I blogged before about my colleague Greg Foxsmith and the policing of the G20 demos. Now Greg has written up his views for Lib Dem Voice.
Archive for April, 2009
Accident on Pentonville Road
I’ve just got word of another accident involving a pedestrian trying to cross the road.
This time it happened at the junction of Pentonville Road and Penton Rise where a number 30 bus apparently collided with a 14 year old girl, presumably on her way home from school.
I’m told that the girl is at UCLH and is waiting for X-rays and scans and that the police are doing a full investigation.
This is little more than a month from another serious accident on Essex Road.
And many months after the Clerkenwell councillors first raised the dangerous state of the Penton Rise junction for pedestrians and cyclists alike.
Boris talks a lot about safety, but what we need at Penton Rise is action!
Kings Cross access demo – this Friday
I’ve blogged many times before about the Kings Cross access campaign – keeping easy access for Islington residents to and through the redeveloped Kings Cross.
Now this message comes from campaigner Sophie Talbot: “Network Rail will permanently close this entrance on Friday 24th April. At 1.30pm on that day we are inviting people to gather at that north-eastern entrance to witness the end of 150 years of access to and across the station at that point.”
See you there!
Peaceful protest under threat
My post on cyclists turning left at red lights got picked up as part of the Liberal Conspiracy overflow, if that’s the right way of putting it, thanks to Lee Griffin.
More interesting in the round-up are the various commentaries on policing and the G20 demos. One colleague who was caught up in it is Greg Foxsmith, a lawyer and Islington Lib Dem councillor; during the protests, he was hit on the chest and thrown to the ground by a balaclava-clad policeman, and also witnessed the same officer attacking an elderly man with a baton.
Greg has a good letter on the challenges to peaceful protest in this week’s Islington Tribune. Oh, and he also agrees that cyclists should be allowed to turn left at red lights….
Fox & Anchor
When Rich was still living in the Barbican, one of his locals was the Fox & Anchor in Charterhouse Street. It was a traditional pub, John, the resident landlord, was always welcoming, it was a pleasant quiet place for an evening drink – and provided us with some hearty breakfasts during the 2005 election campaign.
Then the owners suddenly decided to close the pub. John, his wife and baby were facing homelessness. Thankfully they got another pub, in Bath. There were various rumours about the future of the Fox & Anchor. First it was going to be a pizza place, then an Indian. What would happen to the lovely pub fittings, we wondered?
Well now it’s re-opened as a pub, albeit with an upmarket makeover. The new Fox & Anchor is owned by the Malmaison group, who already have the hotel nearly next door, and has some very chic rooms over the pub. It all looks wonderful, even if it will never quite be our local again.
Suspicious minds
I often end up eating supper in front of a late night episode of ‘Law and Order’ or ‘CSI’ – not ideal given all those autopsies.
Mobile phones have become intrinsic to the plots: not just for the characters to contact each other, but tracing calls, connecting witnesses, and even locating suspects by triangulating their signals. Last weekend, we went to see ‘Duplicity’: good film, great plot – and impossible without mobile phones. No wonder Orange sponsor the movies.
My mobile isn’t very fancy. But in my life as in the films, it’s become indispensible. If I pop out to post a letter, I take my keys – and my phone. That’s my choice. The dramas feature mobiles as potential accessories to crime: drug dealers’ throwaway phones, illicit photos, even bomb triggers. It never occurred to me that not having a phone might be suspicious.
Then I read this piece by David Mery (a fellow supporter of NO2ID), reporting two cases where not carrying a mobile was given as grounds for arrest. In Germany, an arrest warrant for Andrej Holm said “The fact that he – allegedly intentionally – did not take his mobile phone with him to a meeting is considered as ‘conspiratorial behavior’.”
And in France a group of students were arrested because, as the Interior Minister said, “They have adopted the method of clandestinity. They never use a mobile phone. They managed to have, in the village of Tarnac, friendly relations with people who could warn them of the presence of strangers.”
