Nick Clegg likes to flatter himself that he and his party represent the "centre" of British politics. Only yesterday he boasted that his main achievement in government had been to pull the Conservatives towards "the centre".His self-description stems from an increasingly outdated political spectrum that runs from facist through Conservative on the right and Communist through Labour on the left, culminating in a centreground that the Liberal Democrats and some who think of themselves as moderates supposedly occupy.
This political spectrum also applies to voters: the vast bulk of them, we are routinely told, sit in the centre of British politics; any party that seriously seeks power must hold the centre.
As a means of identifying a small proportion of politicians and their supporters, the "centre" today is useful. In any other context it is a fiction - a lazy pretension of those who purport to speak for typical middle class and aspiring voters but who, in fact, represent just as narrow and outmoded a set of beliefs as the extremists on either flank they belittle as "unelectable". Nearly three years of the self-destruction of their two-faced, dishonest and utterly contradictory set of policy goals and a risible share of public support has demonstrated that the Liberal Democrats do not occupy the centre if that is where the bulk of the voters are.
The reason the centre is a political myth can be demonstrated by a cursory run-through of the political stances taken by "centrists" that, in fact, aren't vaguely close to where the bulk of the public are. On Europe, the centrists demand a slavish pro-European-ism - far more important to be at the table in a minority of one than to stand aside while the herd stampedes ever further into a blind political construct that cannot work. Favouring sell-out to Brussels because there is, apparently, no alternative, is not where an ever-expanding majority of the British public are. Hence, call pro-European-ism centrist all you like: it ain't mainstream. "No referendum on the EU - can't trust the public to vote the right way" is all the proof you need that the centre is in fact the extreme on Europe.
On electoral and constitutional reform, the centrists are again not even in the same neighbourhood as the mainstream. The centrists demanded a "Yes" vote in the ludicrous waste-of-money referendum on idiotic and unfair AV. It is the centrists - again caving to Europe - who abolished the link between MEPs and their constituents by replacing the first past the post single member euro-constituencies with unaccountable lists in vast multi-member Euro regions. They obsess about turning the House of Lords into a chamber dominated by political lackeys and seem to believe that this is the burning ambition they share with the wider public who, quite frankly, couldn't give a stuff. They pressed for elected mayors and can't quite understand why voters chose to stick with councillors - and where they did not are voting to reverse the mistakes they made.
On crime and security, it is the centre that stood against popular ID cards - a tool absolutely essential in apprehending the Madrid train bombers. It is the liberal centre that has saddled us with Abu Qatada and the intractable time it now takes to extradite criminals - be they Gary McKinnon, Babar Ahmed or Julian Assange to face justice in the countries where their crimes were committed. I don't recall Nick Clegg ever saying one word about fighting the Conservative cuts to Police, yet he constantly wants to tell us how he wants to legalise drugs - in the face of opposition from experts including drugs counsellors and the evidence that downgrading the criminal classification of possession of marijuana worsened the problem. This is the centre. It is not the mainstream.
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Saturday, 27 October 2012
No to no-parking in Roehampton High Street
I've just received a consultation from Wandsworth Council into a plan they've concocted to bring a controlled parking zone into my street. Nothing that remarkable there. Except for this.
First of all, the CPZ consultation for my street was initiated by a petition drummed up with not a single signatory from my street. Indeed, the petitioners didn't even bother canvassing my street for support. In other words, this is the first time in my experience (and as I was responsible for CPZs - including three in my own ward when I was a councillor I've got some experience) that a street has been singled out for controlled parking based on a petition from other, entirely removed, separate streets.
But hey, at least the petition represented an impressive 63% of households in the streets that the petitioners did bother to canvass. Well again, not that impressive. The three streets in question are rather tiny: Coppice Drive has seven homes. Westmead also has seven. Longwood Drive has nine*. So that so-called 63% represents, in fact, just 16 people. . That's it - that's the area this petition covered. Wow!
