Next month I will be going along to a reunion with some old friends and acquaintances from Worple Road Primary School at an Isleworth pub (the reunion is at the pub, not the school). I am really looking forward to it.
Most of those who will be attending weren't in the same year as me, and I probably didn't spend a great deal of time in their immediate company even when I was at school. Nevertheless there is something about the distant past, almost like a gravitation pull of some indescribable kind, which draws me to places and people with whom I spent my formulative years. It's like when I made certain fateful decisions towards the end of the 1970s which were to take me along an erroneous and destructive path for such a very long time a part of me stubbornly refused to join me on this hellish adventure, opting instead to sit back and wait for me to make a safe return to the sanity and security of my childhood days when I had compassion in my heart and the tuneful ditties of the day in my mind and in my soul.
It was one of those friends (who was in my class) who remarked on Facebook recently that there is something uniquely special about the friends we grew up with, and that is so true. As children we see things differently - colours are more vivid, shapes and textures more pronounced. We also "learn" things together which the adult world takes for granted. Innocent things have their own importance and the absence of the cares and concerns of adulthood help us to truly absorb the beauty of all that is around us.
There is a lump in my throat as I write this, so pleasantly unsettled am I by the thought of this impending coming together late in November.
I attended reunions from Isleworth Grammar School in 2001 and Worple Road again in 2002 and they were fantastic and memorable events, but there is something about this one which promises even more. Maybe it is the urgency of the situation that we all feel as we race relentlessly through our fifties. Let's face it, some of our number are now almost within touching distance of retirement!
The only thing that compares with it for me was a series of reunions that I enjoyed with some old friends from my Church youth club back in 1990/91. The down side of those - even those, in the company of my dearest and most treasured friends from the most unique and wonderful period of my life - was the feeling of raw emptiness they left in their wake when the evening was over and everybody had gone their separate ways. We coped with this only by organising repeat reunions, each with less novelty appeal than the last, until one day we all simultaneously kind of dropped the idea.
I don't think that will happen this time. We are a spiritual diaspora, spread around the UK and even the world. We cannot get together every month or two on a whim, even if we wanted to. But neither, I hope, will we leave it another twelve years.
Sunday, 12 October 2014
The Tattle
As a former Trustee myself (until I developed my own financial difficulties on a scale which rendered my status with such a charity something of an oxymoron), I recognise the fine work that I&H does. Indeed my wife Caroline still serves on the Board and so I hear enough to convince me of the dedication and hard work of all those involved. The charity manages a number of properties in the local area, with the recently-built Tolson House, in Parthenia Drive off North Street in Isleworth, being the jewel in the crown. Activities provided for residents include a film club, craft sessions, yoga, aerobics, tai chi and regular outings.
The Tattle is independently produced by residents, albeit fortified I believe by support from the charity itself, and even boasts an editorial board of eight people spread out amongst the various properties. The layout is extremely professional, revealing an obvious acquaintance with Publisher technology on the part of the Editor.
Features include articles both about the activities of the charity and its residents, and the local area in general. In the latest issue this is complemented quite interestingly by an informative memoir from a German resident about living with the Berlin Wall.
It is initiatives like this from within the community which come together to create a bond between local people and to define what we are. I wish The Tattle continued success, and hope that other local people might take inspiration from it. Let a thousand flowers bloom, as somebody famous once said.
Saturday, 11 October 2014
Clacton, Rochester and the Challenge of First Past The Post
I had always been certain the United Kingdom Independence Party would win the by-election in Clacton. Every factor that could point in the party’s favour did so:
1. First of all Clacton was, as it happened, UKIP’s most winnable seat in the United Kingdom to begin with, at least according to the people who have ways and means of calculating these things.
2. It was a by-election, which meant voters did not need to have any fears (or hopes) about who would be running the country the next morning. The “Vote UKIP – Get Labour” mantra much beloved of the Prime Minister David Cameron did not apply here.
3. Being a by-election all media attention was focused on Clacton rather than upon a country-wide contest as would have been the case in May next year.
4. The contest was all about UKIP. It was about a sitting Member of Parliament, Douglas Carswell, who had resigned his membership of the Conservative Party and joined the Eurosceptic group amid a blaze of publicity. Try as the establishment parties might to focus the discussion on the NHS or the economy, this by-election was never going to be about anything other than the United Kingdom Independence Party and its political programme.
