Why Boris plan to cut 10 Fire stations will kill Londoners

Hat tip SERTUC for this Fire Brigade Union video with voice over by Ross Kemp about what will happen if these fire stations are closed.

"- Ross Kemp’s campaign film “Every Second Counts” is available at http://ow.ly/oBEO5
- The film is being promoted by FBU members and supporters via social media.
- Petitions against the closures can be found on the Government’s e-petition site at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/41043 and on the 38 Degrees site at http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-our-firestations
- The evidence that the Mayor has misled Londoners on his plans and the script for the film are available on the London FBU website at www.london.fbu.org.uk/?page_id=527"

My First Boris Bike Ride

Off message but today I finally did it - and after months of faffing around I bought a helmet and cycle clips then hired a Barclay (Boris) bike and rode from Holborn to London Liverpool Street station.

This is the London cycle sharing scheme. 

Of course they should be called "Ken's Bikes" since it was actually the idea of London Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone in 2007. Like a lot of Ken's ideas - Boris nicked them.

It took me about 20 minutes to work out how to log in and release a bike. The instructions on docking stations for first time users are pretty rubbish. Luckily for me some helpful staff were about relocating bikes. You have to set up a charge with your credit card and get a receipt then you have to reinsert your credit card to get a slip with an unlocking code. Once you know what you are doing then it is quite simple.You can order a key online to make things quicker.

The bike itself is pretty easy to ride and feels surprisingly light considering it is quite a big bike. The gears need a little getting use to but it is stable and being high off the ground gives you confidence. The front carrier basket is rather small but its better to store stuff here rather than a rucssack on your back. If you are not use to cycling in London it would be best for you to try out in quiet streets and at quiet times to get use to the bike before hitting the high road in peak traffic. 

I was on the whole, well impressed and will definitely give this mode of transport a try in coming months. Tomorrow I will be going to Mordon and may be able to cycle some of the way back to Islington.

Free Schools in London & Mayor Education enquiry

This is a speech that I made as an UNISON delegate to the London Labour Party Biannual conference last month.

"Conference, the mover has already spoken about this ideologically driven threat by Gove and Boris to education in London and its democratic deficit.

But it is not only that the principles behind so called "Free Schools" are wrong. We must also oppose this latest privatisation of key public services, because it is yet another example of turning accountable and transparent bodies, responsible for huge amounts of public money, into what often becomes self selecting oligarchies and "mates clubs".

Whose senior management teams first task is to award themselves a massive pay increase while at the same time they contract out the jobs of UNISON members; the cleaners, the cooks and the school caretakers onto poverty wages, with no protection if they become sick and no pensions, so they retire and die in poverty.

Free schools epitomise much that is wrong with our society under this Tory Government. Instead of a planned, accountable and joined up approach to running essential public services, we have a selfish and divisive route, driven in many cases but not all, by simple greed and the wish to enrich themselves at the expense of those ordinary working people, the UNISON members who clean their offices, cook their school meals and unblock their office toilets; the people who they consider to be their serfs.

Conference, let us also make sure that while opposing Free Schools we also make sure that our own house is in order. Can all of you here, who like me are school governors, make sure that at your next Governor meeting, that all the workers in your school, are on decent nationally agreed terms and conditions or their equivalent. Not only a living wage, but living sickness benefits and living pensions for all who work in your school.

Conference, please support this motion. (I then had to rush off to another commitment. The motion was passed)

Picture of 100 Sefton school staff left high and dry by a Free school.

Galloway the Ego slithers back to the East End

So Gorgeous George Galloway and his creature Diss-Respect is back in Newham, busy trying to stir up division and discord  in our community.

Jumping on any bandwagon they can, less than 3 years since this unlikely alliance of Muslim religious conservatives and extremist revolutionary atheists  were kicked out of East London, they are back with more of their nonsense.

Diss-Respect is trying to inflame concern about the recent refusal of a planning application for a large mosque in Abbey Mills, E15.

Galloway has taken time off from sucking up to murderous dictators, rape suspects and despotic regimes to claim if it had been a Catholic or Jewish church, then it would have been given permission. The only reason according to him, it was turned down was that it was "by... Muslims".