In the past six years I've helped organise petitions signed by hundreds of people which Wandsworth Council has ignored peremptorily. Yet this one of 16 people, demanding a CPZ for a street they never even bothered to ask whether we wanted it, gets decisive Wandsworth Council action. Why might that be? Open question - I genuinely don't know.
I asterisked the seven houses in Longwood Drive, and called it a so-called 63% quite intentionally, by the way. The reason is that there are, indeed, nine houses in Longwood Drive...but there also happens to be a block of council flats: Riplington Court - sheltered housing for OAPs with 27 flats. I am willing to stake a considerable amount that not one of these residents from a block larger than the entire rest of the petition area combined was asked to sign this petition. But why should they matter - they're just council tenants: ones dependent on visits from family, friends and carers who might need to park nearby perhaps, but council tenants nonetheless.
And just to make the stifling selfishness of these out-of-touch petitioners even worse, the road that could now be burdened by a CPZ we never asked for is Roehampton High Street (with 41 homes - twice the size of the petition area, but that's an aside). Roehampton High Street isn't a typical high street: it's not close to being like Putney High Street, Clapham Junction or Tooting High Road for example.
It's a relatively quite, quaint road but with, nonetheless, a couple of dozen small shops. Roehampton High Street is Wandsworth's forgotten high street: it's routinely ignored and overlooked in the council's endless, interminable "regeneration" consultations for Roehampton that focus solely on the other side of Roehampton Lane. It gets no support from the council - it's almost like one of those John Wayne dustbowl westerns with the haybales being blown across a derelict landscape. But recently there have been signs of life here. The King's Head pub has just reopened - literally this week, and a derelict shop opposite is about to open as a tanning salon.
What's my point? It's that a CPZ will set the high street back years; close businesses and damage any prospect of genuine, sustainable and meaningful regeneration of Roehampton. Wandsworth charge businesses £7 a day for one permit - the same as it costs residents to purchase permits for their visitors. But they could also ban anyone without a permit from parking. No visitors means no trade. It will wipe out parking where there is absolutely no parking problem as it is right now. It's literally unbelievable that Wandsworth could propose this.
This parking zone must not happen.
If the residents of Westmead, Coppice Drive and Longwood Drive (excluding the council block) - nearly all of whom, incidentally, have off-street parking and where there is no parking stress worth the description - insist upon a parking zone for their tiny little streets, who am I to block them - provided that visitors to Riplington Court can still park for free? They can do what they like. But no way: not now, not ever to a CPZ that will ruin Roehampton.
First of all, the CPZ consultation for my street was initiated by a petition drummed up with not a single signatory from my street. Indeed, the petitioners didn't even bother canvassing my street for support. In other words, this is the first time in my experience (and as I was responsible for CPZs - including three in my own ward when I was a councillor I've got some experience) that a street has been singled out for controlled parking based on a petition from other, entirely removed, separate streets.
But hey, at least the petition represented an impressive 63% of households in the streets that the petitioners did bother to canvass. Well again, not that impressive. The three streets in question are rather tiny: Coppice Drive has seven homes. Westmead also has seven. Longwood Drive has nine*. So that so-called 63% represents, in fact, just 16 people. . That's it - that's the area this petition covered. Wow!
In the past six years I've helped organise petitions signed by hundreds of people which Wandsworth Council has ignored peremptorily. Yet this one of 16 people, demanding a CPZ for a street they never even bothered to ask whether we wanted it, gets decisive Wandsworth Council action. Why might that be? Open question - I genuinely don't know.
I asterisked the seven houses in Longwood Drive, and called it a so-called 63% quite intentionally, by the way. The reason is that there are, indeed, nine houses in Longwood Drive...but there also happens to be a block of council flats: Riplington Court - sheltered housing for OAPs with 27 flats. I am willing to stake a considerable amount that not one of these residents from a block larger than the entire rest of the petition area combined was asked to sign this petition. But why should they matter - they're just council tenants: ones dependent on visits from family, friends and carers who might need to park nearby perhaps, but council tenants nonetheless.