5. Carswell was always going to gain kudos from the fact that he had resigned his seat and reverted to the electorate, to give voters a chance to approve or disapprove his decision to change party mid-term. Let us be in no doubt that as a decision it was tactical rather than courageous. Carswell was smart enough to understand that sitting as an anonymous backbencher for the remainder of his elected term was a sure-fired way of courting defeat at next year’s general election, where conditions would favour the big parties. By raising his profile and winning back his seat by a huge majority he has given himself a good fighting chance of retaining Clacton next May. Nevertheless he and his party were able to make much of the fact that he had been willing to incur a certain amount of risk in going back to the electorate to allow them to have the final say on his decision.
For these reasons a UKIP victory was always on the cards. But the magnitude of the win (with some 60% of the votes cast), considered alongside the fact that an unfancied UKIP candidate in the former Labour stronghold of Heywood & Middleton in the North came within a whisker of also being elected on the same night, has persuaded me to reassess my previously held view that the forthcoming contest in Rochester would prove a by-election too far for UKIP. I now believe, as indeed do the bookies, that Mark Reckless will be back in the House to keep his new colleague company when the votes are counted in Kent.
So will Carswell’s victory be the death knell of two-party system as we know it? I suspect not.
Whilst I would expect UKIP to hold Clacton next year and also possibly to gain South Thanet, where Farage himself will be standing, in the total seats stakes the party will still be languishing some considerable way behind the unfashionable Liberal Democrats, in spite of the fact that it is likely to win more votes. The reason for this is because the Lib Dems cottoned on to the fact many years before UKIP did the same, that disproportionate power can be gained by concentrating all available campaigning resources in a small handful of areas.
UKIP, of course, are talking up their chances of scoring well in May 2015 because, frankly, they have to. The ball is rolling. If they are going to have any chance at all they must at the very least create an air of confidence. The task before them though – the discontinuation of the endless dreary ritual engaged in by millions of voters of voting against the party they dislike the most every bit as much as for their party of preference – is a massive one. Cameron knows what he is doing when he tries to frighten Tory-leaning UKIP voters with the prospect of a Labour government. Expect a significant chunk of the UKIP-friendly vote to revert to the big parties when the real election comes around.
Unsupportive though I am of UKIP’s main policy planks I nonetheless rejoice at the implications for the old system of the results in Clacton and Heywood & Middleton, because there are few evils in modern politics to match the ongoing fraud perpetuated against the voters by the Con-Lab duopoly. But I do fear we have a long way to go yet before we will see, as one day we certainly will, the replacement of the rotten old system by something more open and inclusive.
1. First of all Clacton was, as it happened, UKIP’s most winnable seat in the United Kingdom to begin with, at least according to the people who have ways and means of calculating these things.
2. It was a by-election, which meant voters did not need to have any fears (or hopes) about who would be running the country the next morning. The “Vote UKIP – Get Labour” mantra much beloved of the Prime Minister David Cameron did not apply here.
3. Being a by-election all media attention was focused on Clacton rather than upon a country-wide contest as would have been the case in May next year.
4. The contest was all about UKIP. It was about a sitting Member of Parliament, Douglas Carswell, who had resigned his membership of the Conservative Party and joined the Eurosceptic group amid a blaze of publicity. Try as the establishment parties might to focus the discussion on the NHS or the economy, this by-election was never going to be about anything other than the United Kingdom Independence Party and its political programme.
5. Carswell was always going to gain kudos from the fact that he had resigned his seat and reverted to the electorate, to give voters a chance to approve or disapprove his decision to change party mid-term. Let us be in no doubt that as a decision it was tactical rather than courageous. Carswell was smart enough to understand that sitting as an anonymous backbencher for the remainder of his elected term was a sure-fired way of courting defeat at next year’s general election, where conditions would favour the big parties. By raising his profile and winning back his seat by a huge majority he has given himself a good fighting chance of retaining Clacton next May. Nevertheless he and his party were able to make much of the fact that he had been willing to incur a certain amount of risk in going back to the electorate to allow them to have the final say on his decision.
