Reproduced from his blog with acknowledgements to Councillor Andrew Dakers.
Just before Christmas the battle for a fair deal for residents over Mogden entered its latest phase as three Abatement notices were finally issued. This was a key milestone in the battle for better treatment of local residents by Thames Water. MRAG and Cllr Jon Hardy are to be congratulated in their persistence. It was good to see Jon get the recognition he deserves in the Hounslow & Brentford Times as Thames Water, unsurprisingly announce they will be appealing against the Abatement notices. In my view the Leader of the Council was unduly credited for Jon's work in the local media before Christmas.
Along with my colleague Vince Cable MP I have argued that alongside the expansion of the plant approved last year it is essential the six storm water tanks are covered.
For residents that witnessed the Mogden expansion S106 agreement coming back to the Sustainable Development Committee it would have been a depressing experience. Some days after the meeting I am pleased to say that one of the concerns that Cllr Hardy and I pressed on was addressed with the agreement text being revised to read: "......which will be undertaken by an external INDEPENDENT specialist consultancy TO BE JOINTLY AGREED BETWEEN THAMES WATER AND THE LONDON BOROUGH OF HOUNSLOW."
This revised text seems like a good step forward. In implementing this clause though it is vital is that the procurement process is open and transparent and that a cross section of local councillors are involved. I wonder how quickly the Terms of Reference will be drafted?
Cllr Hardy is rightly - at times against the odds - trying to get the different stakeholders to work together to control the blight that is the Mogden stench. It is tough, but thank goodness someone with his tenacity is ensuring residents concerns are heard within the council.
Showing posts with label Hounslow and Brentford Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hounslow and Brentford Times. Show all posts
Monday, 8 February 2010
Monday, 31 August 2009
ICG in the news for all the right reasons
The most gratifying thing about being involved with the ICG is that while our opponents whinge about our success and bitch about things which may or may not have happened twenty or thirty years ago, we just get on with it, and get down to doing the things that really change peoples lives for the better.
As Lead Member for Housing Jon Hardy has barely been out of the news over the past few weeks. The New Build at Convent Way is progressing, with badly needed new homes for our tenants. Also on Jon's watch £1.3m of funding has been allocated to completely eradicate the shortfall in the Aids and Adaptations budget.
Syon councillor Shirley Fisher took pride of place in an excellent report in the Hounslow & Brentford Times featuring our very well-supported public consultation on how funding for St. John's Gardens should be spent. The community around St. John's is very well-organised and resourceful, and has been a great source of strength to us as set about developing a community-driven ethos throughout the two wards which are under our jurisdiction.
Meanwhile her husband, Isleworth councillor Paul Fisher paid a visit to Hounslow Toy Library in his capacity as Chair of the Community Investment Advisory Panel to deliver them a cheque for £14,500 (see above), which is additional to the £10,000 which they receive on an annual basis. Paul commented: "I was kindly invited by Mrs. Matthews to see what they do and how they struggle each year to make ends meet. I was when I visited instantly struck by the love, care and total devotion shown by those to the disabled children in Hounslow and their parents who use this facility that I immediately made enquiries in how I could further fund them."
Saturday, 21 June 2008
Unused contribution to the big expenses debate
The Hounslow and Brentford Times couldn't find space for my latest letter to the Editor this week, which is a tad irritating considering the title of the newspaper implies that its areas of operation are Hounslow and Brentford, and the letters' pages were filled with contributions from Twickenham, Barnes and Kingston and for the most part on subjects which are of no relevance whatsoever to people in our borough.
Having only managed to have half a letter published from my last two attempts I am inclined to give it up as a bad job, for a while at least, rather than spending valuable time composing 300-word missives in the faint hope that news of a hedgehog being run over in Sheen doesn't knock it out of the headlines.
Anyway, for the benefit of those who are following the progress of Mr. & Mrs. Expenses I reproduce my rejected letter below:
"Dear Editor
"Whilst I am naturally pleased that the Phil Andrews Predict-athon seems to be working to its full potential, it might reasonably be argued that I enjoyed an unfair advantage over Robin Taylor and Vanessa Smith ('Allowances can be made for Keens but not rivals' - Times, 13th June 2008) in that they had not seen the full text of the letter to which they were replying, due to it having been edited.
