New York Times On UK Coalition Government's Economic Approach: "It Boldly Goes In Exactly The Wrong Direction"

The New York Times offers an insightful take on the Conservative and Lib Dem Government's plan for managing our economy. Here's an extract "Maybe Britain will get lucky, and something will come along to rescue the economy. But the best guess is that Britain in 2011 will look like Britain in 1931, or the United States in 1937, or Japan in 1997. That is, premature fiscal austerity will lead to a renewed economic slump. As always, those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."

Earlier in the article Paul Krugman questioned the logic of this austere approach concluding “In this case, the victims are the people of Britain, who have the misfortune to be ruled by a government that took office at the height of the austerity fad and won’t admit that it was wrong."

Professor Krugman doesn’t duck explaining the real reason for the Conservative/Lib Dem’s approach. “Why is the British government doing this? The real reason has a lot to do with ideology: the Tories are using the deficit as an excuse to downsize the welfare state.” Click here to read the article in full.

Krugman was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2008. He offers a very different view to that of David Cameron (Con), Nick Clegg (Lib Dem), George Osborne (Con) and Danny Alexander (Lib Dem) - who all tell us their way is the only possible way out to build our future economic prospects.

Cameron’s Secret Social Housing Plans Aren’t Secret Any More

Yesterday, the BBC reported that David Cameron’s government is about to end secure tenancies for council house residents. It will also put rents up to ‘near market values’ for all social housing tenants. These terrible policies are the very same Tory proposals that my colleagues and I first uncovered three years ago. Last year this four minute video, made by the Guardian, summarized the issue in full.

Back then, the Conservatives said we were “scaremongering”. In fact, it’s almost five months to the day that David Cameron told the Telegraph that Labour had spread “lies” about this which, he said, was the reason Labour won the Hammersmith Parliamentary Seat. I wrote to him about his false and un-prime ministerial accusations but he has never responded. Now, it turns out everything that we said his government would do has sadly been proved true.

These proposals are dire. They, along with the Coalition Government’s new plans for housing benefits, will put many of our neighbours on low incomes into a state of despair. Large numbers of local families will not be able to make ends meet or pay their rents. What will happen to them then?

H&F Conservatives To Demolish Local Heritage In And Around Shepherds Bush Market

With the Conservative Administration looking to demolish many of the historic shops near Shepherds Bush Market we sent our man Cllr. Colin Aherne (Lab) down to one of London’s last traditional pie and eel shops to tell us what we’ll be missing if the Tory plans are allowed to go ahead. He kindly took Hammersmith Broadway’s Cllr. Mike Cartwright (Lab) along for the er… much needed sustanence.

Here’s Colin’s report:

“I have lived in Shepherds Bush for 37 years and I love it. Walk around our streets and you are seduced by a multitude of shops and cafes offering food from around the world. West Indian, Lebanese, Greek, Polish and Indian – it is all here and more. Everything that’s good about living in the most multi-cultural city on the planet. One of my real favourites though, is A. Cooke’s Traditional Pie, Mash, Liquor and Eels Shop.

Cooke's has been a London landmark since 1899. Situated on Goldhawk Road, it is easy to walk past it as you come out of the market. I would advise you don’t. On entering, you are confronted by brown tiled walls, formica tables and a packed house of people tucking into steaming hot fare.  Delicious minced beef pies, sumptuous mashed potato, jellied eels and green liquor served like this since Queen Victoria was on the throne. It has been in the Boughton family since the beginning. Mike Boughton remains tight-lipped when asked about the secret recipe for his pies. He will say that they are made daily on the premises and he serves them up to well over two thousands residents of Shepherds Bush each week. The liquor is a parsley sauce, which, taken with malt vinegar gives the jellied eels a surprising amount of tastiness. With pie, mash and gravy at only £3.50 Cooke's is still providing thousands of working-class ‘Bush’ residents with a wholesome meal.”

You can join this Facebook group to support the campaign to save these shops.

Packed Public Meeting Signals Long Fight To Stop Hammersmith Skyscrapers

Harry Phibbs stood nervously facing a crowd of four hundred and fifty of his constituents. “I’m here to…” he began. But the resident next to me interrupted. “Listen!” she muttered - guessing his ploy - just moments before Cllr. Phibbs (Con) uttered that word too. A quiet laugh rippled across the immediate quarter of the room. This incident captured the mood at last night's meeting. Nobody believed that their concerns were being heard. H&F Council’s consultation on the new Town Hall development is a cynical affair.

