Tory emotions – a lament for a Golden Age
It’s curious the way Tories hark back to a golden age of community values and community spirit, when kids could play in the streets and be left to go to school unaccompanied, when neighbours looked out for their elders, when men doffed their caps to ladies passing in the street and when the sun shone all summer through. Curious because surely no political party has done more to destroy that age, if it ever existed, than the Tory party.
OK, so Hitler played his part in breaking up the solidarity of British, and in particular London, working class districts, and no doubt urban planners and both major parties did their best to finish off the job with massive inner city council-led developments. But when I first represented such an area, the community was still recognisably the same as in the immediate post-war world.
Four decades later it is not and the main reason for that, I suggest, is the ruthless pursuit of neo-liberal economic policies first by the Thatcher Government – not in all honesty abated by the Blair/Brown Government but now being disastrously and incompetently pursued by the Coalition.
This is most obvious in the post-industrial north, where whole communities – typically but not exclusively mining and metal bashing towns – have had the heart ripped out of them. But it is also true in inner London. Whole sets of working class communities based on very short travel to work lifestyles have simply been torn apart by CCT or compulsory competitive tendering (where is the old style parkie living in the parkie house? Or the schoolkeeper’s house? Or the caretaker? Or the homehelps and meals on wheels staff? All replaced by minimum wage slaves hired and fired by facilities management companies with no connection or locus in any area at all except the City).
Of course, it is not just CCT. The ruthless pursuit of globalisation, largely in the interest of the political and City/Wall Street elite, has equally played its part. As, of course, has industrial and economic change. But the Tory party with its current neo-liberal economic policies can hardly avoid a fair proportion of the blame!
Client Politics – the Punter is King
Client Politics seems to me to be an excellent description of a new brand of politics, which has grown out of triangulation and the Blairite tendency. Clearly closely related to the commercial version, “The Customer is King”, it can be taken at its extreme as an abnegation of leadership. “Giving the punter what s/he wants”, regardless of how it fits with “our policies”, may seem an extreme version, but it is getting close to a reality.
The most absurd examples of this philosophy occur in the education world, where student choice has led to many courses becoming a hotchpotch of popular subjects without any regard for the totality of the subject – hence endless Henry VIII and Hitler but no Magna Carta and the Black Death, or more and more IT studies and the end of chemistry. The rigour of an intellectual discipline is being lost in favour of a kind of X factor subject selection.
Is it fanciful to say, at least on the left, this comes from a loss of faith in leadership, whether expressed in the Leninist top-down model or in the milder British version of “the man from the ministry knows best”? And clearly leadership is extremely out of vogue. A recent meeting I attended in Battersea was all about “identity politics” and totally opposed to “political politics”. One older member of the left arguing that one could hardly become friends and discuss tactics until one knew each other’s politics whilst the younger community activists argued precisely the opposite, that you could not possibly discuss politics until you had become friends.
No one could argue with the proposition that both Lenin and the “man from the Ministry” got it wrong rather too frequently but now we have an education policy world under Gove, where any group of parents can argue for the establishment of a free school of any kind absolutely in disregard for what might have been “the man from the Ministry’s advice”. The absurd result is that in the Labour Party, which once believed almost entirely in non-sectarian education – see our experience in Northern Ireland – and which in the 70’s argued about the possibility of getting rid of Catholic and C of E schools, now has members arguing that we should not do anything other than welcome with open arms the prospect of having Jewish and Muslim primary schools as neighbours in our inner city.
The appeal is in the immediacy of the punters’ support. Whether the support is still there a few years, or even a few weeks, later is deemed irrelevant. Whether the long-term implications for the community are good or bad, we can justify our decision, because it was what the punters wanted. In the circumstances it is odd that we do not take too much trouble in trying to assess whether the punters are merely a vocal minority or perhaps even a misguided majority.
This is very apparent in the Wandsworth example of the Springfield Hospital development site. This large, undeveloped, NHS site has stood under-used for decades. The NHS, which of course needs the money, has put forward two perfectly acceptable development proposals, but they got their politics wrong. Their last application was submitted at a time when it got caught up in the 2010 General Election. Both major parties, for largely electoral reasons, took part in a vigorous anti-campaign and the Council, assisted by the fact that its Deputy Leader lived opposite the site, decided to reject the application.