"The letter in full can be viewed on my blog, which is at http://philandrews.blogspot.com.
"In that letter I predicted that there would be a flurry of responses protesting that the Keens had not actually broken any rules by claiming their current level of allowances, with the implied suggestion that if a perk is there to be had then they are entitled to grab it with both hands.
"I also predicted that some effort would be made to muddy the waters by drawing a silly comparison between the Keens' claims and councillors' allowances (which as a reader of the ICG website Mr. Taylor will be aware that I didn't vote for, even though he pretends that I did).
"Whilst I would like to believe that the accuracy of my prophesies demonstrates extraordinary powers on my part, in truth all they really demonstrate is the dull repetitiveness of the Ann and Alan spin machine.
"However I have to report that the machine developed a fault last week when another local newspaper published a letter, ostensibly from a named 'ordinary resident' of Brentford, making just the same arguments in defence of Mrs. Keen's conduct.
"What readers of that paper may not have known is that the exact same letter, absolutely word for word, had been published two weeks previously in your own newspaper - under the name of a completely different person, in this case the former Isleworth New Labour candidate Sue Sampson!
"I am advised that the use of activists and apologists to provide false grassroots feedback is known as 'astroturfing'.
"How appropriate is it that a discredited synthetic football pitch should lend its name to the underhand practices of such a thoroughly discredited and synthetic MP as the one who purports to represent the people of Brentford & Isleworth?
"Councillor Phil Andrews -
Community, Isleworth ward."
Having only managed to have half a letter published from my last two attempts I am inclined to give it up as a bad job, for a while at least, rather than spending valuable time composing 300-word missives in the faint hope that news of a hedgehog being run over in Sheen doesn't knock it out of the headlines.
Anyway, for the benefit of those who are following the progress of Mr. & Mrs. Expenses I reproduce my rejected letter below:
"Dear Editor
"Whilst I am naturally pleased that the Phil Andrews Predict-athon seems to be working to its full potential, it might reasonably be argued that I enjoyed an unfair advantage over Robin Taylor and Vanessa Smith ('Allowances can be made for Keens but not rivals' - Times, 13th June 2008) in that they had not seen the full text of the letter to which they were replying, due to it having been edited.
"The letter in full can be viewed on my blog, which is at http://philandrews.blogspot.com.
"In that letter I predicted that there would be a flurry of responses protesting that the Keens had not actually broken any rules by claiming their current level of allowances, with the implied suggestion that if a perk is there to be had then they are entitled to grab it with both hands.
"I also predicted that some effort would be made to muddy the waters by drawing a silly comparison between the Keens' claims and councillors' allowances (which as a reader of the ICG website Mr. Taylor will be aware that I didn't vote for, even though he pretends that I did).
"Whilst I would like to believe that the accuracy of my prophesies demonstrates extraordinary powers on my part, in truth all they really demonstrate is the dull repetitiveness of the Ann and Alan spin machine.
"However I have to report that the machine developed a fault last week when another local newspaper published a letter, ostensibly from a named 'ordinary resident' of Brentford, making just the same arguments in defence of Mrs. Keen's conduct.
"What readers of that paper may not have known is that the exact same letter, absolutely word for word, had been published two weeks previously in your own newspaper - under the name of a completely different person, in this case the former Isleworth New Labour candidate Sue Sampson!
"I am advised that the use of activists and apologists to provide false grassroots feedback is known as 'astroturfing'.
"How appropriate is it that a discredited synthetic football pitch should lend its name to the underhand practices of such a thoroughly discredited and synthetic MP as the one who purports to represent the people of Brentford & Isleworth?
"Councillor Phil Andrews -
Community, Isleworth ward."
Saturday, 14 June 2008
A shortt letter from Ann Keen MP?
An interesting letter in the Hounslow Chronicle from one Gloria Shortt of Brentford caught my eye on Thursday. It read as follows:
"I write to you in regard to several newspaper articles published in the national press recently.
"These stories are about our MP, Ann Keen's, expenses. At first glance the stories appear to be saying that Ann Keen has been cheating, and claiming things which are not entitled to her.