For these reasons a UKIP victory was always on the cards. But the magnitude of the win (with some 60% of the votes cast), considered alongside the fact that an unfancied UKIP candidate in the former Labour stronghold of Heywood & Middleton in the North came within a whisker of also being elected on the same night, has persuaded me to reassess my previously held view that the forthcoming contest in Rochester would prove a by-election too far for UKIP. I now believe, as indeed do the bookies, that Mark Reckless will be back in the House to keep his new colleague company when the votes are counted in Kent.
So will Carswell’s victory be the death knell of two-party system as we know it? I suspect not.
Whilst I would expect UKIP to hold Clacton next year and also possibly to gain South Thanet, where Farage himself will be standing, in the total seats stakes the party will still be languishing some considerable way behind the unfashionable Liberal Democrats, in spite of the fact that it is likely to win more votes. The reason for this is because the Lib Dems cottoned on to the fact many years before UKIP did the same, that disproportionate power can be gained by concentrating all available campaigning resources in a small handful of areas.
UKIP, of course, are talking up their chances of scoring well in May 2015 because, frankly, they have to. The ball is rolling. If they are going to have any chance at all they must at the very least create an air of confidence. The task before them though – the discontinuation of the endless dreary ritual engaged in by millions of voters of voting against the party they dislike the most every bit as much as for their party of preference – is a massive one. Cameron knows what he is doing when he tries to frighten Tory-leaning UKIP voters with the prospect of a Labour government. Expect a significant chunk of the UKIP-friendly vote to revert to the big parties when the real election comes around.
Unsupportive though I am of UKIP’s main policy planks I nonetheless rejoice at the implications for the old system of the results in Clacton and Heywood & Middleton, because there are few evils in modern politics to match the ongoing fraud perpetuated against the voters by the Con-Lab duopoly. But I do fear we have a long way to go yet before we will see, as one day we certainly will, the replacement of the rotten old system by something more open and inclusive.
Thursday, 25 September 2014
Scottish Independence: Has Westminster Bitten Off More Than It Can Chew?
Although I’m not Scottish and I don’t live in Scotland I found myself captivated by the recent referendum campaign, and deeply disappointed by the failure of a majority of Scottish people to reach for the stars when the opportunity was within their grasp.
As a free-thinking activist with a lifetime of experience of fighting against the system under one guise or another I was unsurprised by the manipulation, the dishonesty and the sheer nastiness of the Westminster campaign for a No vote. Not only was no stone left unturned by the three UK establishment political parties and their controlled media, but no stone was not crawled from under as Team Westminster set about its business of trying to frighten, browbeat, cajole and bully the Scottish people out of claiming what was rightfully theirs. The elderly in particular were identified as being vulnerable to warnings that they would be left with no money, no oil, no NHS, no pensions, no hope and no future without the protective arm of the Union wrapped tightly around them.
To begin with, Team Westminster persisted with the pretense that it was actually three teams, each individually fighting the good fight for their own selfless, altruistic reasons. The truth was, of course, that the Tories were a party beholden to a unionist fanbase whilst Labour and the Liberal Democrats stood to lose politically from the loss of their Scottish parliamentary seats. Party before people as always.
Then, shortly before the big day, when a rogue opinion poll bucked the trend by placing the Yes campaign ahead, the three stooges turned up all at once in the obvious belief that their combined celebrity would impress the Scottish people where all the fallacious arguments and threats about currency and EU membership apparently hadn’t. A joint promise of sorts was made, with Scottish people being taken to the Hadrianic equivalent of Mount Hermon and told that all this could be theirs if only they would renounce the credo that is independence.
FEAR TRIUMPHS OVER HOPE
Sadly, on the day fear triumphed over hope. Around 55% (2 million) of the Scottish electorate voted against their own independence, with 45% (over 1.6 million) in favour. This, so the beaming BBC pundits told us, was a death blow to the romantics and the dreamers who had campaigned for self-determination.
What followed next was quite extraordinary. Membership of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), which had been a little over 25,000 on the day of the referendum, rose to 57,000 within a week of the poll. The SNP now has three members in Scotland for every two the Liberal Democrats have in the whole of the UK.
Radical socialists, greens and other pro-independence groupings have urged fellow Scots to support the SNP at the 2015 general election and in the Holyrood ballot a year hence, to demonstrate for once and for all a decisive mandate in favour of independence.
