A public service announcement!

Week by week the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors rallies the (ever-more-despondent) yellow peril with rousing news of by-election … err … successes.

Curiously not this week.

There may be reasons:

1. Harwich West Ward of Tendring District Council

This what the ALDC reckoned in advance:

We have a good chance of winning this seat. We are fighting this election and we will have many leaflets to go out.  We shall be canvassing and phone canvassing.  If you can help in the by election, then this will be great.  There are four candidates, Lib Dem, Conservative, Labour and Community Reps standing.  This is a two member ward on the edge of Harwich, easy access to the A120 and A12, 25 minutes from Colchester.

And this is what came out:

Labour: 282 (elected)
Tory: 220
Community Representatives Party: 163
LibDem: 143.

2.  Evelyn Ward, Lewisham London Borough Council

Labour: 978 (elected)
Lewisham People before Profit: 404
LibDem: 131
Tory: 119
UKIP: 119

3. Parson Drove and Wisbech St Mary. Fenland District Council

Tory: 384 (elected)
LibDem: 240
UKIP: 214
English Democrats: 33

OK, OK … trivial stuff

Undoubtedly so in this world of woe.

And yet, in the shrubberies, something rustles.

The party positions in London deserve some real attention. Last week Labour stuffed everyone in sight with two run-away canters in two Islington wards. In one, St George’s Labour was up 38½%, LibDems down 28%, Tories scraping the barrel, down 6% to a risible 3.7%. Similarly, in Junction ward Labour was up 21½%, LibDems down 25%, where the previous councillor was a lapsed LibDem, — with a fair showing from a Green candidate second placed on 17½%. What makes Islington all the more intriguing is that LibDems controlled the council until 2006 _ and were the largest party until the latest Borough-wide election. LibDems now have just a dozen seats to Labour’s three dozen.

The gilt is definitely off, and the guilt all over the gingerbread. Even the troops are restless: witness Stephen Tall’s J’accuse on LibDemVoice:

Nick Clegg’s illiberal hat-trick: now immigration joins ‘secret courts’ and media regulation on the pyre

Not without reason, across the Borough boundary from Islington, Labour in Hornsey are taking seriously the all-woman shortlist for what looks increasingly like the next MP for the constituency. And Mrs Featherstone is equally frisky — the output of the ever-busy LibDem press-mill continues apace.

As night follows day

One thing was inevitable: Lynne Featherstone MP would be chirruping her approval of ‘Gids’ Osborne’s money-grubbing:

Great news – the amount you can earn before being taxed will rise to £9,440 this year. That’s £600 less tax to pay for working people, since the Liberal Democrats entered Government in 2010.

Nice of Ms Featherstone to gross up four years of tax to produce a nice number. Bet that took a load of expensive research.

But, not so!

There’s the extra VAT for a start. Since the Tory policy, pre-2010 Election, was definitively no increase in VAT, may we assume that the extra 2½% impost was a LibDem addition to ConDem domestic economics? In any case, we see Division 10 on Monday, 28 June 2010, and Ms Featherstone voting for the increase.

Shall we add in the other taxes — the kind of things Leona Helmsley reckoned were only for “the little people”?

May we start with energy tax?

Over three years, energy costs were up by nearly a quarter. A typical household bill of £1200 in 2011 will by now have devoured the entirety of that £600 tax relief. And, if it were a pensioner couple, half the winter bonus went too. Let’s not overlook that green energy tax, which is paying hundreds of millions to the wind-farmers, and 6% return on capital — half of the bunce straight out of the pockets of those working people close to Ms Featherstone’s heart.

Or what about transport tax?

In 2010 a single journey, zones 1-4, on the London Tube was £4. Today the cheapest fare, anywhere — even a single zone — is £4.50. The comparable zone 1-4 fare is £5.50. That’s an increase of 37½%!

Do we hear Ms Featherstone complain on our behalf?

“The spare room subsidy”

Then there’s the iniquitous Bedroom Tax — exactly the imposition on those lower-income working people for whom Ms Featherstone’s LibDem heart bleeds.