"However, if you read the entire article and dig around you can finally see that she has broken no rules and has done nothing wrong.
"I see it as shameful that an MP's good name can be dragged through the mud when they have actually broken no rules.
"I know for a fact that her office deals with a huge amount of casework throughout the entire year and I can't imagine an MP being able to work harder for her constituents.
"Gloria Shortt
Ealing Road
Brentford."
This letter had a familiar ring to it, so I dug out a copy of the Hounslow & Brentford Times from May 30th, which included the following letter from Sue Sampson, herself an active Labour Party member from Isleworth:
"I write to you in regard to several newspaper articles published in the national press recently.
"These stories are about our MP, Ann Keen's, expenses. At first glance the stories appear to be saying that Ann Keen has been cheating, and claiming things which are not entitled to her.
"However, if you read the entire article and dig around you can finally see that she has broken no rules and has done nothing wrong.
"I see it as shameful that an MP's good name can be dragged through the mud when they have actually broken no rules.
"I know for a fact that her office deals with a huge amount of casework throughout the entire year and I can't imagine an MP being able to work harder for her constituents.
"Sue Sampson
Woodstock Avenue
Isleworth."
Apparently the use of activists to provide false grassroots feedback is known as "astroturfing". How appropriate is it that a discredited synthetic football pitch should lend its name to the underhand practices of such a thoroughly discredited and synthetic MP as the one who purports to represent the people of Brentford & Isleworth?
"I write to you in regard to several newspaper articles published in the national press recently.
"These stories are about our MP, Ann Keen's, expenses. At first glance the stories appear to be saying that Ann Keen has been cheating, and claiming things which are not entitled to her.
"However, if you read the entire article and dig around you can finally see that she has broken no rules and has done nothing wrong.
"I see it as shameful that an MP's good name can be dragged through the mud when they have actually broken no rules.
"I know for a fact that her office deals with a huge amount of casework throughout the entire year and I can't imagine an MP being able to work harder for her constituents.
"Gloria Shortt
Ealing Road
Brentford."
This letter had a familiar ring to it, so I dug out a copy of the Hounslow & Brentford Times from May 30th, which included the following letter from Sue Sampson, herself an active Labour Party member from Isleworth:
"I write to you in regard to several newspaper articles published in the national press recently.
"These stories are about our MP, Ann Keen's, expenses. At first glance the stories appear to be saying that Ann Keen has been cheating, and claiming things which are not entitled to her.
"However, if you read the entire article and dig around you can finally see that she has broken no rules and has done nothing wrong.
"I see it as shameful that an MP's good name can be dragged through the mud when they have actually broken no rules.
"I know for a fact that her office deals with a huge amount of casework throughout the entire year and I can't imagine an MP being able to work harder for her constituents.
"Sue Sampson
Woodstock Avenue
Isleworth."
Apparently the use of activists to provide false grassroots feedback is known as "astroturfing". How appropriate is it that a discredited synthetic football pitch should lend its name to the underhand practices of such a thoroughly discredited and synthetic MP as the one who purports to represent the people of Brentford & Isleworth?
Friday, 6 June 2008
Cut down to size?
Returning to the subject of the Hounslow & Brentford Times, today's issue published most of the letter I sent them concerning the obscene expense claims which continue to be made by our borough's two alleged Members of Parliament, the appallingly mercenary Alan and Ann Keen, who have purchased a luxury second home at the expense of the taxpayer which spares them the trauma of having to travel nine miles to work each day from their Brentford residence.
An Osterley correspondent has written to complain about the lack of service which she has allegedly received from Mrs. Keen, whilst somebody from Chiswick defends the pair, arguing that they have done nothing that is against the rules. I have to say the letters which local newspapers receive in the Keens' defence have a remarkably similar tone to them, implying some degree of central co-ordination - a tactic which New Labour frequently uses both with letters to the local newspapers and with postings on internet forums.
Unfortunately the Editor decided to chop my letter down to about 75% of its original size, either because it was too long or because she didn't like the comments which I made about certain members of the Keens' propaganda team (the worryingly obsessive Robin Taylor and P. Haling of Southall, who may or may not be one and the same person), which I feel upsets the flow of the letter somewhat. I reproduce the original in its entirety below:
" Dear Editor
"With reference to your open letter to our Members of Parliament Ann and Alan Keen ('Wish you were here' - Times, 30th May 2008).
