Lynne's Parliament and Haringey diary

After all the serious stuff I write each year, I let myself have a bit of fun for my Christmas column in the local Ham & High newspaper with my annual Christmas Fairy Tale, featuring red, blue and golden elves! Of course some people think this is terribly out of order and MPs should be terribly dour and serious all the time (hello Guardian Diary!), to which I say - bah humbug!

Caribbean time rules OK. Last year I went to the Haringey Older Citizens Afro-Caribbean Christmas lunch as the invite said at 12.30 - and we got going an hour or so later. So - one year on and smarter - yesterday I got there at 1.00 and we got going around three quarters of an hour later. So next year...

It was an absolutely packed event and very pleasant. But there is obviously a threat hanging over the West Indian Community Centre as the Government shifts on the issue of integration and desires that state funding for such segregated centres must be used now to integrate or funding will cease.

Now as someone myself who believes that funding needs to be increasingly used for joint ventures and not for separate centres, I am glad of the shift - but as ever they (the Labour Government and Haringey Council) get it wrong. You cannot say to the older generation who have gone there all their lives that they should change radically overnight. Far better to foster a growth in joint projects initially – and make them projects decided on by the groups themselves.

Anyway - it was a jolly nice occasion - as always!

A friend just phoned to say that I am in today's birthdays in the Guardian. Sadly - they published my age, but I think they must have got it wrong by at least 10 years.

At last - finally I have my meeting with Ruth Carnell, the new London Health supremo. Her body is the one that matters in terms of making sure that if lands are sold off around the Hornsey Central Hospital site then they monies come back to develop health services on the rest. I had been wanting to meet her for some time to ask for guarantees to ring fence the proceeds for the Hornsey Central site.

At first they refused - and said I had to see the local Health Trust (Enfield and Haringey) which was useful - but they do not have the authority to say where money will go. So having got the meeting (and I am genuinely grateful to Ruth for coming over to Portcullis House and giving me her time - with 31 separate trusts to deal with she is just a bit busy) - I put the case.

Ruth was willing and is going to write a letter saying that we can have the proceeds provided there is a credible plan on the table. I guess that is as good as we are going to get and if the bid to the Government for the other £7 million that is needed succeeds – then there should be a credible plan.

Obviously whilst I had the opportunity, I put some of the points I’ve been campaigning on with my Lib Dem colleagues: the need for net gains in terms of GPs; the need for ordinary local people to have a real input in terms of what is provided on the site in terms of services; issues around fears that private providers might be brought in and about the knock on dangers this would have for the Whittington, etc.

We didn’t see eye-to-eye on all the issues – particularly the role of private providers in providing NHS services – so I’m sure there will be more debating in the future. But for now – things are moving forward in pretty much as good a direction as we could have given the rules and policies Labour have drawn up for health services. And in the New Year, my colleague - Health Spokesperson Cllr Richard Wilson - will be publishing the Liberal Democrat Prescription for Hornsey Central Hospital.

Labels: hornsey central hospital, nhs, whittington hospital

Up on my website now are my Christmas message for the Haringey Advertiser plus a piece for the Asian Voice about crime and terrorism.

This morning I got a phone call from Ming - promoting me to the shadow cabinet as International Development spokeswoman. A nice early Christmas present! It'll be a bit of a wrench leaving home affairs, as being number two in the team there has been a great job, but I'm looking forward to the challenges of the new job - especially as in these inter-connected days, what happens overseas so often ends up having an impact back home.

(More on the other moves is on the party website and on Liberal Democrat Voice).

Labels: ming campbell

Co-presented Iain Dale's Review of the Year on internet TV - 18 Doughty Street. It was, in the end, mostly about international affairs - which given my promotion earlier in the day was quite appropriate. My new job will place me in the International Affairs Team with Foreign Affairs and Defence. The discussion ranged over Iraq, Israel and Lebanon etc – and I think I went too far in terms of being non-partisan, as in fact it was Iain who raised the Lib Dem noble position on the Iraq war. Though perhaps it's an interesting and possibly new approach for politicians: if you don't state the bleeding obvious - others feel obliged to do it for you? So - I found the panel (Peter Riddell, Keith Simpson and Danny Finkelstein) all acknowledging the Liberal Democrat moral (and right) position against the war in Iraq. We ranged over Gordon, Dave, Tony and Ming - and then amazingly an hour and a half had passed.