This is a completely untrue and also in my view a despicable statement to make. Even the worse sort of carpetbagger must realise that such baseless, inflammatory comments are shameful and potentially incite hatred.

Galloway calls for Newham Labour Mayor Robin Wales "to resign" over the turning down of the current application.

Why?  Robin Wales played no part in the planning committee decision. It was made by Newham Councillors. You cannot "whip" Councillors on planning decisions.  They make their own minds up on the merits of the application within planning law.

Robin Wales was re-elected as Newham Mayor in May 2010 with 68% of the vote. One of biggest majorities in the country on the same day that Galloway was humiliated and thrown out as a MP of next door Tower Hamlets.

Boris Johnson, the Tory Mayor of London has also turned down this application. Although I would be more than happy for Boris to resign, why hasn't Galloway called for his resignation as well?

Doesn't Galloway realise how stupid he and anyone else looks calling for anyone to resign when there is no legal or any other basis whatsoever to do so?

Newham is an imperfect but still successful multicultural and diverse community.  One key thing that all right thinking people agree upon and value is the rule of law in this country. I personally fully support the idea of a beautiful, signature mosque and religious facilities for this site, but it must fully comply with planning law. No ifs and no buts.

Galloway has also been spouting on about how he is going to run a petition on a debate in the House of Commons on this issue. Galloway is one maverick MP out of 650. The rest of MPs quite rightly mostly despise him and will not pay the slightest attention to anything he says or does.

Picture above is of the former Newham Respect headquarters "To Let".

No comment.

Boris and his Pension Merger Plan to Rescue GB Plc

On Monday the FT rather oddly announced that the new Chair of the London Pension Fund Authority (LPFA), Edmund Truell, with the support of Mayor Boris Johnson, is to merge all 34 London Staff Council funds "into a single scheme and channel more investment into the capital’s infrastructure projects".  The Evening Standard also waded in on Tuesday in a similar vein here

The fact that neither Boris nor the LPFA has any legal powers to do this was not mentioned.

Now it makes perfect sense to look into merger in order to see if it will save money and stop Councils and pension scheme members being ripped off by vested interests. Equally, no one would be more happier than me if we could use pension funds to kick start the economy and say build more homes.

But there is a problem. Some 4.6 million Brits have a local government pension entitlement. Its primary purpose is to pay an income in retirement and not to be a substitute for inadequate investment in infrastructure by Government.

Some people also think that the LPFA is looking at merger due to its own internal financial predicament as a mature scheme with many pensioners claiming their money but relatively few active members still paying into the scheme.

There has also been claims of scaremongering. The Local Government Pension Scheme as a whole has assets of £160 billion. It is not broke. Some schemes do indeed have difficulties but in many cases this is due to outdated and irrelevant accounting measures which price scheme liabilities on the current abnormal 200 year low in gilt yields.

So far there has also been no mention either that in the new LGPS 2014 scheme members (and their "widows & orphans") will face the future costs of poor investment performance.  Under European and UK law pension funds must be run in the interests of beneficiaries, then the case for or against merger or for investment in any particular asset class, must first and foremost take into account their interests. Not short term political ambitions for a flat in Number 10.

There are a number of obvious risks. What if merged Council pension funds invest in building homes for rent and there is a property price crash? What if investment in alternative electricity supply is undermined by a change in future Government policy? In other countries pension funds that invest in infrastructure get significant Government financial support or guarantees.

There is also the issue of "why only the LGPS?". While it may seem rather strange that there are 101 separate LGPS schemes worth £160 billion, there are about 53,000 private Pensions schemes. The vast majority of whom are tiny. How well managed are they? This is also important to GB Plc since the Private sector defined benefit schemes alone have £1.1 trillion in investments. Surely it makes sense to look at merging private sector schemes as well?

The Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, who the FT claims is a supporter of Council Pensions merger, may have the legal power to force merger.But unless this is done sensitively and by putting the interests of beneficiaries first, then it is likely to end in tears. Which if the supporters of merger are right, would indeed be bad news not only for the LGPS but also for GB Plc.

