The wheels are coming off the New Labour trolley in lambeth. Mired by the stain of corruption from their allies in City Hall, and the growing evidence of wrong doing in Lambeth by political allies of the Mayor for London, Labour unsurprisingly got hammered in the Vassall Ward by-election. They lost it on an 11.5 per cent swing, enough to lose them all but a handful of seats in 2010. And not a good omen for Labour in the London-wide elections on May 1st - any humility or apologies, no way.

At the count, the Labour big wigs looked like condemned-to-death prisoners in an exercise yard minutes after they had been sentenced to hang. Dead men and women walking and that was before a ballot box had been opened. Normally, Labour top brass, such as Tessa Jowell MP with a country home, go quickly to Southwark when there is an electoral disaster on the cards, but not last week. Actually, the winning Liberal Party's leader was noticeable by his absence. That's confidence for you.

The bottom line is that there is always a worry when politicians imagine they are going to rule for 1,000 years in our borough and a few Lambeth officers should take note. They are far too identified with New Labour in general for their own good in an era when no one can guarantee that Brown will win the next general election. Maybe, they will start talking to Opposition parties or at least keeping us in the picture as they whole Labour edifice collapses. Let's not hold our breath.

But, it's not the fault of our gas-guzzler driving senior people who nevertheless tax people with ordinary motor cars despite driving high-performance vehicles themselves. It's always the same every time Labour take office in Lambeth so it's worth remembering what happened - Labour's millennium in 1990 all ended in tears in 1994 with a hung council. So they came back for four years in 1998 for another 1,000 years. Oh dear, slaughtered again in 2002 with an Opposition coalition - they pleaded with each party in turn to be the marriage partner, but got jilted and had to sulk for four years.

Nevertheless, another chance from the voters in 2006. Only this time a Conservative-Lib Dem council had sorted out nearly all of the mess so all they needed to do, they thought, was leave it to the highly-paid officers, plus invest in loads of spin doctors, press wonks, and party hacks to do the menial jobs. In the meantime, just pay themselves more and avoid the detail.

What we expected was trumpets and cymbals to usher in those 1,000 New Labour years in 2002. But first they decided to up the home care charges for the vulnerable from £7.50 an hour to £17 an hour and then amazingly to £20 an hour. After that came all their pet projects most of which were based in Brixton. In the meantime, the debt collectors were knocking on the door so the council tax had to go up 4.75 per cent - the highest in London in 2008.

Nemesis.

Our cash strapped citizens in Lambeth look forward to another year of hard Labour in 2008, safe in the knowledge that a leading Labour Cabinet member is organising cookery lessons for disadvantaged children. Sounds admirable and at least it's a change from cooking the books. Christmas and the early new year is, of course, a good time in which to bury bad news or indeed for Labour councillors to start listening to David Cameron.

Yet it seems only yesterday that Labour was organising hordes of foul mouthed tee-shirted children and their bully boy parents to lobby the previous Conservative-Liberal administration with abuse in the name of the proposed Nelson Mandela Secondary School for BrixtonHill.

In a sudden U-Turn just before the Christmas shutdown, when our highly paid officers (three at the latest count) fly off to the sunny Southern Hemisphere for rest and recreation, Labour ditched its erstwhile allies and offered instead a new school in Tulse Hill only hundreds of yards away from at least two other secondary schools.

And what a difference a year or so makes. When it was voting time in 2006, the Brixton Hill Mandela School option made absolute sense to Labour, especially if some of its more naive supporters were prepared to stand for election against Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates. They did - generating huge publicity for Labour in the press - but got virtually no votes or I'd imagine even a thank you letter from the victorious Comrades. After all what good is a used political condom to anyone the morning after the indecent proposal?

This cynical Faustian pact was always bound to disintegrate. Instead some GB pounds 100,000 of tax payers money was spent validating the same numbers that had been available to the previous administration. Land assembly alone for Brixton Hill would cost GB pounds 25 million. As it is the new Tulse Hill Hill option will cost more than GB pounds 10 million and puts the Territorial Army base at risk.