Labels: 18 doughty street, ming campbell

I'm co-presenting with Iain Dale on 18 Doughty Street TV again on Monday for a review of the year - so that should be fun!

I've been bumped off the Sunday Edition today. They phoned on Friday to book me saying they would phone back on Saturday. With no call back, I called them to discover that I had been bumped. This happens from time to time – and I am reasonably amenable and philosophic about being at the end of the food chain – but no call back is bad manners. Other programs do manage good manners!

Labels: 18 doughty street, iain dale

Over at Liberal Review I've got an article on how we (Liberal Democrats) elect the leaders of our council groups. In brief:

Even where there is real choice and disagreement - and where the result determines who heads up a council, one of the most important political jobs there is - party members do not get a say.

From what I know of the rules in other parties too, the idea that a council group leader is elected only by their fellow councillors is pretty common. Yet (particularly in the Liberal Democrats), the people who end up running councils are the public office holders with some of the most power and greatest ability to have an impact on the outside world. I've taken part in elections of the whole local party's membership to decide who will get to vote at the party's conferences - but when I was a council group leader myself (in Haringey), party members were not part of the process. As I say in the piece, I have some doubts about whether this is right.

To pick up on a couple of the comments on the discussion over on Liberal Review - I don't think the rules need be as complicated as they are for our Parliamentary candidate selection (to be a group leader you'd need to already be a councillor and so already gone through an approval and selection process anyway) and I don't see cost as being a big issue - local parties should be writing to their members at least once a year anyway (I hope!), so any ballot could be part of an existing mailing.

Anyway - read the piece for yourself and tell me what you think!

Meeting constituents to go through their issues all morning at Wood Green library. It has had a makeover - and the room I hold my surgery in is now really great. It has armchairs and sofas, a new floor, table and the atmosphere is a million times more conducive to making people feel more comfortable. Before it was cluttered with tables and chairs of the very utilitarian variety.

Am still incandescent about our Government dropping the investigation into Saudi deal. With jobs and the future security of our nation given as the reason for the moral position holding no sway, it is depressing to find out we are as bad as everyone else.

Then, thank goodness (as by now I need to lighten up) it's off to my staff Christmas lunch and we go to a Crouch End restaurant that I had never been to before - Aix. Fantastic meal - and the desert was to die for! I rarely eat desert - but Ed (in charge of running my constituency office and my diary) recommended ice cream with honeycomb - yum!

Carols in Pond Square (Highgate), followed by Archway Road Residents' Association Christmas party at the Red Hedgehog (255 - 257 Archway Road). Paul McLean-Thorne has really driven this residents and trader group to begin to form a real community on a stretch of road that has had too little love and attention in the past.

Now, thanks to his and the group’s efforts, there are flower tubs, a fight to mitigate the ugly fence in front of the railway embankment, a competition for the best shop front - and close working with the local police Safer Neighbourhood team, who were also at the party.

But I confess: I hadn't been to The Red Hedgehog before - and talking to Claire (Clare?), one of the owners, was thrilled to bits that we have such a venue come to Hornsey & Wood Green. The Red Hedgehog titles itself as: 'Music, Cafe & Gallery'. The party was in the cafe bit - and I didn't see the performance space -so am going back to have proper look round and proper discussion with her.

What is astonishing is that to this new venue come world-class performance artists - from James Gilchrist to Jack Liebeck. And to add to that – they are absolutely committed to encouraging those who come to the Red Hedgehog to travel sustainably - and if they do, their reward is a discount. And I sense a campaigner here - so we agree that I will come back and we will have a chin wag, for we agree - climate change is the big threat!