Representations have been made to the appropriate authorities by Yes campaigners who believe there to have been serious malpractice in the conduct of the counting process on September 18th. And social media groups, forums and online chat rooms have veritably exploded with activity, with thousands of otherwise very ordinary and typical Scots (and even a few non-Scots) beginning to discuss the mechanics and logistics of revolution.
As any fool could have predicted, the promises made to Scottish voters by the Unholy Trinity very quickly transpired to be so much hot air, as the leaders of the Conservative and Labour parties immediately embarked upon an unseemly squabble about what it really was that they had (literally) signed up to. For the Tories, concessions to the Scots had to be accompanied by similar powers granted to the English so that Scottish MPs would no longer be able to vote on English-only issues, just as English MPs are not currently allowed to vote on Scottish-only matters. The so-called West Lothian question.
PLOY
Typically this was a ploy. In the event of a future Labour or Labour-led government being elected throughout the UK, an English-only parliament with a Conservative majority could basically ignore it on most issues and treat it with indifference. Labour protested, not unreasonably, that there had been no mention of this in the agreement they had hastily signed up to on the eve of the poll.
Labour strategists oppose the question of an English parliament being made into a condition of pledges to the Scottish people being honoured. But then they would, wouldn’t they?
Meanwhile Scotland sits and patiently waits. Assuming the result is not declared null and void, Scotland remains a part of the UK for now but with seething, festering resentment brought forth by righteous anger. The SNP, transformed overnight from local political party to a potential liberating army, bides its time. And Labour, who treacherously led the No campaign in the belief that the continuance of the Union would increase its chances of forming the next Westminster government with the help of Scottish seats, now faces the very real possibility that come next May it might not actually have any.
As a free-thinking activist with a lifetime of experience of fighting against the system under one guise or another I was unsurprised by the manipulation, the dishonesty and the sheer nastiness of the Westminster campaign for a No vote. Not only was no stone left unturned by the three UK establishment political parties and their controlled media, but no stone was not crawled from under as Team Westminster set about its business of trying to frighten, browbeat, cajole and bully the Scottish people out of claiming what was rightfully theirs. The elderly in particular were identified as being vulnerable to warnings that they would be left with no money, no oil, no NHS, no pensions, no hope and no future without the protective arm of the Union wrapped tightly around them.
To begin with, Team Westminster persisted with the pretense that it was actually three teams, each individually fighting the good fight for their own selfless, altruistic reasons. The truth was, of course, that the Tories were a party beholden to a unionist fanbase whilst Labour and the Liberal Democrats stood to lose politically from the loss of their Scottish parliamentary seats. Party before people as always.
Then, shortly before the big day, when a rogue opinion poll bucked the trend by placing the Yes campaign ahead, the three stooges turned up all at once in the obvious belief that their combined celebrity would impress the Scottish people where all the fallacious arguments and threats about currency and EU membership apparently hadn’t. A joint promise of sorts was made, with Scottish people being taken to the Hadrianic equivalent of Mount Hermon and told that all this could be theirs if only they would renounce the credo that is independence.
FEAR TRIUMPHS OVER HOPE
Sadly, on the day fear triumphed over hope. Around 55% (2 million) of the Scottish electorate voted against their own independence, with 45% (over 1.6 million) in favour. This, so the beaming BBC pundits told us, was a death blow to the romantics and the dreamers who had campaigned for self-determination.
What followed next was quite extraordinary. Membership of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), which had been a little over 25,000 on the day of the referendum, rose to 57,000 within a week of the poll. The SNP now has three members in Scotland for every two the Liberal Democrats have in the whole of the UK.
Radical socialists, greens and other pro-independence groupings have urged fellow Scots to support the SNP at the 2015 general election and in the Holyrood ballot a year hence, to demonstrate for once and for all a decisive mandate in favour of independence.
Representations have been made to the appropriate authorities by Yes campaigners who believe there to have been serious malpractice in the conduct of the counting process on September 18th. And social media groups, forums and online chat rooms have veritably exploded with activity, with thousands of otherwise very ordinary and typical Scots (and even a few non-Scots) beginning to discuss the mechanics and logistics of revolution.
