Why Does Labour Want the ICG to Contest the 2014 Local Elections?

It might seem an odd proposition on the surface of it. After all, in every local election since 1998 in Isleworth, and since 2002 in Syon, the Independent Community Group (ICG) has been Labour’s closest competitor, either winning the seats or running Labour a close second. Both wards being safely Labour in terms of the conventional Labour-Tory dichotomy, the logic of the situation might suggest that we are an opponent they could do without.

But logic in politics can be more convoluted than it is in other areas of life and sometimes, like in the Guinness advert, things aren’t always as they seem.

I have never considered myself to be naïve, but in respect of the 2010 local elections I made two simplistic assumptions – one just prior to the contest and one immediately after – the clumsiness of which taught me that my talents for reading and interpreting political events are nowhere close to being as flawless as I had hitherto liked to believe.

The first, which I have already documented elsewhere, was my costly miscalculation that the Conservatives, having been our partners in what to begin with at least had been an easy coalition, would see the benefit in not stepping on our toes in our two target wards (which from their own perspective were unwinnable). Whilst we all naturally understood their preference for an all-out Conservative administration we figured they would view the continuation of the coalition as a next-best option should they fail to achieve that.

What actually happened was that the Conservatives were so convinced they were on the cusp of an historic all-out victory that they consciously sought to oust the community councillors in Isleworth and Syon and to replace them with Labour ones, figuring that by so doing they would be creating for themselves a softer opposition for the four years of overall Conservative control that were to follow. This didn’t necessitate any kind of formal alliance with Labour. The coincidence of a natural convergence of interests was quite enough to do the trick.

The second miscalculation came in the immediate aftermath of our election defeat. Mindful of the fact that the ICG had commanded the votes of some 4000 people over three wards even in defeat, and aware that a new wave of Labour councillors in Isleworth would be looking to make their own mark, in their own style, on the communities they had been entrusted to serve, I simply assumed that they would be keen to engage with those thousands of people who had supported and voted for us, and that an opportunity had arisen, albeit in circumstances that we would have preferred not to have existed, for some kind of reappraisal of the relationship between Labour and the local community movement.

This assumption was made especially in consideration of the fact that our defeat and their victory made it reasonable for Labour to expect that they would be “in charge” as it were. Exhausted and drained after four years of very hard work, punching above our weight as the minority group in a coalition administration, and still if I am honest reeling from the demoralising effects of the Conservative betrayal, I do not believe the ICG’s price would have been a high one. Speaking strictly for myself, at that time I would have settled for more or less any arrangement that would have allowed me to walk away from the whole thing with my honour intact.

So I’ll admit it shocked me a tad to discover that Labour had other ideas. “Why should they (the new councillors) want to work with you?” they asked us on a local online forum, and to emphasise the point they hand-delivered a limited number of uniquely unpleasant leaflets to local residents containing little other than personal attacks on myself and other ICG personnel.

In the meantime we came under attack from a former Labour councillor who had clearly assumed, for reasons which were not explained, that the ICG would simply disappear following our defeat, and who seemed to take offence from the fact that members of a community group should continue to attend meetings and events in the community!

This, it would appear, was to be the basis of Labour’s continued problem with the situation as it had turned out, and the reason why our assumption – my assumption – that the party would want to reach an accommodation with our supporters turned out to be unsound. To put it quite simply and bluntly, they didn’t want any organised community activity on “their” patch. Fortified, no doubt, by tales of how things were in the good old days, they wanted complete control of our community life and expected it as the spoils of their victory. Such an outcome, of course, would have required the ICG to have vanished completely from the face of the Earth.

This then explains the spluttering anger of the former councillor as it eventually dawned on her that, election victory notwithstanding, things would never be permitted to revert to how they had been in her day, with every single “community” initiative having to be either dominated, or smothered, by members of her party. The new councillors, by contrast, were going to have to operate within a liberated environment.

It would seem to me that such is Labour’s determination to wield absolute power over our community that it is prepared to take the risk of losing the seats it gained in 2010 rather than continue to suffer the indignity of having to treat with civic leaders and free residents’ groups on anything approaching equal terms. The assumption being made now, just as it was in 2010, is that if the ICG fights the next election and loses we will all just mysteriously go away.

I have not mentioned outside influences, as I have in other articles, and there is a reason for this. Although in spite of Labour’s smirking protestations they certainly do exist, they could surely not be decisive in determining Labour’s local strategy without a good deal of willingness on the part of the local party.

I believe that if the ICG contests the local elections next year it will have a very good chance of recapturing the seats it lost. But if it doesn’t, let me be clear – we will be in the exact same situation that we are today. The ICG is here to stay, and those who care for the dignity and the well-being of our community will never roll over and die.

Will the Real Hounslow Labour Party Please Stand Up (and other associated questions)?

“To get the message across that Hounslow falls too far short of what we all expect as councillors and residents the whole organisation is being reshaped from the top downwards - slimming down the lardy top tiers and testing Directors and Assistant Directors against their peers through competitive interviews with external as well as internal candidates. There's a new Chief Executive, one Department and three chief officers have already gone and the rest including the much mentioned Director of Environment will be leaving within a couple of months. Understanding that Hounslow has to listen to local residents, respond to the needs of the community and pull its proverbial socks up is a key requirement in every one of those interviews - hence the changing personnel…

“None of the above should dissuade residents from continuing to press for change and faster improvement - external pressure is essential. Just don't assume Hounslow is inert and unredeemable. I don't think anyone has a lower opinion of what Hounslow became, but that doesn't mean it can't be fixed…

“I think the overwhelming majority of councillors and residents are now agreed that Hounslow needed fixing and are keen to support meaningful steps to open up the council - the days for one party states and arrogant bureaucracies are gone.

“Being beaten in 2006 helped remind Labour members that most of them came into politics to make their communities stronger and better - hence a little more modesty, the willingness to work a little harder, focus on a limited number of practical priorities and to slim down, open up and transform the council. Self interest will continue to help – because doing nothing promises to see 2006 repeated.

“I recognise that Labour were appalling (it kept me out of local politics for two decades) and we are yet to be coherent on community engagement, but I don't think a bold new statement would be worth anything at the moment because there’s nothing for anyone to trust yet until we see something tangible delivered – I think Labour and the Council need to pay a lot more forward not make promises. And at the moment let's be frank, it is a struggle every day to get good stuff delivered by the Council – but perhaps surprisingly it is a challenge Labour members are now very much up for.”

These words from Theo Dennison, Labour ward councillor for Syon and former London Borough of Hounslow Cabinet member, certainly leave no room for charges of ambiguity. Even if, taking the unkindest and most cynical view, one was to dismiss his words as lacking sincerity, they still tell us that at least one person within the local Labour camp recognises the concerns felt by large sections of the community and understands that ignoring them is the surest and fastest route back to political Boot Hill.

This in itself, small and inconsequential though it may appear in isolation, is the local community equivalent of One Giant Step for Mankind. Councillor Dennison has already gone where no Labour councillor, in these parts at least, has gone before.

Difficult decision

I keep being asked whether or not the Independent Community Group (ICG) will be fielding candidates again at the local elections in 2014. The honest truth is that this will not be my decision to make, and to be equally honest I am really pleased that that is the case. It truly is an extremely difficult decision to make, and there are so many imponderables involved that those who will be entrusted with making it will not be able to do right for doing wrong.

Of course, as the party in power, the attitude of the local Labour Party is always a massive consideration. Councillor Dennison’s comments are very much noted. So too is the fact that none of his colleagues seem in any rush to endorse them, as indeed is that, coincidentally or otherwise, they would appear to have coincided with his demotion from the Council’s Cabinet.