The most sensible option is to invest money in existing secondary schools to provide extra places. That seems like a vote of confidence in the present and helps to future proof the next generation. At least five existing Lambeth secondary schools have to physical capacity to take more students if funding can be arranged over and above the current Building Schools for the Future programme. Perhaps there will be another U-Turn - oddly when David Cameron visited Brixton for a major policy announcement a prominent Labour woman councillor was present. A spy in the cab - maybe? There was no heckling so I think she may have got the message and there are rumours of at least one possible defection from Labour's Class of 2006.

Labels: building school for the future, Education, School places

What is it about Labour that they can't get their act together once a year in Lambeth for Remembrance Sunday? There are honourable exceptions, of course, and notably the MP for Vauxhall who not only takes part, but looks the part, in a smart perfectly tailored black coat and matching hat.

However, whatever your views about the current war in Afghanistan and the continuing U.K. presence in Iraq, remembrance is about sacrifice, about men and women responding to their government's instructions, and about the lost generations that preceded them in the conflicts of the 20th century.

At City Hall on the Friday before Remembrance Sunday, a dozen soldiers - men and women - from the Mercian Regiment just back from Afghanistan were applauded by the assembled VIPs and members of the British Legion. From that single regiment nine were killed and 17 seriously wounded - a sobering revelation - but when you looked into their faces they were just ordinary soldiers responding to their nation's call to arms.

Which is why I can't forgive Labour for the disrespect and lack of care they display when they run the show in Lambeth. No body had bothered to check the war memorials in the town hall for spatters of cream paint left behind by careless decorators. No doubt whoever is supposed to monitor the project is paid mega bucks but they were still spattered with streaks of paint this morning.

And then it's Labour councillors themselves sent by their political bosses to attend every memorial service going in the borough regardless of their community ties. One arrived at 11.45 a.m. for a service that had started at 10 a.m. - perhaps he overslept. In another case a Labour member wore a pair of sneakers to lay a wreath. He wouldn't have been admitted to the Fridge night club in that kind of footwear. As for the ceremony at Albert Embankment at the headquarters of the London Fire Brigade - not a single Labour member showed his or her face.

I heard a moving story on Sunday morning from one of our local Muslim leaders of how his father fought and suffered for the British Army in Burma during World War II. He spent four years a POW of the Japanese, and then became part of the new Pakistan army after the war. Our iman remembers what distress this brought his mother in the Punjab especially as her husband's letters took months to arrive.

It gave us something in common - my father was also part of the "forgotten" 14th army in Burma. Yesterday I was proud to wear his Burma Star on my right breast - as prescribed by the Bristish Legion - in recognition of both my father's and our iman's father's service and sacrifice to ensure all our freedoms.

Labels: Remembrance Sunday

He was a parish priest first and foremost, but to others he is a legend. Canon John Devane who has retired after 37 years a parish priest in West Norwood was a veteran critic of Lambeth Council. His weekly sermons were usually prefaced an anecdote about yet another outrage by the pen pushers at the Town Hall. As Roman Catholic diocesan representative on the Education Committee in the early 1990s, he aroused the then Director Beb Burchell to explode: "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest," echoing King Henry II's furious outburst about his saintly Archbishop of Canterbury.

Neither was Canon Devane willing to go to an unquiet grave. His last major campaign against petty bureaucrats at the town hall was over his wish to have Christian burial in West Norwood Cemetery. "Parishioners can either come to my grave and pray if they liked me, or dance on it if they don't," he quipped.

Cemetery officers tried to deny this wish claiming the cemetery was full and that making an exception would create a precedent. Then they offered him a berth to eternity next to some Anglican nuns in the Church of England reserve. Fortunately, Labour was temporarily out of power and common sense prevailed when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat administration overruled the officers and granted his wish - unheard of now Labour is back in office.

Canon John Devane who hailed from Kilkenny in County Kerry in Ireland is a life long teetotaller who nevertheless liked nothing better than to entertain - parishioners, teachers, councillors, and not always the great and the good. He rebuilt the finances of his parish through shrewd husbandry of the pennies as well as the pounds, but also threw his heart and soul into youth work and Catholic education. He was chairman of governors and St Francis Cabrini Primary and also at Bishop Thomas Grant Secondary. Buying the site of the church car park was he reckoned his shrewdest decision.