In just a few years, mobiles, like TVs, are seen as a universal norm. My friends without TVs get endless hassle from the licensing authorities who seem unwilling to believe anyone can live without the box. Although with iPlayer etc, traditional TV sets are now more dispensible than ever.
David Mery, meanwhile, has his own experience of being seen as suspicious. In 2005 he was arrested for having a combination of a beard, a backpack and a laptop on the tube (geeks of the world beware). Oh, and having a mobile phone.
He has since been one of the few people to succeed in getting his DNA off the police database. In the world of ‘Law and Order’, cases are tied up within the hour. In the real world, it took David over two years to clear his name.
As he concludes, “Aren’t the Police supposed to keep tabs only on convicted criminals and individuals under investigation? So even though the Police concluded I was arrested without a cause, otherwise they would have had a duty to prosecute me, personal information remains in the Police national computer; which can be shared with Europol and Interpol, in other Police databases around the world. Isn’t a state that keeps files on innocent persons a police state?
“This gradual erosion of our fundamental liberties should be of concern to us all.”
You can sign the Lib Dem petition to take all innocent people’s DNA off the national register here.
More resurfacing works on Essex Road
Another notification from Islington Council:
“We are proposing to resurface Essex Road between Greenman Street and Church Road.
The works will be carried out at night to minimise disruption to traffic. During the work, traffic on Essex Road will be reduced to one lane with temporary signals to allow vehicles to travel in both directions. On the nights of the resurfacing there will be no parking allowed on this section of Essex Road from 6.30pm. The work will start at 7pm and will be finished at about 2am. The noisy work will be carried out in the early part of the evening. The surfacing will occur on the following nights.
Mon 20 April – Westbound section between Greenman Street and Canonbury Road. Greenman Street will be closed at Essex Road, traffic to use Popham Road and New North Road.
Tues 21 April – Westbound section between Canonbury Road and No.250 Essex Road. No road closures.
Weds 22 April – Westbound section between No. 250 Essex Road and pedestrian crossing outside No. 302 Essex Road. Halliford St will be closed to traffic at Essex Road, traffic to use Ecclesbourne Road and Elmore Street. The service road outside No. 252 to 284 will not be accessible during the work.
Thurs 23 April – Westbound section between pedestrian crossing outside No. 302 Essex Road and Church Road. Elmore St and Northchurch St will be closed to traffic at Essex Road. For Elmore St traffic to use Ecclesbourne Road and Halliford St. For Northchurch St traffic to use Crowland Terrace and Englefield Road.
Fri 24 April – Eastbound section, the junction with Ashby Grove and the bus stop outside Ashby House. Ashby Grove will be closed to traffic at Essex Road, traffic to use Arran Walk and Canonbury Street
If you have any comments or require further information please contact Costas Jacovou on costas.jacovou@islington.gov.uk or 020 7527 2049.
We apologise in advance for any inconvenience caused.“
Community policing, not big brother
The death of Ian Tomlinson at last week’s G20 protests was a tragedy that has shocked many people. It raises worrying questions about police accountability.
Liberal Democrat MPs were in attendance to observe both sides of the protest. David Howarth MP has called the incident ’sickening’, and is demanding a full-scale criminal investigation into Mr Tomlinson’s death. In tense situations, we expect the police to set the best example, not descend into the worst behaviour.
It’s important that communities have good relationships with the police who serve us. Here in Islington, the Safer Neighbourhood Teams in each ward meet regularly with the public to set their ward priorities, and they produce regular news letters reporting back to the community.
The SNT meetings that I’ve attended have produced some real results, from extra security measures on estates to deploying youth workers in a particular area. In St Mary’s ward, after reports from concerned residents, a drug dealer was arrested and has now been charged with possession with intent to supply a class A drug.
But too often I still find residents telling me of times they contacted the police – to tackle anti-social behaviour, or worse – only to find that the resources are just not there to respond.
Just this week one woman told me of a recent case where her car was attacked by drunken youths on a Friday night. She was too frightened to intervene. She called the SNT: not on duty til Monday. She called 999: they never came (like my own experience).
The next day she had an apologetic phone call and a crime number to give her insurers. Not quite what she wanted. And should she have to go to public meetings to get the police to do their job?