It is difficult to see certain long-standing councillors not a million miles from Syon embracing the idea of the primacy of community, primacy that is over the diktats of a political party to which blind and unquestioning allegiance is for some almost a religious matter.

There are also pernicious outside influences that need to be factored into the equation. Perusing his Facebook page, far too much influence would still appear to be wielded over the politics of the Hounslow party by the peculiar and obsessive man-child of Southall. I’ll not massage his ego by mentioning his name – it is not him that is important, but the way in which others relate to him and, more significantly still, to his method. His ethics are the antithesis of everything Councillor Dennison would appear to stand for, and a cursory stroll around the Web would seem to indicate that his gutter politics approach is still very much more widely favoured by Labour decision-makers in Hounslow than that of the Syon councillor.

The old ways have in any event continued to manifest themselves on occasions. Just recently the Lead Member for Environment declined to meet the Mogden Residents’ Action Group (MRAG), a community group representing many thousands of victims of Thames Water’s neglect of its legal and moral obligations over the odour emanating from its Mogden plant, unless the residents agree to meet on his terms (that is in the presence of officers who have long demonstrated their lack of support for the community’s aspirations). This “we are in charge, not you” message is wholly inconsistent and incompatible with the resident-driven model that we desire to see.

Dichotomy

One thing the ICG needs to accept is that if it abstains from the fray in 2014, it will find it much harder to come back in 2018 if that is what needs to be done. The effective Lab/ICG dichotomy which exists at present in both Isleworth and Syon wards will have been replaced once again by a Lab/Con dichotomy, and the organised community will have an uphill struggle trying to re-establish itself as the natural opposition to Labour. New residents will have moved in, old supporters will have moved out or passed away, and we will be back to where we were prior to 1998.

Thus if we are to place our trust in Labour we would need very good reason – with all due respect, far more than just Councillor Dennison’s rather optimistic word – to believe that the local party had taken real community empowerment to the heart of its politics rather than appending it to its schedule as some reluctant afterthought which itself would appear to be hotly disputed. To put it quite simply, if they are not going for it with enthusiasm now when the spectre of the ICG returning to the electoral fold is looming, why should they do so four years hence when that “threat” is less pressing?

I find myself wondering just to what extent Councillor Dennison actually believes that his local party is embracing the spirit of community empowerment. He must, after all, know his colleagues better than I do, and I know them well enough to know just how affronted some of them will be by the very thought of being led, as opposed to followed, by the massed ranks of the unenlightened.

His protestations could be indicative of his fierce loyalty to his colleagues. My feeling is that he is in fact, rather cleverly, leading them to a place where they will be left with no option other than to declare either for or against this new and, perhaps unsurprisingly in my view, better approach to engagement. Quite where he proposes to go should they cling obstinately to type remains anyone’s guess.

Of course it is not just Labour’s position that will inform the ICG’s decision. The Community Group needs to understand just what it is that it would be returning to. For councillors who have only experienced power and not opposition a rude awakening could be in store.

The fact is that even with six ICG councillors returned in Syon and Isleworth it is highly likely that Labour will hold an overall majority at the London Borough of Hounslow post-2014. With the coalition government out of favour and the local Conservative Party showing no obvious signs of ever being capable of differentiating between wishful thinking and cold reality it is easy to see several Tory seats in the west of the borough falling to Labour. Even traditional “strongholds” such as Hounslow South and Osterley & Spring Grove do not look particularly safe. A couple of bad weeks in the opinion polls and an unspectacular local election campaign could conceivably see them eliminated outside of their W4 comfort zone. Perhaps only then will the consequences of their idiotic behaviour during the later months of the Conservative/ICG coalition become fully apparent to all their own members and supporters.

Opposition

Opposition is a place that bears no comparison with office, especially when you are a community councillor. It means going through the motions at Council meetings before inevitably being voted down. It means chief executives cutting you off after three minutes of your allotted five minute speech in the Chamber. It means officers passing you in the corridors of the Civic Centre and not daring to venture a smile or often even so much as an acknowledgement lest it be spotted by an eagle-eyed politico and held against them when the next round of redundancies comes around. It means any committees or panels that by accident of circumstance your group may dominate being closed down or “reorganised” in such a way that your influence is removed. I had eight years of it before 2006, I’m not persuaded that I would want to put myself through it again.

And then of course there is the question of our relationship with other opposition parties and groups. When I was first elected as an independent in 1998 I rather enjoyed my status as a lone wolf, loathed equally by both the major parties which competed with one another to be seen as the ones who could shun me the most publicly. Politically it couldn’t have worked better if I had written the script myself – voters everywhere were able to contrast the essential sameness of both sides of the political establishment with the new, fresh and vibrant approach to local politics that the ICG represented.

Then of course came 2006, and the discovery when totting up the scores on the doors following the local election of that year that we were really not so bad after all. We entered into coalition eager to run our programme for community empowerment alongside the political programme of our Conservative partners, believing them to be at least neutral if not particularly sympathetic towards the things we wished to achieve.

Later of course we were to be disappointed, finding ourselves frustrated by chief officers while our partners either stood back and watched or actively collaborated with them behind the scenes (perm one from two), with both establishment parties meanwhile openly making common cause against us at Area Committee meetings. Then followed the debilitating news that our partners were hoping to divide the Community Group following the local elections of 2010 in the event of the numbers making it feasible to offer coalition terms only to certain of our councillors (variously considered – wrongly in my view - to be either mercenary, or easy to flatter or manipulate), and all remaining trust was lost.

Pincer movement

Ultimately we were to be fatally caught in a pincer movement between the two major parties at those elections and none of us were returned to office in any case.

In the unlikely event of any community councillors from Isleworth and Syon holding the balance of power again following the 2014 elections we would of course find ourselves in a wholly different position to that of 2006. In such circumstances we may be reduced to playing the role of an outspoken but very small opposition to an effective two party dictatorship, just as was the case in fact on the Isleworth & Brentford Area Committee between 2002 and 2005.

When one considers the complexity of the decisions that we will be faced with in the very near future it is hopefully easy to understand why I am relieved that these decisions will be for others to take. What the ICG should be doing right now is canvassing the views of the active community and finding out precisely what it is that they want us to do.

How the Political Parties Exclude the General Public

By Peter Watt, former General Secretary of the Labour Party

George Galloway was right. I can hardly believe that I have typed that but on at least one thing he really is right. In his post-election interviews he said that:

“There are very large numbers of people completely disenchanted and alienated from the political process and from the mainstream political parties”.

And he is spot on. The problem is that the mainstream political parties can’t see it or choose not to. On the whole the big three UK Parties operate as a closed shop. They talk the language of reaching out to communities and engagement but they don’t really mean it. Instead they operate a series of cosy closed and highly secretive cabals that suit everyone involved and no one who isn’t. That may sound harsh but it is pretty accurate.

Let’s take selecting candidates for election which is absolutely a closed shop. Candidates are selected from a tiny group of activists who have to preform strange rituals to impress other activists in order to try and be selected. You have to stop having much of a life outside of politics in order to focus your efforts. You have to endure endless and often pointless meetings held in bizarre locations and appear to enjoy them. You have to learn how to access blocks of flats with entry phones in order to leaflets that no one reads. And you have to make sure that you learn the language of the political elite, the lexicon of the politically initiated within your chosen political tribe. And all of this just to be considered. The chances are that the whole thing will end up being stitched up in some way or other anyway and your best bet is that you are the beneficiary of said stitch-up.