Even LibDem Voice (as recently as 19th March 2013) recognises it does not pass ‘the Fairer Society test’. Apart from the headline article, by John Coburn, we see on the comments some real Lib Dems in full agreement.We’d gladly hear Ms Featherstone contest Tony Greaves’s point:

The “bedroom tax” – what all the Housing Associations I know are calling it anyway – is a typical policy devised and imposed by people who would never live in social housing, who would not apply any such restrictions on themselves, who have little understanding of what it is like to live on a low income (that is to say be poor), and have little knowledge or understanding of how social housing actually works, or the circumstances in such local communities.

It is a thorough disgrace and just one of the whole series of government attacks on poor people and people who are not as fortunate as themselves and as their civil service advisers.

Did Ms Featherstone ever vote against this Bill? Oddly, whenever major small-l liberal issues make it to a Commons vote, Ms Featherstone appears invariably otherwise engaged. Hard work being bottom of the ministerial pecking order at the Department for International Development.

Reg Varney in a fright wig

A juicy morsel there, and about the most repeatable, from the Daily Mash, on Ms Featherstone’s previous gender-issue outing.

Let us celebrate that Ms Featherstone found the time and energy to put aside her other endeavours to demand — to demand! — that The Observer sack Julie Burchill. Since Ms Featherstone is pernickety about citing her ministerial commitments, lest she offend collective solidarity, this must fall under her DFID responsibilities, along with counting her air-miles. So, perhaps Ms Featherstone could contradict, with examples, Nick Cohen’s claim:

I have worked through the worst days of Bernard Ingham and Alastair Campbell’s manipulation of the media, but I have never before heard a minister in a democracy call for writers and editors to be fired for publishing an opinion, however offensive and controversial it may be. That the minister in question calls herself a “liberal” means that Featherstone is not just a menace but a hypocrite too.

Not quite bollocks?

John Ward’s blog is frequently more than a bore, but he does hit targets — in the same mode as a broken watch has to be right twice a day.

He has, this morning, come up with just a one:

Banned journalist and Haut la Garenne investigator Leah McGrath Goodman continues to encounter Government foot-dragging after her visa rights in Britain were abruptly removed three months ago.

Leah submitted her visa request on 30th November 2012. There’s been no response, and this is the third application to re-enter the UK since being banned in September 2011. 90% of UK visa applications are cleared within 21 days, so clearly some heavy-hitters in the small orifice admiration protectorate (SOAP) do not want the application to go through.

Ward implies that obstructing Ms Goodman, who is sniffing at the dubious doings at , is all part of a great cover-up of the élite’s grubby secret. Yes, indeed, Ward is one of the few keyboard-artists to have discovered alt+e = é.

Ms Goodman is, as far as one can see, a decent and worthy journalist. She was the subject of an early-day motion by LibDem MP, John Hemming, last September:

That this House notes that an American journalist and author, Leah McGrath Goodman, has been banned from the UK Common Travel Area and refused a visa to visit Jersey; further notes that her objective was to investigate allegations of a cover-up following well-founded charges of decades-long child abuseat Jersey care home Haut de la Garenne; further notes that she had a clean immigration and travel record as a former Tier-1 visa holder and resident of the UK; further notes that there were no problems with the immigration service until she told them what she was intending to write about; and further notes that a Jersey-elected politician, Trevor Pitman, has tabled an electronic petition on Change.org calling for her to be granted a visa by the UK Border Agency so thatshe might continue her research in Jersey and write about matters in the Crown Dependency.

Which says it all.

Perhaps, not quite.

Malcolm had this from his MP, the equally LibDem MP (and minor minister), Lynne Featherstone:

Thank you for your email regarding Leah McGrath Goodman. I do appreciate your concerns over this issue. The UKBA have stated that “Ms Goodman was refused entry to the UK because we were not satisfied she was genuinely seeking entry as a visitor for the limited period she claimed. Further enquires showed that she attempted to mislead the Border Force officer about her travel plans and the reason she required entry to the UK.”

However, I am more than happy to represent your concerns to my colleagues in Government and as such I have written to Mark Harper, the Minister for Immigration, outlining your concerns and asking for him to address them. I shall get back to you as soon as I receive his response.