Days earlier, Phibbs had written to the Evening Standard to tell its readers that “the scheme is to be welcomed”. His full-throated support for the project echoed that of his boss, Cllr. Stephen Greenhalgh (Con), the Leader of the Council. Cllr. Greenhalgh had reluctantly spoken at the meeting just ten minutes earlier but only after the Chair had spotted him lurking at the back of the room. He said he would “look into concerns about the size of the buildings” but spoke in a manner that implied it was news to him that the scheme now included two fourteen storey skyscrapers. Greenhalgh too had asserted that he was in “listening mode” but it was hard to see what this “listening” would produce.

Over the last four and a half years Cllr. Greenhalgh’s Administration has developed a close relationship with developers. It has met them on numerous occasions both in the UK and in Cannes on the French Riviera. It is evident that the Administration has been out-negotiated at every point. Now, we have a proposed scheme likely to blight central Hammersmith for many years to come.

I was a member of H&F’s cabinet when officials first brought forward a smaller scheme for this site six years ago. Cllr. Mike Cartwright (Lab), ex-Councillor Chris Allen (Lab), others and I argued against it and it was quashed. I recall being shocked at the officials’ unseemly enthusiasm for the shiny new Town Hall offices it would provide. When in 2005 I became Deputy Leader of the Council, I told officials to halt all work on the project and that the demolition of the cinema and Pocklington Trust flats would not be given the go-ahead on my watch. It was therefore a surprise when, one year later, the newly elected Conservative Administration embraced a bigger scheme with such energy. They had vigorously campaigned against demolishing those buildings just months before.

H&F's Conservative Administration is now seeking to make this into an issue about whether or not we regenerate Hammersmith, King Street and demolish the ugly Town Hall Extension (built by a previous Tory Administration). But residents have a more sophisticated series of objections as these comments demonstrate.

I have never known a time when all of the residents' associations in the area are so united against anything. But the question is still how can residents make this Administration listen to their concerns?

Firstly, I think it’s important that residents meet with Administration councillors, insist they disclose all about H&F Tories' murky negotiations with developers and engage the Administration on the details of the scheme. My Opposition colleagues and I will do all we can to support this.

Secondly, I think the Administration needs to recognise that significant numbers of local people will continue to object to these awful plans. I recall one senior Administration member dismissing scornfully “the poxy number of objectors” when only forty or so residents attended another planning meeting. That same Conservative Councillor was pale with anxiety when over two hundred and fifty local people came to demonstrate their objections at a different planning meeting. Last night, there was almost twice that number of residents attending the Save Our Skyline meeting. On previous occasions there have been over a thousand people attending other public meetings. In short, this Administration needs to see and understand that its current plans for the Town Hall redevelopment are completely unacceptable to very large numbers of Hammersmith and Fulham’s residents. Possibly, and only then, they may actually begin to listen… We are, after all, living in a democracy.

If you would like to join the residents' campaign you can email Save Our Skyline directly by clicking here.

Tory Conference Given Cuts Lessons From Hammersmith & Fulham

The BBC reports that Stephen Greenhalgh (Con (see pic)), H&F’s Council Leader, has been sharing his approach to cuts at the Conservative Conference.

He’s reported as advising Cameron’s government and fellow councillors to learn to speak civil servant and find "a language that resonates with people who work in the public sector - it's no good frothing at the mouth and saying 'I am really going to enjoy implementing the cuts'. They will think you are a nutter. Start off by saying 'we are here to deliver value for money and, by the way, if you want to spend any money you need my approval”.

Hmmm. Given H&F Conservatives’ record of stealth taxes, front line service cuts, record salary hikes for Tory councillors and senior officials and selling off important assets like youth clubs and residents’ homes then I can’t see how that offers "better value for money" for the thousands of people affected.

Council's Renewed Bid To Rent Out Furnivall Gardens

H&F Council has submitted an application to renew their licence for Furnivall Gardens on Hammersmith’s riverfront. The Council wants its own licensing department to allow it to hire out the park and run private events which will include the “supply of alcohol” and “plays, films, live music, recorded music, performance of dance and anything of a similar description between the hours of 11.00 and 23.00 Monday to Saturday and 11.00 and 22.00 on Sunday". You can read details of the application by clicking here.

