Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea June 2021, Newsletter (# 144)
- I am having a season of anniversaries! What with
reaching the dreaded 80 in April, on 13th May I notched up 50 years as a Labour councillor – it must be a drug – or certainly an addiction. The Town Hall put out a press release, which was nice of them. They dredged up a picture of yours truly in 1971. Here it is; as shown in my election leaflet, would you believe? I won Northcote ward that year and subsequently Graveney before settling down in Latchmere in 1982 – but enough of me. - On 2nd May, I went canvassing in Bedford ward, just near Tooting Bec station with the Labour candidate in the Bedford ward by-election, which was held along with the GLA election on 6th May. It was a Labour area and it was an enjoyable occasion – canvassing is always much more fun when you do NOT get doors slammed in your face and have no abuse to deal with (I am not suggesting, by the way, that Tory canvassers don’t get the same treatment in reverse). I was impressed with Labour’s candidate, Hannah Stanislaus. Whatever else she brings to the Council – she has a good, bold, confident doorstep manner.
- On 6th May itself, Labour did well in London in general and in Bedford and Wandsworth in particular. The by-election result was strikingly similar to the Bedford result in the 2018 Borough election. The turn-out at just over 51.4% was very slightly higher this year than the 48% turn-out in the Borough election and the Labour and Tory votes were very similar, with Labour on 50% as opposed to 49% and Tories on 24% as opposed to 23%. Interestingly, the Green candidate gained 50% more votes than in 2018 – admittedly from a far lower base but the Greens must feel that they are on the move.
- On the same day, of course, Sadiq Khan was
re-elected Mayor of London and Leonie Cooper re-elected as the Assembly Member for Merton and Wandsworth. Congratulations to both of them, who I know well having been a fellow Wandsworth councillor for more than a dozen years. They are part of the story that London has become an overwhelmingly Labour city. But I think that both, Sadiq and Leonie, have questions to answer. In Sadiq’s case, his first term has been defined by disaster, with the Grenfell Tower disaster of 2017, being followed by the Covid crisis of 2019-21 (22, 23?). And in this election he had an admittedly small (1.6%) swing against him achieved by someone universally perceived as one of the weakest Mayoral candidates ever, the Tory Shaun Bailey. The opening of the Elizabeth Line Crossrail might have given him a completely undeserved triumph, but in fact, it has left him with an equally undeserved calamity – “undeserved” in both cases because the decisions, the planning, the construction mostly pre-dated his time as Mayor and triumph or calamity they “merely” happened on his watch. Can he realistically achieve much in the three years left to him, given that Covid remains the significant factor that it is? Does he decide to go for a third term? Does he like Johnson before him, plan to return to the Commons? He will still only be 54 years old, so he still has time to achieve yet more. But if I know Sadiq, and I think I do, then he will have a pretty shrewd idea now of what he is going to do and he will not let on about it to anyone. - I think Leonie’s questions are easier, at least to pose. Does she decide
to be primarily the first Labour Leader of Wandsworth Council since 1978 or the deputy leader of Labour in the London Assembly? I know which I would consider the more important (what after all does being an Assembly member mean apart from getting a massive salary?). But on the other hand, being on the Assembly is arguably a better stepping stone to the Mayoralty (how about being London’s first female Mayor?) or a seat in the Commons. But either way, Leonie does not need to decide, nor will she, until after the May, 2022, Borough election, when she will discover whether she is, or is not, Leader of Wandsworth Council. - On the 11th May, Penny and I went for a walk in Nunhead
Cemetery. It’s well worth a visit in spring, or I guess in autumn for the falling leaves. Wildflowers and generally rampant undergrowth climb over magnificent late 19th and early 20th century statuary, spread across a very large site. A quick rule of thumb comparison on Google Maps suggests that it is about half the size of Battersea Park and almost completely empty – at least of live bodies! It also commands magnificent views of the city, with one view, in particular, focused on St. Paul’s Cathedral. It is actually a “protected” view (in planning terms, i.e. new buildings are not allowed to obstruct the view) as indeed is a similar distant view of the Cathedral from Richmond Park. - Talking of which, did you happen to see a recent list produced, by a Wandsworth news blog, of 10 special open-places to visit in South London? Strikingly we, in Wandsworth, are right in the epi-centre, with Richmond Park top of the list and others included Wimbledon Common, Battersea Park, Wandsworth Common (a mistake there I think as the write-up didn’t sound like the common I know), the Crystal Palace dinosaur Park, Nunhead Cemetery, Greenwich Park and a couple of complete strangers near Sidcup, south-east London. With all the travel restrictions we face today, perhaps we will bump into each other at one of these London beauty spots!