For more information, you can visit www.theredhedgehog.co.uk

Good to see my colleague, Julia Goldsworthy, speaking out on this - supporting local communities is a very important issue!

Labels: julia goldsworthy, sustainable communities bill

When I looked at my diary yesterday and discovered I had a 6.30am visit to Hornsey N8 Royal Mail delivery office I did ponder for a moment as to whether this was just cruelty or revenge by my diary secretary. However, having done the event, it was well worth it.

I conducted a huge survey of postal services in the constituency during the year. It had a huge response and whilst many people did say how good the service was and how pleased they were with their own postman, - there certainly were a lot of complaints - late delivery, mis-delivery, no delivery and wrong delivery - amongst others. All of which I had agreed with Royal Mail that they would address and answer individually. They have been very cooperative on this front.

I am setting up a Hornsey & Wood Green MailWatch group to work at local level with local offices to deal with these sorts of issues and form good local relationships - so that when and as things happen, there is method of dealing with them directly and locally. Human relationships rather than amorphous gargantuan organisations are much better - and the more local the better too.

So, I arrive at the Horsney Delivery Office - which whilst the rest of the world is just stirring, is in full swing. Keith Headland (the local manager) and John Bull (area manager) both greet me and take me into the warehouse. Here there are different functions performed along the long alleyways formed by sorting shelves, or grids (that hold runs) and so on.

When I arrive the post team (lots of staff) are working on the initial sort. All N8 mail comes here from the North and East London sorting office. When the N8 mail gets here it is first sorted into packages, parcels, letters, etc and then into its street areas. Then the staff move to the grids - which are like extended letter racks in rows where the letters are then not only sorted into the delivery runs but put in order. So you can imagine how annoying it would be to get to the end of a long road and then find the last letter you have actually should have been delivered at the other end of the road.

And so on and so on. This isn't meant to be a blow by blow account of the system - but it is only fair to try and give some idea of the major logistics operation that delivering the post is – and, given the issues I’ve raised, only appropriate to actually come and see the reality myself.

One of the key problems at Hornsey is the lack of space. It really is not easy to do what they do in that little space - but the commercial realities of their existence these days against a competitive market means they cannot (or their central office cannot) accommodate them in better premises.

And that is the real battle - the Royal Mail has to deliver the Universal Post and their competitors do not. And whilst MailWatch will hopefully work together with local offices so that we can together improve local postal services for local people - the bigger question is how they can survive against this playing field and against the backdrop of a Government which seems to be hell bent on destroying our local social fabric by destroying and closing our local post offices.

There is going to be a statement today about further closures. It is lunacy!

Meanwhile, the staff I met this morning seemed really pleased that I had come to see them as previous politicians who had criticised the service had refused all invitations to do so.

Overall, I was much encouraged both by the attitude of the local office (and this is just one of the ones I need to involve) and by the response to my call for people who want to be involved in setting up and running MailWatch West Haringey. If you are interested - please contact me.

Labels: post offices, royal mail

The highlight today - outside of my work itself - was the Parliamentary Carol Service held in St Mary's Church, Westminster Abbey. I didn't go last year - but this year I decided to attend (with one of my daughters) as there are just some things that you want to experience and one day when I am not an MP again (it comes to us all) I won't have the chance.

I do not follow any faith - but like many others, enjoy much of the celebratory traditions of Christmas (tree, food, sherry and presents) and carols and carol services. Even if you don't follow a faith - you can recognise that there is something compelling about worship, ceremony and commitment.

Anyway - the choir was beautiful. I love the sopranos when they soar out above all the other voices. The lessons were read by a rainbow coalition of Ming Campbell, David Cameron and Hilary Armstrong. The charity being supported was Westminster Medical Research to buy a particular rare and expensive piece of equipment. By a strange stroke of co-incidence and without going into personal detail - the very piece of equipment that my daughter had needed some years earlier. Strange - hey?

Labels: ming campbell

Yesterday was the second reading in Parliament of the GLA Bill. As London Spokesperson I sat in for the whole session trying to get called - and succeeded!