That takes us to the Guardian of 28th June last year, which has that UKBA statement in full, followed by:

Goodman disputes this. She said: “To date, the UK Border Force can do little more than accuse me of intending to possibly commit a future transgression, as it has been forced to admit there has been none. This has been a bit like the film Minority Report, in that I am being pursued for something that hasn’t actually taken place. As a former Tier-1 visa holder with a spotless record, I was surprised to be locked up, denied legal representation and banned from a country for which I’ve always held the highest respect. I have never misled the UK Border Force, nor have I ever intended to. I do realise it is a delicate situation, but I hope I might finish my work.”

Without any smidgeon of doubt, there has been astounding obfuscation about those very strange doings in the State of Jersey, which included a kangaroo-court sacking of the senior police officer (refer to that Guardian report) and subsequent serial “light-touch” court action and investigation. As Malcolm said elsewhere, Indeed, fishier than Grimsby dockside.

In the present snowstorm of allegations about child-abuse at high levels, this one cannot and should not be “vanished”

Cut-and-paste government

This very morning Malcolm felt moved to post his recent exchanges  with his MP, the delectable Ms Lynn Featherstone, over #combishambles.

To his total bestaggerment he had a fulsome and early reply. As promised, here it is in full (though why it presents itself on the screen in a tasteful dark blue is another matter):

Dear Mr Redfellow,

Thank you very much for your recent correspondence regarding the Government’s policy on energy bills. This is an issue I am deeply concerned about and I appreciate your worry. The recent price increases by large energy companies has the potential to make winter a struggle for many people. According to Consumer Focus, last winter 63% of people in London were unsure as to whether they could afford to pay their energy bills.

 As a Government we are working to lessen the effects of the rising prices of energy as far as possible. On 17 October 2012 it was announced that the Government would use the Energy Bill to get people the lowest tariffs. With this announcement we are taking the next step on our agreement with the energy companies that they should provide information on energy bills that clearly shows customers whether they are on the cheapest tariff offered by their energy company – and if they are not, shows exactly how much they would save if they switched to the cheapest tariff, and how they can do so.

 We are taking a number of other steps to ensure that people are saving as much as possible on their bills. We are working to secure our energy at the lowest cost: in the short term by promoting competition; in the medium term by insulating our homes and in the long term by steering us away from excessive reliance on fossil fuels and on to clean, green and secure energy. Consumers can save up to £200 a year by switching suppliers or tariffs, so we will make it easier to switch. Customers will have the right to be switched within three weeks once their cooling-off period has elapsed. Energy suppliers will be under a new obligation to speed up their switching processes.

 From December 2011, four million of the most vulnerable energy customers received letters to tell them they were eligible for free or heavily-discounted insulation to their loft or cavity walls, provided by the energy suppliers. We have introduced the Warm Homes Discount – a new mandatory scheme whereby the energy companies must offer rebates to vulnerable households giving £130 a year to the poorest pensioners. This will benefit the poorest 600,000 pensioners, with some support available for other groups. It is projected that 2 million households a year will benefit.

 Equally we are preserving the Winter Fuel Payment on the same basis as budgeted by Labour. Winter Fuel Payments are annual tax-free lump sums given to almost everyone aged 60 or over to help towards their winter heating costs. We will also be boosting the Cold Weather Payments are one-off payments made during periods of extreme cold weather to vulnerable households. We are investing an extra £50 million a year in ensuring the increase in Cold Weather Payments to £25 per payment is made permanent. Around 4.2 million people, defined as those in receipt of certain benefits, are currently eligible for Cold Weather Payments.

 As a Government we are delivering energy efficiency through the Green Deal, spearheaded by Lib Dem MP, Ed Davey. Every British home and business will be able to install packages of energy-saving technologies such as insulation, worth up to £10,000, at no upfront cost, with repayments made over time out of the energy savings. The Green Deal is expected to kick start around £14 billion of private sector investment over the next decade and could support at least 65,000 insulation and construction jobs by 2015.

 Another factor that is key to ensuring fairness is independent regulation of the energy market. We support Ofgem in its efforts to make the energy market more transparent and more competitive. We are committed to a framework of independent economic regulation for the energy sector and to Ofgem as the independent regulator.