We need more accountable community policing, responding to local people’s needs and priorities; not a faceless force deployed by central government on a big brother agenda.
Doing the retail roomba
Bank Holiday Monday, no campaigning for once, so a chance for a bit of shopping.
We got the bus nearly to Victoria, then a stroll through Belgravia. Islington has some very rich people, but the borough feels real. Belgravia feels unreal. Perfect window boxes and improbably symmetrical shrubs flanking immaculate doors; and nobody on the streets but us.
Belgrave Square is embassy land: where else would you find Turkey next to Malaysia? Then we walked up Wilton Crescent, past the Berkeley (complete with bowler-hatted doorman) and out onto Knightsbridge.
First stop Harrods. I am not a Harrods fan, plus it was absolutely packed with people practising for Slow London Week, so I went for another stroll outside while Rich went hunting for jackets. Scanning estate agents’ windows in Beauchamp Place is a glimpse of another world – £500k for a studio, anyone? – so imagine my surprise when there was an ad for an Islington boozer: the Lord Nelson on Holloway Road, its lease for sale at £120k. A bargain!
Rich & I then met as agreed in Harrods’ basement pub, the Green Man. Half a pint for £3. Not a bargain…
After our drink, we cut past the rising towers of One Hyde Park. Then into the park, and we strolled past the Serpentine towards Oxford Street. Quick lunch in St Christopher’s Place, then having gazed in the window at Paddy Campbell, I was on my way to Debenhams. Himself headed for HMV, another pub rendezvous agreed. An hour later and I was flushed with success – suit and two tops all in the sale – when a text arrived: “we have a roomba”. And there in the pub was Richard looking sheepish with a big John Lewis bag.
The Roomba is a robot carpet cleaner. It looks like a grounded flying saucer, and zooms around at the touch of a button. And it has long had a fatal attraction for Richard. The first time he saw one, he couldn’t resist testing it. That Roomba was last seen heading for the designer duvets. Anyway John Lewis have now lifted the ban, so he went back and got one of his own.
I was a bit sceptical. After all we have a perfectly good Dyson. But we do have the constant battle with cat hair, and the moulting season is just beginning. Was the Roomba just another boy’s toy? It does run off rechargeable batteries, themselves charged from our green electricity, so not too extravagant. Yesterday I left it pootling around the living room while I was working. It’s virtually silent, apart from the occasional chirrup. It did pick up an impressive amount of cat hair. And the carpet is looking much better.
Cyclists should be allowed to run red lights, says Boris
That’s according to the Evening Standard.
The headline is more dramatic than the story; it’s not all red lights that Boris is talking about, but turning left on a red light. If the red light is for traffic going one-way, say east-west, then the cyclist will be joining the north-south flow, and should not conflict with east-west pedestrians who will also have a red light. So it could work.
The Mayor of London can’t actually change the law on cycling through red lights – that would take national government action – but he is certainly provoking debate. As one cyclist comments in the ES, “Traffic lights are not there because people think they are fun, they are there for safety reasons.” Sanctioning breaking laws that don’t suit you is a slippery slope (and yes, I know Lib Dems have taken a stand on ID cards) and you have to have a very clear rationale.
I don’t have a problem with the left-turn idea, where there’s no conflict with pedestrians. But I don’t know how many lives it will save. After all, many of the fatal accidents involving cyclists and large vehicles occur when the cyclist is going straight ahead, but the vehicle is turning left. And Lisa Pontecorvo was killed wheeling her bike across the road.
My bane is cyclists ignoring zebra crossings and red lights at pelicans. There’s no way there’s any safety argument for that; simply an unwillingness to stop or slow down for pedestrians.
I suspect that Boris’ big idea isn’t about practicalities but about positioning. It’s a way to appear cycle-friendly while passing the buck to the Government.
Meanwhile, one thing the Mayor could do, as soon as he likes, is get rid of the ubiquitous railings which trap cyclists and pedestrians alike at junctions – like the exciting plans for Oxford Circus.
No change in the law required. So what are you waiting for, Boris?