Never afraid to take on the authorities, Canon Devane defied his own bishops by taking all but one of the Catholic schools grant maintained in the Tory years to give them independence from a notoriously anti-church school Labour council in Lambeth. However, Canon Devane's waggish, and sometimes sardonic humour, defused many a confrontation. His knowledge of headteachers, parents, pupils, and youth workers was second to none. At times garrulous and slightly petulant, Canon Devane knew when to walk away and turn the other cheek. After all his faith sustained him through even the darkest hours.

Courageous through ill health in his later years, Canon Devane was determined to enjoy the parish's centennial before retiring or going to the Purley Gates. Any evening with him produced a fund of clerical stories usually jokes at the expense of other Irish clerics or bishops one of which concerned a cigar and an Irish pub that closed for business while a bishop had a Havana. Another was about contacting a parish priest in a remote district of Ireland where cremation was unknown. Instead of driving to meet the newly arrived relative with the deceased's cremated remains in a jam jar, the unworldly cleric sent a horse-drawn hearse thinking he was receiving a coffin. Another concerned how he financed a new carpet in church. "Well, this lai-dy hayer--dress-her," he drawled in his unreconstructed Irish accent, "came to con--fession in South London because she didn't want anyone in her par--ish to hear about her sins. And dat's how I came by the car--pet as part of her pen--ance."

He often told his parishoners, perhaps in jest, that he didn't want any bishop conducting his funeral mass, but when they visited St Matthew's on special occasions he was always a model of courtesy and welcome, controlling the order of service with hand signals and what to the initiated might look like unseemly gestures. As it turned out, Canon Devane outlived several bishops and even presided over the choice of the current Archbishop of Southwark. It was fitting that Bishop Lynch was full of humour at his farewell service even promising to sshow this bloh to the Archbishop. No one was ever sure of Father Devane's politics, but he was always on the side of those elected by the people who fought for the people. As for me brought up in a family that revered priests, I was never able to imitate by fellow councillors call Canon Devane by his first name - to me he was always "father."

Labels: Canon John Devane

Our most feisty Lambeth politician is the veteran independently-minded MP for Vauxhall Kate Hoey. It's sometime hard to believe that this pro-hunting right-wing Labour MP is really one of the Comrades given her voting record: anti cannabis, anti casinos, anti 24-hour licensing, and pro grammar schools in Northern Ireland at least.

It is no secret at Westminster that she does not see eye to eye with her sister MP for Dulwich and West Norwood and if there is a controversy Kate is bound to be in the heart of the storm. On one occasion attending a Holocaust Day commemoration at the Town Hall, she muttered cattily under her breath about some very ungodly matters including the dress sense and hair style of a leading public servant on the podium and then sang lustily an Anglican hymn that reminded her of school assembly.

Yet Kate is very often on the money when it comes to taking our Labour-led Cabinet to book. "They're very cocky," she exclaimed a few months before the last local elections. She then agreed to have her photograph taken for publication with a Conservative candidate she liked in his leaflets against her own candidates. Her own re-selection for Parliament was by all accounts a difficult piece of navigation, but it seems that at the 11th hour her critics took their tanks off her lawn. Otherwise, she had told contacts in other political parties she was planning to stand as an "independent Liberal Conservative," which is in itself an unusual combination although perhaps not to someone brought up in Ulster. Oddly enough had she stood as an Independent I'm sure many voters who normally support other parties than Labour would have backed her.

So where has the girl from over the Irish Sea done good? Tell the truth the way Labour doesn't like it , I guess. She told The Commons last week:

"There has recently been a ballot in Lambeth for an ALMO [see previous blog] and I was ashamed by the way that my borough handled it. The ballot form was biased and set out in a way that was clearly one sided. Something like GB pound 400,000 was spent on glossy brochures, DVDs, and all sorts of things that were sent to tenants, and they amounted to propaganda as to why the tenants should have their housing put out to an ALMO."

Carry on, Kate!

Labels: ALMO, Kate Hoey

Labour came in last year on a promise to improve the housing service for our long suffering tenants and what's happened? They are about to cut the emergency out of hours repairs service and the Handy Persons scheme in a desperate bid to stave off bankruptcy.

In the meantime in a ballot worthy of a banana republic, Labour is claiming that a majority of its residents living on its estates want to transfer themselves to an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO). Why have the wheels fallen off the Labour bandwagon quite so quickly?