The community, or rather the immediate neighbours, knew what it wanted and won the argument – the Council gave the punters their desires. But just what are the odds on a semi-privatised NHS, even more strapped for cash, and/or its developers coming back with a larger, much less neighbour friendly application – fair to middling I guess – and in the meantime we have had an extra few years of decay, fewer desperately needed homes and less money for the health service. So we have total victory for the punters in the short-term but arguably a loss for the wider community (the homeless and patients) and a probable long-term loss.
It is, of course, hard work standing up for one’s core beliefs when one really doesn’t have any. Hence as a working councillor, I hear arguments such as “free/faith/foundation schools are popular with the parents” and therefore we should not oppose them – regardless of our long-held belief that sectarianism should be kept out of schools. It’s an attractive proposition; especially when, over the course of time and government legislation, it seems particularly ostrich like to maintain one’s so-called principled position. A persuasive advocate of client politics would say, after Keynes, “Ah so as the facts change so does your position – and quite right too”.
But surely there has to be a limit to such an argument. Some core beliefs have surely to be really at the core. Client politics is too easy an escape from taking responsibility. Leadership must be receptive to public opinion, but it cannot escape the ultimate responsibility to lead.
Interns – a necessary part of the new economy: good training or genteel slavery?
A recent ad from Wandsworth Council asked for trainee social workers to work for free, selling the idea as good for their CV. It sparked some debate in Labour councillor circles and I am interested in where you stand on the issue. We all know of sites like Work4MP where the expectation is frequently that the “job” you get will be an expenses only internship. Is this a scandal, which all MPs should avoid like the plague or is it a useful source of on the job training?
Starting from the perspective of a 1960s graduate, the idea of unpaid work training appears outrageous. The fact that it might be acceptable today shows just how we have allowed the markets to over-ride our ability to organise society. It also is an expression of the regrettable powerlessness of the trade union movement. One inevitably asks whether there is any limit to the power of the market – suppose market forces and a combination of globalisation and automation results in demand for labour being on a permanently downward trend – are we going to see this generation go from being 20 year old interns to 30 and 40 year old interns?
However, younger colleagues argue that there is nothing wrong with internships, especially when otherwise we would have to pay the bill (a dispute as to whether Battersea LP should pay our intern the national minimum wage (NMW)), and if it helps the intern to get something on their CV and a start to a career. But to me this argument seems self-serving as it actually implies that we are not prepared to pay the real price of our politics or (if the intern works for Tesco) the real price of our groceries.
It also seems to me that the use of interns is massively against equal opportunities with only the affluent, OK the comfortably well-off, being able to fund their kids to go through internship. Indeed one of my Labour colleagues is very open about it and, I quote, says “from frustrating personal experience of trying to start a career in politics 10 years ago – these opportunities are by their nature exclusive to those who have parents wealthy enough to support them. I’m generally opposed to totally unpaid internships for this reason.”
Ben, for it was he, went on to say that “social work degrees, like other professional degree level qualifications (teaching), include a lot of practical experience through placements – that’s much of the point of the course. Would you expect NQTs to do free teaching placements too? Or people with nursing degrees? ….. The obvious question therefore is, are these really training posts – and in which case how do the positions differ from the placements that newly qualified social workers will have undertaken as part of their formal training? If not, then this looks like getting people to work for free”. To which I might add that I doubt whether too many bankers, civil engineers or military folk are expected to start their training on a volunteer basis, though I understand that the Met Police is going that way.
Another of my colleagues argued that the training Wandsworth was going to give was of high quality to which my reply is that I am sure that is so but that it is straight discrimination against the truly less well-off just like any free internship is.
My conclusion is that it is all part of the generational warfare that we of an older (and if you are over 40 maybe even 30 that includes you) generation look like starting having had our free education, a vast range of career choices, good pensions, the NHS, owner occupied housing and now refusing to pay our taxes for following generations. We will only have ourselves to blame if the young are revolting!
What do you reckon to electing your local police chiefs?