Equally important is breaking up the dominance of the Big Six. The Big Six energy companies currently dominate the domestic market with a 98 per cent share. Ofgem are developing proposals for ‘Mandatory Auctions’ to force the Big Six to sell 25 per cent of their power. This represents nearly half of all household power use in Britain and should allow plenty of liquidity for independent suppliers and potential new entrants to expand their businesses. Ofgem will publish final proposals in the winter.

 

I will certainly support a bill that ensures people pay less for their energy. Please do not hesitate to get in touch again if you would like to discuss this matter or if you think there is anything further I can do as your Parliamentary representative.

 Just for your information, my staff ask for the addresses of people that contact me as I receive approximately four hundred emails a week from constituents. I’m sure you will appreciate that it would become very difficult to provide my constituents with the service they expect if I was also answering correspondence that should have been sent to other MPs. For example, the N10 postcode is covered by Hornsey and Wood Green, Finchley and Golders Green, and Chipping Barnet constituencies. However, I do understand you might not want to give out your personal details, and I hope the above has answered your queries.

 Kind regards

 Ahem!

First resort is to take key clauses and phrases from that and Google them. Then the fun begins.

A useful aide-memoire is last Thursday’s politicshome post:

You always know a Government is in trouble when they dish out a ‘Lines to Take’ document to MPs.

I’ve been passed a copy of the latest Coalition lines on #energyshambles and it makes a fascinating read. Particularly the ‘hostile questions’ section …

Malcolm, an inveterate (if easily bored) literary exegesist, has so far found double-figures of precise copying from A to B.  You may do better.

For example:

1. Conservative HQ (via PoliticsHome):  From December 2011, four million of the most vulnerable energy customers received letters to tell them they were eligible for free or heavily-discounted insulation to their loft or cavity walls, provided by the energy suppliers ...
2. Lynne Featherstone MP: From December 2011, four million of the most vulnerable energy customers received letters to tell them they were eligible for free or heavily-discounted insulation to their loft or cavity walls, provided by the energy suppliers.

Just to prove that wasn’t a one-off:

1. Conservative HQ (via PoliticsHome): … we are preserving the Winter Fuel Payment on the same basis as budgeted by Labour … Cold Weather Payments are one-off payments made during periods of extreme cold weather to vulnerable households. We are investing an extra £50 million a year in ensuring the increase in Cold Weather Payments to £25 per payment is made permanent.
2. Lynne Featherstone MP: …  we are preserving the Winter Fuel Payment on the same basis as budgeted by Labour. Winter Fuel Payments are annual tax-free lump sums given to almost everyone aged 60 or over to help towards their winter heating costs. We will also be boosting the Cold Weather Payments are one-off payments made during periods of extreme cold weather to vulnerable households. We are investing an extra £50 million a year in ensuring the increase in Cold Weather Payments to £25 per payment is made permanent.

Uncanny? Great minds think alike?

The plagiarism continues to the point of distraction:

1. Virendra Sharma MP (since deleted): 63% of people in London are unsure whether they can afford to pay their energy bills this winter according to the watchdog Consumer Focus
2. Lynne Featherstone MP: According to Consumer Focus, last winter 63% of people in London were unsure as to whether they could afford to pay their energy bills.

Conclusion: A direct steal from the Labour MP for Ealing, Southall — but other parallels are available. Looks like a Commons Library source.

Now, here’s another bit of parallel-thinking:

1. Department of Energy hand-out to MPs: Customers who have never switched can save up to £200 a year by changing energy supplier and paying by direct debit.
2. Lynne Featherstone MP: Consumers can save up to £200 a year by switching suppliers or tariffs, so we will make it easier to switch.

Let’s admit it: Lynne Featherstone MP, fighting for political survival and the Tory Party —

Great fleas … lesser fleas … and so ad infinitum

The reticent Ms Featherstone

Here’s one Malcolm is not letting go.