UNISON London Labour Link says Goodbye and thank you Ali G

Picture is of me as Chair of UNISON London Region Labour Link presenting retiring committee member, Alan Griffiths, with a bottle of House of Commons Whiskey!

Alan who is also a Newham Councillor, has been a long serving member of the Committee for many years and will be missed. 

At the committee meeting we also had a presentation by former London MEP, Carole Tongue, on "the Euro elections 2014 and the positive case for Europe". There was a lively Q&A afterwards and almost an consensus, that there is a positive narrative about Europe (amidst lots of real problems) that we should make and not let the the bigoted right set the agenda.

Committee member Sanchia Alaisa (2nd from right), who works in FE and is a Councillor in Barking and Dagenham, is standing to be a Euro MEP candidate in 2014. Check out her web site here.

London Assembly member Joanne McCartney gave her GLA report next. This was dominated by the devastating Police and Fire brigade cuts that London Mayor Boris is about to implement despite his manifesto promises to protect emergency services.

The highlight of the meeting was of course the last business item, as Alan Griffiths, gave a swan song Powerpoint presentation on the retrofitting of Solar Power Panels on south facing roofs of houses in Walthamstow Council estates. Which is still a worthwhile idea to look at despite Tory Coalition tariff cuts. His motto "Every South facing roof could still be a power station". 

London Councils Summit 2012

On Saturday I went to the London Councils Summit at the medieval Guildhall in the City of London. I had my ward surgery at 10am so I missed the morning session and opening keynote speech by London Mayor, Boris Johnson. I gather it was as silly and superficial as usual.

I stopped off at a lunchtime London Councils "micro-surgery" on "Social Media" and came away convinced that I should try a "Tweet up" Councillor Surgery. Tell everyone I will be available on twitter on such and such date and time for 1 hour for West Ham ward matters. Watch this space.

After lunch I went to the breakout session "Mind the funding gap" with  Cllr Richard Cornelius, leader of LB Barnet, Cllr Catherine West leader of LB Islington, Chair John O'Brien and LSE director, Tony Travers.

We all live in our own political comfort zones and bubbles. So it is rewarding to come out and meet the enemy, and find they are as convinced and comfortable with their own political prejudices as you are with yours. Catherine and Richard are chalk and cheese. Yet they were both polite and humorous in their attempts to convince us of the merits of their very different approaches to the dire and desperate financial situation we are in.

In the Q&A Richard was not impressed with my comment about the report last week by PWC that London Councils pension funds could have been £1.6 billion better off if they had merged. Nor that the outsourcing of all Barnet Council back office services will result in his pension scheme going belly up and this will completely wreak their finances.

You can check out my twitter account of the debate here 17 November 2012.

The final session "taking the temperature - London's Political Landscape" by Robert Gordon Clark and Tony Travers was so interesting that I stopped tweeting in case I missed anything. You can check out what people did tweet about at #lcSummit. 

'Thrasher' swears at Copper

“Open this gate, I’m the Chief Whip. I’m telling you — I’m the Chief Whip and I’m coming through these gates.”

What a charmer. When they still refused, Mitchell allegedly responded:

"Best you learn your f***ing place. You don’t run this f***ing government.
“You’re f***ing plebs.”

Mitchell is also believed to have attacked the police as “morons”. Hat tip Labourlist

 

(Let us not forget.....see comments below made before "Thrashergate")

 

"Mr (Boris) Johnson said "If people swear at the police, they must expect to be arrested,"   

 "Not just because it's wrong to expect officers to endure profanities, but it's also because of the experience of the culprits.

 "If people feel there are no comebacks, no boundaries and no retribution for the small stuff, then I'm afraid they will go on to commit worse crimes."

 

“Tory MP David Davies, who serves as a Special Constable, said:‘This is a threat to law and order. When I trained in London four years ago, if someone swore directly at you – I was called a “f****** pig”, for instance –you would give them one warning, then arrest them if they refused to stop.

 

‘It is vital that you take action in such circumstances. The police should not have to put up with this behaviour.’

Hat tip Captain Swing. Check BBC report (update: photo )