- On 25th May I had the Planning Applications Committee. In
the last couple of months, I have rather down-played the interest in this committee but May was different. As always there were a number of small and locally important applications but only two of major significance and they were both in Nine Elms. I voted against both, though the first vote was almost a gesture of frustration as I knew that it was really a box-ticking exercise at the “details” level of the process. Nonetheless, despite the poor re-production I hope you can see why I should be against such a monolithic construct! The second was a giant hotel next to, and destroying the view of, the American Embassy. - You might have seen coverage in the press of the new Nine Elms “Sky Pool”, which was opened in May. My Labour colleague, Aydin Dickerdem, who represents the area
of Nine Elms where the Sky Pool is situated, reminded me of my August 2015 Newsletter when I asked whether people had seen “the fantasy proposal for a swimming pool in the sky? Captioned in the Daily Telegraph as the “Glass-bottomed floating ‘sky pool’ to be unveiled in London”. Now, it is completed, it confirms my worst fears. It is a display of conspicuous consumption by an arrogant affluent class of developers, which reminds me of Marie Antoinette quipping that the starving Parisians of pre-revolutionary France should eat cake. No wonder she was soon to lose her head: I wouldn’t wish quite that on the planning committee and the developers responsible, but with the homeless walking the streets and foodbanks doing a roaring trade, they deserve some telling punishment. - On 26th May we had the Council’s Annual Meeting. All 60 of us in the Civic Suite were spaced out like candidates in a major public examination but instead of preventing us from cheating this lay-out was: so that we could socially distance. Of course, the effect was precisely the opposite, as it was clear we were meant to be unsocially distanced. This procedure was rather strange as these annual meetings are meant to be for the new Mayor’s family and friends to share a drink and a chat with everyone who attends. So we had a Mayor-Making when not one person talked to the Mayor. A new experience for all and especially for the Mayor, Richard Field, a councillor in Nightingale ward, Tooting.
- On 30th May Penny and I stayed with Mary Jay in Oxford.
Some of you, but not many I guess, will know Mary, the widow of Douglas Jay, Battersea’s Labour MP from 1946 to 1983. We were also there to introduce a Brazilian friend to both the city and the Bodleian Library. We took Antonio round Oxford and, in particular, round Magdalen College. Both looked magnificent in the early summer sun and, whilst we were in the Cloisters, this feathered friend popped by for a chat. - On 22nd April, I had the Planning Applications Committee (PAC) and, if I said that the March PAC, was uneventful, then the April version made it seem positively momentous. The interest in individual planning applications was still sufficient, however, to inspire the virtual attendance by 52 people – it was very rare for pre-Covid, pre-online PAC ever to have an audience of 50 – so perhaps there will be some benefits from the new post-Covid regime. But councillors and officers will have to learn a few more broadcasting related presentational skills if they expect to be taken seriously!
My Programme for June
- On June 7th I look forward to hearing Diane Hayter talking about the first 29 Labour MPs, who started the PLP, the Parliamentary Labour Party, in 1906.
- On June 10th, I am talking to a group of Croydon trade unionists about the rights and wrongs of having elected Mayors. Croydon is planning to have a referendum on the matter in the autumn and clearly many are undecided about which way to vote. I am very much opposed.
- On June 11th, I am going to give my knees a trial run on an 18-hole golf course for the first time in several years! Fortunately, my partner’s knees are worse than mine so we will be using buggies! Too much football for too many years did for our knees!
- The Planning Applications Committee (PAC) is on the 22nd
Did you Know: Last month I asked, “What was the connection between the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge and Battersea?”
And the answer was simply that the British company, Dorman Long, which won the contract to build the bridge, had a significant part of its London operation in Queenstown ward, Battersea.
And for this month can you tell me:
How many pubs are there in Latchmere ward? Their names? And how many have closed to your knowledge in the recent past and their names? And whilst I will be open to rational debate, I will be the final arbiter on what is, or is not, a pub, etc.
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 