[UPDATE: You can now read my speech on Hansard.]

For me the key is the new planning powers given to the Mayor - for it takes away power from local people and local authorities who know the situation on the ground. Even without extra powers to direct the granting of an application - the Mayoral nose has already been stuck into local planning applications where it wasn't his business, wasn't wanted and wasn't strategic. Result: horrible lowest common denominator development of tower block housing dumped on the most deprived who don't have fancy lawyers to fight for them - and in Hornsey a concrete batching industrial plant right in the middle of a residential area.

And at both those enquiries the lawyers at appeal were able to wave letters of approval from the Mayor - who at this point has no actual power but whose influence is used by developers as carte blanche for their profit.

I support the Bill and the devolution - but we have to have checks and balances on the Mayor so that he can't drive through what he wants without local people having their say to him - and without making sure public services and infrastructure can cope with the new developments he wants. Currently, we we get warm words but no infrastructure - just broken promises.

I also suggested that when conditions are applied to a mayorally driven granting of a planning application - it should be the Mayor that foots the bill for ensuring that conditions are implemented and enforced - not the local authority that turned it down in the first place. Grrrrrrrr!

Yesterday afternoon was taken up with the National Offender Management Bill - which basically begins to break up the Probation Service and give it to private providers. Whilst the Probation Service has undoubtedly come in for a lot of bad headlines for things going wrong - this Government solution really means that another part of our criminal justice system will be outsourced to the private sector. I made a speech at LibDem conference about this issue - so for your delectation, here’s the link.

Officially opened the Safer Neighbourhood Shop in Wood Green. Shopping City has kindly given a prime position for this drop in shop for three weeks over the Christmas period. If you go in (right next to entrance to Shopping City) you will find the local Noel Park Safer Neighbourhood Team (aided and abetted by the local community wardens and the local fire fighters) handing out advice and free gadgets to help deter and prevent crime.

At a time when thieves carry on - even taking presents from around a Christmas Tree as we read to our horror every year in the newspapers - it is important that people take as many sensible precautions as possible both for their home and when out.

There are also smoke detectors from the Fire Fighters - as Christmas is also a time when candles can lead to accidental fires and there is an awful lot of cooking going on at the same time as a bit of celebratory sherry!

So - drop in and take care.

Labels: crime

Over the weekend I caught up on exactly what Ton Blair said in his recent speech about race relations ... and it looks like what he's now saying is (in some key respects) remarkably similar to what I've been saying! Perhaps he's been reading my chapter on race relations in the recently published book - Britain after Blair...

Not sure how I should react to finding he's now saying the same things as me!

One of the topics was twinning faith schools together (in my chapter as co-siting faith schools) and my thesis that our historic state funding, albeit with the best intentions, of separateness with different races or faith groups in different community silos has to change to state funding for togetherness.

Now perhaps too we can update our history to better reflect what makes the country it is – knowing about Suliman the Great matters rather more now than the unification of Italy in understand the backgrounds that make up our country.

Labels: tony blair

I notice, slightly belatedly, that my Liberal Democrat colleague, Cllr Matt Davies of Fortis Green ward, has started blogging. Matt I wish you well with this. Bloggers unite!

Off to the YMCA Annual Christmas Show at St Mary's in Hornsey earlier today. Children of all ages perform ballet, tap, modern and gymnastics - and it is so gorgeous. Watching the little ones beaming outwards into the darkness that is the audience - hoping to catch sight of their parents. And when they do - a little shy wave. All ranges of ability - all shapes and sizes - and every faith or culture imaginable. That is integration in action - far more effective than any legislation. When people have a common bond - differences fade into the background.

I get to go up at the end and make a speech. Given there were about 150+ children standing on the stage behind me having taken their bow - I thought brevity might be appreciated! Especially as at the end of my speech I was introducing and welcoming Father Christmas.

I just congratulated everyone and then basically - given our good fortune in Hornsey & Wood Green where we of different backgrounds can live together in peace - sent our thoughts to the people of the Middle East - of Palestine, of Lebanon, of Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan and of course, Darfur, to wish them peace on earth at this time of peace and goodwill.