One of the answers is that Labour doesn't like any kind of scrutiny and is too slow to open the books when things go wrong. Overspending on the housing revenue account by GB pounds 2.1 million for the year ended in April 2007 smacks of incompetence, especially as it was supposed to be GB pounds 2.5 million in the black. They can hardly blame anyone but themselves, but no doubt they will given their GB pounds 150,000 team of spin doctors at least two of whom used to work full time for Labour.

It seems that the district auditor has also caught the Labour Party cooking the books and processing revenue receipts - such as costs for building maintenance - as capital receipts. This may not mean much to many people, but as far as bean counters are concerned it's serious. The auditor has ordered GB pounds 2.3 million of expenditure be restored to the housing revenue account, which is supposed to be spent on housing and for no other purpose.

Finally, the ALMO ballot is about as fishy as the docks in Hull used to be when I was growing up in the 1950s. The 51% to 49% alleged result actually involved the leaseholders voting 'No' by a large margin of 57.5% to 42.5% and some 1,505 ballot papers were returned marked 'don't know.' Hardly a convincing mandate, especially given the complaints from some residents that they never received a ballot paper.

UPDATE: Vauxhall's Labour MP Kate Hoey has submitted a Parliamentary Early Day Motion that "notes with dismay the balloting process undertaken by Lambeth Council".

Labels: ALMO, housing, Labour Lambeth

What is it about being a middle aged white man that makes you feel part of an endangered species? In this case the Labour Mayor of London - himself a middle aged white man and formerly resident in my ward - refused to reappoint six of the seven Conservative nominations to the London Fire Authority and all three of the Liberal Democrats. They are, of course, white men. His grounds for doing this was to improve the gender balance and more importantly to improve the ethnic minority representation of those who serve on London's strategic fire and rescue organisation. The Labour, Green and One London (formerly UKIP) nominations were accepted.

Perhaps I should declare an interest, dear reader, as one of the nine white men being discriminated against by the Mayor having served on the authority since 2002. I have dedicated the time I spend on this in memory of 16 of my friends who were murdered by Al Qaeda sponsored terrorists in the World Trade Centre on 9/11 together with a much large number of firefighters.

Although all the Labour representatives on the London fire authority - apart from the woman chair - are from the ethnic minority this has only been the case for a relatively short time since until a couple of months ago one place was occupied by an elderly white male councillor from Camden. As far as is known, Labour has no democratic process for choosing its fire authority members, while the Liberals have a full ballot of their London councillors and the Tories have a ballot of their borough leaders.

The outcome of several days of legal cross fire was a partial climbdown by the Mayor, but four of the white males have only been reappointed until August 31. I can't help feeling that my 16 friends who died on 9/11 - no trace of any of them was ever found - would not have cared about the race, religion, sexuality, or colour of the New York Fire Authority members or firefighters who tried to save them, only that they were the best people for the job.

Labels: Ken Livingstone, LFEPA

Lambeth under Labour is once again a by word for complacency and arrogance after four years between 2002 and 2006 when the joint administration involving the Conservatives started a major clean up and clear out. Honourable exceptions exist, but for many people the idea of bringing back Capita to run part of the revenue and benefits service is just the final straw.

No. 10 Downing Street's favourite outsourcing company was an ardent supporter of New Labour when it came to office and it is hardly surprising that once Labour returns at local level the company is quickly back in the frame. You only wonder who gives the orders. There is, of course, a technical justification of sorts, but the politics of it are almost beyond belief.

So let's fast track back to 2001 when Labour's first honeymoon with Capita ended in tears. The Guardian reported:

"Lambeth claims its benefits service has deteriorated since Capita's seven-year contract began in 1997. It says the problems peaked in April last year when it faced 55,000 outstanding queries and the quality of the service remains unacceptable."

And the link with New Labour? Let's go back to The Guardian again only reporting in 2006 about donors to the Labour Party.

"One of those named was Rod Aldridge, head of support services firm Capita, who passed Labour £1m in loans. His company undertakes considerable business for the government. He insisted the one-year loan was a personal matter on commercial terms."

So that's alright then?

Only a Cabinet with the sheer brass neck of Labour Lambeth would reappoint a failed contractor with a high profile connection with loans to the Labour Party to return and operate the service again. No doubt there is a business case for doing this and officers are not there to give advice to elected members about political fall out. To my way of thinking though this nightmare is as scary as "The Return of the Swamp Thing."