For the first time ever, on November 15 the country, ex-London, will be electing 41 police commissioners. London will do its own thing on May 3 when in effect the Mayor is elected as the Police Commissioner. Labour candidates are being selected in the next couple of weeks and I heard one of them, ex-MP Jane Kennedy standing for Merseyside and Wirral, last week along with Peter Jones, a Tory candidate for East Sussex, and Brian Paddick the Lib/Dem candidate for London Mayor.
Deputy Chief Constable Beckley from Avon, chair of the Police History organisation (sic), stated that this was the biggest change in policing in this country since 1829 and the introduction of the Peelers! And there has been hardly any talk about it!
The debate posed the legitimacy of the ballot box against the politicising of policing. But a few sub-plots came out of it that I had not spotted. For example Kennedy argued that Cameron will not be able to draft in 12,000 PCs to London as he did after the riots, against the wishes of elected Commissioners. She led me to think that soon we will have post code policing just as we have post code health or education.
Beckley also pointed out that the operational independence of the Chief Constable is nowhere defined in the act and that under Boris we have managed to have 3 Chief Constables in as many years. What price operational independence? Whatever Johnson has done for London, he certainly has not brought stability to the Met!
Old political hands will, of course, have their own views about what the turn-out might be for the election on a damp, cold miserable November 15 in deepest Northumberland (How about 10%?), but it is certainly my view that elected commissioners should be totally integrated into the local political scene as in London. At least here we do know that Mayor Johnson is responsible for most things. Here in London accountability is sufficiently focussed that it is meaningful. In the shires I suspect that there will be a confusion of accountability with councils having most of the crime prevention responsiblilties and the Commissioner the traditional reactive policing responsibilities.
I have always thought that a single body would be more accountable than a selection of separate bodies and hence I think that London’s Mayor should have the focal responsibility for health, as well as policing. Whether that body should be a Mayor, or in my preference a Council with a Leader, is another matter.
Localism – the Big Lie – and Parliamentary Boundaries
I was having a week-end in the Peak District and stopped for the night at Leek. It is a small, attractive market town, but like many English market towns it seemed a bit dead in the evening. I got chatting to a guy in the pub, who turned out to be a guitarist and singer. I asked him about where he played and apart from the pubs he mentioned, in passing, the Town Hall, where he used to play. I asked him to show me the Town Hall and he pointed to a carpark on the other side of the road.
It got me to thinking about just why it is that, for two decades now, both Labour and Tory Governments have been talking up Localism and yet doing almost everything possible to destroy it. Both Governments have encouraged the growth of out-of-town shopping malls and giant hyper-markets and every time that Tesco announces 500 new jobs we all know that means the loss of many more corner shops and greengrocers. Both Governments have been equally keen on re-organising local government and every time they do, they destroy a little local pride.
On a few rare occasions local pride fights back – some will remember when Rutland fought successfully not to be abolished by Ted Heath’s Government. London, funnily enough for one of the most cosmoplitan of cities, is a particularly interesting example of local pride. Keep your eyes open next time you travel round. Just what has happened to Chelsea Town Hall? or Fulham Town Hall? or Bow Town Hall? or Peckham’s or Battersea’s?
The revision of parliamentary boundaries, due later this year, will provoke similar objections.
Council backs down from evicting rioter’s mother and sister
Today, 19 January, Wandsworth Council decided not to evict the mother and 8 year old sister of the rioter convicted last week (see my blog entry of 12 January). This marks a victory for sanity against the knee-jerk threats of eviction made by both David Cameron and the Council in August.
It is great news for the tenant and an enormous weight off her shoulders, following what Judge Darling had called the biggest tragedy of the many sentences he had imposed as a consequence of the riots. The Council was forced to recognise just how much the family was a pillar of the local community and to backdown from the gung-ho rhetoric used by the Tory party in last September’s Council Meeting.
From my point of view, opposing the evictions policy as self-defeating and deeply malicious, this family could not have been a better test case. As the judge said last week, the family are “Christian with both a capital and a small c” and an integral part of the community. There will be tougher cases coming forward, no doubt, where the convicted rioters will be more culpable than Daniel and the innocent other members of the family less vulnerable than a single mother and 8 year old. But that will not stop those other members of the family being as innocent as Maite.