"If Mr.and Mrs. Keen are away on holiday then they are entitled to that. I hope they have an enjoyable and a relaxing time away from the undoubtedly demanding pressures of their work.
"When they return, I hope they will furnish you, and us, with the full and frank explanation which we were promised at the election count in 2005 for their seemingly extravagent and cavalier approach to members' expense claims.
"Of course, this is not just about Mr. and Mrs. Keen. In order to serve as our Members of Parliament they need first to be selected by their party to represent them at the polls. At the last time of asking nine out of ten Labour ward parties selected Mrs. Keen to be the Labour candidate at the 2005 general election. Nine out of ten Labour ward parties believe her mercenary approach, and that of her husband, to using their constituents' money to maximum advantage in order to fund an unnecessarily extravagent lifestyle to be perfectly acceptable conduct.
"Beyond this, the Keens would seem to be able to call upon the services of a veritable army of acolytes, apologists and general hangers-on who invariably spring into action whenever a local newspaper has the temerity to call their heroes' deeds into question.
"The first line of defence is always that 'they are not breaking any rules' ('In defence of Ann Keen' - Sue Sampson, 30.5.08). Our MPs are so super that they deserve anything they can get their hands on and the hoi polloi should be grateful that they deign to represent us at all. If it isn't actually against the law to claim it, then they should claim it.
"The second old chestnut is that other Members of Parliament, from other political parties, are making similarly unjustifiable claims and that this in some way mitigates or even justifies their actions. Of course other MPs from across the political divide are indeed exploiting the rules in a similar way, but that is for their own constituents to deal with. The Keens are our constituency MPs.
"Thirdly comes the frankly obscene comparison between the £34k p.a. salary received by the Leader of Hounslow Council and the £16k p.a. paid to members of the Executive, some of whom work full-time for said amount, and the hitherto undisclosed concierge-and-swimming-pool life of luxury enjoyed by our MPs.
"But additional to all this the Keens are uniquely blessed with the unrelenting devotion of the scribe(s) of Southall ('Last of the big spenders' - K. Booth, 30.5.08), whose sole purpose in life would appear to be serve with undying and unquestioning loyalty another borough's two Members of Parliament. Where Hounslow's finest are either not prepared or not trusted to fight the cause of the royal household, the scribe(s) of Southall step nobly into the breach.
"Opinion varies amongst those few of us who bother to give it a second thought as to whether your newspaper's two perennial Southall correspondents are in fact the same person, or whether they somehow synthesise their ideas, weird obsessions and writing styles through some kind of telepathic process. Nevertheless for the purposes of this letter I assume them to be two different people.
"The mission of defending their liege requires the scribes of Southall to engage in all manner of intellectual contortions in order to sustain the unsustainable claim that the Keens are the victims of a policy of non co-operation by the London Borough of Hounslow when history, and - rather inconveniently - all the evidence, reveals the 'victims' to in fact be the instigators of the state of affairs of which they complain.
"Verbatim quotes from letters published in the Times twenty, sometimes thirty years ago are cited in support of their masters' plea of victimhood. One has disturbing visions of yellowing pieces of parchment being painstakingly recovered from within a large cardboard box under a Southall bed, retrieved from behind the Scalectrix set under the watchful gaze of their Donny Osmond poster.
"Armed with such damning information as to what this or that Hounslow Executive member wrote in his/her pre-adolescence, the Timewarp Twins move in to deliver the killer blow.
"All joking aside, the fact that there are those prepared to defend the actions of the Keens does not detract one iota from their essential indefensibility. To hide for three years, avoiding public situations in which questions might be put to them, only then to protest that they had sought disclosure all along adds sheer dishonesty to the charge of profligacy.
"The selection process for the Labour candidacies at the next general election will take place shortly. Those participating would do well to remember that it is not only the ethics of the Keens which is under the microscope here.