And just to make the stifling selfishness of these out-of-touch petitioners even worse, the road that could now be burdened by a CPZ we never asked for is Roehampton High Street (with 41 homes - twice the size of the petition area, but that's an aside). Roehampton High Street isn't a typical high street: it's not close to being like Putney High Street, Clapham Junction or Tooting High Road for example.
It's a relatively quite, quaint road but with, nonetheless, a couple of dozen small shops. Roehampton High Street is Wandsworth's forgotten high street: it's routinely ignored and overlooked in the council's endless, interminable "regeneration" consultations for Roehampton that focus solely on the other side of Roehampton Lane. It gets no support from the council - it's almost like one of those John Wayne dustbowl westerns with the haybales being blown across a derelict landscape. But recently there have been signs of life here. The King's Head pub has just reopened - literally this week, and a derelict shop opposite is about to open as a tanning salon.
What's my point? It's that a CPZ will set the high street back years; close businesses and damage any prospect of genuine, sustainable and meaningful regeneration of Roehampton. Wandsworth charge businesses £7 a day for one permit - the same as it costs residents to purchase permits for their visitors. But they could also ban anyone without a permit from parking. No visitors means no trade. It will wipe out parking where there is absolutely no parking problem as it is right now. It's literally unbelievable that Wandsworth could propose this.
This parking zone must not happen.
If the residents of Westmead, Coppice Drive and Longwood Drive (excluding the council block) - nearly all of whom, incidentally, have off-street parking and where there is no parking stress worth the description - insist upon a parking zone for their tiny little streets, who am I to block them - provided that visitors to Riplington Court can still park for free? They can do what they like. But no way: not now, not ever to a CPZ that will ruin Roehampton.
Friday, 7 September 2012
Heathrow isn't the answer, but London needs more aviation capacity
As Tuesday's tantrums die down over the government reshuffle,
The reason Greening had to be moved from the transport portfolio was not because the government is going to now break its pledge and build a third runway at Heathrow. It's not because - despite the remarkable (remarkable because it has no basis in reality) fanclub which Justine Bieber - sorry Greening - has drummed up she has been a spectacularly unspectacular MP and minister. It's not even because she demonstrated an abject lack of integrity, let alone self-respect, in accepting the most junior post in cabinet rather than fighting her cause on the backbenches.
No, the reason she had to be moved was because - in the same way Jeremy Hunt had pre-determined his views on the BSkyB takeover, Greening had pre-determined her views on aviation policy - not just Heathrow but all aviation policy and was simply blocking any solution to the air capacity problem London faces.
It's easy for anti-Heathrow lefties to (oddly) leap to the defence of Greening, but have some consistency in your principles please: if Jeremy Hunt's proximity to Murdoch made it impossible for him to be impartial on BSkyB, Greening's proximity to both Plane Stupid and Greenpeace - which perhaps Ken Livingstone could have got a way with but a Conservative certainly could not - makes it impossible for her to be objective on this difficult - but hardly intractable issue. Justine's record is solely one of opposition: to Heathrow - yes, but also to every alternative possibility: Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Boris Island. She's tried to replicate Mrs Thatcher's famous anti-EU "No, no, no" and come away demoted, humiliated and embittered, because Mrs Thatcher she ain't.
It's entirely possible to be against Heathrow and for something else. Boris Johnson has come up with his idea of a new airport (which would tip about five marginal Conservative seats into the Labour column if it came about). Even Zac Goldsmith, Justine Greening's constituency neighbour in South West London has managed to come up with a position of absolute opposition to Heathrow accompanied by some ideas for an alternative.
But Zac, like Justine starts from the basis of - at best - begrudging acceptance of the concept that our finite air capacity is running out. And so, like some Air Traffic Controller in Chief, his solution is to rack em, stack-em and pack-em: manoeuvre some domestic flights out of Heathrow to the regional airports. But let's be honest Zac: you don't even buy the capacity argument, do you? Otherwise you wouldn't make the irrelevant point that Heathrow links to more destinations than its competitors despite fewer runways, and that larger planes will deal with what minimal capacity issue you believe there to be.