I will try and defend them as much as I have done Maite.
PS This WBC decision followed an interview between tenant and local housing manager, where essentially the tenant was being interviewed for her general status as a tenant and very unsurprisingly the local housing manager could see nothing wrong with the tenant’s record as a tenant or any reason why the Council should evict her. The idea that the Council backdown was as a result of pressure from various outside fringe groups is simply farcical. Whether it was partly as a result of the pressure Labour councillors put on the Tories in Wandsworth, only senior officers and senior councillors can really say.
Left & right hand at odds in Government policy
At least in principle, one of Cameron’s best decisions is to continue with and develop Labour’s Troubled Families initiatives. Today, I heard Louise Casey, the Head of the Troubled Families Team in CLG, describing her work on the Family Intervention projects (FIPs) and very impressive she was too.
120,000 troubled families cost public services the best part of £9billion per year or about £75,000 per family per year. These particular families impose a work burden on the NHS, the criminal justice system, housing and education services and so on. Some families are said to be “clients” of more than 20 public agencies.
The cycle of deprivation, illiteracy, truancy, criminality and a range of other issues can easily be imagined. Casey, and Cameron, wants to break into this cycle of despair and make life better for these 120,000 families and their neighbours in particular and the rest of us in general.
How strange then that the very same Government is currently consulting on making it easier, and almost mandatory, for Councils to evict the families of the convicted. So one arm of Government is working hard to support troubled families, whilst another arm wishes to impose severe homelessness and stress on many of the same families.
I am not saying that all troubled families are in trouble with the law or that all in trouble with the law are troubled families but only a fool would not accept the likelihood of a very considerable overlap. I plead with the Government (and Wandsworth Council) to drop this punitive and self-defeating policy of evicting the innocent families of rioters – and other criminals.
Justice for a rioter and his family?
I went to the Crown Court on 10 January to hear Daniel’s sentence – you will remember I was interested in his case following his involvement in the riots on August 8th in Clapham Junction. The headline is that he received 11 months, which Judge Darling said would mean that he would serve half that time in custody and the other half “free” on licence. The Judge also said that the 83 days he had been on conditional bail would be counted against the sentence leaving, according to my calculation, Daniel serving about a further 87 days in custody.
Judge Darling said in sentencing that this was the “most tragic” case he had come across in the whole riot aftermath. He accepted Daniel’s story about how he happened to be in Clapham Junction and that he arrived on the scene after Curry’s had been broken into. He acknowledged that Daniel was of good character (that is had no previous of any kind) indeed the Judge went on to say that Daniel was an exceptional young man with some level of educational achievement. Daniel was a Christian with both a capital and a lower case c, he said, working for the good of the community – the Judge said “an aid worker”, a helper, a doer with many good character references.
But in the aftermath of the riots despite all mitigation and against the PSR (Pre-Sentence Reports done by the Probation Service)recommendation, he, the Judge, had to take into account society’s concerns and fears about the events of August and that he had no choice but to impose some level of custodial sentence. (I should add that the Judge retired for 46 minutes to consider the sentence – he clearly did not do it lightly)
I have two comments: first that Wandsworth Council shows zero respect for the “family” if it pursues, as it intends to do, its policy of eviction with all the consequences that this will bring to bear on the mother and sister. I know the mother quite well and it is clear, and totally unsurprising, that she is under some considerable stress.
Secondly, that the establishment has got itself into a bit of a mess about sentencing in this situation. Whilst Daniel aged 18, with no previous record at all, got 11 months, a man aged 30, sentenced at the same time as Daniel with 11 previous convictions for 22 offences having served two separate terms of 6 and 7 years, got a custodial sentence of 20 months! I cannot believe that this variation of sentence 11:20 for these two men would have been the same in normal circumstances. The establishment has in my view put its fears before the cause of justice
BOUNDARY COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE CURRENT BATTERSEA CONSTITUENCY
1 The Boundary Commission recommends:-
- moving Fairfield ward from Battersea into a new Putney constituency numbering 80,073 as of 1st December 2010;
- moving Balham and Northcote wards into a new Clapham Common constituency of 79,354 as of 1st December 2010;
- and making the remaining four wards of Latchmere, Queenstown, St. Mary’s Park and Shaftesbury the majority element of a Battersea and Vauxhall constituency of 78,199.
