Here’s a surprise.
Not only are Kajagoogoo (the best thing to come out of Leighton Buzzard?) still alive, they are touring again!
And at the end of September, they are coming to the Islington Academy. Which gives me plenty of time to stock up on hair gel and eyeliner.
It’s ironic that the man who presides over TfL, Boris Johnson, uses public transport so little.
Perhaps that’s why so many of his election promises on transport are running even later than the number 4 bus.
The latest example, highlighted by my colleague Caroline Pidgeon, is the rollout of Oyster cards to overground train services. The theory is that Oyster is your passport to all public transport in London. In practice, with many rail services excluded, it’s not. Outer London commuters have to juggle two or more tickets to get to work, while inner London residents get caught out when trying to use Oyster on rail services. It’s a mess. And at present, despite Boris’ promises, we’re likely to be hosting the Olympics before it’s sorted out.
It’s nearly two years since Rich and I saw the crew filming ‘Telstar’ in Holloway Road, forty years after the death of its subject Joe Meek.
The film’s due to be released on 19 June, and the Times has a preview here.
Lots of folk out enjoying the sunshine in Islington today, Lib Dem campaigners included.
And Labour. Both parties had canvassers out in Barnsbury. I was with a Lib Dem trio calling along Liverpool Road when we saw our Labour MP (whose office is just off Liverpool Road) heading towards us. Let’s just say that the weather was sunnier than her expression…
Liverpool Road runs north from the Angel up to N7 and has a fascinating mix of buildings and residents along the way. There are fine 19th houses, small infills of modern flats, the old Royal Free Hospital (now housing), and the Samuel Lewis Trust estate built 100 years ago. There’s also a sprinkling of shops and local businesses, ranging from trendy yoga to traditional workshops, fine dining to greasy spoons, all in among the homes. Add in St Mary Magdalene school and church at the N7 end, and the Business Design Centre amd Chapel Market at the south, and you have a microcosm of Islington in a single street.
Some of the period terraces are whole family houses, others converted to flats. We canvassed several voters by yell as they leaned out of top floor windows. That’s why we have big Lib Dem logos on the clipboards… I was intrigued to see one house had a vintage entryphone, made by the “Sterdy Telephone Company, N7″.
Liverpool Road is named after Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister from 1815-1827. His time in office was marked by a radical surge for reform, with ordinary citizens demanding more rights and better representation. Lord Liverpool himself said of voting ““(I consider) the right of election as a public trust, granted not for the benefit of the individual, but for the public good.” So quite an appropriate place to be campaigning today!
Two hours later and we reconvened to compare notes: lots of supporters, lots of posters given out, and even a new deliverer recruited. As we finished, we saw a couple of Labour canvassers starting to call on Liverpool Road. Just after we’d already called round. And just as the Arsenal were about to kick off. Bad timing, boys.
Still they can count on one supporter at least. One voter was firmly Labour despite the party’s support crumbling: his name? Euan Blair….
After Friday’s Old Street air quality protest, I headed off to Westminster for an appearance on the BBC Daily Politics show. (It was only after I’d passed reception at Millbank that I realised I still had my facemask in my handbag – not sure what security would have made of that!)
I’d allowed extra time to get there, allowing for tubes, tourists and Tamils, but in fact had time to pop into party HQ for coffee and a chat with Chris Fox(no relation). Chris is the party’s head of communications and combines his Herefordshire accent with a passion for the Arsenal: the Gunners pennant takes pride of place in his office. Sound man!
We speculated what topics might come up on the show – but of course there was really only one: MPs expenses.
With leading Conservative Nick Boles, plus south London Labour candidate Chuka Umunna, we debated how far reforms should go and whether independent candidates were the answer. We also had the leader of the UK Conservative MEPs, Timothy Kirkhope, trying to justify his party leaving the mainstream European People’s Party for a random grouping of fascists and fruitcakes… You can catch the show on iPlayer here.
One of the interesting angles to come out of the whole expenses scandal is this desire for more independent candidates. Both independent of the whips within parties; and candidates independent of any party. As I said on the Daily Politics – and as Nick Clegg has also said – I don’t have a problem with indepedents. You do need political parties to make democracy work; but voters must be free to choose anyone they want to represent them, even if the traditional parties lose out. But for that to happen we need a fairer votes system.
On 4 June, thanks to the PR system, there is no such thing as a wasted vote. Londoners from anywhere in the capital who want to vote Lib Dem (or any other party) will know that their vote counts in full. That ought to be the case for any election, but sadly it’s not. In the local and General elections, with the ‘first past the post’ system, most constituencies are a two-horse race. In Islington, it’s Lib Dems vs Labour; the Greens have just one councillor, and Conservatives none. With Emily Thornberry’s Islington South & Finsbury majority just 484 votes ahead of the Lib Dems, electors face a clear choice: vote Lib Dem for change, while any other vote helps Labour cling on.