Labels: darfur

The cost of jailing someone for one year is roughly the same as the cost of employing a full time policeman for a year. That's the starting point for my piece in this week's Liberal Democrat News about fighting crime:

So when Tories and Labour thump their tubs about being tough on crime, we shouldn’t feel meek about pointing out the costs of their failed policies. Having a large prison population is not a sign of success – it is a sign of a failure to prevent crime and it leaches huge resources away from other parts of the justice system. Instead of prioritising preventative police work and rehabilitating re-offenders, money is sucked into cramming people into poor conditions. Now – you might say, they are criminals so who cares how bad their conditions are?

You can read my answer to this question in the full article on my website.

Labels: crime

Haringey Council has dropped its plans for a CPZ in Hornsey.

Labels: controlled parking zones

At the same time as the tornado hit Kensal Rise yesterday, the thunder clapped, the lightening lightened and the skies opened and bucketed down on me and my researcher Mette as I delivered the teacher cut outs by local children from Bounds Green School to 10 Downing Street.

As you can see in the picture I am holding two of the cut outs - there were hundreds in paper folders - but I couldn't hold them for the picture without getting them soaked. But all were handed in and Mette and I got very, very wet.

Then I hosted a meeting on Shingles - which is a form of the herpes virus - to raise awareness of just how serious and debilitating an illness this is. It requires effective pain relief and relatively few GPs are truly experienced in this field and there are not many pain clinics. Also, there are drugs that can be prescribed if caught very early that prevent it actually coming full on - but the cost is not something some NHS primary care trusts will stomach with Patricia Hewitt's job on the line if their budgets don't come in on the line.

A new vaccine is hopefully soon going to come on the licensed market - but in the meantime, if raising awareness will help sufferers get the treatment and consideration for this painful disease that they need - then here is a bit of blog-awareness.

Last but certainly not least is a Westminster Hall debate on the reports of the Home Affairs Select Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights. It was a sensible debate and you can read what I said about the powers of detention under the Terrorism Act here.

Labels: mette kahlin, nhs

Wake up to hear that Ralph Scott has won the heavily contested Kentish Town by-election over in Camden.

A very well-deserved result - well done to Ralph, Nick, Ed, Keith and the rest of the team. A good sign that after our big gains in May in Camden, we're still making further progress. The next general election in Camden should be very interesting!

Pre Budget Report! Sky News had booked me from 11-1.00pm to be on their budget panel. I did it last year - and although it looked like two hours then, in reality my panel was whisked in and out a couple of times for two x five minute slots. So I assumed this would be the same.

However – this time I found I was on the anchor panel which means that throughout the time Adam Boulton comes back to the panel to comment on each bit of the process. My co-panellists were Stephen Byers (ex-Labour minister) and David Ruffley (Tory front bench).

Not being a member of the Treasury Team, I am always slightly apprehensive about covering the Budget and similar areas - but it's excellent practise and there is no other way of learning. So I am grateful to Sky for the opportunity.

The Pre Budget Report was pretty much like a budget with Gordon Brown playing Santa Claus. When you listen to him (and we watched it live on a monitor) he is magnanimous - he giveth. He will save the British Film industry, back excellence in science, ensure more young people go to university, give money for investment in school buildings and so on and so on.

Blinding us with reports and statistics - Gordon likes big volumes of commissioned research (well who wouldn't) to back up his arguments. By the end of his speech you would have though the world would be set to rights - albeit there's still much to be done and a long way to go.

But whilst the impression is Santa Claus, as the day unfolds and the experts do their analysis – the gilt comes off the presentation to reveal the truths underneath.

Adam B asked what we thought of Gordon, Prime Minister in waiting. Stephen Byers said that he never commented on such matters. However, I was not so unforthcoming as I have for years now said on this blog and elsewhere that I think Gordon doesn't quite have the finishing punch - albeit clunking. When the going has got tough for Tony - where has Gordon been, other than brooding in the background?