The reason that point is irrelevant is that the problem is how poorly served London is served by connections to the emerging economies - especially China. That's China which is building eleven new airports a year, by the way. Expanding the size of planes is pointless if the planes aren't flying to these destinations. It's also an obfuscation to try to allocate particular routes, or particular journey types to specific regional airports. Travel doesn't work in such a regimented and inefficient way. Why, for instance, should a businessman flying to China use one airport, but a holidaymaker go from another? Train lines that connect Heathrow and Gatwick - these are just plans that tinker with Heathrow's status as a second-rate airport. but even if it did it misses the point: London needs a world-class hub airport.
It's just that it shouldn't be Heathrow.
I personally am not all that bothered by Heathrow aircraft noise despite planes flying over me in Fulham and Putney all my life. But for those who are it's hardly unreasonable of them to be so. My concerns about Heathrow stem from the sheer stupidity of having hundreds of planes a day come in to land over the most densely populated, most important city in the country. It takes just one of them to malfunction or be subject to terrorism and the consequences are too horrific to contemplate.
It's why I believe we need to expand Gatwick. Gatwick is already the second largest airport. It could have train links upgraded relatively affordably direct into Waterloo (there are all those former EuroStar platforms standing empty for starters). It would bring huge economic benefits to Crawley, without blighting the commuter belt towns of Mid Sussex. The noise disturbance - as anyone who has ever flown into Gatwick will know - is primarily for cows and other wildlife in the North Downs. Yes there will be some environmental disruption, but as Heathrow is scaled back as services transfer to Gatwick, that will be more than offset by environmental gain to west London and Berkshire.
There is of course the environmental argument against air capacity expansion. But this has always been a spurious argument: aviation accounts for a tiny percentage: barely 5% of all greenhouse gas emissions. The two dominant emitters are road traffic and the agricultural industry. We should be serious about reducing carbon emissions but achieving relative minor gains in those two sectors would mean we could meet our climate change targets AND build a world class hub airport with the long-term capacity to compete.
The problem we have is that the longer the government dithers and obfuscates on Heathrow, the greater the inevitability of a third runway being built. This is simply because it will take some time to transform Gatwick (or wherever), and we have a capacity crisis now. Heathrow's third runway could be built more quickly, so the cry of the aviation lobby will be: "give us this temporary boost while the new hub is being constructed". In terms of providing legally-binding temporary extra capacity that will be decommissioned once our new hub is built I have no problem with a third runway. But I have a vast problem with the fact that in order to deliver even a temporary runway, Sipson and other Heathrow Villages will have been destroyed permanently.
This government needs to get on and commit to a new hub airport that isn't Heathrow. Don't expect a cross-party consensus on this until the decision is made and the bulldozers moving in because Ed Miliband's analysis is essentially the same as Goldsmith's and posturing will - as always with this shower at the top of the party - trump principle. Government is about being for things, not just against them, as it's taken Greening a shockingly long time to grasp. It's also about leadership. David Cameron showed some by ousting his incompetent Transport Secretary, but then threw it away by announcing his time-wasting commission. That sort of bungling is going to characterise his tenure in Number 10.
The reason Greening had to be moved from the transport portfolio was not because the government is going to now break its pledge and build a third runway at Heathrow. It's not because - despite the remarkable (remarkable because it has no basis in reality) fanclub which Justine Bieber - sorry Greening - has drummed up she has been a spectacularly unspectacular MP and minister. It's not even because she demonstrated an abject lack of integrity, let alone self-respect, in accepting the most junior post in cabinet rather than fighting her cause on the backbenches.
No, the reason she had to be moved was because - in the same way Jeremy Hunt had pre-determined his views on the BSkyB takeover, Greening had pre-determined her views on aviation policy - not just Heathrow but all aviation policy and was simply blocking any solution to the air capacity problem London faces.
