Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea March, 2020, Newsletter (# 129)

1. On February 2^nd Battersea Labour Party had its occasional Jazz Night at the Bread & Roses pub in Clapham Manor Street. The pub, for those who don’t know it, is run by the Workers’ Beer Company, the financial persona of Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Union Council. You can be sure that the man (sorry re old fashioned sexist jibe) won’t be watering the workers’ beer! It was our first fund-raiser since the General Election and it went very well; but given our current financial situation, we cannot afford it to be the last!
   

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2. January and February are difficult months for Labour Party Treasurers, especially when there has been a General Election in December. Current legislation demands that Treasurers have to produce a quarterly return of donations and loans for the Electoral Commissioner. That in itself, is no great problem, but the Electoral Commissioner, the National Labour Party and the constituency party all require full reports on our 2019 activities, but, of course, just to be awkward, they are all in different formats. In addition, I produce an Annual Report on the previous year for approval by the February, Battersea Labour Party Annual General Meeting. The report can be seen at https://tonybelton.wordpress.com/2020/03/03/battersea-labour-partys-2019-annual-report/
   

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3. I had the Strategic Planning and Transportation Committee on the 6^th February and it was a very strange occasion for me, but perhaps for some others also. After many years fighting the Tory fondness for the car and the motorist, I suddenly find myself caught out by an almost 180° turn by the Committee, which spent the evening approving traffic constraint proposals and being nice to pedestrians and cyclists. For all the snide remarks made by some about Greta Thunberg, and some mandatory scepticism about global warming, it does seem to me that the local Tories know that defeat looms for any party that ignores the Green tide sweeping over current politics.
   

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4. The South West London Law Centres held its annual meeting in the Grand Hall, Battersea Arts Centre on 13^th. The evening was introduced by Marsha de Cordova, MP, and featured a visit from Lord Dubs, Battersea’s MP in the late 70s. but here because of his famed work for and on behalf of child refugees. The feature of the evening was, however, Sorry, we missed you, a film by Ken Loach, who is seen here discussing the film with his screenwriter Paul Laverty. The film was a devastating and harrowing account of the gig economy that Britain has now become, where lower paid jobs are endlessly measured, quantified, over-worked and down-graded. Loach and Laverty were fascinating about the technical side of making this brilliant, highly political film, but personally I find Loach’s discussion of political issues rather too simplistic.
   

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5. And to think that the gig economy was very considerably inspired by the ruthless programme of radical, right-wing cost cutting introduced into Wandsworth by Tory councillors in the 1980s, on their way to Thatcher’s adoption of her favourite borough and the application of the policies nation-wide. It was, in many ways, a dispiriting occasion to watch this powerful indictment but also to reflect that, as the Labour Opposition Leader for most of those years, however hard I tried, I did not have much success in stopping them – we may have a low Council Tax but we also have people sleeping on the streets.
   

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6. On Sunday, 16^th February, I was off to Islington’s Royal Agricultural Hall for a Co-op Party sponsored hustings for Labour’s candidates for Leader and Deputy Leader. Hustings for both the Leader and the Deputy Leader of the Labour Opposition, on the same day, are something of a constitutional innovation in British politics. I don’t think that they have ever taken place together before. Ed Milliband was the first Labour Leader to be elected in this way, the second of course being Jeremy Corbyn, but the Deputy Leaders were chosen at a different time. The hustings are a bit like the American primary elections taking place right now except that, in the British version, the postal ballot is taken for the whole country in one go and not played out state by state, or in our case county by county, over a period of six months.
   

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7. I will be voting for Starmer as Leader, based on his competence and intelligence, though I thought that Nandy came over as very impressive. The Deputy Leader choice was, however, in many ways more interesting, partly because I know Rosena Allin-Khan very well – she was elected to Wandsworth Council in 2014 – but mainly because I knew nothing at all about Ian Murray, Scotland’s only Labour MP. As it turned out, Murray talked much the most sense of any of the candidates, partly because he knew, as the rank outsider, that he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I will vote for Murray, because he is such an outsider and the English need to do something to woo the Scots back onside; but my second choice will be Rosena.
   

