters and papers alike that there was any question of parking controls and enforcement being about revenue raising rather than traffic and parking resolution he informed the committee that, if councils were impugned in this way, legal action could follow.

So that's that then!

Actually, the more interesting part of the scrutiny was to do with the real heart of trying to improve the system - dealing with the confusion between signs, between boroughs and within boroughs. Why should a person paying for a pay and display ticket but accidentally buying it from the wrong machine end up with a fine? Could there be any harmonisation? Was there disproportionality between offences? Should you end up with a £100 fine for a few minutes over on a meter - and should that fine be the same as if you parked illegally on a double yellow line or in a bus lane?

We have had an overwhelming response to this scrutiny. And not as was inferred mainly from people just 'chancing it' or trying to get off - mostly sane, well-balanced letters with constructive suggestions as to how to improve this situation in London.

Anyway - this all now has to be analysed - and put into an Assembly report with recommendations to whomever we think appropriate.

Off to Lewisham to accompany a Parking Attendant on his rounds. This is happening because Bob McNaughton - the Chief Exec of NCP - when he came before the first session of my Parking Enforcement Scrutiny suddenly said, “Why don't you come and go out with a PA?” And I said “Done.”

First we had a tour of their very cramped offices and then we had a sit-down chat with the outgoing and incoming managers. It was a riveting discussion about some of the nitty gritty sent to us in evidence by unhappy Londoners. Too much to go into here - but centred on the 'unfair' tickets and practises. More of that later.

Then I went around for an hour or so with Michael - who has to be one of the nicest and most professional Parking Attendants in the world (well you wouldn't expect NCP to send me out with anyone who might not present the right image). And he was so good. However, in a very short space of time we had discovered a whole raft of 'normal' complaints from the public.

We look at one car with a ticket and he informs me it should never have been
issued as there is an exemption badge hanging from the mirror which signals a doctor or midwife on emergency call. Michael calls up the attendant who issued it and instructs him to remove it and do the necessary paperwork back at the office. Would this have been removed if I and my two scrutiny officers had not been present? Who knows. But if not, the doctor would have had the bother and effort of writing in and so on to get it cancelled.

Then we pass a car with two wheels just an inch on the pavement. Michael informs me that he would not issue a ticket for this as there is no obstruction being caused - and that is the criterion for issuing a ticket on wheels up. I doubt whether that is the case in all boroughs - or whether all parking attendants are so balanced. We certainly have evidence from other boroughs where wheels up - you are done - obstruction or not.

Next we find a street where one side is residents only and the other is pay and display. Both lots are confused and park in each other’s parking spaces - thereby lots of tickets could be issued. They were not on this occasion and my parking attendant friend was very helpful and advised people of their error and suggested they move or they would get a ticket.

He was a role model of perfection. This was a good example of the confusion many people experience thanks to unclear signs - and indeed the confusing design of this scheme.

We then pass an unmarked police car. On the dashboard is a book showing it is actually a police car. Michael informs me that they never touch police cars. And yet, the previous week someone had gone out with Westminster Parking Attendants and they had booked five police cars during the time he was patrolling with them.

Different rules for different boroughs!

And so on. It was an interesting morning and I thank NCP for inviting me to patrol with an attendant.

The other side of the coin was the very real danger and aggression attendants face. Michael himself had had a 'code red' which means a physical assault.

In fact, one other thing that happened on my travels was when Michael asked a driver to move on. The driver was displaying a disabled badge and was waiting on a double yellow line for a disabled resident to come back to the car. Michael said he was not allowed to wait even with a disabled badge. The bloke said he had just two minutes ago asked another attendant who had said it was all right. Very quickly, and despite Michael's calm tone, the driver became aggressive, saying first a warden says one thing then you tell me another...

No one seemed ultimately to know for sure whether it was or was not actually permitted.

Fun time at City Hall. Mayor Livingstone was in front of me giving evidence to the Transport Committee (which I chair) yesterday on his desire to raise the Congestion Charge by over half to £8.