It's easy for anti-Heathrow lefties to (oddly) leap to the defence of Greening, but have some consistency in your principles please: if Jeremy Hunt's proximity to Murdoch made it impossible for him to be impartial on BSkyB, Greening's proximity to both Plane Stupid and Greenpeace - which perhaps Ken Livingstone could have got a way with but a Conservative certainly could not - makes it impossible for her to be objective on this difficult - but hardly intractable issue. Justine's record is solely one of opposition: to Heathrow - yes, but also to every alternative possibility: Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Boris Island. She's tried to replicate Mrs Thatcher's famous anti-EU "No, no, no" and come away demoted, humiliated and embittered, because Mrs Thatcher she ain't.
It's entirely possible to be against Heathrow and for something else. Boris Johnson has come up with his idea of a new airport (which would tip about five marginal Conservative seats into the Labour column if it came about). Even Zac Goldsmith, Justine Greening's constituency neighbour in South West London has managed to come up with a position of absolute opposition to Heathrow accompanied by some ideas for an alternative.
But Zac, like Justine starts from the basis of - at best - begrudging acceptance of the concept that our finite air capacity is running out. And so, like some Air Traffic Controller in Chief, his solution is to rack em, stack-em and pack-em: manoeuvre some domestic flights out of Heathrow to the regional airports. But let's be honest Zac: you don't even buy the capacity argument, do you? Otherwise you wouldn't make the irrelevant point that Heathrow links to more destinations than its competitors despite fewer runways, and that larger planes will deal with what minimal capacity issue you believe there to be.
The reason that point is irrelevant is that the problem is how poorly served London is served by connections to the emerging economies - especially China. That's China which is building eleven new airports a year, by the way. Expanding the size of planes is pointless if the planes aren't flying to these destinations. It's also an obfuscation to try to allocate particular routes, or particular journey types to specific regional airports. Travel doesn't work in such a regimented and inefficient way. Why, for instance, should a businessman flying to China use one airport, but a holidaymaker go from another? Train lines that connect Heathrow and Gatwick - these are just plans that tinker with Heathrow's status as a second-rate airport. but even if it did it misses the point: London needs a world-class hub airport.
It's just that it shouldn't be Heathrow.
I personally am not all that bothered by Heathrow aircraft noise despite planes flying over me in Fulham and Putney all my life. But for those who are it's hardly unreasonable of them to be so. My concerns about Heathrow stem from the sheer stupidity of having hundreds of planes a day come in to land over the most densely populated, most important city in the country. It takes just one of them to malfunction or be subject to terrorism and the consequences are too horrific to contemplate.
It's why I believe we need to expand Gatwick. Gatwick is already the second largest airport. It could have train links upgraded relatively affordably direct into Waterloo (there are all those former EuroStar platforms standing empty for starters). It would bring huge economic benefits to Crawley, without blighting the commuter belt towns of Mid Sussex. The noise disturbance - as anyone who has ever flown into Gatwick will know - is primarily for cows and other wildlife in the North Downs. Yes there will be some environmental disruption, but as Heathrow is scaled back as services transfer to Gatwick, that will be more than offset by environmental gain to west London and Berkshire.
There is of course the environmental argument against air capacity expansion. But this has always been a spurious argument: aviation accounts for a tiny percentage: barely 5% of all greenhouse gas emissions. The two dominant emitters are road traffic and the agricultural industry. We should be serious about reducing carbon emissions but achieving relative minor gains in those two sectors would mean we could meet our climate change targets AND build a world class hub airport with the long-term capacity to compete.
The problem we have is that the longer the government dithers and obfuscates on Heathrow, the greater the inevitability of a third runway being built. This is simply because it will take some time to transform Gatwick (or wherever), and we have a capacity crisis now. Heathrow's third runway could be built more quickly, so the cry of the aviation lobby will be: "give us this temporary boost while the new hub is being constructed". In terms of providing legally-binding temporary extra capacity that will be decommissioned once our new hub is built I have no problem with a third runway. But I have a vast problem with the fact that in order to deliver even a temporary runway, Sipson and other Heathrow Villages will have been destroyed permanently.