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8. After last month’s massive agenda, which weighed in at 800 or so pages the 20^th February, Planning Applications Committee (PAC) agenda was almost a light-weight, at less than 300 pages. Moreover, most of the applications were of only very local interest, but as ever the public gallery was full; it nearly always is for PAC, precisely because for those people directly affected it is of all-consuming interest often affecting the value of their property, the quality of their lives or the success of their business.
   

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9. On Saturday, 22^nd February, I was off to Cheam to play chess for Surrey against Essex in the U18 competition. That’s not an age qualification (if only) but the under 180 grading. I was really pleased with my play until the 43^rd move (and after 3 hours of play), when a false endgame move by me changed a drawn match to a lose! It was the best game I had played since resuming chess, after well over five decades!
   

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10. On the 21^st, Penny and I went to see the first foreign language winner of the Oscars, the Korean film Parasite. Many of you will have seen the rave reviews of this strange, savage satire of both the short-sighted, silly “stinking” rich and the vicious, calculating, revolting poor, but, for Penny and me, the strangeness became bizarre and the viciousness became gratuitous. And, therefore, despite the congenial political message, we were overall disappointed. However, it did highlight just how the Oscars have been dominated by English-language films: to think that no Jules et Jim, or Fellini film, no Visconti nor Swedish film, nor Bunuel nor Eistenstein film has ever won, is a little astonishing.
    

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11. On 25^th I was a “jury” member for the Wandsworth Design Awards. Receiving an award is the sole prize; there is no trophy and no cash prizes, simply a piece of paper that architects and designers can put in their CVs and work portfolios. The judges were three councillors and representatives of local amenity groups, architectural and design practices. The awards are broken down by categories such as open space design, new build, conversions and restorations – but in a couple of hours we go through the daunting task of assessing 100 or so entries. This year the entries were dominated by Battersea Arts Centre, which had entries under several headings such as restoration and accessibility (stair-free access, wheelchair friendly doors, etc.), with the magnificent Grand Hall figuring particularly highly. However, the entry that caught my eye, and all the other judges’ too, was the Thessaly Road Bridge designed by artist Yinka Ilori, who developed this design of 16 colours representing 16 types of happiness. The result is ‘Happy Street’. I am afraid that my picture does not do it justice but anyone, who knew Thessaly Road, underpass as it was, will know what an amazing transformation this is.
    

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12. We had a very different evening on 28^th when we went to see Alan Ayckbourn’s Round and Round the Garden at the OSO Arts Centre, Barnes. Our old friend, and ex-Battersea resident, Robin Miller played one of the central roles with her normal charm, and, indeed, it was largely her presence which led us to go. The play, a comedy, with a gentle bitter flavour, about the angsts and mores of affluent Home Counties folk, was such a contrast to Parasite!

My Programme for March

1. There is a Council Meeting on 4^th
2. And a Healthy Streets Forum on 5^th.
3. We are having dinner with a former student of Penny’s, who has just completed her magnum opus – a massive, beautifully illustrated and produced nine-volume set of essays on, and diaries of, Mary Hardy, with her husband, an eighteenth-century farmer and brewer – Congratulations Margaret!
4. I have a meeting of the North East Surrey Crematorium Board on 10^th March and of the Passenger Transport Liaison Committee on the 12
5. I am playing chess for Surrey against Middlesex in the U180 league on 14^th.
6. On the 18^th March I will be attending a reception at City Hall given by Leonie Cooper, the Greater London Assembly Member, for Merton and Wandsworth.
7. The Battersea Society Annual General Meeting is held in St. Mary’s Church on 19^th
8. And March’s Planning Application Committee is on 25^th.