Yours sincerely
Councillor Phil Andrews -
Community, Isleworth ward"
An Osterley correspondent has written to complain about the lack of service which she has allegedly received from Mrs. Keen, whilst somebody from Chiswick defends the pair, arguing that they have done nothing that is against the rules. I have to say the letters which local newspapers receive in the Keens' defence have a remarkably similar tone to them, implying some degree of central co-ordination - a tactic which New Labour frequently uses both with letters to the local newspapers and with postings on internet forums.
Unfortunately the Editor decided to chop my letter down to about 75% of its original size, either because it was too long or because she didn't like the comments which I made about certain members of the Keens' propaganda team (the worryingly obsessive Robin Taylor and P. Haling of Southall, who may or may not be one and the same person), which I feel upsets the flow of the letter somewhat. I reproduce the original in its entirety below:
" Dear Editor
"With reference to your open letter to our Members of Parliament Ann and Alan Keen ('Wish you were here' - Times, 30th May 2008).
"If Mr.and Mrs. Keen are away on holiday then they are entitled to that. I hope they have an enjoyable and a relaxing time away from the undoubtedly demanding pressures of their work.
"When they return, I hope they will furnish you, and us, with the full and frank explanation which we were promised at the election count in 2005 for their seemingly extravagent and cavalier approach to members' expense claims.
"Of course, this is not just about Mr. and Mrs. Keen. In order to serve as our Members of Parliament they need first to be selected by their party to represent them at the polls. At the last time of asking nine out of ten Labour ward parties selected Mrs. Keen to be the Labour candidate at the 2005 general election. Nine out of ten Labour ward parties believe her mercenary approach, and that of her husband, to using their constituents' money to maximum advantage in order to fund an unnecessarily extravagent lifestyle to be perfectly acceptable conduct.
"Beyond this, the Keens would seem to be able to call upon the services of a veritable army of acolytes, apologists and general hangers-on who invariably spring into action whenever a local newspaper has the temerity to call their heroes' deeds into question.
"The first line of defence is always that 'they are not breaking any rules' ('In defence of Ann Keen' - Sue Sampson, 30.5.08). Our MPs are so super that they deserve anything they can get their hands on and the hoi polloi should be grateful that they deign to represent us at all. If it isn't actually against the law to claim it, then they should claim it.
"The second old chestnut is that other Members of Parliament, from other political parties, are making similarly unjustifiable claims and that this in some way mitigates or even justifies their actions. Of course other MPs from across the political divide are indeed exploiting the rules in a similar way, but that is for their own constituents to deal with. The Keens are our constituency MPs.
"Thirdly comes the frankly obscene comparison between the £34k p.a. salary received by the Leader of Hounslow Council and the £16k p.a. paid to members of the Executive, some of whom work full-time for said amount, and the hitherto undisclosed concierge-and-swimming-pool life of luxury enjoyed by our MPs.
"But additional to all this the Keens are uniquely blessed with the unrelenting devotion of the scribe(s) of Southall ('Last of the big spenders' - K. Booth, 30.5.08), whose sole purpose in life would appear to be serve with undying and unquestioning loyalty another borough's two Members of Parliament. Where Hounslow's finest are either not prepared or not trusted to fight the cause of the royal household, the scribe(s) of Southall step nobly into the breach.
"Opinion varies amongst those few of us who bother to give it a second thought as to whether your newspaper's two perennial Southall correspondents are in fact the same person, or whether they somehow synthesise their ideas, weird obsessions and writing styles through some kind of telepathic process. Nevertheless for the purposes of this letter I assume them to be two different people.
"The mission of defending their liege requires the scribes of Southall to engage in all manner of intellectual contortions in order to sustain the unsustainable claim that the Keens are the victims of a policy of non co-operation by the London Borough of Hounslow when history, and - rather inconveniently - all the evidence, reveals the 'victims' to in fact be the instigators of the state of affairs of which they complain.
"Verbatim quotes from letters published in the Times twenty, sometimes thirty years ago are cited in support of their masters' plea of victimhood. One has disturbing visions of yellowing pieces of parchment being painstakingly recovered from within a large cardboard box under a Southall bed, retrieved from behind the Scalectrix set under the watchful gaze of their Donny Osmond poster.
"Armed with such damning information as to what this or that Hounslow Executive member wrote in his/her pre-adolescence, the Timewarp Twins move in to deliver the killer blow.