But that isn't all. Local residents have been poorly served not only by "revs and bens" but in other areas of service delivery - notably transport. Again there are honourable exceptions, but we are talking here about a Council which can't even handover work properly when a key project manager dealing with a new parking scheme left. If that happened in the private sector company where I work in the daytime, it would be P45 time.

Labels: Capita, Labour Lambeth, Revenue and benefits, Swamp Thing

It's been a busy week in the Dulwich and West Norwood Parliamentary constituency with well attended local public meetings about planning applications and two separate mass petitions to save the West Norwood Farmers' Market and the Flower Stall in Norwood Road.

As I write, I've got a letter given to me by a constituent addressed to our high flying Labour MP about saving the flower stall, which says "it is to us what Eros is to Piccadilly Circus." It hasn't got a stamp on it so I expect that will cost me 32p.

There isn't much evidence that she'll be around to read it judging by her "Tessa Jowell: My Week" column in that Labour loving newspaper The Independent. Let's see last Sunday she spent in Brighton with her chum Polly Toynbee and then dined with Lord Falconer. Monday - it was a Labour party dinner and she's backing Hazel Blears for deputy leader. Tuesday - off to Merseyside and enjoyed a "lovely dinner" with luvvy film director Anthony Minghella. Wednesday it's a visit to Barking Abbey school. Finally, Thursday sees the watchdog of our local community here in West Norwood swanning off to Cannes for the film festival doing wonders for her carbon footprint.

Doesn't sound as if she had much time for her constituents what with all those "darlings" at the film festival. They don't figure anywhere in her diary. So I thought I'd remind her about the problems that were raised in my advice surgery on Saturday morning - depressed woman wants to be rehoused due to racist taunting on her estate; elderly man worried about bogus council officials calling him for his bank details; a leaseholder with an unresolved dispute over decorating costs going back to 2004; a business man with a complaint against Thames Water - the most uncooperative utility in the world; and an elderly woman angry that the police have failed to investigate a complaint she made, well there's a surprise.

Those are on top of the 30 or so requests for help I alone received by e-mail while our MP was away in Liverpool, Cannes, and Brighton. I think I've read somewhere that MPs get quite long holidays, but I never thought it was on a 365-days a year basis. Funny old world.

Labels: Petitions, surgeries, Tessa Jowell

It took a call from the warden at a Lambeth sheltered housing scheme telling me about the death of an elderly constituent to realise how worrying the threatened changes to care packages are for the elderly. "The anxiety about change hastened her death," he asserted, repeating it several times in a short telephone conversation. At the Lambeth budget setting meeting in February the Labour administration delivered a 'double whammy' blow to the elderly and the vulnerable of the borough by increasing social care charges by more than 120 per cent while at the same time tightening the eligibility criteria.

Is this any way to treat older people - the generation that lived through the Second World War and its aftermath? There are a series of so-called consultation meetings planned for the month of May, but no one believes anything will change as a result. Confidence in this administration because of its unwillingness to listen to people is at an all time low. In any case people are already dying as the call from the warden indicates.

Lambeth, in common with the rest of London, had no opportunity to go to the polling stations this month but the verdict elsewhere in England was pretty decisive. There are 89 councils where there are no Labour councillors at all. The Tories won control of 38 more councils, including Warwick the very last to declare on May 8. With 900 more councillors the Conservatives are by far the biggest party in local government.

So I thought I'd share with you an e-mail from Labour MP Jon Cruddas which somehow got forwarded to me. This seems to becoming a habit because a Labour councillor recently sent me his ward activist list by mistake - they have all been targeted for conversion to the Tory cause. Mr Cruddas writes in a rare moment of Labour honesty:

"Dear friends,

Last Thursday, the Tories won 41% of the vote compared to Labour's 27%. Despite some bright points in areas like Thurrock, Sandwell and Tyneside, and despite the hard work of activists and candidates, we lost almost 500 councillors, and many Scottish MSPs and Welsh AMs too. In the days since the election, some people in the press and the party have insisted that the results "are a springboard" to the next election. I disagree."

He follows this with a call to action to his party workers. Arguably, it is already too late to save a dying government.

Labels: Care charges, Elderly, Elections, Labour Lambeth