And despite his recent charm offensive - he is still comes over as basically a rather serious man with a grumpy look. He will frighten Middle Earth! I suspect when he is PM he will find Prime Minister's Questions very difficult. He is not, as far as I can tell, quick like Tony in terms of retort and I have hardly ever heard him speak outside of the narrow focus of his treasury portfolio in the ten years he has been at No 11.

So - back to the budget. What Gordon didn't deal with at all is the risk to the stability of our economy caused by huge personal debt. We in this country are responsible for one third of the debt in western Europe and three quarters of a million people have already defaulted on one or more of their mortgage payments. We are at a peak in terms of house prices which has happened three times before this century - on each occasion a rebalancing has occurred. That would knock 30% of house prices and destabilise the economy.

We are calling for the Bank of England to measure house prices in their targeting of inflation - otherwise we are at risk!

As for Gordon's environmental measure - some good things but on the biggy (air travel) he chose to tax the traveller rather than the producer. Adding tax to each ticket doesn't help force airlines not to fly empty planes. Much better if he had taxed plane journeys – as that would encourage efficiency.

Anyway - two and a half hours later I left to rush late to an interview with Russia TV about Mr Litvinenko. The Russians are clearly somewhat sensitive about their possible connection with these goings on - but I don't think that stating that they will not extradite anyone is particularly helpful. Yesterday the Washington Post phoned for an interview too – a reminder of just how this story has caught people’s emotions and interest.

Labels: adam boulton, alexander litvinenko, gordon brown

It's always a rush to get in my Christmas shopping in time:

This time of year sees extra community Christmas events, local groups’ celebrations and visits to fit in. So when the last few frantic days before Christmas arrive, I have never finished (sometimes barely scratched the surface of) my present buying. That is when I thank my lucky stars for living in Highgate!

You can read the rest of the article on my website.

Woodside High School are having an anti knife-crime week - and all Tuesday is taken up with me and police and young people talking, with theatre and panels on how to resolve the terrible problems that carrying knives have become.

I give a ten minute introduction and then a senior police officer tells the hall (full of year 11s etc) what the police are doing. Then the Comedy Store takes over. They have a production which addresses the issue through humour, but which addresses the issues of the law, the dangers, situations, peer pressure, life choices - so much better than just talking heads.

People seemed to really enjoy it and so the panel afterwards were flooded with questions - some cheeky - but many seemed very concerned as to what they could or couldn't do within the law. I really hope it beds in. Knives can mess it all up for a child who otherwise has a great life and great contribution ahead of them.

Full marks to Woodside for taking it so seriously and devoting proper time and effort to it. They have a fabulous police officer in the school - Velda Ewen: an absolute gift for the school - committed, enthusiastic and with just the best personality for the job! Congrats to all who took part - and to the kids - 'cos its their lives and in the end - it's they who have to take responsibility for their actions.

Labels: crime, knife crime

A quick catch-up on some happy news: Councillor Carolyn Baker, councillor for Harringay ward, has given birth to a beautiful baby girl. Jenna Smith arrived weighing in at a healthy 8.5 pounds. Congratulations to Carolyn and family!

Main event of the day was a public meeting organised by Save Hornsey Hospital Campaign titled 'Save Local Health Services under Threat' - which they most certainly are.

I was chairing the meeting and there were a number of speakers, including a really impressive doctor Jacky Davis who told it how it is. She laid out quite clearly the scenarios which are leading to the privatisation of the NHS and demonstrated the harmful effect that so called 'patient choice' has had in letting the private sector cherry pick - whilst the NHS (our NHS) is left with less funds and all the difficult cases.

We also had Maria Duggan - a local health expert and local resident - who spoke passionately about the death of services for older people in the west of Haringey. We have very high numbers of older people in the wards in the west of the borough - more than in the east - and yet no council facilities grace the west.

The long-promised all singing all dancing replacement facility for older people that was meant to be delivered in exchange for stopping the campaign to save Hornsey Central Hospital has never materialised.