As any fool could have predicted, the promises made to Scottish voters by the Unholy Trinity very quickly transpired to be so much hot air, as the leaders of the Conservative and Labour parties immediately embarked upon an unseemly squabble about what it really was that they had (literally) signed up to. For the Tories, concessions to the Scots had to be accompanied by similar powers granted to the English so that Scottish MPs would no longer be able to vote on English-only issues, just as English MPs are not currently allowed to vote on Scottish-only matters. The so-called West Lothian question.
PLOY
Typically this was a ploy. In the event of a future Labour or Labour-led government being elected throughout the UK, an English-only parliament with a Conservative majority could basically ignore it on most issues and treat it with indifference. Labour protested, not unreasonably, that there had been no mention of this in the agreement they had hastily signed up to on the eve of the poll.
Labour strategists oppose the question of an English parliament being made into a condition of pledges to the Scottish people being honoured. But then they would, wouldn’t they?
Meanwhile Scotland sits and patiently waits. Assuming the result is not declared null and void, Scotland remains a part of the UK for now but with seething, festering resentment brought forth by righteous anger. The SNP, transformed overnight from local political party to a potential liberating army, bides its time. And Labour, who treacherously led the No campaign in the belief that the continuance of the Union would increase its chances of forming the next Westminster government with the help of Scottish seats, now faces the very real possibility that come next May it might not actually have any.
Macmillan Coffee Morning - Isleworth Working Men's Club, 26th September
This Friday, 26th September there will be a Macmillan Coffee Morning at Isleworth Working Men's Club, St. John's Road from 11.00am till 1.00pm.
It will include an auction of a signed Brentford FC football and a raffle with first prize champagne afternoon tea for two at The Hilton, Syon Park and many more exciting prizes.
The event is being organised by local girl Jo Manwaring who also staged a similar event last year, which was highly successful. Cakes and refreshments will be available.
Everyone is welcome.
Monday, 22 September 2014
Thought For The Day
Some people say both our major political parties are identical. Nothing different about them whatsoever.
Of course they are not identical. The whole point in having two parties rather than one is to provide the people with a choice. Those who don’t like one can safely vote for the other. One offers one set of policies, the second offers another. Something is provided for everyone.
Think Punch and Judy, rather than Punch and Punch. They look very different and they are always to be seen fighting for the benefit of the audience. Only those who trouble to look behind the screen will notice that the same guy has his hands up both their arses.
Of course they are not identical. The whole point in having two parties rather than one is to provide the people with a choice. Those who don’t like one can safely vote for the other. One offers one set of policies, the second offers another. Something is provided for everyone.
Think Punch and Judy, rather than Punch and Punch. They look very different and they are always to be seen fighting for the benefit of the audience. Only those who trouble to look behind the screen will notice that the same guy has his hands up both their arses.
Friday, 19 September 2014
Notting Hill Housing Trust - We Are Not Worthy
Brilliant. After day upon day of pushing letters through people's doors and then being squeezed into one corner after another of a small, overcrowded flat I finally get three hours to myself to do some important work that has been put onto the back-burner for three months and guess what? An electrician arrives, unannounced (Notting Hill Housing Trust never see any value in making appointments with us lower orders and in the manner of their patronising, pseudo-socialist kind invariably assume that we are always indoors because none of us estate dwellers ever work) and declares that he is going to perform a completely unnecessary "test" on our perfectly functional electrics and "update" some entirely adequate equipment in accordance with sundry (unspecified) new laws. Evidently this involves drilling holes in various walls and ceilings and leaving little piles of dust on every surface he can think of.
Meanwhile a number of serious deficiencies with our flat which were reported eons ago but the rectification of which do not conform to The Plan remain unaddressed. I guess in fairness I should mention one real positive development in the fact that NHHT have finally, after 18 years, installed (nay plonked) some very unsightly giant green tins outside of our blocks which I am guessing are for the storage of our bicycles. They have now been there for two whole months. I am looking forward with eager anticipation to the moment when it finally occurs to one or other of these intellectual colossuses (collosi?) that we will need the keys to them.