"The problem is that the mainstream political parties can’t see it or choose not to. On the whole the big three UK Parties operate as a closed shop. They talk the language of reaching out to communities and engagement but they don’t really mean it. Instead they operate a series of cosy closed and highly secretive cabals that suit everyone involved and no one who isn’t. That may sound harsh but it is pretty accurate."

Or let’s take rational argument and debate which cannot happen within the cabal, in fact has to be stamped out. Put simply, if your side’s front bench says something then it must be true and has to be supported. If the other side’s front bench say it then it is a lie, worse a self-interested lie and must be opposed. So Labour opposes Free Schools because they are a Tory policy; even though for all intents and purposes they are academy schools which Labour introduced. Labour opposes the current welfare reform legislation because it is ‘Tory’ reform and therefore bad; even though Labour would have passed something very similar. The Tories accused Labour of cutting equipment from our troops and say it is typical of their attitude towards our armed forces; and then in Government scrap our aircraft carriers. They condemned Labour for blocking any referendum on EU treaties as evidence of their rampant Europhilia; and then in Government block a referendum on changes to an EU treaty.

Or take policy development within parties which is essentially a fix. Structures are created and the language of inclusion and openness is used to justify them. But in reality the process is exclusive, deliberately designed to make involvement more difficult. Certainly more difficult if you are not in the cabal, all but impossible if you are one of the 96% of the population who are not members of a political party.

In fact the party machines have a language and culture that justifies this exclusion. Member engagement is seen a more important than engaging the public. Allowing the public a glimpse of the inner workings of political life is fought tooth and nail by activists who want to preserve their privileges. So attempts to engage the public end up being barely that at all. They are grudging and desperately unattractive offers to the public to visit the Party rather than the Party going out to visit the public. The result are misnamed ‘open days’ at Conferences which you have to apply to in advance. Or handfuls of ‘real people’ being hand-picked to hear a speech after being carefully vetted for suitability. It’s not engagement at all and in fact just reinforces the sense of separation.

My favourite comment from party members is the one about ‘I did/I didn’t hear that on the doorstep’. As if the odd and snatched conversations between a party canvasser and a member of the public is a rational way to gauge opinion! But to hear activists talk you’d think that there is no purer and efficacious way to ascertain what is really going on out there than knocking on the doors of total strangers whilst wearing a rosette and carrying a clipboard!

So it all ends up in a closed and cosy world that benefits a tiny proportion of the 4% of electors who choose to join a political party. This tiny, exclusive and closed elite have developed a system that justifies its own existence to itself. That has a collective belief in its own sense of superiority. That creates jobs and elected positions from within its own ranks. And that is alienated from the vast majority of the public. But they can’t see it. And to be honest even if they could they wouldn’t want to change it because they like it just the way it is.

It’s why there attempts to look in touch look so desperately staid and inauthentic. Ed Miliband might think that buying sausage rolls makes him look in touch; most people suspect that he dumped them when he got round the corner. David Cameron might think that playing badminton makes him look like action man; most people thought he looked a prat.

But it can’t go on. A healthy democracy needs healthy political parties and right about now we have sick and dying parties. And in order to become healthy they will need to open up. Selections need to be open to the public not closed as must policy development. In fact central control generally has to reduce so that innovation and creativity can thrive. And the emphasis should be on being in partnership with electors not being their master. It will certainly take a damn sight more than any of the so called reforms that the main parties have tried so far.

The big political parties are seen as irrelevant by most voters. For now however they tend to vote for them come election time, even if unenthusiastically. But as Bradford West shows you can’t take even that for granted forever.


Reproduced with acknowledgements to Dale & Co., the current affairs mega blog by Iain Dale & Friends

Why I'll Be Voting "Yes" to AV

Next month I will be voting "Yes" in the referendum to change the voting system at British general elections from First Past The Post (FPTP) to Alternative Voting (AV).

I have never been one to get particularly excited about proportional representation. My default view is that when the time has come for change then democracy's natural selection process will eventually see to it that that change happens irrespective of which voting system we have. However slow and stupified they may sometimes appear, the voters tend to make the right decision on the day.

Alternative Voting is not proportional representation, of course. It is a fudge that lies somewhere between PR and FPTP. Essentially it means you can vote for a candidate whom you like but who is unlikely to win in the knowledge that when he or she is inevitably unsuccessful your second preference vote for a more credible candidate will still count for something. In other words you need not vote for a candidate who would not otherwise be your first choice for fear of wasting your vote completely.

From a purely selfish perspective I believe that on balance AV would have benefited ICG candidates at local elections, some might argue unfairly so, and that we probably would have won across the board in both Isleworth and Syon wards had it been in operation locally in 2010 in spite of the general election having been held on the same day. My reason for thinking this is that, whilst the politicos from both of the major parties might themselves prefer the relative safety of one another to the (to them) uncertain radicalism of the ICG, the voters themselves would probably have thought differently. In my view casual Labour voters (as opposed to members) would in most cases have preferred the ICG to their traditional Tory opponents, and likewise Tory voters would in most cases have opted for the ICG ahead of Labour.

In other words in the absence of a straight 50% first preference vote for either Labour or the Conservatives (unlikely in Labour's case and nowt but a pipe dream for the Conservatives), the likelihood is that the ICG's second preference vote tally would have been substantially more powerful than either of theirs.

At the local elections in 2002 and 2006 on the other hand, when we won our seats with very strong majorities in the absence of a "general election factor", AV would almost certainly have made no difference to the outcome.

But all that is by the by. All those elections were fought under FPTP and even the proposed changes would only apply to general elections, at least to begin with. So my interest in the subject now, inasfar as I have any, concerns the effect upon the national body politic of a conversion to an AV system of voting.

The likely consequence of "Yes" vote would be a significant increase in the number of seats held by the Liberal Democrats (under less controversial conditions than presently exist anyway), and an effective normalisation of the currently unusual spectre of coalition government.

Some Labour politicians (although not Ed Miliband) are opposing AV because they feel a "No" vote will weaken the political standing of the Liberal Democrat leadership, who have kissed a lot of butts in order that this referendum might become a reality. A "No" result would make so many of those sacrifices appear to have been in vain. Others are whining about the cost of holding the referendum.

But it is surely wrong to judge an issue as fundamental as electoral reform on consideration of short-term political advantage? And it is certainly not good enough to try to place a price on democracy (and let's face it, money is certainly no object where the crusade to "bring democracy" to the lesser breeds of the Middle East and North Africa via the bomb and bullet are concerned).

A more valid fear is that AV will lead to perpetual coalition in which Labour might be the loser. Anybody who has had dealings with Labour as an organisation will know how politically frigid and unapproachable they tend to be and this leads sometimes to the most improbable coalitions finding themselves lined up against them often almost by default.

Some, most notably the Labour leader Ed Miliband, take the contrary view that Britain has an inbuilt "progressive majority" which would make it much more difficult for the Conservatives to achieve absolute power, a view that may be shared by the Tories themselves if their almost unanimous opposition to AV is to be explained.

One possibly accidental consequence of the AV debate therefore has been to force the Labour camp to consider what is ultimately more important to them - their "progressivism" or their party badge.

I believe Ed Miliband has taken a very intelligent position, probably recognising as a forward-thinking and relatively young man that the shelf-life of the Labour Party, like those of the other traditional parties, is nearing its end and that the product is likely to be replaced sooner or later by something altogether less tribal, less reactionary and more suited to the open society that must be an inevitable consequence of the Internet age.

There will as I see it be a realignment in our body politic with new alliances being formed that will empower the progressive majority but at the expense of the Labour Party in its current insular persona.

Almost anything that shakes up the stale old system and that encourages voters to think outside the box into which it has successfully confined them for so long has to be a good thing. That is why I intend to vote "Yes" on May 5th.

