Tony Arbour gets more than 9% swing.

It was a great pleasure to see that Tony Arbour was returned to the GLA on Thursday with a swing of more than 9% to Conservative. London South West had been the Lib Dems’ great hope of a first past the post gain and they threw everything they knew into getting it. This included lying doggo in Kingston while hitting Richmond like a plague of locusts.

One of my council colleagues put it like this, and I can’t better his account:

Quote from the final Lib Dem election leaflet -

“Just a few votes will separate Stephen Knight from the unpopular Tory candidate”

That’s 26,928 - but then again Lib-Dems are always hopeless at arithmetic. Like £11m is only a small amount for Kingston taxpayers to fork out for their new theatre.

And as for unpopular? Well obviously not with 76,913 local electors!

Well done Tony (and Boris), and everyone who worked so hard to secure this victory, and rub the smug grins off so many Lib-Dem faces. Doesn’t it make all those deliveries and canvassing in the rain so worthwhile!

Indeed it does!

 

You’re never too old!

No-one in public life should ever feel too old to take on fresh ideas. I received this today and recommend the link to London readers especially, but others past the first flush of youth elsewhere in Britain might find it thought provoking too……..

My City Too Manifesto
London’s teenagers’ manifesto for better spaces in the Capital

View young Londoner’s manifesto for better places in the Capital at: http://www.mycitytoo.org.uk/manifesto.html

In light of the mayoral elections this Thursday, please take a minute to look at the recent My City Too Manifesto for better spaces and places in London.

Young people are our future. But without the chance to influence opinion, they are excluded from debates and decisions about the future of their city. They use the spaces of our city in different ways to adults.

The My City Too manifesto is drawn from a 2 year-long-campaign with the My City Too ambassadors from across London. They have debated and developed their ideas through surveys and polls, building exploration workshops, collaborations with architects and developers and have developed creative resources to express their ideas. More importantly, the campaign findings are intended to aid future development in ensuring that young people are part of the solution rather than being perceived as the problem.

The campaign analyses capital-wide problems and finds solutions that can be applied to London generally. It is about delivering solutions that can influence local, regional and national policy.

The campaign is led by Open House, the architecture education charity – renowned for its groundbreaking work in architecture education. This is the first campaign of its kind. Never before has a pan-London initiative been undertaken to explore what young people want from their built environment, what their ideas are for the future of their city and how they can inspire change.

This manifesto will be actively pursued to ensure that these ideas are embedded into London’s policy for the built environment.

Help us to give London’s young people a voice. Pledge your support for the manifesto by emailing: mycitytoo@openhouse.org.uk

Regards

Victoria Thornton
Founding Director, Open House

297 Euston Road
London NW1 3AQ

www.openhouse.org.uk

 

In desperation

Received a piece of Lib Dem ‘Literature’ through the door this morning. It’s really amazing in some ways that they are still rehearsing the worn-out formulas that were so novel (were they?) 30 years ago. You know “It’s a two horse race” with that little old graph showing the Lib Dems close to winning and Labour with no chance. In short, ‘don’t vote for us because we’re any good, but do it to get someone else out’. Tactical voting. Sheer negativity and cynicism. Livingstone is ’squandering and crony-ridden’ while Johnson is ‘a buffoon’. Negativism again. Paddick ‘has been a senior policeman for over 30 years……’ Most have risen very rapidly through the ranks. He certainly rose rapidly through the ranks of the Lib Dems, whom he joined all of 2 years ago! Everyone is a fool or a crook except the Lib Dems.

Some people, including (I reckon) some of their own members, have swallowed this stuff for over 20 years now. Let us hope that the polls are right and that the voters of London are about to tell them to grow up and get serious because the old, tired formulas just won’t wash any more.

 

Tube strikes threaten.

Londoners have 48 hours of travel misery to look forward to next week with the news that yet another Tube strike will be staged in a row over staff transfers and pensions. According to RMT General Secretary Bob Crow, “The RMT executive was left with no choice but to set strike dates”, but this will be little comfort to Londoners, who last time had to endure fights on the street for a place on the bus home, and horrendously congested roads.

This will be the 17th strike in the 8 years Ken Livingstone has been Mayor of London, and Boris Johnson has decided it’s time something decisive was done about the situation.