Meanwhile a number of serious deficiencies with our flat which were reported eons ago but the rectification of which do not conform to The Plan remain unaddressed. I guess in fairness I should mention one real positive development in the fact that NHHT have finally, after 18 years, installed (nay plonked) some very unsightly giant green tins outside of our blocks which I am guessing are for the storage of our bicycles. They have now been there for two whole months. I am looking forward with eager anticipation to the moment when it finally occurs to one or other of these intellectual colossuses (collosi?) that we will need the keys to them.
Wednesday, 3 September 2014
Do Not Deport Wadih Chouery
People who live near or use South Street in Isleworth will probably know Wadih Chourey, whose brothers Joseph and Camil run the long-estabished Joseph's Patisserie opposite Isleworth Public Hall.
Wadih, aged 44, who has Down's Syndrome, has lived in the UK since 1997 when he came from the Lebanon with his parents as his life was in danger from gangs who were victimising him and encouraging him to commit crime on their behalf. Since then he has been a popular local figure, undertaking simple tasks in support of the family business and enjoying the trust and sense of responsibility that this brings. He is happy, helpful and always pleasant.
His parents have both since passed away and as a result of this he faces deportation by the Home Office back to his native Lebanon. His brothers, and his many friends in the community, fear that he would be in danger if he were to be forced to return. He is not capable of living independently, needing help to wash and dress himself.
Local people believe that Chourey has been an asset to the local community, he is integrated and is a popular local figure. His removal would appear to serve no useful purpose to anybody. A campaign is underway to prevent the deportation and this campaign is fully community-led, having been initiated by the Old Isleworth Four Roads Residents' Association.
The decision is currently at the appeal stage and I would invite readers of this blog to sign our petition to say Do Not Deport Wadih Chourey.
Wadih, aged 44, who has Down's Syndrome, has lived in the UK since 1997 when he came from the Lebanon with his parents as his life was in danger from gangs who were victimising him and encouraging him to commit crime on their behalf. Since then he has been a popular local figure, undertaking simple tasks in support of the family business and enjoying the trust and sense of responsibility that this brings. He is happy, helpful and always pleasant.
His parents have both since passed away and as a result of this he faces deportation by the Home Office back to his native Lebanon. His brothers, and his many friends in the community, fear that he would be in danger if he were to be forced to return. He is not capable of living independently, needing help to wash and dress himself.
Local people believe that Chourey has been an asset to the local community, he is integrated and is a popular local figure. His removal would appear to serve no useful purpose to anybody. A campaign is underway to prevent the deportation and this campaign is fully community-led, having been initiated by the Old Isleworth Four Roads Residents' Association.
The decision is currently at the appeal stage and I would invite readers of this blog to sign our petition to say Do Not Deport Wadih Chourey.
Saturday, 30 August 2014
Two Nights in Two Towns
For the past two weekends Caroline and I have taken advantage of extended rest periods at my place of work to spend a couple of individual nights by the seaside – first at Cliftonville, near Margate, and then at Southend.
At Cliftonville we stayed at the iconic Walpole Bay Hotel on Fifth Avenue. The hotel is simultaneously a museum, with antique furniture and artefacts strategically placed throughout, along the corridors and outside each of the rooms. Particularly quaint was the wonderful trellis gate lift which services every floor from the heart of the Reception area.
Cliftonville has a special significance for me as it was the place we used to travel to as a family for our summer holidays when I was a child. In those days however it was much, much different. Then the coastal road was dominated by several hotels run by Butlin’s – Queen’s, St.George, the Norfolk and the Grand – and over many years we both stayed at and used all of these. The hotels operated as a boxed set so that residence in one allowed for full use of all of them, including bars and dance halls, amusements, shops, television rooms and a children’s cinema with doubled up as an entertainment theatre.
TOP OF THE POPS
The mobility between TV rooms was particularly useful. In those days even the best hotel rooms did not have a television provided, and so by having three hotels with three televisions showing each of the three channels one was able to watch whichever side one wished at any time without there being any arguments. My particular penchant at the time was for Top of the Pops, so I would head to the Grand which, if memory serves me correctly, was the appointed venue for BBC1. There I and thirty or so others of a similar age would occupy the small viewing room and listen enthusiastically to the dulcet tones of Brian Connelly or Noddy Holder.