If nobody objects this application will be granted on the 29^th October. The last day for objections is the 28^th October. Officers tell me that there have been no objections against this application so far.

The Council has put private polo events on in one local park and applied to stage public wrestling in another. I haven’t changed my position on this application and H&F Tories' other money-making scams since last time. I will therefore object. If you too would like to raise concerns about the extra noise, more litter, no parking provision and loss of amenity of a much loved public park then please email the licensing officer by clicking here and quote this reference number: 2010/01373/LAPR.

H&F Council Propaganda Sheet To Go But Will Its Reincarnation Have Editorial Integrity?

I suppose the writing was on the wall after a Parliamentary select committee attacked H&F Council’s political propaganda as a corrupt abuse. Last week the Secretary of State finally acted and, as the Guardian reported, H&F News will have to stop being a council-owned spin sheet.

Even as late as June of this year, H&F Conservatives were sticking by H&F News. They actually voted against a Labour motion to the Council that supported their own government’s call for their propaganda machine to be wound up - as you can see on page 7 of these minutes.

So it is ironic that H&F have been forced down this path by this Conservative-led government. I understand H&F Council has actually had a number of private discussions with the owners of a local media provider over the summer and now plans to tender H&F News - which will be run at an arms length from the Council. We will have to wait to see if we end up with something that has editorial independence and integrity.

If this new path H&F Council has so far been forced down seems at all familiar, that’s because it is. H&F Labour have campaigned against H&F news since 2006 and made a manifesto commitment to sell it off at the recent local elections. But, the devil will be in the detail of what this Administration does.

Local Tories aren't quite going that far. "Arms length" implies some sort of editorial interference, no matter how subtle. I can't imagine H&F News (under these proposals) attacking some of the corrupt actions of H&F Council, such as their false, tax payer funded "super sewer" allegations made simply to win support for the Conservatives prior to the last elections.

H&F Council is yet to make a commitment to an independent editorial board - which would be an essential feature of the proposed structure. So, while on the face of it, this looks like positive news the detail may show that this is no more than a better disguised front for the same old corrupt propaganda. Watch this space.

H&F Council’s Basingstoke Vision For Hammersmith

On page 64 of H&F Council’s newly proposed Local Development Framework (LDF) it says “Hammersmith Town Centre is the preferred office location in the borough and the Council will encourage major office based development”. One reason that sentence is in the LDF is they have to justify the Conservative Administration’s highly dubious plans for a new Town Hall office complex and supermarket. Intrinsic to their proposal is the demolition of the cinema, shops and many local homes.

My Labour Colleagues and I campaigned against this awful scheme at the last local elections. We made a manifesto commitment to stop it should we have won a majority on H&F Council.

We didn't. But many local residents, of all political persuasions, are also up in arms about it. They, quite reasonably, argue it will blight Hammersmith and damage the quality of life in the area for many years to come. Save Our Skyline is a new, non-political residents' group that has support from all the leading residents’ associations. They have arranged a public meeting so residents can hear more about H&F Council’s plans for our neighbourhood on Wednesday, 13th October 2010. The meeting will start at 7.00pm and will take place at Rivercourt Methodist Church, King Street, Hammersmith, W6 9JT.

I would urge you to attend. Going by the photos, the Town Hall development will leave Hammersmith looking like Basingstoke’s oddly ugly sky line. It is important to also note that it will cost local tax payers at least £35 million. So it isn't only the landscape likely to be blighted by H&F Conservatives' plans.

As long ago as March 2008 Cllr. Mark Loveday (Con), H&F's Cabinet Member for Strategy, flew to Cannes on the French Riviera to meet property speculators. He returned again the following year. The official explanation for these trips was that he and his team were having secret meetings to discuss "contentious development sites" in the Borough. He has refused to tell us what was discussed or agreed. However, we do know that H&F Council has caved in to developer’s demands to make the buildings much taller and at a much greater density than the Council originally proposed. 

It is important that H&F Council is able to demonstrate that it is taking the concerns of local residents seriously in its private meetings. This does not appear to be the case. In fact, rather than being open with the public about its relationship with property speculators, this Administration mislead residents objecting to previous "contentious" developments. So, this time, H&F Council must be prepared to make public who it's been dealing with, how often it's met them and what it has been saying and agreeing about this highly controversial site.

