Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

As a service to our absentee MP and to the New Labour Party in Hounslow, I reproduce below without amendment a posting which appeared on the party's local webpage a couple of days ago. To those who will accuse me of tactical naivete by needlessly giving a plug to our opponents, my response would be that the importance of empowering people in an age of dictatorship by spin cannot be stressed enough:

"Local people will be able to petition the council to take action on issues such as traffic calming, moving dumped cars, or cleaning up fly-tipping under new rights proposed by the Labour Government.

"Local Labour MP Ann Keen has challenged local people to take up the new powers and force action from the council.

"Ann said: ‘Most people Brentford and Isleworth have signed a petition. But soon, petitions will have real bite, and the council will have to sit up and take notice of local people’s concerns. I want people to tell me what they want fixing, and if the council won’t act, we will work together to launch a petition. Petitions will give our communities real clout.’

"Labour’s Communities in Control white paper also suggests that local people should be able to decide how the council spends money, how criminals should be punished as part of their ‘community payback’, how more young people should be involved, and how local groups should own and run assets such as parks and community centres.

"Ann Keen MP will be giving out a new pocket-sized card called What Can I Do? to local groups in coming weeks. The card sets out how people can have their say, get involved, and make changes locally."

I promise I am not making this up, this really is on the Brentford and Isleworth Labour Party's website.

If there is any sincerity at all in this new approach beyond its obvious Hounslow Council-bashing then this new initiative has to be applauded. But taking into account the track record of its authors, I hope I will be forgiven for not getting myself all worked up just now.

Beaten by the Tractor Boys

One casualty of my chosen vocation is that I don't get a lot of time to do many of the things that I once enjoyed, a prime example being attending football matches. However as a Brentford supporter I thought it was about time that I paid Griffin Park a visit so, in the company of my son Joe, I went along last night to see them play Ipswich Town in a friendly.

Sadly they went down 2-0. After Brentford had dominated the first half without managing to capitalise, the Championship side's class began to shine through in the second half and in the final analysis the result was a fair one.

However there was much about Brentford's performance to be enthusiastic about, so let's hope Andy Scott can pull it off and get us back into League One next May.

A necessary excursion

One type of event that an active councillor attends almost as frequently as meetings is funerals.

Yesterday my wife Caroline was a tad perplexed as to why I would drive 140 miles to and from Chichester to attend the funeral of Ted Hitchcock, a man whom I had seen twice, possibly three times, during the last thirty years.

When I was a lad of fourteen I was, as I am today, a regular attendee at Isleworth Congregational Church. As well as services on Sunday mornings, the Church ran a youth club on Monday evenings which was the highlight of my social calendar. During one year in particular - and I remember the year well, it was 1976 - it was the epicentre of everything I lived for. It was where my closest friends went, it was where my gang was based, it was where music was played of a kind (Barry White, Van McCoy, George McCrae) for which I would not under other circumstances have had any enthusiasm but which, because I associate it with that year and with that club, I still cannot listen to without an almost unbearable desire to turn back the clock and walk back into the Church Hall one last time in my four-inch platforms and tartan lumber-jacket (with collar upturned) to see my old mates once again.

Ted was a helper at that club, as was his wife Dorothy and his daughter Jane. He was a Deacon of the Church (as I am today), who gave up his Monday evenings for no personal gain to help ensure that twenty or thirty local youngsters were kept off the streets and on the straight and narrow. But he did more than just help. He took an interest. I can remember holding quite a few deep conversations with him about a range of issues - social, theological, musical. Whether he was humouring me or not I'll never know, but I always felt as though he was treating me as an equal.

In late 1975 some members of the club spent a weekend away on a barge on the Thames at Abingdon. Most of us travelled there by minibus, driven by another helper. Ted arrived a little while later in his estate car. Taking one look around the dormitory-style sleeping quarters he decided very quickly that they brought back too many unhappy memories of his time as a Prisoner Of War, and elected to sleep in his car instead. But he stayed the weekend nevertheless.

As fate would have it and despite the very best efforts of Ted and others to steer me along the correct course in life, I strayed from the path regardless. Unbalanced by the sense of shock which came with the realisation that even the state of spiritual perfection that was 1976, not to mention adolescence itself, had to come to end, I began to develop an unhealthy interest in fascist politics which led ultimately to me joining the National Front, and remaining with it or with splinters thereof until just after my thirtieth birthday. Inevitably, my new enthusiasms ran coterminously with my disengagement from my Church.