All three of these proposed constituencies are larger than the UK electoral quota of 76,641 and yet population growth in Wandsworth in particular and in south west London in general is expected to be one of the fastest growing in the country. It is therefore probable that all three proposed constituencies will be larger than the target maximum electorate of 80,473 by the time the new boundaries actually come into effect. These proposals, therefore, build an even greater instability and democratic unfairness into the system than is in any case inherent.
2 We have taken the Greater London Authority’s 2010 Round, Demographic Projections for the London Borough of Wandsworth, to illustrate this point. It shows that the Borough’s population is estimated to have grown by 11% between the years 2001 and 2011 and is expected to grow by a further 11% in the ten years 2011-2021. There are actually three projections, known as scenario one and scenario two and the Strategic Housing Availability Assessment (SHLAA). The following figures are largely based on the SHLAA figures, which are close to scenario one. The figures in scenario two have been excluded for these purposes, but it is worth noting that they predict an even greater rate of population growth for Wandsworth.
3 Two of the fastest growing ward populations, namely in Thamesfield and Southfields, are in the Putney constituency, which even on 2010 figures is only 400 people short of the maximum number. It is almost guaranteed to exceed it by May, 2015.
4 However, by far the largest growth rates in the period 2001-21 are expected in Queenstown ward with an estimated 96% growth rate and St. Mary’s Park with an estimated 50% growth rate. These two wards alone represent 30.9% of Wandsworth’s estimated population growth and both of them are proposed to be in the Battersea and Vauxhall constituency. By way of confirmation of these trends, they actually supplied 30.9% of the growth in the decade 2001/11 as well as being expected to provide 30.9% of the growth in the coming decade. The neighbouring wards in Lambeth, with which they are coupled in the proposals, are also likely to have high growth rates thanks to major developments in Vauxhall and Nine Elms.
5 Currently the proposed Battersea and Vauxhall constituency already has a population larger than the electoral quota although below the maximum allowed. Its growth rate is, however, so high that it will, like Putney, almost certainly exceed the maximum by May, 2015.
6 The five wards proposed to be moved into the Clapham Common constituency, that is Balham, Earlsfield, Nightingale, Northcote and Wandsworth Common, have much lower growth rates with an average of approximately 16% but they are all likely to be growing at a faster rate than the London and certainly the national average rate.
7 Ironically the slower growing wards of Bedford, Furzedown, Graveney and Tooting, averaging about 15.5% growth rates, are proposed to be moved into the new Streatham and Tooting constituency – the only one of the proposed “Wandsworth” constituencies with an estimated population smaller than the quota figure, 464 smaller to be precise.
8 In the interest of greater stability of boundaries and of fairer democratic representation we urge the Boundary Commissioners to reconsider the proposals on the basis that fast growing areas should, if anything, have proposed populations smaller than the average electoral quota and that slow growing or declining areas should have the larger populations.
9 Unless the Boundary Commission proposals are amended in this way, and given the narrow parameters that have been set, this would result in Shaftesbury ward and possibly even Latchmere ward being moved out of Battersea and Vauxhall by 2020. It is difficult to model what the ripple effect would be of that, but it might suggest that Balham ward would have to go into Streatham and Tooting, and Wimbledon Park into a Wimbledon seat. The effect is constant instability.
10 The Boundary Commission is required to respect natural geographic boundaries, but it has defined that in a fairly narrow sense without regard to the nature of place and geography. As a result the place of Battersea comes out of these proposals extremely badly. Despite the name, Battersea and Vauxhall, much of the traditional area of Battersea would under these proposals be in either Clapham Common or Putney constituency. The station, Clapham Junction, which is at the heart of Battersea, will be in Clapham Common and whilst the old Town Hall and the main library are in the proposed Battersea and Vauxhall constituency, they are only just so. Indeed the main shopping and commercial centre of Battersea is almost exactly where the three constituencies meet.
11 Given the current need for extra attention to this (at least in part) troubled town centre, it is inflammatory to divide the area so arbitrarily, taking no account of the unifying and centralising role of Clapham Junction station and town centre in the social and communal life of Battersea.