This government needs to get on and commit to a new hub airport that isn't Heathrow. Don't expect a cross-party consensus on this until the decision is made and the bulldozers moving in because Ed Miliband's analysis is essentially the same as Goldsmith's and posturing will - as always with this shower at the top of the party - trump principle. Government is about being for things, not just against them, as it's taken Greening a shockingly long time to grasp. It's also about leadership. David Cameron showed some by ousting his incompetent Transport Secretary, but then threw it away by announcing his time-wasting commission. That sort of bungling is going to characterise his tenure in Number 10.
Friday, 31 August 2012
Turnout: the whole ball of wax
Why do the Tories win Wandsworth?
The usual reasons trotted out are: low council tax, good services, a big switch of Labour general election voters to the Tories locally, a better Conservative machine, a gerrymandered borough.
There is very little truth in any of these (even though, as someone who's been fighting them since 2000 I have some sympathy with the last of those claims). A Labour outsider looking at Wandsworth must wonder how on earth their party can't win wards that anywhere else would be securely and perpetually theirs. I know: I felt that when I represented a Fulham ward that was more affluent than almost any in Wandsworth - indeed, the second most affluent in Fulham too.
That's part of Labour's problem: it has a high turnover of activists and employees and each wastes a few precious years discovering that the issue is not previous Labour incompetence, or the wrong policy offering, or insufficient canvassing, street-stalls or leaflets - before moving on for the next wave to waste years on that same learning curve.
It's something else. But what?
The answer is both self-evident and anti-intuitive at the same time. It's differential turnout. Yes of course there are a few Labour voters who swing to the Tories in council elections because they believe they're defending their low council tax. I suggest they comprise maybe 5% of the total loss of Labour votes between general elections and council elections - and if you want to know where I get that figure from, email me.
Let's make a case study of West Putney ward. It happens to be the ward I spent seven years in, attending Elliott Secondary School, many years ago. West Putney is one of the safer Conservative wards in Wandsworth - it May's London elections Boris Johnson polled 63.6% and Ken Livingstone 22.8%. Hardly a Labour ward?
The usual reasons trotted out are: low council tax, good services, a big switch of Labour general election voters to the Tories locally, a better Conservative machine, a gerrymandered borough.
There is very little truth in any of these (even though, as someone who's been fighting them since 2000 I have some sympathy with the last of those claims). A Labour outsider looking at Wandsworth must wonder how on earth their party can't win wards that anywhere else would be securely and perpetually theirs. I know: I felt that when I represented a Fulham ward that was more affluent than almost any in Wandsworth - indeed, the second most affluent in Fulham too.
That's part of Labour's problem: it has a high turnover of activists and employees and each wastes a few precious years discovering that the issue is not previous Labour incompetence, or the wrong policy offering, or insufficient canvassing, street-stalls or leaflets - before moving on for the next wave to waste years on that same learning curve.
It's something else. But what?
The answer is both self-evident and anti-intuitive at the same time. It's differential turnout. Yes of course there are a few Labour voters who swing to the Tories in council elections because they believe they're defending their low council tax. I suggest they comprise maybe 5% of the total loss of Labour votes between general elections and council elections - and if you want to know where I get that figure from, email me.
Let's make a case study of West Putney ward. It happens to be the ward I spent seven years in, attending Elliott Secondary School, many years ago. West Putney is one of the safer Conservative wards in Wandsworth - it May's London elections Boris Johnson polled 63.6% and Ken Livingstone 22.8%. Hardly a Labour ward?
Monday, 13 August 2012
Why I loved the Olympic closing ceremony
Oh the irony. Just a couple of weeks after the shouty mob questioned the patriotism of those of us who disliked the opening ceremony, many of the self-same people took to twitter to slate the closing ceremony in terms even more vociferous. Apparently everything they dreaded being in the opening ceremony had been saved for the finale. I'm not going to question the loyalty of these people to their country: he fact that they've now demonstrated themselves to be wrong twice over says it all.