Back on 19th October Malcolm felt moved by the energy pricing #combishambles to seek the educated view of his MP — the fragrant (though even pig-slurry can be so described) Lynne Featherstone [fighting for Hornsey & Wood Green]:

As a matter of some urgency, can Ms Featherstone explain her position on #energyshambles?
I thought DECC was a LibDem fiefdom; but the PM’s statement on Wednesday seemed to establish new and directed guidelines for Coalition policy.
Am I allowed to expect deductions on tariff for twin-energy, for on-line billing, and direct debit? If not, why must my energy bills be increased to a notional average?
Would imposing a common tariff not amount to a form of re-nationalisation? Or at least direction from Whitehall?
In short, what is going on?

Ms Featherstone’s normal response (as in a previous exchange over the removal of disability allowances for handicapped children) is to recycle the pro-forma response of the Tory minister.

Not this time. Obviously the combo-shambles is more shambolic than we thought.

We now have a new approach, courtesy of her “assistant”:

Thank you for contacting Lynne Featherstone MP with regard to energy tariffs. Due to strict Parliamentary protocol, MPs are only able to make representations on behalf of their constituents. Please could you kindly provide your full address and postcode to confirm that you are a resident of Hornsey and Wood Green.

To which Malcolm whizzes back:

Hold on: I am not asking Ms Featherstone “to make representations”.
I am asking what is her position on energy tariffs.
No more. No less.
To solicit a statement of a Member’s position should not require full personal details.
And, yes: I am a resident of Ms Featherstone’s constituency — though why that should matter is arguable. Good luck on getting even that assurance from the Gadarene swine of the press corps.

Should Ms Featherstone (or her “assistant”) come up with a definitive response, it’ll be here.

Twister: something more than spinning

Ping!

An ever-welcome (if only for the guaranteed laughs) email circulates from lynnefeatherstone.org:

It’s really important that local people respond to the consultation on our local rail as there is a threat that Harringay and Hornsey stations could lose some of their services – but this is something I’m determined to make sure does not happen.

The Coalition Government is investing £6billion on the future of rail services affecting Bowes Park, Alexandra Palace, Harringay, Hornsey, and Finsbury Park rail stations. The Government are asking you for your views on how that money should be spent, so do make your voice heard.

Rail? Only one? Not more ConDem cuts?

At first sight an ingenue might think this billet-doux amounts to something explicitly local. Turn to the recommended consultation document and a different view appears, even on the front cover:

— Oooo, look, Mildred! She’s not really on about our own three or four miles of track and five local stations! She’s really rabbiting about an area from North Norfolk to East Sussex, something like 170 miles.
— I know, Daphne, ducks, but it’s the thought that counts. And six billion!

Ahem, ladies!

Let’s look at the actual document:

1.2  There is significant change associated with the Government’s £6 billion investment in the Thameslink Programme, such as rebuilding London Bridge station and introducing new trains. As a result, the Government needs to ensure that programme and passenger benefits are fully realised. The Government believes that the most cost- effective way of managing the transition and its associated costs is to merge the existing FCC and Southern franchises. This approach was recommended by Sir Roy McNulty in his report Realising the Potential of GB Rail – Report of the Rail Value for Money Study, published in May 2011, as a way of making the industry more efficient. 

Suddenly a very, very different impression emerges:

• it’s not £6 billion of new money;
• it’s not about spending, but saving;
• it’s part of the McNulty cost-saving exercise; and, perhaps most significantly —
• it’s mainly to do with London Bridge and Blackfriars redevelopments.

— You ask him, Mildred. I’m too shy.
— Right-o, Daphne. Look, mister, what’s this about London Bridge? Is it falling down again?

No, ladies. It’s going up, to unreached new heights. And that’s only the start:

— Look, Daphne, it’s that horrible spiky thing again.
— I know, Mildred. I’ll never get used to that. It’s dreadful.

Yes, ladies, an obvious and strong entry for the Carbuncle Cup.

But let’s read on:

The South Bank of the Thames has always played a significant role in the rise of London as a world city – an economic, social and cultural magnet that draws people to live and work in the area.

London Bridge Quarter stands at the heart of this vital community. The architectural masterworks of the Shard and The Place, the transformed transport hub, the new retail space and the landscaped public realm reveal the city’s confidence and capacity for reinvention.

— So?
— Yes, so?

