Bridget’s Blog

Despite my spam settings, I still occasionally get emails advertising Viagra, dodgy watches or dodgier degrees - “no prior study required!”. I never expected to feature in one. But now it’s happened. A pseudo-blog covering yet another spam ad includes a few lines from one of my campaign stories. The cover stories for the ads are generated from random lines from real web pages - with some bizarre results. “New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has become a father as actress Bridget Moynahan gave birth to a boy today. Related deaths in the UK have doubled since.” But I suppose if it inadvertently gets more coverage for my women’s pensions campaign, then it’s not all bad….

… ask a busy person. We’ve got a stall at the Angel Canal festival this Sunday and I’ve been contacting supporters to ask if they can help with cakes etc - amazing response. We now have Austrian plum cake coming from Archway, Japonica jam from Holloway, spice cake & ginger cake from Barnsbury; whatever the weather on Sunday, we certainly won’t starve.

After a session phoning residents (topics of discussion ranged from urban foxes to the role of the UN….), I dropped round the last of the Holloway deliveries to two of our regular helpers. One is a trained actress, preparing for running a course on public speaking; the other a local handyman, who tells me to meet him at the corner shop where he is doing some repairs (at 10 o’clock at night). Both are very busy yet both very happy to deliver Lib Dem leaflets in their neighbourhood.

Amazing people… we’re lucky to have them.

This evening’s campaign session went well - with helpers coming in from Haringey and Streatham we covered a large area of Barnsbury with our survey, while I followed up casework about the PFI on street properties.The PFI is a classic case of you wouldn’t start from here… the old Labour council bought up period properties when Islington’s house prices were rock bottom, filled them with council tenants, and then could not afford to maintain them. The Lib Dem council had an election pledge to do up the houses back in 2002 and has been pursuing that goal ever since. But in the crazy world of public finance under Gordon Brown, the obvious way - to raise money on the strength of future rents - is not allowed. And so the council has embarked on a series of PFI deals where the tenants stay as tenants, but the management & repairs are contracted to a private company, long-term.  It’s fine when things go well; but when things go wrong (and anyone who’s ever had the builders in will know that things always do…) it’s even more frustrating for residents with the potential buck-passing between the contractors, the PFI partners, Homes for Islington and the Council.

And if you’re a leaseholder like me, you have little or no say over the works, but still have to foot the bill. At least there is a cap on leaseholder PFI charges, unlike other major works; despite campaigners’ attempts to allow councils to cap the charges.

Sad news courtesy of ‘The Times’ that the Family Record Centre is leaving Clerkenwell and moving to join the National Archives at Kew. Whatever the organisational reasons for the move, it is sad news for the growing number of family history enthusiasts (my parents included) who visit the Centre. Located a short bus trip from Kings Cross, Angel and the City, it is highly accessible to visitors from all over the country (even further, once Eurostar comes to St Pancras). And it’s also convenient for combining with visits to the Museum of London, the Guildhall, the Metropolitan Archive, the British Library and other local & family history resources, including Islington’s own local history centre at Finsbury Library.

Part of the reason for the closure it’s argued is greater access to and use of the internet for family history research. Online indexing speeds searches and it’s clearly daft to trek cross-country to check one fact. But I think moving the Family Record Centre to a less accessible location is a mistake. My mum taught history & I went on to read history & French at university. I loved studying history, learning to read pictures and buildings as well as archives, seeing how the actions, good & bad, of past generations have shaped our present and future. History in the traditional sense of teaching monarchs and battles from the Romans to WWII in date order is now itself a thing of the past. But the interest in history is growing, with film, TV and theatre on board.

It’s wrong to dismiss family history as populist, instead welcome its popularity. Through the history of our families new generations can learn the history of our world. Access to the original documents is at the heart of all historical research; and by moving them to Kew from central London, the powers that be have made that harder.

I’ve ust re-calculated my carbon footprint - the first time since I switched to working at home. With dramatically less commuting and not having flown this year, it’s now down to 3 tonnes. The big issue is whether my electricity bill will shoot up in exchange - although I am with a green energy provider, Good Energy. Watch this space…

We had an action day today in Holloway - excellent turnout of people enjoying the sun. We delivered most of the ward in the morning, had lunch at the Duchess of Kent, then went surveying across three estates and several streets. There are still times when we end up doing lonely delivery early in the morning before work - or solitary door-knocking on chilly nights afterwards. But we campaigners are sociable creatures and action days like today are when we get our best work done - and have most fun in the process.We also had special guests from Hackney, Haringey, Camden as wells as Jonathan Fryer from Tower Hamlets who has also blogged about the day.

The transformation of two of Islington’s worst-built estates is making more progress this month with Market estate’s rebuilding well underway, and Hyde Housing getting funding agreed for Packington. Both estates were built by Labour; abandoned by Labour; and the initiative to get decent homes for their long-suffering residents by rebuilding them was taken by the Lib Dem council, with tenants’ backing. So it’s ironic to read Labour councillor Martin Klute claiming that we have Emily Thornberry to thank for winning Government funding for the re-building of the Packington Estate and accusing the Lib Dems of wanting to ‘flog it off wholesale to the private sector’.

Packington Estate has to be rebuilt because it does not comply with current building safety standards. It was the old Labour council which demolished some of Islington’s regency houses to build Packington; and which then failed to note that it did not comply with safety standards after the Ronan Point disaster. It is the Liberal Democrat council which took action, investing in making Packington safe by removing all the gas installations and converting residents’ cooking and heating free of charge. And it is the Liberal Democrat council which worked with residents to offer them two options on the way forward; PFI or stock transfer.

It’s interesting to hear Labour say that PFI would have been ‘flogging off the estate wholesale’. Is that how they see Gordon Brown’s PFIs for hospitals, railways and schools? PFI would have kept the Packington residents as council tenants, rather than forcing a stock transfer. The council thought it was important to give tenants that choice. The other option, stock transfer to a housing association, does in fact mean ‘flogging off the estate wholesale’ - and that’s what the tenants chose.

As for the Government investment, while it is welcome, it was obvious from the start because of the unique safety issues that this investment would be necessary whichever route the Packington tenants chose. When it came to rebuilding the Market Estate, it was the Liberal Democrat council who had to step forward and find the funds to make it happen, after the Government reneged on its pledge of £9M.