New council leadership does not respect the opposition. Anyone surprised?

I understand that a very short Special Borough Council Meeting was held last night at Hounslow Civic Centre to consider various questions and motions tabled by the opposition Conservative Group.

The reason it was short was that a Labour councillor moved at the onset of the meeting that it be adjourned indefinitely, and so it was.

Of course this kind of stunt is underhand, bad for democracy etc., but is anybody truly surprised by Labour's actions? I know I do bang on somewhat about the fact that it was a Conservative campaign which put Labour back in office in May - but - well, it was a Conservative campaign which put Labour back in office in May.

The new Labour administration at the London Borough of Hounslow has no respect for its Conservative opponents and, with appropriate apologies to my good friend Councillor Mark Bowen who now leads the Conservative Group (and I wish him well), they don't deserve any respect following the debacle that was the local election.

Labour will simply trample all over them throughout the next four years as they quite rightly do not fear electoral repercussions at the hands of the Conservatives in a borough which has a "natural" Labour majority. Especially with a Conservative-led government in office which, whether rightly or wrongly, is committed to a major cuts programme.

The only hope of unseating Labour in Hounslow now, if that proves to be a desirable objective, lies in the emergence of a third political power within the borough to take on both establishment parties and to present residents with a new, radical, community-led and community-focused alternative. I wonder whether any of the current crop of Conservative councillors is ambitious enough, and angry enough, to wish to join us in helping to bring that about?

In the meantime the opposition should expect much more of the kind of thing they experienced last night. And the less time they spend at council meetings, maybe the more time they will have to reflect upon whether or not the strategy of using the cover provided by the general election to move in on the various independents around the borough in the hope of replacing them in their respective areas of influence was truly a clever one.

ICG Committee needs to readjust to new circumstances

It is now over three months since the local elections, and the loss of all six of the seats on the local authority that we had previously held.

Even before that fateful day the ICG Committee was the source of all power within the organisation. But in practice, at least before the last AGM in January 2010, it was so heavily dominated by councillors that its two non-councillor members were never in a position to override the predominant councillor input even if they had wanted to.

Things have now changed on two fronts. First of all the majority on the ICG Committee (which currently has eleven members as opposed to the eight it had for most of last year) have never been councillors. The source of real power has changed.

Secondly there have never been so many relative "newbies" all at once at the centre of the decision-making process within the group.

Dealing with this, along with our expressed desire to regroup and reshape, has obviously meant that a lot of deep discussion - sometimes impassioned discussion - has taken place. Sometimes some of the newbies don't completely understand what is required of them in terms of keeping up with the situation within the ICG and the wider community on a day to day basis. Whilst I have defended those people on the grounds of their inexperience they will need to learn, and soon.

At the same time us former councillors are having to come to terms with the fact that we are no longer ruling the roost on the Committee in the way that we undoubtedly once were. Interesting times.

What is important is that the ICG identifies the areas in which it has been underperforming and uses the relative sanctuary that the next two or three years will provide to address those issues. We need also to address them at an appropriate and sensible pace, risking neither burnout nor prolonged inactivity.

We have always said that irrespective of whether or not we decide to contest the next local elections in 2014 we will be prepared for them, enabling us to take such a decision when the time for it comes from a position of strength. This is why the coming two or three years will be so important to us.

Whatever happens the key to our long-term stability and success will be new blood. Some of the established leadership, myself included, may not necessarily be the best people to be taking us to the next level. We need new people helping to run the organisation so that it may remain fresh, and infused with new ideas and an up-to-date approach to campaigning.

If you are an activist or even at this point just an inactive member or supporter, it is time to consider whether you might not wish to make a bigger contribution than is the case at present.

Moving forward with confidence and optimism

THE first Committee meeting of the Independent Community Group (ICG) after the recent local elections was held last night at a private venue in Twickenham (we just fancied a change of scenery) and I have to say I was thoroughly heartened by the positivity and enthusiasm that was demonstrated by all those who were present.

It would have been easy to have been down following our electoral reverse in all six of the seats that we held in Isleworth and Syon wards, but instead there was a recognition that the result had been entirely outside of our control, along with an acceptance that notwithstanding this fact there were aspects of our campaign that could have been improved upon and a determination, without any blame or finger-pointing whatsoever, that in the event of the ICG participating in any future elections we can and will be more professional and more sophisticated in the way in which we do things.

A lot of thought and deliberation was given to the question of the coalition of which we had been a part between 2006 and 2010 and the wisdom of our participation in it. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Most if not all shared my view that our involvement in the coalition had not adversely affected us in voting terms, other than for the fact that our erstwhile partners had quite ruthlessly, and in my view dispicably, tried to squeeze us at the election and to create a political environment in which the Labour/Conservative hegemony was restored and in which there was no place for a community alternative. It was an astounding but nonetheless quite self-evident fact that our partners had been calculatedly willing to risk a return to a Labour administration - which, of course, is what happened - in preference to permitting the return of community candidates. I was quite surprised to discover that amongst those present my own regret at our not having been tougher and a tad less trusting in our dealings, especially over the last year or so of the coalition, was not only shared but surpassed by most if not all of my colleagues.

An internal reshuffle saw Ian Speed (above left) being promoted to Chair and Andy Sibley (right), having been formally co-opted to the Committee, taking over the role of Vice Chair. The meeting expressed its gratitude to Jon Hardy for his leadership as the outgoing Chair.

The social event held at the same venue after the Committee meeting was pleasingly well attended, and reports were received from the first meeting of the new Isleworth & Brentford Area Committee (IBAC), which is now being chaired by Councillor Matt Harmer. It is no secret that we had feared the role of the public, which in our view remains inadequate even after four years of coalition administration, would be further diminshed under Labour "control", but thus far the signals would appear to be mixed.

As I expected we have ruled nothing in or out with regard to our future strategy, and in particular in respect to whether or not we contest elections. But we will ensure that our electoral machine is polished and ready, maybe involving ourselves in by-elections as a means of keeping ourselves fresh, a bit like an air force that is perpetually on red alert but hopes it will never be used in anger. It was understood that our very presence as an organised body might have the effect of altering the attitudes of others towards the community in a positive way.

We expect one or two people to fall by the wayside, having been accustomed to us playing a certain role and now seeing us in a different and to them unfamiliar position. Those who walk away with honour and in a dignified manner will not be thought the worse of. But the emphasis over the coming years will be to consolidate, to build, and to become better organised and more efficient still. We will look to extend our operation into areas previously unconsidered, and to take a more holistic and borough-wide view of all that we do.

All in all quite a constructive night out, and a very big thank you to everyone whose contribution enables us to look forward with optimism and confidence.

Some further thoughts from last Thursday

Trying though I honestly am to get a real life, I have to admit that I still find myself dissecting last week's local election results and looking for pointers to where the borough might be heading when "real" voting conditions are restored in 2014.

One interesting number that keeps coming back to me is 8816. This is the minimum number of voters who opted for independent candidates in preference to any of the established parties. This figure was reached by taking the highest independent vote in each ward in which non-aligned candidates were standing. In practice of course, because not everybody votes in blocs, it is likely that at least 10,000 voters in Hounslow placed at least one cross beside the name of an independent candidate. I would venture that is the most ever.

Then there was a minimum of 8336 voters who supported Green Party candidates. And if we want to think outside the "big two" as opposed to the "big three", there is the small matter of at least 11,824 voters backing the Liberal Democrats in spite of the fact that they were not contesting every ward.