If you read my critique of the opening ceremony, many of the things I cited there as being absent, or under-used, were there in spades this time. The emphasis on LONDON was stronger and clearer. The fantastic stadium lighting was used to far better effect. It was far more patriotic than the Danny Boyle's luvvy-elite ans eccentric view of our country. Apart from the Indian dancing - put in after David Cameron's dig but funny for it - there was no trite political point scoring. Thematically, it was clearer. The stage design, in its union jack layout enabled performers to move around much more easily: the audience knew where to look. The start and the conclusion were brilliantly delivered - but the show lost its way a bit in-between. Twenty one years after his death it was fantastic that Freddie Mercury could still lead the crowd to copy the notes he was belting out on huge screens. Having the athletes enter through the crowds was a fantastic idea: they were clearly thrilled at the reception. And our Olympic cauldron transforming from a torch to a dandelion to simply an impressive and beautiful sculpture was simply the best-designed Olympic torch ever - fact.
Saturday, 11 August 2012
A real sports legacy for schools from the Olympics
Oh goody. David Cameron is getting as good as Ed Miliband at jumping on passing bandwagons - this time over the Olympic legacy of sport in schools. "There needs to be "a big cultural change" towards sport in schools if Britain is to capitalise on Team GB's Olympic wins, he has said.
Sadly this is nothing more than bandwagon jumping: Cameron has no new ideas on how to turn his soundbites into reality other than the same tired Tory nonsense about "more competitive sports". But that's not the answer. It's going to change nothing. It's just typical vacuity from a Prime Minister who, like his predecessor, has no ambition as prime minister other than just to be prime minister.
Let me suggest a few things David Cameron might want to consider if he actually believed what he said - and let me preface my remarks by making clear that I DETESTED school sport. I actively avoided attending games lessons (very successfully, I should add). Was it because I was shockingly disinterested in the sports my school put us through? Yes. Was it because I wasn't very good at it? Yes. Was it because the PE teachers stigmatised those of us who didn't excel? Yes.
The biggest problem with school sport is not the balance between team and individual sports (if that is the distinction Mr Cameron is trying to draw): it is the one-size-fits-all approach to physical education that state schools provide. We do not offer one-size-fits-all health care, and most of us believe in streaming pupils for academic subjects so they can learn at the pace that best suits them. So why uniform physical education?
It makes no sense. It's actually negligent given the obesity epidemic our country faces.
Sadly this is nothing more than bandwagon jumping: Cameron has no new ideas on how to turn his soundbites into reality other than the same tired Tory nonsense about "more competitive sports". But that's not the answer. It's going to change nothing. It's just typical vacuity from a Prime Minister who, like his predecessor, has no ambition as prime minister other than just to be prime minister.
Let me suggest a few things David Cameron might want to consider if he actually believed what he said - and let me preface my remarks by making clear that I DETESTED school sport. I actively avoided attending games lessons (very successfully, I should add). Was it because I was shockingly disinterested in the sports my school put us through? Yes. Was it because I wasn't very good at it? Yes. Was it because the PE teachers stigmatised those of us who didn't excel? Yes.
The biggest problem with school sport is not the balance between team and individual sports (if that is the distinction Mr Cameron is trying to draw): it is the one-size-fits-all approach to physical education that state schools provide. We do not offer one-size-fits-all health care, and most of us believe in streaming pupils for academic subjects so they can learn at the pace that best suits them. So why uniform physical education?
It makes no sense. It's actually negligent given the obesity epidemic our country faces.
Friday, 10 August 2012
Wandsworth Conservatives: a full investigation is needed
Ms Jenny Watson
Chair, The Electoral Commission
3 Bunhill Row
London
EC1Y 8YZ
10 August 2012
Dear Ms Watson,
Wandsworth Conservative Group
On 14th August 2009 I wrote to
the Electoral Commission asking it to investigate whether the Conservative
Party in Wandsworth was in breach of the PPERA in respect of Wandsworth
Conservative Group (WCG), an unincorporated association (UA) to which is being
channelled vast amounts of money by the three constituency associations in the
borough.