Although for two decades I had hankered on many an occasion to walk back into the Church, I felt unworthy. However in 1998, shortly after having been elected as a councillor for the first time, I bit the bullet and attended a service - in part to honour a promise to the late former Secretary Pat Burch, who was also one of my constituents and who during the election campaign had taken out membership of the ICG. I have been involved again with the Church ever since.

By this time Ted and Dorothy had long retired, and had moved down south. However during my ten years of renewed work for the Church I saw them when they returned on a couple of occasions to attend special events.

Ted passed away a few weeks after his ninetieth birthday. Although I had seen him only rarely since achieving adulthood, I wanted to pay my respects to somebody who had been part of what was a very special period of my life.

I also think, subconsciously, that I wanted to give him back some of the time which he gave to me as a member of the youth club.

The world would be a much worse place without all those selfless people who give up their own time for no other reason than to make the lives of those around them better. Ted, and others of his kind, should serve as an example to us all.

Some further thoughts on Community Empowerment

"Community empowerment is about people and government, working together to make life better. It involves more people being able to influence decisions about their communities, and more people taking responsibility for tackling local problems, rather than expecting others to."

The above is the definition of Community Empowerment as given by the Department of Communities and Local Government.

This is not to say that DCLG's definition is necessarily the best one, of course, neither should we accept without question the right of a government department to impose its interpretation upon us all. Nevertheless, as an attempt to put flesh onto the bones of an abstract concept it is a surprisingly good starting point.

Yesterday Councillor Paul Fisher and I attended a one-day conference at London's Cavendish Conference Centre on the theme "Community Ownership of Assets - Creating Strong and Sustainable Communities", which discussed and debated the innovative Quirk Review into asset ownership.

Community Empowerment has, of course, been the core objective of the ICG since the day it was formed. Back then in 1994 the concept was unfashionable, particularly in the context of our own local authority, where organisational Stalinism was to survive Labour's lurch to the right of the political spectrum in policy terms.

It is gratifying to know that our vision has come into vogue even though, other than perhaps in Hounslow, it is unlikely that we as a Group actually contributed in any way towards this new departure.

As I see it there are essentially two schools of thought on the question of Community Empowerment. At the recent Housing Conference in Harrogate I was appalled to hear a speaker delivering himself of the view that all the community aspired to was good services, and that in the event of such being delivered members of the public were happy to sit back and let the political elite get on with the business of making decisions on their behalf. It is a view which I personally would always instinctively associate with New Labour, but in this instance I had been surprised to learn that the speaker was in fact a Liberal Democrat.

That is one school of thought. The other is that which would tend to be associated with the ICG, that holders of political office are morally, if not legally, delegated to act as those who elected them instruct, and that the true source of power lies with the community which put them where they are. Whilst it is necessary for the efficient working of local government for holders of political office to make decisions on a day to day basis, all reasonable efforts should be made to involve the community itself in the decision-making process, in a meaningful as opposed to a tokenistic way, to the greatest extent possible.

Yesterday's conference seemed to flow from the assumption that the second school of thought has it right. Several speakers gave their views as to how this might best be achieved. Most of it was very interesting.

However, one disappointing aspect of the whole debate for me was the fact that every speaker, without exception, seemed to equate Community Empowerment solely with grant funding. The more money which is given to communities and their organisations, so the logic went, the more free and independent they become.

It is undoubtedly true that community initatives do need funding. It would be absurd to argue against this. However it is equally true that funding can actually work against the whole ethos of Community Empowerment. We have seen this in Hounslow, indeed I have seen it in Isleworth - on my own estate - where grant funding is given which the recipient becomes dependent upon, and then the political conditions become evident which, if not fulfilled, lead to the threatened withdrawal of the funding and, if the threat is carried out, the subsequent collapse of the group.

This is not Community Empowerment. This is Community Enslavement.

There is a certain breed of political animal which seems to talk about nothing but grant funding, revenue streams and so on. They seem to speak in a language all of their own. I confess to finding such people tiresome.

Community Empowerment is an ideal, not a commodity which can be purchased. Community Empowerment is about creating irreversable channels through which the community can direct government, local and national.

If, having created those irreversable channels, you then still wish to give us your money, it will seldom be refused.

Well done Carol

I have to confess that I only watch (or rather listen to) Channel 4's Deal or No Deal, presented by Noel Edmonds, when it is on in my living room and I'm facing the opposite way, tapping away at the keyboard of my home PC.