"All joking aside, the fact that there are those prepared to defend the actions of the Keens does not detract one iota from their essential indefensibility. To hide for three years, avoiding public situations in which questions might be put to them, only then to protest that they had sought disclosure all along adds sheer dishonesty to the charge of profligacy.
"The selection process for the Labour candidacies at the next general election will take place shortly. Those participating would do well to remember that it is not only the ethics of the Keens which is under the microscope here.
Yours sincerely
Councillor Phil Andrews -
Community, Isleworth ward"
Thursday, 5 June 2008
On rosebuds and other thorny issues
The letters' page in the local Times, once notoriously suggestive of the view that nothing worth writing about ever happened north of the Thames, has enjoyed something of a renaissance since the newspaper finally succumbed to the logic of the tabloid format.
In opposition I was an avid correspondent, never slow to put digit to keyboard in the cause of exposing some wrongdoing on the part of our local elected representatives. So perhaps it was only to be expected that one of those former elected members, dumped so unceremoniously by the electors of Isleworth in 2002 in favour of three candidates from the community, would find the urge to offer some mealy-mouthed invective in response to Councillor Dr. Genevieve Hibbs' elevation to the role of Mayor too powerful to resist.
The prompt for this thankfully concise outpouring of bile and bitterness ("Gather ye rosebuds!" - Times, 30th May 2008) was the fact that, shortly following her election in 2002, Councillor Hibbs - an Isleworth resident for 22 years - moved a few miles down the road to Hayes in order to be closer to her Church community. Naturally absent was any reference to the fact that in spite of her new residential status Councillor Hibbs has consistently managed, year after year, to attend more council meetings than any of New Labour's Hounslow-based councillors. Also missing, perhaps unsurprisingly, was any suggestion that we might wish to minimise Councillor Hibbs' inconvenience by buying her, at the taxpayer's expense, a second home within easier reach of her place of work - a facility which our hard-working New Labour MPs Alan and Ann Keen (a.k.a. Mr. & Mrs. Expenses) have had no hesitation availing themselves of.
Genevieve thoroughly deserves to be the Mayor of the London Borough of Hounslow. Since the day she was first elected to the council her workrate has been simply astounding. Councillor Andrew Morgan-Watts will, of course, be a very hard act to follow. But Genevieve will not let the people of Hounslow down.
However the meat of the letter consisted not of an attack on Genevieve, but of an insinuation that the decision of the Community Group to enter into coalition with the Conservative Group was motivated by nothing more than a desire to share the trimmings and trappings of office.
Leaving aside for one moment the inconvenient fact that the present coalition was the only option available to us (New Labour having found our sole objective of wanting to empower the community so difficult to bear that the prospect of opposition was considered a more attractive one), is it really the view of our opponents that members of the Community Group are this shallow?
This organisation, which New Labour has gone to such extraordinary lengths to demonise, portraying us in leaflets (of which they have denied, then later admitted authorship) and on the doorsteps (which they now deny and possibly, in at least one case, can't remember) as a band of marauding thugs prepared to beat and burn our way to transforming Isleworth into something resembling the Fourth Reich?
Don't get me wrong, it is insulting indeed to be depicted as somebody who has tricked his way into public office with a view to unveiling a political agenda directly at odds with that which inspired the electorate to place their trust in me. But the suggestion that I would give up fourteen years of my life, and almost certainly a six-figure sum in terms of sacrificed income, just so that a good friend could don a red gown and open jumble sales for a year is bizarre (or should I say bazaar?) beyond comprehension, and gives a much better insight into the kind of things which impress the author of the letter than into what drives me.
But it was the parting shot that was the most interesting of all. A former New Labour councillor salivating joyously - almost deleriously - at the prospect of the Conservatives sweeping the board at the next local elections in 2010 and by implication the Community Group finding itself either back in opposition, or in electoral terms wiped out completely.
Of course neither the author of the letter nor I can predict what will happen two years from now, but if the best that the leadership of the local New Labour Party past and present can hope for is an outright Conservative victory in 2010, in a borough which prior to 2006 they had controlled uninterrupted for 35 years, then that is a party in big trouble.