It’s that transformed transport hub. That’s the clue. Or, as the document — to which Ms Featherstone points us — makes clear:

The most significant timetable changes in this franchise will come about as a result of the rebuilding of London Bridge station as part of the Thameslink Programme. 

In short, not directly related to the rail services in North London. Except, thanks to ConDem delays, any knock-on complications now extend as far as 2018 (see below).

— So?
— Yes, so?

[Suppressed sigh] The story so far

Way back in 1866 the London, Chatham and Dover Railway opened the Snow Hill Tunnel under the old Smithfield Meat Market. This allowed a direct connection between the south-eastern suburbs and the Metropolitan Railway. For passengers this link was closed in 1916. Only in 1986 did British Rail relay the tracks and restore the link. That was the first stage of what became Thameslink.

The legacy of the old regional railways and the closure of the Snow Hill link involved changing trains (and quite usually stations) when passing through the metropolis. When, in 1990, unprivatised British Rail instituted Thameslink, something amazing happened. . Suddenly Bedford, Luton Airport, Stansted Airport, and Brighton were not only on the same island, on the same platform, but trains connected them directly. Passenger traffic increased four-fold.

BR finally saw the light. Governments of both complexions, the disaster that was privatisation, and two extended public enquiries, took longer. Eventually, after seventeen years, the Government announced it was fully committed to funding the Thameslink programme. Unfortunately for Ms Featherstone it was Ruth Kelly, a Labour Secretary of State, who gave the approval.

All systems go?

— So?
— Yes, so?

No, not really.

Despite the prior completion of “Key Output 0″ (which amounted to preparations for the main works, and getting on with the business of making sense of Blackfriars station and bridge), and the imminence of the Olympics (which meant some critical infrastructure had to be in place), the incoming ConDem government went back to the drawing-board, dithering about how and where to make cuts. The new Secretary of State, Tory Philip Hammond, finally agreed (late November 2010) to go along with the project. Even so, completion would be delayed until 2018:

Today, I can confirm we will fund and deliver the Thameslink programme in its entirety, virtually doubling the number of north-south trains running through central London at peak times. But the original programme for the rebuilding of London Bridge was always ambitious, with substantial risks around delivery, and operation of existing services, during construction.  To reduce these risks, we have re-profiled the delivery of the programme to achieve completion in 2018.  This will enable Network Rail to make further efficiencies to their design and delivery programme.

— Sounds like more cuts to me.
— Huh! Save pennies now to spend pounds later.

You may be correct, ladies. The project has already trebled in cost since its original proposal.

More to the point, what Ms Featherstone is asking us to respond to was prompted by Sir Roy McNulty’s Rail Value for Money study:

I believe that the recommendations in this report, if fully implemented, could achieve the target of a 30% unit cost reduction by 2018/19 based on current estimates of future demand. I recognise fully that delivering such a massive cost reduction will be an enormous challenge to everyone in an industry whose unit costs have shown little or no reduction over the last 15 years. 

— Oooh, I must agree with that, Mildred. Trains are zoo expensive these days.
— You don’t have to tell me, Daphne. My daughter’s got to be in Manchester tomorrow; and her cheapest ticket is £126
— First class always cost more
— No, Daphne: she would be going second class.
— Well, it’s over three hundred miles return.
— Yes: but she’d be buying a single.
— Oh, Mildred! That’s outrageous!
— No, Daphne: that Virgin Rail. And that’s why she’s driving.

… little or no reduction over the last 15 years

In other words, since rail privatisation.

Some questions:

• Ms Featherstone: are you , your party, and your ConDem government — indeed, any government present or future — going to sort out the all-purpose mess of privatised railways?
• “Smart ticketing” means grading fares according to demand during the day — in effect, racking up peak fares. It also is supposed to improve “interoperability” between train operators. It is, of course, another benefit of new technology. Wasn’t that done in the old days by old-fashioned ticket offices, on an integrated system, and with off-peak and other fares? So what, exactly, has been “improved”?
• What’s inadequate about six trains an hour — one every ten minutes — at Alexandra Park, Hornsey and Harringey statios, and ten an hour — one every six minutes — at Finsbury Park?
• Well, one of the “improvements” is the unattended station, and everything done by machine. Since Ms Featherstone is parliamentary under secretary of state for equalities and criminal information, perhaps she could explain how personal security and well-being acre improved by unattended stations. Particularly so for unaccompanied women who want or need to use stations later at night?
• How does McNulty chime with the many laudable aims of LibDem transport policy?