However my ears pricked up yesterday when I heard Mr. Edmonds announce that his contestant was from Isleworth in Middlesex.

Carol Scarrott is one of my constituents, and so I turned to watch the show. I won't go into the details of how it's played, but for those who are interested all the information can be found here on the show's official website.

In the event Carol decided to accept an offer of £16,000 - very often a wise decision but in her case, sadly, she later learned she would have gone on to win £100,000 had she held out.

Obviously it is a game of luck, and she could just of easily have declined the offer and gone away with nothing. That's the way the game goes.

All the same £16k was a good day's work, and I'd like to congratulate Carol and hope she enjoys her winnings.

A pig of a dilemma

Our twin children were only just four years old when we were sitting in our car at Larne, waiting to board the ferry for Cairnryan after a week visiting relatives in Newry, Co. Down.

A cattle truck pulled up beside us, crammed with cows who stared back at us and all the other motorists there, doe-eyed and innocent (the cows, not the motorists).

"Where are they going Mummy?" our daughter Rosina (above left) asked. "What are they going to do with them?"

"They are going to a farm," one of us replied.

"But they make beef from cows," she persisted. "Are they going to kill them?"

We don't believe in being dishonest with our children, so we told her that this was possibly the case. Although, we stressed, they could be milking cows.

Ignoring the latter possibility, Rosie was incredulous. "But can't we do something about it?"

"Like what?" I asked.

"Well let them go, or something. We can't just sit here and let them be taken away and killed, and not do anything. They haven't done anything wrong," she insisted, tears welling up in her eyes.

Some years later, shortly before her tenth birthday, I took Rosie on a shopping trip to Richmond. As we entered W.H. Smith's we passed a lady who was handing out leaflets. Inside the shop Rosie asked me what the lady had been doing. "Handing out leaflets," I replied.

"One of them had a little pig on it," she told me. "Do you mind if we go back and take one when we leave this shop?"

The leaflet was published by Viva!, an international vegetarian organisation, and featured a pig clearly suffering appalling treatment in the process of being prepared for slaughter. The text left nothing to the imagination. Rosie was quite distressed.

Typically, she joined the organisation and began to receive its literature. She declared herself to be a vegetarian, and has never eaten a meat product since. This was surprisingly easy for us to support - most restaurants and supermarkets offer a wide range of vegetarian options.

Before very long the whole family was being dragged along to an exhibition in Central London, where samples of vegetarian food were on offer and literature aplenty was thrust at us. One stall was run by an activist, whose name escapes me, who had been gaoled for animal rights activities. He was selling signed copies of his book in hardback.

Another was manned by a vegan group, and it was here that Rosie was horrified to learn that farm animals reared for dairy produce, even sometimes free-range, suffer all kinds of hardships as a result of the relentless demand for maximised production. It wasn't long before she made the decision to stop eating animal products completely and go vegan.

Now to those many people who tell us (and those who don't) that they think we are irresponsible parents for allowing a girl of Rosie's age to take a life-changing decision of this importance at her time of life, I would simply invite them to spend five minutes speaking - and listening - to Rosie. Having done so they would understand that her commitment to her cause is no passing junior enthusiasm. She is absolutely adamant that her conscience will not permit her to eat animal produce, and it has been our unenviable task to make it work.

Unlike vegetarians, vegans don't have it on a plate (no pun intended). Most restaurants and shops do not indicate whether their products are vegan and even the most innocent items need to be studied - sweets, for instance, will often contain gelatin whilst even vegetarian options such as Quorn more often than not include milk powder or free range egg.

With the assistance of supplements, and thanks to her penchant for calcium-fortified soya milk, Rosie maintains a healthy diet and consumes her required daily intake of protein, calcium, iodine and vitamins B12 and D, but it is always a struggle. As a lifelong carnivore it is an altogether alien experience for me, as well as for Caroline, trying to work out new and interesting recipes from such a limited range of options, although one unexpected by-product has been that we too find ourselves eating less meat.

As for Rosie's stubborn determination to stick to her guns in the face of all comers, one can only speculate as to where she gets that from.

It's a funny old world!

Back in the year 2000 I and the ICG were involved in a massive residents' campaign (above) against one part of a proposal to build houses on Isleworth's Worton Green. The proposed development, which has since gone ahead, involved the destruction of much of the open green space which existed on the estate for the benefit of residents already there and, whilst acknowledging the need for more social housing, this part of the development proposal was considered completely inappropriate. The associated proposals to replace decrepit bungalows in Octavia Road with new family housing, and to provide two new bungalows on the corner of Kennet Road, were supported.