This is the same Mayor who four years ago when he came before me on the first of my investigations into the Congestion Charge told London that it was necessary to reduce traffic by 15% in the central zone – this was the critical level at which London would work - for business, for residents, for buses and all.

And nothing has changed. The charge works fantastically well - and there is no sign of a creep back or rise in traffic in the central zone.

Now, his main argument for an increase in the charge was that he wanted to drive traffic down further - by between 17% and 21% and that an £8 charge would do it. This was blown out of the water today as buried in the Transport for London Board papers was the fact that traffic in the central charging zone is already at a 21% reduction.

So why increase the charge?

Ken’s arguments jiggle about. It's either about reducing traffic further for business OR it's about quality of life and reducing pollution OR it's about reassuring credit agencies that he is macho enough to raise money when needed for his borrowing OR it is to stop traffic creep back and so on…

It looks to me more like a simple cash grab.

Labels: ken livingstone, tfl

It's Haringey Full Council again (this is when there's a full meeting of the council, which all councillors attend – rather than just a particular committee meeting).

The budget is the big thing for the night. But before the budget - a presentation from local residents opposed to Labour's proposed closure of Red Gables, which provides services for special needs children and is very popular with people who use it.

Of course, Labour denies any plans to do any such thing even though it is in their papers. And, strangely enough, the Labour Exec member and the Director of Social Services dived in a pincer movement on the poor deputation as soon as they sat down. Suddenly - remarkably even - there were instantaneous offers to consult with them. But there hadn't been a dicky-bird up to that point.

Then the budget. In 2002 Labour promised at the elections that the days of big Council Tax rises were over. But in the four years since we will have ended up with an increase of 38% in Council Tax bills (Band D figures) - and not much to show for it quite frankly.

It'll be even worse when the Government's revaluation of property tax bands kicks in – and hits vast swathes of house owners in Haringey.

At the end of the night, Labour votes through its budget.

Hear back from the chap running an online transport survey (see 27 January entry).

He has already had over 350 surveys completed online. Excellent news - and I hope more people will take part at www.benchpoint.com/parking.

My campaign manager also points me at another site - for disgruntled Labour voters. I see they're urging people to vote Lib Dem in Hornsey and Wood Green - hurrah!

Meet with Tim O'Toole (MD London Underground/TfL) to see if there are any areas of difficulty with the private companies running the tube that I should be questioning them on when they come in front of me in March. He reveals absolutely nothing.

I stay on for private meeting about the Highgate Tube station fence which we are all trying to sort out so that it delivers a reasonable view to both Priory Gardens and Archway Road AND so that the noise is not reflected back at Archway Road residents AND at the same time noise is reduced for all the others. Quite a challenge! Reasonable progress I hope.

Then drinks with the new Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. Very interesting discussions with various bods who were there - all of whom seem to think Hornsey & Wood Green will fall to the LibDems. Obviously these discussions go on in high places...!

Labels: ian blair, tim o'toole

A TV company have brought a double-decker bus to City Hall as a backdrop to an interview with me about Routemasters, fare evasion and bus driver behaviour. I had thought it was a news interview (which generally ends up as a nano-second sound bite) but this went on for about 15 minutes - at which point I discovered it was a real programme going out next month. Thought it odd to be given proper time to discuss these issues!

The nano-second version of my views:

Routemasters - gorgeous but can't live in what we call a civilised society if we use buses that people with disabilities cannot use.

Fare evasion - Mayor has got to crack down on it. No use raising fares on everything if GBP85 million is leaking away in favour of the dishonest.

And bus driver behaviour: bless all the good ones - and curses on the ones who drive too fast, stop too abruptly, don't pull into the curb, don't put down the ramp even when working and use mobile phones. Long-running campaign of mine - now coming into the GLA’s Transport Committee as we've commissioned LTUC to do some work on this.