 

O would some power the giftie tie us …

…  to see ourselves as others see us.

— Thank you, Rabbie. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Compare and contrast:

1. Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone says the relentless pressure on children to have the perfect body image is making them unhappy and gving them low self-esteem [Headline at Politicshome's The Green Box Blog, 22nd June 2012]
2. Weighed myself again this morning. Lost another 4lb. Lucky I put on a stone since the last election – clearly knowing that I would need blubber to see me through. [Opening paragraph of Lynne's Parliament and Haringey Diary, 20th April 2005]

Yawn!

Post mortem

The Guardian’s Datablog has translated the LondonElects results for all 627 wards into a graphic of the London Mayoral election:

Guido Fawkes sees it as The Boris Doughnut. Malcolm prefers to view it as the healthy, beating heart of London enclosed in a palsied carapace.

The Guardian adds further discoveries, including:

• Ken Livingstone won two more wards than Boris Johnson, showing how tight it was
• The Liberal Democrats didn’t score above 12% in any ward in first preferences

Malcolm’s home patch is the constituency of Hornsey and Wood Green. In the May 2010 General Election Lynne Featherstone polled LibDem 25,595 votes, 46.5% of the total.

Mr six point six-five per cent

The constituency comprises ten wards: Alexandra, Bounds Green, Crouch End, Fortis Green, Highgate, Hornsey, Muswell Hill, Noel Park, Stroud Green, and Woodside. Seven of those wards are held by LibDem councillors.

At the recent Mayoral Election, the competent and decent Brian Paddick pulled in 1,998 first preferences for the LibDems. That’s out of 30,065  valid ballots. [Admittedly, there should be on top of that a share of the postal votes, which are not apportioned by wards.]

The future’s bright. The future’s not orange.

A Pepys into the present

350 years ago, Mr Pepys described his yesterday (8th May 1662), thus:

At the office all the morning doing business alone, and then to the Wardrobe, where my Lady going out with the children to dinner I staid not, but returnedhome, and was overtaken in St. Paul’s Churchyard by Sir G. Carteret in his coach, and so he carried me to the Exchange, where I staid awhile. He told me that the Queen and the fleet were in Mount’s Bay on Monday last, and that the Queen endures her sickness pretty well. He also told me how Sir John Lawson hath done some execution upon the Turks in the Straight, of which I am glad, and told the news the first on the Exchange, and was much followed by merchants to tell it. So home and to dinner, and by and by to the office, and after the rest gone (my Lady Albemarle being this day at dinner at Sir W. Batten’s) Sir G. Carteret comes, and he and I walked in the garden, and, among other discourse, tells me that it is Mr. Coventry that is to come to us as a Commissioner of the Navy; at which he is much vexed, and cries out upon Sir W. Pen, and threatens him highly. And looking upon his lodgings, which are now enlarging, he in passion cried, “Guarda mi spada; for, by God, I may chance to keep him in Ireland, when he is there:” for Sir W. Pen is going thither with my Lord Lieutenant. But it is my design to keep much in with Sir George; and I think I have begun very well towards it. So to the office, and was there late doing business, and so with my head full of business I to bed.

All of which is annotated above.

Not quite ExCeLling

Malcolm’s day, yesterday, involved a jaunt to the ExCeL Centre (which must qualify as one of the more obtuse uses of cApItaLs going) for the Grand Designs Expo.

Malcolm freely confesses he is an addict of the Channel 4 programme — described on wikipedia as “a programme covering unusual and elaborate architectural homebuilding projects” — and Kevin McCloud. It all seems to come down to “how, given only a pile of straw bales and some imported Italian fenestration, we created a Palladian villa for the twenty-first century”. Definitely property-porn, and highly addictive.