In fact, the only bit of the proposals to supply beds for older people on the site has collapsed - a mix between Haringey Council withdrawing their sponsorship of that bit and the Primary Care Trust (PCT) taking so long and changing tack so many times that the Council gave up trying to work with them.

The Lib Dems have been campaigning for 'Action Now' on Hornsey Central Hospital after the six years of broken promises. Our fight is to make sure that health services are finally delivered – and that the development is about what is needed and wanted locally.

Shirley Murgraff - a long-standing community campaigner - tried to get across the urgency and extent of what was happening in the NHS and to get people signed up to the National Campaign to Keep the NHS. Richard Stein laid out the legal possibilities of challenging what is happening.

Sue Secher, Sue Hessel and Janet Shapiro all gave rousing speeches and more people are needed to sign up to the campaign. There are a number of fronts to be fought on – from pressurising Haringey Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee to making sure everyone local to Fortis Green clinic is aware that they can now put in their two pennies worth on its proposed closure.

There was a representative from the PCT there who tried to say that they were consulting. But as the 'discussion' (she was careful to make this distinction) will only be advertised through the newspaper or on lampposts – so there will be another job to do to make sure that people really know what is going on.

The bid to the Government for £7million towards the cost of the new proposed health facility on the Hornsey Central Hospital site will soon be decided. Together with £3.5 million from a LIFT project and the sale of two clinics and some land - this delivers the £14 million funding for the new facility. Of course - the problems are around how much will be private and what will be additional rather than shuffling deckchairs.

The Liberal Democrats have a 5-point plan for Hornsey Central if the bid comes in - which is why I have supported the bid. My pragmatic stance is: let’s get the £7 million and then fight to get what local people want out of it. To get the money we have to jump through some of the Government’s hoops – however much we might disagree with them.


The five points are:

1. More GPs and clinic sessions provided - not just the existing GPs and clinics we already have reshuffled and centralised. There needs to be a real dialogue between the PCT and local GPs to ensure what is provided is wanted by the practices. It is essential that coverage of GPs and GP practices across the area remains and that there is a net gain.

2. Real engagement and consultation with patients, residents, voluntary organisations and health workers over the development and relocation of services. As the promise was originally to replace the services for older people - their needs must be addressed and therefore full engagement with older residents is a priority.

3. Improved public transport to Hornsey Hospital, to ensure it is accessible – particularly for older people and parents with young children. The PCT needs to work with Transport for London to get existing bus routes extended to reach the site and the W2 route reinstated as a minimum.

4. Protect our community pharmacies by working with existing pharmacists and carrying out an impact assessment before opening a new pharmacy at the Hospital.

5. Ensure that the proceeds of any land or property sale go back into site.

This is not an exhaustive list and there are lots of pitfalls and dangers - but at least if we can fight for net gain and proper, and I mean proper, engagement - then just perhaps we can squeeze something out of the current disaster.

Anyway - top marks to the Save Hornsey Central Hospital campaigners who had worked so hard to get this meeting together. It can be very hard work to get people informed and out of their houses - but the hall was packed and the passions ran really high.

Labels: hornsey central hospital, nhs, tfl

Well, my nephew Jake is in a band called Mad Staring Eyes and the band is up for a vote on http://www.xfmmanchester.co.uk/Article.asp?id=194019

It makes a change to lobby for something non-political. And they're really good - no bias. Honest! You can listen to a track if you go to the site.

The cricket club's grounds off Park Road are the subject of my latest column:

In the hustle and bustle of urban life, losing those little oasis of peace and tranquillity is a tragedy – we all need places to pause, reflect and move at a slower pace.

You can read the full piece on my website.

Campaigning in Kentish Town. There is a ward by-election due to the resignation of a Labour councillor. This is a hard fought one and a half. Since the May local elections, Camden has been run by the Liberal Democrats (with the Tories in coalition as the minor joiners) as no party had overall control on their own.

The LibDems came from miles behind to dethrone Labour who had reigned in Camden for decades. It was time for change.

