Lynne's Parliament and Haringey diary

Speech to Haringey Community Empowerment Network (HARCEN) this lunchtime. HARCEN is a Government-funded and last time I was here was to hand out money awarded to various voluntary and other community groups to help them develop in a variety of ways. This time I am there to speak about ‘building a local enterprise economy’. Given the needs in Haringey, there is no better empowerment than employment - and self-employment is a pretty good pathway.

Straight into Parliament for Home Office questions - where Nick Clegg, the new Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary, tackles the Government proposals to go back to the voucher system for asylum seekers all over again. It caused a big stink last time they tried devaluing human beings this way - and we are there to make sure that they are exposed again. They were livid - and of course they said we were wrong - these vouchers weren't like those vouchers. Yeah right!

Spent rest of day preparing for committee stage of a bill tomorrow.

Local major issue is the looming sell off of Ally Pally. And as ever - democracy in Haringey is done Labour style!

Imagine the scene. A group of residents want to lobby Haringey Council about the plans to hand over Alexandra Palace to the Firoka group.

What does Labour do? They say, no - you can't lobby the full council meeting, you must go to the Palace Board meeting. And when is the next Board meeting they can go to ... not until after the decision will have been made about whether to give Firoka the site!

You can have your say, but only when it's too late with Haringey Labour!

Labels: alexandra palace, nick clegg