The expo is Ideal Home for the epicene bourgeoisie. Much of it involves what Malcolm’s mother characterised as “more money than sense”. Over the years it has provided Redfellow Hovel with roof insulation and a nifty loft ladder. What is clear, however, is that the Great British Recession is hitting even this market demographic: this year a considerable space is devoted to electric cars.

Not by Boris

Getting to ExCeL , by public transport, from Norf Lunnun used to involve a convoluted passage via several underground lines and the Docklands Light Railway. We now have the revived, renewed East London Line, from Highbury & Islington, all the way to West Croydon and Crystal Palace. So it’s change at Shoreditch; and it works a treat. Those Class 378 electric multiple-units are nifty, too — though looking the length of a train, with no “proper” carriage divisions is a small eye-opener.

Thank you, Mayor Ken Livingstone, and those dear, dead enlightened days when Transport for London was more interested in shifting people than in vanity buses and perpetual fares increases.

Disappointment

The convenience of this new magic-carpet ride meant Malcolm missed out on his promised afternoon of indulgence involving Broadsides at the Bridge House, returning instead to Abbot and a pub steak at Highgate’s Gatehouse. Tough, really — or perhaps not (and the steak wasn’t). A pleasure deferred …

Anyway, Malcolm had an evening commitment.

Mr President

Brendan Barber may be “stepping down” as TUC General Secretary, but there’s a promotion in the pipe-line — to become President of Muswell Hill Golf Club.

Last night Brendan was doing his party-piece at Hornsey Labour Party, and wowing the troops.

The troops, of course, were already on a high: Joanne McCartney barely scraped home in the GLA 2008 vote — this time she is sitting on an absolute plurality, a majority of 25% with some 18% more of the vote. And the icing on the celebratory cake is the total collapse of the LibDem vote, now below 9½%: just 13,601 votes across the five parliamentary constituencies where there were 48,511 in the 2010 General Election.

Back to Brendan Barber

He hammered home one essential point: the massive bulk of the austerity cuts are still to come. That is generally well-appreciated, but his cruncher was, for every £ already cut, there are £16 more still to come.

That leads into:

Paul Waugh did a good bit of butchery on yesterday with Cameron and Clegg’s rose garden in a tractor factory:

The ‘We-Never-Promised-You-a-Rose-Garden’ summit was all set — and perfect for the early evening news.

That was the plan. Unfortunately, it suffered from a couple of flaws.

First, you just can’t get away from the fact that the PM and DPM just look awful together. These days, each is devalued by rather than reinforced by their lookalike.

Both wearing identikit suits, and only differentiated by the blue and yellow of their ties, it wasn’t a good look. (It’s no wonder the PM took his jacket off halfway through to distinguish himself from his partner). As one factory worker said “You two need to get your act together…” Cameron on his own looks much more at home on his PM Direct events.

Second, words are just as important as pictures. And the PM had some rather unfortunate words as he dropped his guard on the deficit. In answer to one question, he said:

“What you call austerity, I might call efficiency…”

Were one to take fair-mindedness to ridiculous extremes, it might just be possible to defend the present sado-masochistic monetarism on grounds of “efficiency”. But that only applies where we might be able to find “efficiency”. But the public expenditure, and the public debt continues to balloon — which is why the Cameroons argue those further 94% of “cuts” are necessary.

Brendan Barber takes that another way. When Osborne went with his first “emergency” budget, his pet-poodle, the Office of Budget Responsibility, calculated it involved around 300,000 more unemployed. The latest OBR forecast updates that from 300,000 to 700,000.

At which we should all have a sharp intake of breath. Since we have no fewer than seven Treasury ministers (Osborne, Alexander, Hoban, Gauke, Smith, Lord Sassoon and Maude — though the last is PMG and works out of the Cabinet Office), ably assisted by an army, four figures strong, of the brightest-and-best of the Civil Service, why do we need a further level of “responsibility” for the budget? Particularly when that “office” is 233% out in an essential prediction?

There seems to be a bit of doubt on the quality of Pepys’ Spanish. The sense of Sir William Coventry’s irritation at Penn is patently clear, though. Similarly, one decent cut might be the useless OBR, so:

Guarda mi spada!

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