Boris has a plan to deal once and for all with endless Tube strikes. If elected as London’s Mayor, he will negotiate a no-strike deal with the unions, in return for which he will ensure there is independent binding arbitration to guarantee a fair deal for Tube workers.

To download a special campaign leaflet that is being handed out at stations this afternoon on the Tube strike, please click here.

 

A message from Tony Arbour

Save weekly rubbish collections!

Your rubbish will only be collected once every fortnight.

More then 30 years ago the Conservatives introduced recycling in this borough with “bottle banks” at several different locations around the borough. Kingston’s Conservatives encourage all residents to increase the amount of “waste” that is recycled. They oppose any reduction in the basic weekly service of rubbish collection. We believe that the Liberal-Democrats’ scheme to cut the long established weekly rubbish collection tthat our residents have relied on for so long is totally wrong. Experince in other boroughs shows it is quite possible to retain the traditional weekly rubbish collection without adversely affecting the aim of increased recycling.

Tony ARBOUR - For South West London

 

Boris Johnson launches Environment Manifesto

Boris Johnson has launched a detailed manifesto for Environmental policy for London. See the link on the ‘Back Boris’ page.

 

Paddick’s transport policy ‘evolves’

Full council last night, where the feature event was a debate on the ‘£10 to enter Greater London’ policy advocated by the Lib Dem Mayoral candidate (see ‘Weak thinking, Brian’ below).

Needless to say the Lib Dems ‘amended’ the Conservative motion, which was critical of the policy, by changing one thing - ALL the words. The only debating chamber in which I have ever been where the substitution of an entirely different motion from one which has been proposed and seconded is called an ‘amendment’ is the Council Chamber of this Royal Borough. However, the Mayor seemed to think it was alright, so who am I to criticise?

It appears that the Lib Dem policy has undergone two clarifications and evolutions since the Conservative motion was submitted (about 2 weeks ago so the agenda could be published!). The latest version, pulled off the website yesterday, gives two possible options for dealing with the nonsense I pointed out some days ago. These are:-

Option 1: create an exempt zone outside Greater London, the residents of which would be inside the Congestion Charge zone and thus exempt from paying the charge on entry into Greater London. Precisely what would be included in this zone is nowhere indicated - as yet. Would Esher be in or out? or Leatherhead, which lies outwith the M25 circle. We don’t know. But our Lib Dems seem on the face of it, not to believe this would be adopted. I say this because their ‘amendment’ seemed geared to

Option 2: exclude some of the Outer London Boroughs from the Congestion Zone. Our Lib Dems took it for granted in their ‘amendment’ that this would mean that Kingston would not be affected. Presumably the charging zone would start at Ham Parade if this were the case and Richmond were not so privileged. Would this mean I would have to stump up £10 a time to go to 6 p.m. Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas on Sundays - as the proposal is for the charge to apply 24/7? But the point is that this is only listed in the manifesto as an option which might be applied, and there is no guarantee that it would be or that Kingston would be protected as one of the selected Boroughs.

So the evolved policy is a better presented dogs dinner than it originally was - but it’s still a dog’s dinner nevertheless.

 

Boris launches radical Housing manifesto

Boris Johnson’s manifesto for Housing can be read using the link on the ‘Back Boris’ page.

 

No sympathy at all - but….

I have no sympathy at all for the Conservative Councillor in Slough who has been found guilty of electoral malpractice. I have none either for his agent. Regardless of party affiliation, anyone who does this kind of thing deserves all the opprobrium and penalties that are coming to them.

But, and at the risk of being boringly repetitive, the encouragement of unfettered postal voting, coupled with the monthly (rather than annual) updating of the electoral register, is making electoral fraud easier than at any time since the introduction of the Ballot Act in 1872.

In Kingston we have a very professional team in charge of electoral registration. I am sure the same is true of most local authorities. But there are far too few people to be able to check meaningfully the vastly increased claims for postal votes that now flood in (over 15000 in this Borough in 2006) - or even to check that the persons named on the applications actually exist. The Government must either tackle this meaningfully as a matter of urgency or be regarded as too complacent about the situation to be bothered.