12 Moreover, the proposed new Clapham Common constituency has no coherent geographic centre, divided as it is into three almost equal parts by the large open spaces of Clapham and Wandsworth Commons.
13 Given the level of instability inherently built into the system and with three of the four proposed “Wandsworth” constituencies both larger than the electoral quota AND fast growing, a question must arise about the closeness of the links between the MP and his/her constituency. The probability is that at the next review, due for the 2020 election, several wards including probably Shaftesbury, Balham and Wimbledon Park will have to be moved from their constituencies as they would otherwise be too large. It must therefore be questionable whether the relevant electors will be able to expect a good service from their MP given the transient nature of the boundaries.
14 Because of the prescriptive nature of the legislation, it is likely that significant constituency boundary changes will be required at every review. Currently these are scheduled for every 5 yearly parliamentary elections. This can only result in unstable constituency boundaries which will be destabilising for electors. It is also worth noting that the local party organisations (of all parties) will be forced continually to form and then re-form, destabilising the bedrock of community politics. Boundary Changes should therefore revert to the customary 10 year cycle.
15 The current legislation mandates a reduction in constituencies from 650 to 600. We believe this is short sighted and ill-advised, especially with reference to inner city constituencies. They generate high demand for MP’s services and currently benefit from co-ordinated attention from MPs and local authorities, working within co-terminous boundaries.
16 An extra feature of the Wandsworth and Lambeth constituencies, which the Boundary Commission should take into account, is the considerable discrepancy between their electoral populations and the actual populations. This is largely accounted for by the very large numbers of European and other immigrants, who live in these parts of London, but who do not have the vote. This population often imposes a large workload on both the MP and local councillors.
17 Furthermore, whilst recognising that the Boundary Commission has not taken into account local authority boundaries, the results of this review are perverse. For many years, the Boundary Commission, local authorities, the Metropolitan Police Service and the NHS have been working towards co-terminosity. Clearly that has had many advantages, eliminating the duplication of roles and number of communication links to the extent that Wandsworth Council now has to deal with only three MPs, each of whom has to deal with only one local authority and one police division. If the current proposals proceed as proposed then Wandsworth will have to deal with four MPs, each of whom will have to deal with at least 2 local authorities and 2 police divisions.
18 With the proposed Battersea and Vauxhall constituency having 4 Wandsworth wards and 4 Lambeth wards, and the proposed Clapham Common constituency having 5 Wandsworth constituencies and 3 Lambeth wards it appears obvious that the boundaries could be drawn with far greater respect to local authority boundaries. That would respect both the historical and geographical expectations of the relevant population.
19 In conclusion we believe that the Commissioners proposals for Wandsworth are flawed. They should be revised taking into account:-
- the growth rates and trends in population estimates;
- greater concern and attention to historic as well as natural boundaries;
- the workload on MPs and the real population as well as the electoral suffrage;
- co-terminosity with other authority boundaries.
Tony Belton and Penelope Corfield on behalf of the Battersea Labour Party
31st October 2011.
Beware the Big Society Trap
Wandsworth has invented a wonderful new trap for the unwary councillor – it’s called the Big Society Grants Fund.
Instead of making £1 million available to large organisations like the Citizens Advice Bureau, the Tory councillors have come up with a Big Society grant fund of £150,000. So far the average grant is only a few hundreds of pounds. They have been distributed to a range of local groups for a myriad of reasons, from helping an oap home to buy new TVs and PCs to assisting a club organise soccer for young people in the area north of Clapham Junction Station.
The really neat trick though is that instead of relying on established and perhaps slightly distant organisations such as the CAB, which have serviced their customers in a very traditional way, the Council has introduced a much cheaper version dependent upon patronage and friendship.
This new grant system makes the councillor, yes including me, feel important and well respected as we sign off relatively small sums of money – £5-700 say for a new TV system for an oaps sheltered home lounge. Now that is really nice but are Labour councillors right to think, as Tories obviously do, that these small very directed grants are any substitute for the big sums that once went to organisations like Cancer Support or Citizens’ Advice Bureaux?
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 