I am writing again to ask you to
look again at these financial arrangements in part because they continue to
exist, but also in light of allegations made on the Guido Fawkes website of
fraud and lax accounting within Wandsworth Conservatives which I believe, had
there been more transparency, may have been avoided or at least been dealt with
sooner.
In response to my enquiry in
2009 I received the following reply from Mr Dan Adamson:
"At the present time it appears that the status of WCG is
unclear, and consequently it is unclear whether there is any failure to comply
with the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) in this
case. The Commission's policy is to take enforcement action only where there is
evidence of a breach or potential breach of PPERA. I am not therefore
initiating enforcement action. Nonetheless, given the need to clarify the
status of WCG, I have asked my colleagues in our advice and guidance team to
contact the party to discuss this matter."
From the published accounts of
the three Wandsworth Conservative Association accounting units, WCG has received
vast contributions/transfers from its Wandsworth accounting units (see below). This level
of income dwarves that of almost every accounting unit in the country. Of the
2011 published statements of accounts just 20 Conservative accounting units
exceeded the £127,776 income (that we know of) of WCG. Yet because WCG is a UA
we have no idea how this money is spent. It is remarkable that any party should
try to order its affairs in this way.
Published transfers to WCG by the three Wandsworth
accounting units are shown below.
This is just income we know of - not elected representative contributions,
not donations, not direct fundraising:
Year
|
Battersea
|
Putney
|
Tooting
|
Total
|
2003
|
41,002
|
47.404
|
30,575
|
118,981
|
2004
|
42,500
|
51,500
|
39,201
|
133,201
|
2005
|
40,151
|
66,772
|
28,580
|
135,503
|
2006
|
45,586
|
88,715
|
29,966
|
164,267
|
2007
|
59,905
|
98,860
|
48,201
|
203,966
|
2008
|
86,060
|
104,669
|
59,581
|
250,310
|
2009
|
73,025
|
92,370
|
69.220
|
234,615
|
2010
|
63,002
|
132,421
|
75,963
|
271,386
|
2011
|
40,090
|
53,205
|
34,481
|
127,776
|
Total
|
491,321
|
735,916
|
415,768
|
1,643,005
|
Although WCG has never published accounts itself, they
were appended to the Tooting
Conservative Association accounts in 2004 and, in turn, I attach them so you
can see for yourself exactly what expenditure WCG incurred then. Given their income has not fluctuated much
it's reasonable to assume their expenditure is broadly similar.
In particular, note it is responsible for the employment
of staff including the borough agent and a secretary, printing their local
newsletters, running a freepost and paying huge postage costs. WCG also
receives taxpayers' money, in the form of Office Costs Allowance rental
payments from three MPs: Justine Greening, Stephen Hammond and Jane Ellison. WCG is a major financial operation with a
vast turnover. It looks and behaves like an accounting unit.
Critically, WCG pays for election expenses in the borough.
And because it is a UA it can legally accept contributions from overseas donors
and donors do not have to be declared. It is, de facto, a means of
"laundering" impermissible donations to the Conservative Party. So
while other parties are held to account over their donors, WCG is not.
Recently a raft of recent allegations have been published
on the Guido Fawkes website pertaining to, at the very least, lax accounting
procedures by the officers of Wandsworth Conservative Group - and potentially
fraud. Those articles can be found at:
I do not wish to comment on the specific allegations but
would make this broader point: the whole purpose of the PPERA in respect of
requiring party units to publish accounts was to ensure transparency and
accountability to both the public and local party members who give their time
and money voluntarily. These allegations demonstrate what can happen when these
principles are avoided.
I believe that Wandsworth Conservatives are breaking the
letter of the law. But even if they are not, they are most
certainly breaking the intent of it. If
it is so easy to evade the requirements of financial accountability set out by
this act, it makes no sense for any other political unit to burden themselves
with the requirements of the PPERA.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Adam Gray
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