Take a moment to also consider that H&F’s Conservative Administration is set to grant further planning permission for two new super-sized office blocks at the bottom of Hammersmith Grove, that they are hoping to knock down and rebuild Shepherds Bush Market (and the surrounding shops), they plan to stick a another giant complex on Hammersmith Embankment and, on top of all of this, they want to demolish people's homes on Ashcroft Square and the Queen Caroline Estate. It seems fairly conclusive that H&F Conservatives' short terms plans for Hammersmith involve making it one of the biggest building sites in Europe.

My fellow Labour councillors and I oppose these schemes as do many residents. I will detail why later. For now, please take a look at the Save Our Skyline website for more information. Please click here if you want to sign their petition. If you'd like to put a protest poster in your window, you can click on the attached photo to increase its size and print it off. You can email Save Our Skyline directly by clicking here.

H&F Conservatives Block Crucial Vote Until After Homeless Charity Is Forced To Shut

I can’t recall the last time I saw so many members of the public give up their evening to witness a Full Council Meeting. Most were charity workers and their homeless clients but others made up the sixty strong crowd too. It was a mixed group: A young woman sat with her baby in a pram; a man in his twenties who served in the army, a woman in her thirties who said she had been a victim of domestic violence. There were many. All waited anxiously to hear the Conservative Administration’s explanation for closing down the homeless charity that had helped many of them get back onto their feet. They were hoping the Tories would have a change of heart by putting an end this vindictive scam and vote to reinstate Council funding.

But the Conservatives had decided on a darkly cynical path. They announced that they didn’t even want to discuss the matter - let alone vote on it. Instead, they called for it to be moved from the agenda that night on 16^th September to the 27^th October. Almost certainly, they knew that by that date it would be too late. The charity will have run out of funding and been forced to shut down.

The Mayor could have intervened. Indeed, it is customary to allow debate on matters that have engaged such public interests. This did not happen. Instead, and at the insistence of Mark Loveday, the Tory Chief Whip, the Mayor called for a vote to move the debate. It wasn’t hard to guess what would happen.  It was won by the extremely large majority of the Conservative Group of councillors - of which the Mayor is also a member.

The meeting erupted as members of the public and Opposition councillors realised what the Tories had done. It was the worst Council Meeting I have ever been to.

This was, in fact, the first time ever that any Administration had abused its powers in this way and stopped all Opposition motions. It’s hard to really understand why Cllr. Loveday and his fellow Conservative councillors believed this was a clever thing to do. They can’t have had somewhere else more important to go as by 8.30pm that night; nearly all of them were drinking in a local pub and had been doing so within minutes of that meeting finishing.

Consider, for a moment, some of the other occasions when members of the public have turned up to Hammersmith Town Hall. There have been planning meetings when hundreds of local residents have made the effort to attend only to be yelled at and threatened with “expulsion” by the Conservative Committee Chair - who then used the massive Tory majority to vote against each and every one of their concerns. Even children and their parents have been flabbergasted after arguing their case in late night Town Hall meetings only to watch in amazement as a unanimous line of Tory councillors’ hands rose into the air signalling the closure of their cherished local school. But even on all those occasions, Opposition Councillors have been able to argue their constituents’ case. This is the very least our democratic system allows.

That didn’t happen on September 16^th. Afterwards, the director of Threshold Housing Advice was dejected. She told me she had lost all hope of keeping the local homeless service alive. “What will happen to those hundreds and hundreds of homeless people who come to us for help?” she asked. She knew the bitter answer. I looked back struggling to think of something positive to tell her.

H&F Conservatives have a dire record on homelessness. Threshold Housing Advice has been a vital counter-weight to H&F Council’s actions. They need about £175,000 to maintain their vital service. If you want to help (no matter how large or small the sum), please donate using this web link.

Is H&F Council’s Housing Consultation A Done Deal?

I didn’t think giving people a vote would be considered a controversial matter but at the Select Committee on Tuesday, 14^th September the Conservatives refused to do it. Instead, they said a consultation will suffice.

The issue requiring a vote concerned the future management of all the council homes in the Borough. It’s reasonable to ask why? The answer being eighty eight per cent of council tenants and seventy seven per cent of leaseholders had only recently voted to transfer the management of their homes to a resident led arms length management board - as you can read on H&F Council’s website. Given the scale of the democratic mandate for this change it’s hard to not to see how another vote is needed to transfer it back.