The battle was one of the fiercest that local residents have been involved in for many, many years. As a solitary community councillor serving the old Isleworth South ward alongside two Labour councillors, I was marginalised throughout. The head of what was then Hounslow's housing department, before the advent of Hounslow Homes, was quite openly political and hostile to the ICG. The two Labour ward councillors went to war with their own constituents, subjecting them to verbal abuse through the pages of the local press and colluding in the production of an utterly dishonest residents' survey conducted on the estate which managed to create an impression of about 95% support for the plans, when the reality was about 95% opposition.

The Labour majority on the borough's planning committee approved the plans on the nod after going through the motions of hearing the objections of Isleworth residents. The residents appealed and a Public Inquiry was held, at which the Planning Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State supported the residents, only to be overruled by his own boss who deemed that the development should go ahead.

That particular battle was lost but the residents had the last laugh when, two years later, they savaged the two Labour councillors who had betrayed them at the polls, returning three ICG councillors with a thumping majority, a defeat from which Labour has never recovered in Isleworth, and which acted as a springboard for a similar raid into neighbouring Syon ward four years later and the subsequent removal of the New Labour régime for the first time in 35 years.

I recount all this by way of background to my presentation last night to the Heston & Cranford Area Committee. Six years on from the Battle of Worton, I find myself as Lead Member for Housing in a coalition administration. My brief at the Area Committee meeting was to try to persuade its twelve members, all from the Labour Party, to support my plans to build new social housing units on six sites in Heston.

I am a firm believer in social housing. With more than ten households in need of housing for every one unit available, the funding which has been made available to us to construct hundreds of new units at three sites within the borough should in my view be put to the best possible use.

However, I have never forgotten the lessons which I learned during the Worton campaign. I resolved from a very early stage that local ward councillors and other stakeholders would be kept in the information loop, their opinions asked and their local expertise respected and utilised. I am determined that residents who have worries about aspects of the development should be listened to, and their concerns acted upon. Both I and my officers will be totally honest with all parties at all times. There will be no underhandedness, deceit or chicanery on my watch.

In this particular instance it is the residents of Heston's Brabazon estate who are concerned by proposals which they say would take away valuable amenity space on the estate. I have asked officers to investigate alternatives which might address these fears.

Now I had never expected to be lauded by the councillors of Heston and Cranford. Having, quite correctly in my view given the circumstances, taken away their Area Planning Committee's powers of enforcement, I anticipated that I would be as welcome as the proverbial outbreak of flatulence in an astronaut's suit. As it happens I was pleasantly surprised by the demeanour of most of the members, which was decent and respectful. The Chair gave me ample opportunity to present my case in spite of the heavy agenda, then gave way whenever I ventured to respond to questions put to me by members of the Committee. I was supported by a consistently excellent officer team from the London Borough of Hounslow and Hounslow Homes.

However I was disappointed by the shallow opportunism of some of the objections which I encountered. Councillor Amritpal Mann was effectively opposed to any extension of social housing provision in Heston, suggesting that it should be moved instead to Chiswick, Bedfont or Isleworth (it was necessary for me to point out that Isleworth ward already has the highest percentage of social housing in the borough).

Councillor Elizabeth Hughes stressed the inclusion of a private element within the plans, implying that this was actually the driver for the scheme, either ignoring or unaware of the fact that the private housing element will actually be the enabling development for the social housing provision.

Councillor Raj Bath questioned the reasonableness of imposing a service charge on future residents, seemingly oblivious to the fact that service charges were imposed by Hounslow Homes following a decision of its Board, of which he is a member.

By way of mitigation for their negativity Councillor Gurmail Lal suggested that conditions had been different in 2005, when the then Council Executive of which he and Councillor Mann had been members gave the go-ahead for the development in the first place.

We live in interesting times when a Conservative-led administration launches upon an ambitious programme of social housing development which is then resisted by an Area Committee solely comprised of Labour councillors. I am satisfied that my position on social housing provision has remained consistent throughout. Can certain others honestly say the same?

Goodbye, nothing to say

If they were ever to introduce tolls for our roads I would find myself investing in a season ticket for the M3.