As "third forces" go, the support of 30,000 - 35,000 voters in the London Borough of Hounslow is not a bad base to be starting from. But of course it should not just be assumed that every Green voter would have supported ICG candidates in the absence of a Green, nor that every ICG voter would have opted for a Lib Dem, and so on. If we are to think in terms of a third power in Hounslow politics to challenge the sterile hegemony of the tired old parties (and I should stress it is no more than a thought at the moment, I still believe the new administration should be given an opportunity to prove itself), we must explore what unites those of us who choose to think outside the establishment box and who consciously take the more difficult path towards realising our aspirations.

This is something I intend to research over the coming months, if only to keep a promise to those caring souls in my community whose new-found freedoms were so prematurely dashed, at least for the time being, by the "Gumby" vote herded out last week by the media circus that was the general election.

For the benefit of younger voters (and councillors) who are too young to remember the Gumbies, the following amusing little clip pertains:

"It's ironic that the outcome of a local election should be determined by a group of voters with no interest in local elections"

That was my soundbite when I sent off a press statement earlier trying to explain how the ICG came to lose all six of its council seats in Isleworth and Syon wards at last week's local elections.

It wasn't, in my view, an unreasonable thing to say. In 2006 I had topped the poll in Isleworth with 1240 votes, this year in the same ward 1741 votes was not enough to get me onto the scorescheet. The general election increased the turnout in Isleworth from 37% to over 62%, and in Syon from 36% to over 58%. Obviously an increase in turnout is good for democracy inasfar as it goes, but if the cause of the extra numbers is that the additional voters are in attendance for a reason other than to vote in a local election it does mean that the local election result is essentially being decided by those who don't really give much of a toss about local community business. That most of those fitting this description would appear to have been Labour voters could be argued to vindicate the ICG's whole raison d'etre.

No matter, we have six new Labour councillors on the manor - Mindu Bains, Ed Mayne and Sue Sampson in Isleworth and Steve Curran, Theo Dennison and Jason Ellar in Syon, and I wish them every success in their new roles over the next four years. They are all new councillors which hopefully means they will bring fresh enthusiasm to the job, and in the case of two of them at least they bring extreme youth as well. Jason is, I believe, the youngest councillor ever to be elected to the London Borough of Hounslow, and I'm just too kind to ask how he intends to juggle his casework with his homework, or whether he'll have to be home from meetings by nine o'clock!

All joking aside, I am naturally being asked where the ICG intends to go from here, and whether we'll be looking to try to recapture the seats in 2014. The simple truth is that I don't know, and much is likely to depend on how the new councillors engage with the population that we as a local community group still serve and the approach the new administration in general takes to the whole area of Community Empowerment. If they take advantage of our contacts, our insight and the relationship that we enjoy with residents active in the community to try to create their own bond of a kind that is beneficial to the community they will have our support and assistance. If, on the other hand, their approach will be to treat local residents and their organisations as conquered serfs they will find in us a formidable adversary.

The is little doubt in my mind that, but for the extraordinary conditions created by the holding of the general election on the same day as the local elections, we would have comfortably held all our seats in both Syon and Isleworth. Good sitting councillors of the caliber of John Connelly, Peter Hills and Linda Nakamura were absolutely annihilated in their respective wards, coming in fourth behind the three major parties, each of them coincidentally taking about 14% of the poll. Even the excellent Andrew Dakers, standing for the Liberal Democrats in Brentford as well as representing his party in the parliamentary contest, was beaten down into third place.

The ICG, by contrast, were still knocking at the door in defiance of the artificial turnout, and of all logic. We came second in both Syon and Isleworth, in the latter failing to hold a seat by just 78 votes. In Isleworth we took over 29% of the vote, in Syon nearly 25% in spite of the unhelpful and pointless intervention of a full slate of Green Party candidates and one from UKIP. Our percentage of the vote in Hounslow South, where we have never held a seat, was roughly equal to those of the defeated independent councillors in Hounslow Heath, Bedfont and Hanworth.

The ICG's Committee will be getting together shortly to assess the situation. I cannot second guess the outcome of that meeting, but the mood is not one of defeat but of acceptance of the freak conditions which fired this eccentric result, coupled with a cool determination to defend everything we have built in our community, to ride the storm if a storm is to be, and to mobilise residents to resist any attempt to dismantle what they have built should such an attempt be forthcoming. Colleagues also however seem to have a genuine desire to give the new regime a chance before jumping to any conclusions and, if needs be, to redeploy the organisation into a supporting role outside of the electoral arena.

Meanwhile it feels odd not being an elected member after twelve years of continued service. I was going to go to the office today to do some constituency work, then realised that I no longer have any constituents nor for that matter an office! I'll get used to it, and four years will pass like it is no time at all.

It has been suggested elsewhere that the ICG "paid the price" for having entered into coalition with the Conservatives. The election results don't support this theory. Neither John Connelly nor Andrew Dakers had ever been in coalition with the Tories, whilst Peter Hills and Linda Nakamura severed their connection some time ago. Yet all of them were defeated more heavily than we were.

Do I have any regrets about the coalition? Well, I don't regret entering into it. Having been elected to office to make a difference I feel we had a duty to place ourselves into a position that enabled us to do that. My one regret is that, once it had become obvious to us that chief officers were prioritising Conservative objectives over ours, we didn't - I didn't - do enough to rectify the situation. Vague promises that our complaints would be "looked into" as they stalled for time (as we knew they were doing) stretched things out until they were effectively timed out and we comforted ourselves with the knowledge that we would deal with it all after the election as a condition of any new coalition agreement. Which would have been fine had we had the opportunity.

Lots of questions will be asked, and answered, over the weeks and months ahead. As long as we remain solid, as we intend to, the long-term future of our community will remain entirely in its own hands.

Trying to live a normal life at an abnormal time

"You can't hide beat," according to the song.

Last night I sat up so long with my laptop doing paperwork stuff for the forthcoming local election that I didn't get around to going to bed. Then at 8.30 it was off to Hounslow Heath to collect my son from his cousin's, where he had been staying over, and a swift drive to Pinner for his last football league match of the season (in the event he was subbed early on as his asthma got the better of him and his side lost 4-1 - I'm not sure whether the two were connected).

Back home, quick sleep to try to recover from last night's data entry marathon, then off to visit several residents in Isleworth and Hounslow South.

In the meantime activists were out and about working in all three of the wards that we are contesting.

This is proving to be an unusual election. The general election being on the same day ensures a higher than usual turnout and yet there is still a great of deal of indifference and uncertainty on the doorsteps. More so, I would say, than is usually the case at this stage during a normal local election campaign.

Labour have been out and about but it all seems a bit half-hearted. They are doing more in Syon than they did last time, but then they did nothing whatsoever last time. In Isleworth they are all over the place, with 15-year-old hoodies knocking on doors and the same streets and the same residents on hostile estates being canvassed twice. Their almost complete rejection on "their" social housing estates seems too much for them to acknowledge, even to themselves, and consequently they are in denial.

At the general election the Lib Dems would appear to be riding on the crest of a wave following their success in the first leaders' televised debate. Whether it will last till polling day or not remains to be seen. In this constituency, certainly, there is plenty of political space for their candidate Andrew Dakers to move into (more observations about Andrew's campaign are to follow).

I envisage a local election turnout of around 45-48% in Isleworth and Syon, and as much as 55% in Hounslow South. It will be interesting to see whether voters' national preferences repeat themselves in their local choices, or whether electors are cute enough to differentiate between the two. My suspicion is that they will be.