The outdated Westminster system means that many seats are ’safe’ so the real selection is done by the leading party not the voters. That doesn’t encourage independent thinkers. Interestingly, there’s evidence that the safer the seat, the more likely the MP is to have dodgy expenses.
Reform may be starting, urgently, with MPs expenses, but it must not end there. With speculation that hundreds of MPs may be swept away this time round, the traditional Labour/Tory version of ‘politics as usual’ is on the way out.
More swine flu cases have been reported, including a second case in our borough.
Earlier this month, a man in Exmouth Market was diagnosed. Now a woman from Islington has been affected. There’s no evidence that either of them caught the disease in the UK. The first swine flu cases emerged just at the start of the European election campaign. There was speculation that we would be canvassing in face masks, solely by phone or that the elections might have to be postponed (as with the 2001 General election, over foot & mouth). In fact, the worst sneezes on the campaign trail so far have come from hay fever.
But we did have the facemasks out on Friday.
With GLA member Mike Tuffrey, local parents, councillors and school governors, I was protesting about poor air quality at Old Street. Recent Government figures revealed that Old Street Roundabout has some of the most polluted air in the whole of the UK , and breaks EU air quality regulations. And that follows EU figures showing 4,400 Londoners die early every year from pollution.
And what has Mayor Boris Johnson done in response? He’s scrapped phase three of the Low Emissions Zone, which would have forced vans, taxis and minibuses to reduce their pollution. There’s a strong environmental and health case for the Zone. There were genuine anxieties about the impact on small businesses, which is why Liberal Democrat assembly members came up with proposals to help smaller firms meet the costs. The Mayor ignored this and instead scrapped the scheme.
Some lucky Finsbury youths could soon be playing music on Pete Docherty’s guitar.
The Council took the unusual step of closing down a Babyshambles gig and confiscating their kit after a series of noise complaints at the venue. Now they’ve passed on the kit to a local youth music project EC1 Music based near Old Street.
The kit was seized back in 2005, at the then Duke of Clarence pub in Rotherfield Street, just off Essex Road.
The pub was already in decline and closed later the same year, after the landlord was evicted for non-payment of rent. It was then squatted for a while. Finally, like so many old pubs, the brewery then converted it into flats, now known simply as 140-142 Rotherfield Street.
The Duke of Clarence is not the luckiest name for a pub. The first Duke of Clarence famously drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. And the last Duke of Clarence (for whom Victorian pubs were named) was the eldest son of Edward VII, who died before he could inherit.
Hopefully the ECI Music Project has a brighter future in store.
The news has just come through that the Speaker of the House of Commons is to step down.
Just this weekend, I helped organise an open letter from over 50 Lib Dem candidates to Michael Martin; we were calling on him to publish all MPs expenses in full, accept the reform recommendations from Sir Christopher Kelly – or quit.
I actually hoped he would reform rather than resign – his departure will not in itself resolve the problem – but it seems his position had become impossible.
If any MPs think that this is all that needs to be done, they are mistaken; the new Speaker, whoever he/she is, will have the clearest of mandates to clean up the mess that generations of their predecessors have let build up.
I used to travel for my work and could claim for bed and board. But if I treated myself to wine with my meal, or chocolates on the train, it never occurred to me to claim for those. I find it extraordinary that MPs, who every day meet constituents struggling to cope, should have thought it acceptable for a moment to claim for non-essentials, even if it was wholly within the rules.
Are you feeling angry?
According to a new poll, Britons are the angriest people in Europe. Possibly about the issue of MPs’ expenses alone…
The report goes on to say that the relatively-relaxed Scandanavians get upset when people mock their countries. I hope Norwegians have time to chill before the inevitable mockery from British commentators when they host Eurovision next year.
The European election campaign is officially underway.
We’re knocking on doors seven days a week in Islington. Voting cards have gone out, and the first election addresses are hitting the door mats. Having worked alongside a hall full of Lib Dem activists over a very long weekend sticking and stuffing thousands of the things, I thought I’d be happy never to see another one of our election leaflets. But actually it was really good to see it arrive – proof that our hard work had paid off.
Of course if you look at the headlines you’d be forgiven for not knowing the Euro elections are happening. The revelations about MPs expenses – which have now got well into the ‘couldn’t make it up’ category – have knocked other politics out of the news.
People are right to be angry about the expenses scandals. Unlike Emily Thornberry MP, the residents I speak to are angry, not bored. This is an area that needs more scrutiny, not less.
The Euro elections are important. All the big issues that affect us – the economy, climate change, migration, and our rights as citizens and consumers – are better addressed by neighbouring countries working together. There’s a real concern that if ordinary voters are apathetic, extremists will get elected. So it’s important to vote on 4th June. Naturally I’ll be voting Lib Dem to re-elect our excellent MEP Sarah Ludford, the only MEP from Islington, as part of a strong Lib Dem team.
If you’re still a floating voter, then the clever people at VoteMatch have updated their website to help you decide.