Sticking with our usual policy of little, cheap and often when it comes to our family holidays (being a community councillor is not conducive to disappearing for a fortnight at a time) the Andrews household, accompanied on this occasion by my mother and father, spent the weekend just gone at Landguard Holiday Park in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, returning on Monday evening.

Then, the very next day, it was back down the motorway to Bournemouth for the Local Government Association (LGA) Annual Conference, which is where I am as I write.

In an earlier article I spoke of how Kevin Maguire, the Political Editor of the Daily Mirror, had made an inaccurate statement about me in one of his columns implying that I still held the same views which motivated me as a member of the National Front back in the 1970s and 80s, which as anybody who knows me at all will confirm I do not. In that article I conceded the possibility that Maguire had made an innocent mistake, and in order to enable him to reflect upon the falsity of his words I forwarded the contents of my blog article to him. Needless to say I have not heard a word from him since, neither an apology for misrepresenting me nor even an acknowledgement.

As a consequence Maguire has been admitted to my Deliberate Liars Club, where he takes pride of place alongside fellow journalist and Lying-Scumbag-in-Chief Andrew Gilligan of the London Evening Standard.

Those who read that article will recall my admittedly mischievous suggestion that I might challenge Maguire over his remarks at the LGA Conference, where he was listed as a speaker at a plenary event on the subject of "Homes fit for local people".

Now to be perfectly truthful, I never really did have any intention of raising what is essentially a private matter between myself and Maguire at an open forum. It would have been hugely disrespectful of the other 250-300 people attending the session who had gone along to listen to a debate about housing. Nevertheless I did attend the session, strategically positioning myself in a row of seats all of my own at the top of the meeting where I was likely to stand out before any properly-sighted individual seated at the top table.

As soon as the session began I was disappointed to discover that Sir Bob Kerslake (to whom no offence is intended) was to be the only actual speaker and that Maguire had been relegated to a mere member of the six-person panel behind him. Unlike the other panel members, he didn't even receive a personal introduction from the Chair.

Nevertheless I couldn't resist a bit of fun, so I raised my hand and was eventually given the microphone. Congratulating Sir Bob on his speech and expressing my pleasure at seeing "an old Hounslow boy doing so well for himself" (as Chief Executive at the London Borough of Hounslow in the early 1990s it would be fair to say he was not a particularly strict observer of the statutory requirement for senior officers not to engage in political activity, but these were after all the bad old, pre-ICG days of cronyism run rampant), I introduced myself by name and office in a manner which must have left Maguire in no doubt as to who I was. Then, after asking an innocuous question (which, in the event, only Sir Bob made any attempt to answer), I shared my hope that "those on the panel who haven't spoken yet will let us have their views on this subject".

Unfortunately it was not to be. The vaunted speaker turned panel member rose from the table at the end of the 75-minute session without having uttered a single, solitary word. When, as the audience began to make its way out of the impressive Windsor Hall, I headed towards the stage in the hope of engaging Maguire in a few minutes of private conversation, he hurriedly turned around and found somebody else to speak to. Not only a conscious liar, it would appear, but a moral coward to boot.

Tomorrow David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Hazel Blears will be addressing the Conference, then it's off home for a presentation to the Heston & Cranford Area Committee.

And on Friday morning, for the first time in ages, I am minded to buy a copy of The Sun.

A visit to Wynne Court

This morning I visited the Wynne Court sheltered housing unit in Hartland Road, Isleworth as the guest of three residents who had some repairs and maintenance issues to report.

Sheltered units are difficult to let out these days as people's expectations have changed since the 1970s, when many of them were built. Even at Butlin's hotels, in those days, it was perfectly acceptable to expect guests from different family units to share a bathroom and a WC but in this day and age it is considered one of the least attractive features of these small but tidy housing units. As a consequence of this they are not in as great demand as the rest of our housing stock.

What has always struck me about these places (we have four such establishments within a stretch of about a mile and a half in Isleworth and Syon wards, from Kirkstone Lodge to Danehurst) is not only the sheer dedication of the staff who manage them, but also the pride which the residents take in the appearance and general ambience of their dwellings.

During today's visit I was directed to a pathway which had become littered with the discarded fruit of a fig tree. "Usually we sweep it up ourselves every morning," one of the residents told me. "We just left it there this morning for you to see."

Bingo and social clubs, coffee mornings and outings are often also features of life in the sheltered unit.