The last vote was managed by the independent Electoral Reform Society. But this time, Cllr. Lucy Ivimy, the Cabinet Member for Housing, argued that a marketing company’s consultation would be enough.

Meanwhile, the attached advert for a new housing director appeared in the Sunday Times just two days earlier. This is a new post being advertised but it assumes there will be a direct housing management role – a role which is forbidden by the current arms length structure. So it’s not difficult to see how this Conservative Administration is, at the very least, confident that this “consultation” will produce “the right result”.

Cllr. Ivimy argued that this consultation is in fact a vote. But take a look at the attached page (Click on it to enlarge) from the Conservatives’ consultation. It does not look anything like any ballot paper I’ve ever seen before and that is only one of the many pages in their “consultation”. In fact, H&F Council have used a cynical psychological ploy that will allow them to count a 'Yes' vote if the resident ticks any of the first 3 of the 5 boxes on Q1.  Imagine the outrage if this technique was used to decide the outcome of any real elections - either here or abroad. 

It is not unknown for public bodies to go through the motions when “consulting”. Given this Conservative Administration’s highly controversial plans to knock down a quarter of all Council housing then it’s not hard to see why they want it all back in house as it would greatly smooth out this process.

The Opposition require a review of this consultation and methodoloy before we say we are in any way satisfied with its validity.

At the last elections my fellow Labour councillors and I campaigned for a different approach to managing our council housing. One that would have devolved more powers to residents on a much more local basis. But, like last time, we would have given all residents a vote. It is a concern that this Administration will not do that and given everything else they have said and done with social housing it’s hard to trust that they have the best interest of our current residents at heart.

Disease And Ill Health To Go Untreated In Hammersmith And Fulham

“There are going to be real failures of delivery. Heart attacks not dealt with, hernias won’t be fixed, hip replacements won’t happen, and psychological care will not be given." So said Dr. Tony Grewal, on the 14^th September. He was representing Hammersmith and Fulham’s Local Medical Committee (LMC) at the Borough's Housing, Health and Adult Social Care Select Committee.

Dr. Grewal made the controversial comments during his opening statement about the Coalition Government’s health re-organisation plans detailed on item 5 on this agenda. I twice repeated them back to him to be sure I correctly had taken down what he said. He confirmed that I had.

I was keen to ask Dr. Grewal why he believed these calamities would happen. But the Conservative Committee Chair quickly interrupted and said we needed to hear from Cllr. Joe Carlebach (Con), H&F’s Cabinet Member for Community Care. Cllr. Carlebach fudged the issue telling us that “heath care had always been rationed over the last 40 years and now was no different”. This was a disingenuous point - one which Cllr. Iain Coleman (Lab) skewered saying “this was all the result of a political decision. One made by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats - and one bitterly opposed by the Labour Party.”

Dr. Grewal diplomatically agreed that it was politics that decided the future of the NHS but said “we can’t go out and change the votes of hundreds of thousands of people so I want to see how to make the government’s plans work as I have to do the best by my patients”.

By now we were none the wiser as to why the government’s actions would produce such failures in the our health care. Earlier in the meeting, James Reilly (H&F Council’s Director of Health and Adult Social Care) had responded to questions about the level of objective analysis and evidence base for the government’s claim that its 36% cut to NHS commissioning and support is just “cutting waste”. He said “There isn’t any… and there is therefore risk”. Adding that the approach to this cut was based on a “pretty crude application”.

Dr. Grewal later said he would “refute any notion” that it was the government’s reorganisation plans that would bring about “heart attacks not dealt with…” etc. Was it therefore a lack of funding or what? The Chair was keen to cut all further questioning on what was proving to be an embarrassing matter for the Conservative led government.

By the end of the meeting it was apparent that these changes are being rushed through; that there is a weak approach to managing the evident risk of failure and that the Government's proposals appear to be based on virtually no objective analysis of what the problems are.

Given the dangers we had been told about, I called for the Select Committee to write a non-party political letter to Andrew Lansley MP (Con) - the Health Secretary. I argued that we had a duty to pass on our concerns and do all we can to avoid any failures in local health care. The Tories used their majority to vote this proposal down.

The Labour Opposition will therefore write to Mr. Lansley and we’ll let you know when we get a reply.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to read the coalition government’s proposed changes then please click here.