Full candidate list for London Borough of Hounslow local elections 2010

No spin, no comment - just the list as it was announced today (sitting councillors in purple):

BEDFONT

BANERJI, Reetendra (Lib Dem)
BEUMER, Alexander (Bedfont Ind Alliance)
BRABY, Patricia (Lib Dem)
BRUCE, Thomas (Labour)
GOODWIN, Margaret (Bedfont Ind Alliance)
GUPTA, Saghin (Labour)
HILLS, Peter (Bedfont Ind Alliance)
JHOOTI, Rajinder (Lib Dem)
MAMMATT, Liz (Conservative)
MEIER, Richard (BNP)
MORGAN, Norcliffe (Labour)
PRUDEN, Bernard (Conservative)
SANCHEZ, Rodrigo (Conservative)

BRENTFORD

BLEAKLEY, Tracey (Conservative)
BOURKE, Joseph (Lib Dem)
CADBURY, Ruth (Labour)
COLLINS, Mel (Labour)
DAKERS, Andrew (Lib Dem)
DYKES, Nicola (Conservative)
FIRKINS, John (Green)
FORD, Colin (Conservative)
HARMER, Matt (Labour)
NAQVI, Mona (Lib Dem)

CHISWICK HOMEFIELDS

BLEACH, Martin (Green)
GLENNERSTER, Ann (Labour)
HOPPER, David (Labour)
McGREGOR, Gerald (Conservative)
OULDS, Robert (Conservative)
PILLAI, Evangeline (Christian People's Alliance)
SOLEY, Anita (Labour)
THOMAS, Julie (Lib Dem)
TODD, John (Conservative)

CHISWICK RIVERSIDE

ATKINSON, Judy (Labour)
BALLENTYNE, Phyllis (Lib Dem)
BARWOOD, Felicity (Conservative)
GOLDSMITH, Daniel (Green)
HEARN, Sam (Conservative)
LYNCH, Paul (Conservative)
O'BRADY, Niamh (Labour)
YATES, Valerie (Labour)

CRANFORD

BOWDREY, Leslie (Conservative)
BUTT, Iqbal (Conservative)
CHATT, John (Labour)
DHILLON, Poonam (Labour)
EMMAMBOKUS, Shafick (Conservative)
GILL, Sarb (Beavers Cranford Party)
KAD, Parmod (Beavers Cranford Party)
MARAS, Sukhdev (Beavers Cranford Party)
SANGHA, Sohan (Labour)
VANSTONE, Lisa (BNP)

FELTHAM NORTH

BOWEN, Mark (Conservative)
DHALIWAL, Sukhbir (Labour)*
DUDEE, Dharmpal (Labour)
EDWARDS, Douglas (Lib Dem)
HUTCHISON, Gillian (Conservative)
TOMKINS, Jean (BNP)
WILSON, Allan (Conservative)
YATES, Syd (Labour)

* Sukhbir Dhaliwal currently represents Heston West

FELTHAM WEST

BENNETT, Joan (Lib Dem)
BOTTERILL, Colin (Conservative)
COOPER, John (Labour)
HARRIS, Barbara (Conservative)
KHAN, Koisor (Conservative)
MITCHELL, Alan (Labour)
SCARLETT, Sarah (Labour)
TAYLOR, James (BNP)

HANWORTH

BARBER, Alan (Labour)
DARAZ, Ann (Conservative)
DARAZ, Michael (Conservative)
HUGHES, David (Labour)
MACINTOSH, Ian (Hanworth Ind Alliance)
MALHOTRA, Mukesh (Labour)
MORGAN-WATTS, Andrew (Conservative)
NAKAMURA, Linda (Hanworth Ind Alliance)
NELHAMS, Christopher (Hanworth Ind Alliance)
SMITH, Robert (Lib Dem)
TAYLOR, Maureen (BNP)
WILLIAMS, Roger (Ind)

HANWORTH PARK

BAYLEY, Adrian (Labour)
BUTLER, Katie (BNP)
CHAUDRI, Abid (Labour)
JABBAL, Paul (Conservative)
MARTIN, Simon (Lib Dem)
SRA, Anant (Labour)
STEWART, Rebecca (Conservative)
WILLIAMS, Beverley (Conservative)

HESTON CENTRAL

DHILLON, Amarjit (Conservative)
DHILLON, Gopal (Labour)
GILL, Mohinder (Labour)
LAKHANPAUL, Bhupindar (Conservative)
MALIK, Karamat (Conservative)
TRIPATHI, Vedhardhan (Ind)
VAUGHT, Peta (Labour)

HESTON EAST

BHATTI, Mohammad (Ind)*
DHIRI, Meenu (Conservative)
KAUR, Kamaljit (Labour)
KENTON, Michael (Conservative)
LAL, Gurmail (Labour)
MANN, Amritpal (Labour)
MARBROW, Nicholas (Ind)*
STEFANO-POULOS, Athanass (Conservative)
RUSHWORTH, Ian (Green)

* Mohammed Bhatti and Nicholas Marbrow are fighting on the same ticket

HESTON WEST

ATHWAL, Gubachan (Conservative)
BATH, Raj (Labour)
BRABY, Bernard (Lib Dem)
BUTT, Mohammad (Lib Dem)
ELLIOTT, Alan (Lib Dem)
GREWAL, Sukhjit (Conservative)
HUGHES, Elizabeth (Labour)
MATTU, Ragveer (Conservative)
RAJAWAT, Shantanu (Labour)

HOUNSLOW CENTRAL

ALI, Syed (Lib Dems)
BATH, Lily (Labour)
DILLON, Prianka (Conservative)
TARIQ, Mohammad (Conservative)
GREWAL, Ajmer (Labour)*
GREWAL, Pritam (Labour)
HOLMES, Toby (Green)
QUICK, Christine (Conservative)

* Ajmer Grewal currently represents Hounslow West

HOUNSLOW HEATH

BILLENNESS, Sally (Lib Dem)
CHEEMA, Dalbir (Ind)
CONNELLY, John (Hounslow Ind Alliance)
DHALIWAL, Surjit (Hounslow Ind Alliance)
ELLAR, Colin (Labour)
GILL, Pendhar (Conservative)
GODFREY, Ranjiv (Conservative)
GREWAL, Dharshan (Labour)
KATHURIA, Sneh (Conservative)
SINGH, Mohinder (Hounslow Ind Alliance)
SMART, Corinna (Labour)

HOUNSLOW SOUTH

DAVIES, Linda (Conservative)
DORAN, Tricia (ICG)
EVANS, Nicola (Green)
FISHER, Brad (Conservative)
FISHER, Pam (Conservative)
KHAN, Cheryl-Ann (ICG)
MALIK, Zara (Labour)
MURPHY, Martin (ICG)
WETZEL, Dave (Labour)
WHATLEY, Bob (Labour)

HOUNSLOW WEST

AGRAWAL, Vikas (Ind)
DHILLON, Ajmer (Labour)
DHIRI, Lata (Conservative)
MAJID, Abdul (Conservative)
MORSON, Winston (Green)
PASHA, Noor (Lib Dem)
SHARMA, Jagdish (Labour)
SOND, Balvir (Labour)
VINEY, Anthony (Conservative)

ISLEWORTH

ANDREWS, Phil (ICG)
BAINS, Mindu (Labour)
BINNS, Andrew (Conservative)
FERRIS, John (Green)
FISHER, Paul (ICG)
MAYNE, Ed (Labour)
SAMPSON, Sue (Labour)
SIBLEY, Andy (ICG)
STOKER, Jennifer (Conservative)
VOUGIOUKAS, Jane (Conservative)

OSTERLEY & SPRING GROVE

ATWAL, Harleen (Labour)
BEATON, Tom (Green)
CAREY, Peter (Conservative)
CHOUDHRY, Virender (Labour)
JAMES, John (Lib Dem)
MALIK, Nisar (Labour)*
O'REILLY, Sheila (Conservative)
REID, Barbara (Conservative)