The stigma of these dwellings being homes for "old people" is well wide of the mark. Some of the residents are indeed "old" in every sense, of course, but many others remain socially active and help to inspire a very real sense of community amongst their fellow residents. Until not very long ago our sheltered units were available to applicants over 55 years of age, which would have given me about another eight and a half years before I became eligible for one!

There is a lot the rest of us could learn from Wynne Court and other, similar establishments when it comes to maintaining a sense of community.

The long, hot Tuesday

Last night's Borough Council meeting was a marathon by anybody's standards, but after a long day of briefings and meetings it promised to be something of an ordeal.

In the morning I had met with a senior housing officer to touch base on various matters concerning the Housing half of my portfolio, and later on in the afternoon it had been over to St. Catherine's House in Feltham for the regular Partnership Meeting between the London Borough of Hounslow and Hounslow Homes. Then, after having returned to Isleworth to pick up Caroline, the two of us had a scheduled meeting with housing and legal officers in connection with an ongoing matter of local importance. In between all this I had the task of compiling about half a dozen short speeches for the big event in the evening.

One recent feature of Borough Council meetings has been the tendency to take advantage of the Announcements slot to impart news of good things happening in the wards and around the borough. Last year's Mayor Councillor Andy Morgan-Watts used this opportunity to pay a warm tribute to Caroline, who had served with great diligence as his Deputy.

Another announcement which I had a particular interest in was made by my colleague Councillor Paul Fisher, who had organised a presentation by the new Mayor Councillor Dr. Genevieve Hibbs to the young people on Isleworth's Worton estate who had won the Bronze certificate for their work under the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. I intend to post a stand-alone feature on this wonderful achievement shortly, so I'll not dwell upon it here.

During the Questions from Members slot I was required to field a question from Labour's Councillor Matt Harmer on the subject of Disability Adaptations for local authority tenants, for which there is currently a backlog. Whilst I had had ample notice of the question itself and had therefore been able to provide him with a full and accurate response, the sting in the tail during this session is usually the Supplementary Question, which follows on from the response given but of which the Lead Member being questioned has had no forewarning. I had, incorrectly as it turned out, guessed that Councillor Harmer's piece de resistance would be a reference to the £1.5m which I have committed to the Rainbow Project to empower tenants on our estates, and I had prepared my riposte accordingly. In the event however he wrong-footed me by asking a somewhat benign question relating to the particular hardships being faced by two individual residents of his ward, and could I promise that I would do my best to help them, which of course I was more than happy to do.

A motion from Councillor Paul Fisher expressing our gratitude to our servicemen, carefully worded so as to accommodate the sensitivities of those, like myself, who oppose the military adventures of the present government (and at least one Labour councillor admitted to me after the meeting that he also did), was unanimously supported. Making one of the best contributions of the evening, Labour councillor Elizabeth Hughes told of how her own grandfather had died later in life as a result of having contacted malaria during World War Two, which struck a particular chord with me because, by a curious coincidence, my maternal grandfather died under exactly the same circumstances following his service in Burma. Perhaps rather cruelly, I found myself reflecting upon how such an apparently sensible person could have found enough in common with David Hughes, the former member for Bedfont ward who on many an occasion has invaded the Brentford TW8 forum and assailed it with an unrelenting salvo of his demented ramblings, to have wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Whatever do they find to talk about?

But the big debate was always going to be the one surrounding the recent comments by Labour Leader Councillor Jagdish Sharma at a recent meeting of the Central Hounslow Area Committee, where he had suggested that the actions of Hounslow's planning enforcement officers in clamping down on illegal development in the borough were inspired by institutional racism. A brave but doomed attempt by Councillor Hughes to amend the motion condemning his remarks out of existence by trying to rewrite what he had actually said was defeated by the votes of all the other councillors present, but not before she had delivered a rather peculiar speech which at one stage drifted almost seamlessly onto the completely unrelated subject of housing allocations under LOCATA, at which point she made reference to a pre-election pledge which I am supposed to have made and not kept which left me baffled as it was entirely unfamiliar. Hopefully she will furnish me with the necessary details to allow me to comment.

The epic meeting concluded with some fitting and much deserved tributes to departing Assistant Chief Executive Howard Simmons, who has been very helpful indeed to me in my Community Safety work, and to veteran Osterley & Spring Grove member Councillor Peter Carey*, who was quite deservedly made an Honorary Freeman of the Borough of Hounslow, joining Councillors John Connelly, Barbara Reid and Jagdish Sharma who have already been similarly honoured as a result of having served as elected members for more than 25 years apiece.