But with a Labour seat now up for grabs - all the parties are fighting hard. The Liberal Democrats were out in force at the street stall I joined yesterday. Tories, Labour and a couple of Greens each had stalls near the tube station - ours was a bit further down the road. What gave me the giggles was the Tories. For reasons I will never understand - they send one or two of their entourage to plonk themselves in front of our stand. There was quite an aggressive Tory girl who plonked herself literally in front and touching the front of our stall for a very long time. I suppose the psychology is to either a) not let us hold sway over that particular couple of metres or b) to make photographs difficult as you wouldn't want a Tory in a LibDem photo or c) to hear what we are saying. I don't know for sure.

However, if that is the mentality and stupidity of politics (and it is not just Tories although they are the worst at this sort of tactic) - no wonder real people disengage. As for passers by – many were really interested in the issues around any potential closure of the local police station. The Met is reorganising its estate and some police stations will go in that change.

The by-election is on this coming Thursday.

Off to Queen's Road Residents' Association Christmas Social. This is an A-grade residents' association which has created not only a truly active body that operates to protect and improve the area - but also a real sense of community.

The two local Liberal Democrat councillors, John Oakes and Ali Demirci, were there. In fact it was John who suggested I might like to drop in.

And how pleasant it is just to go to a social occasion and have a bit of time to talk with people properly. Everyone had brought different foods to contribute - for as ever we are nothing if not diverse and integrated. Talking to one group of people - who were obviously from a variety of cultural backgrounds - what was really funny was that we all celebrate Christmas in some form. Discussing it we decided that it was because it is such a basically nice festival - in terms of family, presents, tree, decorations and food etc and comes coterminous to an extent with Diwali and Hanukah - and we all from our different backgrounds enjoy it.

And that to me is the real integration - that we are all different but can all join in, in our own ways, the same festivities. Very heartwarming!

Received an interesting email / thesis from a local resident about the sudden (but very much needed) £176 million injection for schools in Haringey. The resident was a school governor in Haringey during the eighties and nineties, who saw PFI being used to modernise the secondary schools. He says that they were told that this was the only way the works would be funded. Now his view is that the £176 million that the Government has 'found' to give to Haringey is political. He said: 'It appears that your parliamentary seat and the removal of 12 councillors [there are 12 more Lib Dem councillors than 4 years ago]is worth a lot of money. If true then the money for peerages issue is mere chicken feed.'

Makes you think!

It was off to St Mary's Junior School to present the winner of my Christmas Card competition with a certificate, some of the cards and some chocolates. The card I chose is absolutely lovely. I had set the title 'Christmas at Alexandra Palace' and Jemima Hammett (aged 10) had drawn the most beautiful representation of the Pally with Santa's sleigh flying above it in the sky. So that was a very pleasant task of the day.

UPDATE: And here's a picture of the winning card:

This morning there was one of those cases that makes me so angry at surgery. A woman had come to see me. Her employers had her escorted off of work premises as she had been unable to produce documentation to show that it was legal for her to work. She had sought asylum in 2001 and been given exceptional leave to remain. She has worked all the time (i.e. not on benefits). She married a British citizen and has two British children. She is and always has been fully entitled to work. At the end of her four year exceptional leave to stay she applied in the normal way for indefinite leave to stay. To do that she had to surrender her passport etc. One and half years later - nothing. And now she was thrown out of her work premises because the Home Office (still not fit for purpose - nowhere near) didn't want to know. She had gone there yesterday - and received no help.

I was furious. Phoned up the MP helpline and in the end they faxed over a letter stating that she was entitled to work. She came to collect it from my constituency office as if she didn't show them something today, her job was out the window.

But the bigger issue is that when I spoke to the Home Office (and today the helpline was helpful - credit where it is due) the hold up on her proper papers is an outstanding police check to make sure she hasn't broken the law. So a year and half later - she is waiting for what should take five minutes on the computer. I have written to Sir Ian Blair and to John Reid. It is totally unacceptable. You can't bugger up peoples' lives endlessly through total inefficiency.