* Nisar Malik currently represents Hounslow Central

SYON

ANDREWS, Caroline (ICG)
BRADLEY, John (Green)
CURRAN, Steve (Labour)
DENNISON, Theo (Labour)
ELLAR, Jason (Labour)
FISHER, Shirley (ICG)
HARDY, Jon (ICG)
HARGREAVES, Jason (UKIP)
HUNT, John (Green)
POOLEY, Brenda (Conservative)
SCOTT, Diane (Green)
STANNILAND, Helen (Conservative)
THOMAS, Victoria (Conservative)

TURNHAM GREEN

AGIUS, Anthony (Green)
DAVIES, Samantha (Conservative)
LEE, Adrian (Conservative)
MANN, Ian (Lib Dem)
MAYORCAS, Jack (Labour)
McLOUGHLIN, David (Labour)
NATHAN, Peter (Labour)
THOMPSON, Peter (Conservative)

If only every canvass was like this morning's

With the local elections creeping up on us all I ventured out in my ward this morning to knock on some doors and canvass some of my constituents. I won't say quite where, as my opponents read this blog (they claim not to whilst complaining publicly about some of the things I write!), but I will say that in percentage terms it was probably the most successful canvass I have ever undertaken. Indeed it was nothing short of breathtaking.

I'm not so deluded as to think this morning's results were typical - if they were it would already be game over. But it really is inspiring when one's hard work and achievements, and those of one's colleagues, are recognised and rewarded with such positivity and enthusiasm.

On honest campaigning and muesli

I don't, to my knowledge, suffer from dementia nor any other such debilitating condition that might seriously affect my judgement.

It came as a bit of a shock therefore to have discovered this evening that over the past few days I have been eating with cold milk several large helpings of "muesli", complaining quietly to myself about the quality of the product that Caroline had purchased from Tesco, only to realise tonight upon reading the wording on the near-empty packet that it was actually porridge. I promise I am not making this up.

In the absence of any serious medical ailment to explain away my error I can only put it down to the stresses of everyday life. Those stresses will be the same as those that affect most ordinary people - parenthood, making an income - with the added pressure of having to help to organise a local election campaign. Despite the fact that this time around we have a much stronger team than ever before including some extremely talented and dedicated individuals, many of whom now have four years more experience than they did last time we ventured forth, the hosepipe principle in which the more people we have available to do the work the more work there is to do would appear to apply.

Over the past week or so it would appear that some of our opponents have joined the battle. We always knew they would and we are resigned to having them around for a few weeks until polling day arrives, whereupon they will in all likelihood return whence they came into hibernation for another three years and ten months until the next round of hustings arrives.

In Hounslow South New Labour has been distributing a glossy leaflet announcing the candidacy (in so many words) of veteran party activist and former council leader Dave Wetzel, alongside local stalwart Bob Whatley and a young lady with whom the ICG is not familiar. In Isleworth, residents of a small section of the Worton estate have had to make do with a rather grotty card introducing residents to Sue "Pyro" Sampson, Ed Mayne of Chiswick (who surprised the Poppy Organiser from the Isleworth Royal British Legion when ordering a wreath at last year's Remembrance Day Parade by informing him that he was an Isleworth councillor when, being my own father, said Poppy Organiser knew full well he wasn't), and another new face. The previous week Sue had been out and about on the periphery of the Worple estate delivering her message, whatever that may be.

The promises made by New Labour in both glossy and grotty cannot be accused of lacking ambition. Apparently they are going to put 100 new uniformed police officers onto the streets of Hounslow (which is even more impressive when one considers that employing police officers is not even within the remit of the local authority) and cut Council Tax!

In reality of course this is just another example of the dishonesty for which New Labour in Hounslow have become renowned, and of the contempt in which they hold "ordinary" voters and the lack of respect that they have for their intelligence, which in turn explains their almost obsessive aversion to allowing "ordinary" people to participate in the running of residents' associations and community groups.

It also demonstrates their preparedness even at this early stage to renege immediately upon their promises if they were to be elected, bearing in mind that this particular pledge is one that they will know full well cannot be delivered.

During their previous local election campaign, in 2006, they had claimed in their leaflets to have put an end to the Mogden Pong and to have made the 267s the run on time.

Maybe it is the knowledge that I am resigned to having to spend almost the next two months of my life engaged in a battle of sorts with such dishonest, low-grade individuals to ensure that residents are equipped with the information they need to see through them that has brought about such stress as to render me temporarily incapable of differentiating between muesli and porridge?

But New Labour would consider the above paragraph to be a compliment in every aspect, so if it's all the same to readers of this blog I am going to put it down to old age.

Eight get cold in Isleworth

There were only eight of us at the ICG Social Drink in the Isleworth Working Men's Club yesterday, but my theory about that is that several of the regular attendees got wind of the fact that the heating had failed and everybody was sitting there in their jumpers and coats, shivering.

Some interesting conversations were engaged in about religion, Marxism, Council Tax and Electronic Data Management Systems, amongst other things. Oh, and elections. It's amazing how rapidly they creep up.

I was taking a look at the results from 2006 today, not just in the wards we are involved in but around the borough. It's difficult to know how the likelihood of a general election on the same day will skew things.

Interesting times.

Preparing to welcome the new kids

This morning I went along to the Civic Centre to an informative event that was being laid on for the benefit of aspirant candidates for the forthcoming local elections.

A good crowd was there to learn about life as a councillor, as the well as the mechanics of standing for election. A crafty look at the attendance sheet, which curiously asked all those present to declare which party they hoped to stand for, revealed that there were a fair few potential independents in the field, and not only those associated with the ICG.

Some interesting presentations were given by the Leader of the Council, the Chief Executive, Councillor Matt Harmer and the Elections Officer, as well as a virtuoso performance by Thomas Ribbits, the Head of Democratic Services, who revealed a flair for public speaking of such a magnitude that it made the business of council committee structures and process sound interesting.

As I sat at the back and looked at those gathered I had an uneasy sensation of deja vu, and for a moment I was back at school sizing up the new first years and trying to work out whose tie I should twist first. I jest a little, but the realisation for the first time that I had become one of the "old boys" was more than a little scary.

Nobody knows what will happen on the fateful day in May, especially amid the chaos that is likely to be the general election on the same day. But on the balance of probabilities I met some of the next intake today, and at least they know now how to fill out a nomination form.

Happy New Year 2010

It wasn't my intention to go all Gordon Brown on the relatively small but loyal readership of this blog, but the temptation to deliver a New Year's message of sorts, especially to my own colleagues in the Independent Community Group and to other like-minded individuals, turned out to be too much.

Last night four of Hounslow's six community councillors and several other ICG members saw in the New Year at a party at Isleworth's Royal British Legion. There were about 150 people there and a really fun time was had by all. There was a lot of dancing, a lot of socialising and, when the clock struck twelve, a lot of sincere affection being exchanged all around.

Although "politics", thankfully, formed no part of the occasion I was struck once again by the real spirit of togetherness that exists these days in our community. There was, for me, an unspoken sense of purpose about the whole gathering. As always we activists were all made to feel extremely welcome by everybody there and there was for us a very tangible feeling of belonging, and of generally being at the centre of the whole experience.

Now, as the music fades and the drinks wear off, the realisation kicks in that we have now arrived at 2010, or it with us, and May 6th is standing there before us like a wall as we hurtle relentlessly towards it.