All in all this whole event was a fiery baptism for the new Mayor, but she handled it well and will no doubt benefit from the experience.


* For more on Councillor Carey and his award see Bowen's Blog.

Much more than just a chip off the old block

While many of my fellow Hounslow councillors were attending the Sports Jam in Gunnersbury Park, organised by the Brentford Football Club Community Sports Trust, I was in Yeading cheering on my son Joe at the 20th Annual Summer Tournament organised by Yeading Wanderers FC.

Hundreds of players between the ages of 6 and 15 years of age competed for medals and trophies in this well-supported two-day 6-a-side tournament.

Joe plays in the Harrow Youth Football League as a defender for the Brentford-based Spartans Under-11 B team. Most of the other teams in the league play out of Harrow, Wembley, Greenford or Ruislip so taking him to away fixtures requires much travelling.

Last season the side won promotion from Division Three with an impressive 39 points from 14 matches, their 100% record only being marred by a slightly complacent 1-0 reverse in the final game of the season.

Unlike his father, who was always hopeless at football (the highlight of my career having been being picked as an unused substitute for one match from amongst a pool of about fifteen possible players for my primary school team at Worple Road), Joe is an intelligent player who reads the game extremely well for a lad of his age. More Tony Adams than Cristiano Ronaldo, his party piece involves upending forwards who have the temerity to cross the half-way line.

Spartans B were one of twenty Under-11 sides competing for The Brian Cox Cup (no less). Drawn in his group were Isledon Wolves, Heathrow Club B, Yeading B and Hillingdon Youth.

After a disappointing 0-0 draw against Isleton in a match which they had completely dominated, their next fixture against Hillingdon saw them emerge as 2-0 victors. A second one-sided goalless draw with Yeading followed, before they finally found their scoring boots and thumped Heathrow 5-0 to finish the first round as group winners.

In the Quarter Finals they were drawn against Bedfont Green B, and Joe was inconsolable after conceding the penalty which allowed Bedfont to cancel Spartans' 1-0 lead and eventually to force the match into penalties. I hope I don't sound too biased when I say that most of the neutrals watching felt the forward had dived, but at a good twelve inches shorter than Joe he was always going to have the ref's sympathy.

Fortunately for Spartans B, and for Joe, they won the penalty shoot-out 3-1 and went into the Semi Finals ... against Spartans A!

Well the dream stopped there, and The Brian Cox Cup was not to be. Joe was rested for the first half, the coach fearing that he and the other "big 'un" who normally lines up in defence with him could be wrong-footed by the nippy 'A' team strikers. Unfortunately as it turned out the fast kid who was put in in his place was not a natural defender, and when he was brushed aside twice within a minute or so the 'B' team were never going to catch up in a twelve minute game. Once the 'A' team had scored a third just before half-time Joe's team were playing for pride.

Joe came on in the second half and a much better display by the whole team ensured that their opponents did not add to their tally, but the fixture finished 3-0 and, after watching Spartans A win the Final, Joe and his team-mates went to the organisers' tent to collect their bronze medals.

As a parent it is sometimes difficult to juggle political and family priorities. As the Lead Member working with Brentford Football Club I would also have liked to have attended the Sports Jam, but my children didn't choose my vocation and I believe it is right that I should support them and encourage their development in their various interests and pursuits.

After all, if I don't they could end up becoming councillors!

Making Community Cohesion work - Part two

Yesterday Councillor Paul Fisher and I were the honoured guests at an event staged by the Tamil Community Centre (TCC) in School Road, Hounslow to mark Refugee Week.

Having enjoyed a wonderful meal and an exquisite display of cultural dancing (above left), the forty or so people present could have been forgiven for dozing off, or heading off, when the time arrived for the anti-climax which my speech must surely have been, but instead both I and Councillor Fisher, who had joined me in his capacity as Lead Member for Community Engagement, were very well received.

Like RETI, the TCC is a superbly organised group seeking to achieve Community Cohesion through tackling areas of disadvantage, in the TCC's case those experienced by members of the small Tamil community in Hounslow. It provides access to health, education and a positive social environment, and has done so thus far without even asking the local authority to financial assistance in any form.

It is groups like TCC and RETI which I envisage forming the backbone of our proposed cohesion forum, which will enable organisations to work together, and with the local authority and other strategic partners, with a view to creating conditions that will assist in the building of Community Cohesion in our borough.