And let me reassure the good lady scribe that by the time we come to face the electorate again in 2010 - if indeed we do - then a large part of our work will already have been done. The self-serving structures which we pledged to dismantle will be all but gone, not only within the infrastructure of the local authority but also within our community organisations and residents' groups. If we are involved in that election, winning another four years in office will be mere icing on the cake.
Your resentment is entirely justified, my dear, because for you the battle is already lost.
In opposition I was an avid correspondent, never slow to put digit to keyboard in the cause of exposing some wrongdoing on the part of our local elected representatives. So perhaps it was only to be expected that one of those former elected members, dumped so unceremoniously by the electors of Isleworth in 2002 in favour of three candidates from the community, would find the urge to offer some mealy-mouthed invective in response to Councillor Dr. Genevieve Hibbs' elevation to the role of Mayor too powerful to resist.
The prompt for this thankfully concise outpouring of bile and bitterness ("Gather ye rosebuds!" - Times, 30th May 2008) was the fact that, shortly following her election in 2002, Councillor Hibbs - an Isleworth resident for 22 years - moved a few miles down the road to Hayes in order to be closer to her Church community. Naturally absent was any reference to the fact that in spite of her new residential status Councillor Hibbs has consistently managed, year after year, to attend more council meetings than any of New Labour's Hounslow-based councillors. Also missing, perhaps unsurprisingly, was any suggestion that we might wish to minimise Councillor Hibbs' inconvenience by buying her, at the taxpayer's expense, a second home within easier reach of her place of work - a facility which our hard-working New Labour MPs Alan and Ann Keen (a.k.a. Mr. & Mrs. Expenses) have had no hesitation availing themselves of.
Genevieve thoroughly deserves to be the Mayor of the London Borough of Hounslow. Since the day she was first elected to the council her workrate has been simply astounding. Councillor Andrew Morgan-Watts will, of course, be a very hard act to follow. But Genevieve will not let the people of Hounslow down.
However the meat of the letter consisted not of an attack on Genevieve, but of an insinuation that the decision of the Community Group to enter into coalition with the Conservative Group was motivated by nothing more than a desire to share the trimmings and trappings of office.
Leaving aside for one moment the inconvenient fact that the present coalition was the only option available to us (New Labour having found our sole objective of wanting to empower the community so difficult to bear that the prospect of opposition was considered a more attractive one), is it really the view of our opponents that members of the Community Group are this shallow?
This organisation, which New Labour has gone to such extraordinary lengths to demonise, portraying us in leaflets (of which they have denied, then later admitted authorship) and on the doorsteps (which they now deny and possibly, in at least one case, can't remember) as a band of marauding thugs prepared to beat and burn our way to transforming Isleworth into something resembling the Fourth Reich?
Don't get me wrong, it is insulting indeed to be depicted as somebody who has tricked his way into public office with a view to unveiling a political agenda directly at odds with that which inspired the electorate to place their trust in me. But the suggestion that I would give up fourteen years of my life, and almost certainly a six-figure sum in terms of sacrificed income, just so that a good friend could don a red gown and open jumble sales for a year is bizarre (or should I say bazaar?) beyond comprehension, and gives a much better insight into the kind of things which impress the author of the letter than into what drives me.
But it was the parting shot that was the most interesting of all. A former New Labour councillor salivating joyously - almost deleriously - at the prospect of the Conservatives sweeping the board at the next local elections in 2010 and by implication the Community Group finding itself either back in opposition, or in electoral terms wiped out completely.
Of course neither the author of the letter nor I can predict what will happen two years from now, but if the best that the leadership of the local New Labour Party past and present can hope for is an outright Conservative victory in 2010, in a borough which prior to 2006 they had controlled uninterrupted for 35 years, then that is a party in big trouble.
And let me reassure the good lady scribe that by the time we come to face the electorate again in 2010 - if indeed we do - then a large part of our work will already have been done. The self-serving structures which we pledged to dismantle will be all but gone, not only within the infrastructure of the local authority but also within our community organisations and residents' groups. If we are involved in that election, winning another four years in office will be mere icing on the cake.
Your resentment is entirely justified, my dear, because for you the battle is already lost.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)