As I indicated on this blog almost a year ago the outcome of that contest is probably less clear to us than others had been on previous occasions. In 1998, 2002, 2006 the dynamic was simple - win as many seats as we can, and wait for New Labour's consistently diminishing majority to slump into deficit. Then - hopefully - coalition.

This time there are a number of possible scenarios to consider. The unlikely, but technically possible, return of an overall New Labour majority. Or, the emergence of an overall Conservative majority. In a sense both these scenarios are easy ones for us in that, other than winning the wards we contest, there is really little we can do to prevent either. Any overall majority means that we are out of office.

In Labour's case it will almost inevitably mean a return to the bad old ways as, other than for the party's probably reluctant support for our Community Empowerment motion in July 2009, there is little to suggest that the essential mindset has changed. In the case of an all-out Conservative majority I would guess we would have an administration which single-mindedly prioritised low tax, with a structure fairly much like the one we have today with the possible exception of some budget-driven reductions in personnel.

I hope I don't need to spell out, therefore, why it necessary for voters throughout Hounslow to think more cleverly and more strategically than ever before. The great irony of the current administration is that it has been stronger, and more purposeful, than previous ones in spite of the fact that it has been managed by a minority coalition. Every councillor's vote is at times important and on occasions Groups of three or even two have had a recognisable role to play in shaping events.

In May 2006 the ICG emerged as part of the coalition that assumed office in Hounslow. I still believe that to have been the correct decision for us to take. Having campaigned in our localities for change it would have been a shameful betrayal of our constituents, when offered an opportunity to help make that change, not to have done whatever we could to bring it about.

When we entered into coalition we formed a partnership with an organisation which was vastly bigger than ours, even locally in a borough-wide sense and which, although the individuals involved were new to running a local authority as we were, could call upon the vast reservoir of knowledge and expertise that existed within its own organisation in the persons of those that had been there before.

When one bears that in mind we did not play our negotiating hand too badly. We achieved political if not organisational buy-in for our Empowerment agenda. The changes we introduced in the once heavily politicised arena of our Housing operation received the total backing of our partners. We were even able to secure support for a limited programme of New Build. We have had a more or less free hand to implement a powerful community-driven agenda in the wards we represent, and where there has been resistance our numerical superiority on the local Area Committee has seen it off.

Where in my role as Leader I may have let people down is by not tying the coalition down to timescales. There has without any question been a twin-track approach to the respective programmes of the two coalition partners with the low-tax, cost-cutting agenda racing full-throttle from day one and the empowering agenda being sometimes humoured, sometimes frustrated - but always operating in first gear. Some will call me naive, but I honestly do not believe that our coalition partners were actively complicit in this. I am of the firm view that the goodwill was there, and that it was by a sin of omission rather than commission that the corporate council was allowed - at first furtively but now very blatantly - to resist the culture change that we had been mandated by our electors to make.

Our own hope is obviously that, once the votes have been counted, we will once again be in a position in which the coalition option will be available to us. Whether or not other Groups will be prepared to go into coalition with us is of course a question that only they can answer, but a successful coalition can only ever be built upon mutual respect and respect is only ever given to those who stand up for themselves and politely but firmly defend their corner.

There have been some unhelpful mumblings about this or that Group being prepared to enter into coalition with some community councillors (whom for whatever reason they deem to be malleable) but not with their colleagues. Talks with any Group which attempts this stunt will terminate very abruptly indeed.

But we ought not to get ahead of ourselves. Before we even consider what our role may be after May there are elections to be fought. We don't fear any of our opponents but neither must we take them or, more importantly, the voters for granted. We need to fight if we are to win.

From what I saw at the election meeting in Isleworth a couple of weeks back there need be no worries about our appetite for the fight, nor about our ability to win it. We are considerably bigger, stronger and more sophisticated than we were when we won six seats in 2006 and the political climate is more favourable to us. But we still have to do the work and there must be no slacking.

Happy New Year.

SORTED!

"BNP will not be back!" says pub landlord

The landlord of an Isleworth pub which unwittingly played host to a meeting of the far-right British National Party (BNP) on Wednesday evening will not be re-admitting his unwanted guests after the ICG exposed their true identity.

The "Hounslow" BNP (in reality a motley collection of activists from all across West London and beyond) had used the venue to discuss plans for its forthcoming general election campaign in the Feltham & Heston constituency, as well as its proposed participation in the local elections. Although it aspires to contest all sixty council seats, it currently admits to having only four volunteers, at least one of whom is believed to live in Brentford.

ICG councillors have worked hard to promote unity and cohesion in their wards and believe the BNP strategy was to destabilise these communities and to divide residents on the basis of their ethnicity. The landlord of the pub, which has a multi-cultural clientele, was grateful for our intervention.

Our work against the BNP is actively supported by council colleagues from all the major political groups and we would like to acknowledge and thank them for their help in achieving this result.

ICG raises the game on Community Engagement

A lot has been happening politically in the ten days or so since I last blogged, but probably nothing so significant as the Report carried through Executive by Councillor Paul Fisher on Tuesday which put the meat on the bones of the successful Motion on Community Empowerment put to Borough Council by the Community Group back in July.

The Report introduced the findings of the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) who had been commissioned towards the end of 2008 to look into Hounslow's general approach to the subject of Community Engagement. Engagement is, of course, one of those all-embracing buzz words that is used by councils of all political complexions but actually understood in its proper sense by few. To many it is an unnecessary and unwelcome distraction in which boxes have to be ticked before a piece of work can be done. What it actually is in its true sense however is a recognition that as members and officers our role is to offer the services to local people that they actually require from us.

Not wishing to cramp Paul's style I watched the meeting at home on the webcast and was amused by the tempered protests of one Executive member who complained that the Report had undertones of New Labour. Those of us who came together in an Isleworth pub in 1994 and who have been fighting ever since for our community to be elevated to its rightful place in the collective mindset of the local authority machine would not associate this project with New Labour, of all people, in a million years. Empowerment is about taking elitism and control-freakery out of our local politics.

There is a discussion still to be had about the developing role of Area Committees, which was lifted from the Report as it was felt it was a subject deserving of a separate discussion in its own right, however with this Report having been given the nod the dynamic is clearly for more local democracy, not less.

Paul's excellent Report was just the lastest manifestation of the Community Group's determination to have all the most significant aspects of its political programme incorporated into the process before the May 2010 local elections. Its passing was a massive development in the relentless onward march towards a people-focused council in Hounslow.

Getting ready for the big one

A dozen activists attended the ICG's first Elections Strategy sub-Committee meeting of the current campaign last night and it is clear that there is a real determination around the organisation to build on the successes of 2006.

Members agreed unanimously that the ICG should be involved again in the local elections of 2010. Whilst the increasing commitment of the main political parties to the Community Empowerment agenda introduced into our local politics by the ICG was noted, it was feared that any administration in which we were not involved would be sidetracked by other priorities and would therefore not be ruthless enough in driving the new culture through.

We in the Community Group believe there is every likelihood that the 2010 local elections will leave Hounslow once again in a state of No Overall Control. We intend to position ourselves so that we might take advantage of that situation to the benefit of our local residents.

The show is on the road

On Friday evening several ICG members met at the Coach & Horses on London Road in what was the first of our regular organised social evenings.

In the past the "ICG roadshow" has sprung into operation six or seven weeks before an election. This time we have begun fourteen months before we go to the polls.

The purpose of the event is simply for active ICG members to talk, socialise, swap ideas and discuss recent activities. Traditionally some of our best strategies have emerged from these gatherings.

Our next such gathering will take place on Friday, 3rd April at a venue to be announced. If you are an ICG member or supporter and you'd like to come along, please get in touch with us at icg@communitygroup.org.uk.