North End Councillor: "Many Residents Will Be Left Without A Hope Of Staying In This Wonderful Community"

Councillor Daryl Brown (Lab), the newly elected representative for North End ward gave her maiden speech in Hammersmith Town Hall last night. 

North End is a highly political ward - not least because of the Conservatives' proposed police cuts and plans to demolish 800 affordable homes for people on low incomes.

Here's what she said.

"Good Evening.

I would like to begin by thanking the people of North End ward for voting for me on May 6th.

It was a hard fought campaign. I worked with a fantastic team with Max Schmid and Matt Turmaine.

It is an honour to be an elected representative and I am only sorry that, this time, Max and Matt are not also here with me on these Labour benches.

I would like to also recognise the contribution of Caroline Ffisk who lost her seat in the same local election. I didn’t know her. Undoubtedly, I disagree with much of the programme she actively supported. But politics aside, I thank her for the work she did and wish her well with her young family.

I also offer my congratulations to fellow newly elected North End ward Councillors Georgie Cooney and Tom Crofts.

North End is a mixed ward. People living side-by-side and at the same time living very different lives, with very different incomes, very different life experiences, different opportunities and different fears.

There are a large number of people in private rented accomodation. More in our social housing communities on Cheeseman’s Terrace, the West Kensington Estate and Gibbs Green - to name but a few.

Walk down the leafy streets of Fairholm, Charlville or Turnville Roads and resident parking permits sit in the widows of shiny cars costing over £60,000 and houses are valued at over £1 million.

Stroll through the streets of North End on any busy morning: There are elderly ladies queuing at bus stops; excited children running to the newly refurbished Normancroft school; people carrying fresh fruit and vegetables back from North End Market; business women rushing for the tube and people enjoying the much improved Normand Park – thanks to Labour’s New Deal for Communities.

Come to my ward and you will get a feel and a flavour of this wonderful, mixed part of London and see a neighbourhood that truly works.

So it is apt that, given all this, I should use my maiden speech to talk about the Local Development Framework.

Not only does this document carry this Administration’s vision for this vibrant community. It makes a number of detailed assertions on how this area should change.

On page 98, you will note that much of North End ward is placed in the North Fulham Regeneration Area. And the Administration asserts that “this area has the potential to become a major new neighbourhood for the Borough”.

The word “new” causes concern for many of my constituents as they, clearly, are part of the present neighbourhood and they wonder what will happen to them as their Council seeks something different - evidently viewing them as part of the old.

While there is a nod to the importance of the North End market in this paper, it is a concern that this Council wants to “relocate it”. This facility that provides value, freshness and vitality to the people of Fulham is left with its future hanging in the balance.

The LDF criticises the lack of services but does not mention the closure of Baron’s Court Library. On page 99 the Administration seems to have toned down its comments on social housing.

Gone is the talk of “ghettos” and “barracks for the poor”. But the sentiment remains familiar, with talk of council estates being “poorly laid out” and going on to complain that there are “high levels of social rented housing” – which it links to the (and I quote) “social, economic and physical deprivation in the area”.

The Administration’s plans for social housing in North End ward are a particular concern. Residents groups have campaigned. There has been national media coverage and over 80% of residents on the West Ken and Gibbs Green Estates said they were happy with their neighbourhood.

And yet, despite all this, the Administration is unable to allay people’s fears about demolitions and cuts to social rented housing.

Instead, it simply says that quantity of “social housing should not be reduced”. There is no binding guarantee of the levels of “affordable rented housing”.

If we look at what this Administration already does we can only conclude that many residents will be left without a hope of staying in this wonderful community - as they will only be offered shared ownership schemes well beyond their financial reach.

Reading through this document it is apparent that this Administration does not share the affection or recognise the strengths that many people, including me, have for North End ward. They want to change it so that it is new.

This document puts a light coat of gloss on proposals that will be to the detriment of a lot of my constituents. The only glimmer of hope in this LDF is that it says many of the plans will be phased in over the next twenty years.

Well, as the plans unfold, this year and next, I state now that we will support those proposals that benefit the people of this ward and I will vigorously oppose those that end their rights, increase their cost and threaten their homes.

But the only real security can come from an Administration that appreciates the strengths of this amazing mixed community. That can only be a Labour Administration.

And that’s why I give notice that we will campaign to take all the seats in North End and win back the Council. Only then can we deliver the security, fairness and decency the people of my ward deserve."