The Queen’s Hotel was on the opposite side of the road to the others and featured a large swimming pool, which later became a dolphinarium. It also hosted a spacious hall in which bingo was played and where I once (unlawfully) won the then immense sum of fifty pounds on the final, Friday night full-house.
Back on the “main” side and almost opposite the Queen’s was a really useful seaside shop, which sold all sorts of stuff from the usual beach paraphernalia and saucy postcards to Ghurkha knives and boxes of stink bombs (“Stinkbomben”, I seem to recall).
A short walk in the direction of Margate took one to the lido which boasted several amusement areas as well as a large entertainment bar where, during the later visits of my Margate period I would enjoy a refreshing (and again unlawful) Sunday afternoon pint of lager whilst listening to the liberating sound of the Wurlitzer. Oddly, my most abiding memory of this period was walking into the ladies’ lavatory by mistake and being observed by scores of puzzled people swiftly departing it again.
This all happened back in the 1970s. In those days Cliftonville was a popular and thriving holiday resort which complimented perfectly the brighter lights and seaside sounds and smells of Margate itself, a mile or so along the road. The Margate experience was epitomised by Dreamland, too grand to be labelled a funfair but too puny to be thought of as a theme park in the modern sense of the word. As well as providing amusements and rides Dreamland was also a zoo. Plus of course Margate had a pier.
TURNER CONTEMPORARY
By the time I visited Margate in the 1990s it had come to a sorry pass. Dreamland had been renamed Bembom Brothers – it was later to change back to Dreamland before closing entirely. The old seaside shop was derelict, the seafront was ghost-like due to the lack of any discernable activity at any of the adjoining buildings and the once proud Butlin’s hotels were no more. One of them seemed to be operating independently, still within the trade, but the character of Cliftonville had altered astonishingly. Whilst I happily acknowledge the duty we all possess towards those less fortunate that ourselves, the number of residents who were clearly living under the local authority’s duty of care, including by no means a few from various parts of Eastern Europe, had altered the demography of the town radically. This was no longer bucket and spade territory by any stretch of the imagination. All that seemed to remain was the sturdy old harbour and the hideous early 1960s tower block overlooking Dreamland – apparently called Arlington House – which can only have bypassed conventional planning procedures as no serious local authority anywhere, at any time, could seriously have considered it appropriate development in the surrounds in which it stood.
It is from this low ebb that Margate (and Cliftonville) needs to be considered today. Dreamland is still derelict, but its much anticipated relaunch is well under way (it is scheduled to open again next year). Plans are afoot for Arlington House, if not to demolish it at last then at least to make it somehow less of a slum. The fame and recognition achieved by local girl Tracey Emin and a local connection of some kind with the painter Turner seem to be in the process of transforming the town into some kind of oasis of art. A new building at the old pier head named the Turner Contemporary, observed not unreasonably by Caroline to resemble a large public convenience, opened in 2011 and has already attracted over a million visitors.
The harbour itself has more activity than of old too, with two excellent little bars and a café having been established. Here we enjoyed a couple of pints of Old Rosie cider at the folky Harbour Arms (which at 7.3% ABV meant at all times having to remain alert to the severe drop into the drink from the unfenced harbour wall).
Cliftonville had changed too. The magnificent buildings of my childhood holidays, once proud hotels and later hostels for those in need, are now smart flats. It’s becoming “nicer”, property prices are doubtless on the up, but the spirit and soul of Butlin’s (pre-Bognor megadump) are long departed.
SOUTHEND
Over in Southend I had less to ponder upon. I’d only been there, at most, four or five times, the most recent being in February 2013 when I had checked in for the night at the splendid Ilfracombe House Hotel in Wilson Road before flying to Portugal from the absurdly-named “London” Southend Airport the next morning. Having had a good experience at this modest but wonderfully well-run little hotel on that occasion I took the risk of taking Caroline along on Bank Holiday Monday, and I’m pleased to report that the experience was repeated. Immaculate rooms, friendly staff, a relaxing comfortable bar and unhurried “eat as much as you like” breakfast combined to make a perfect stay in spite of the horrible Bank Holiday weather.
During our stay we took a stroll up the 1.33-mile Southend Pier, the world’s longest leisure pier, and back – all in horrendous driving wind and rain. A nice and very popular café at the head of the pier breaks the mission up nicely, and we returned for fish and chips at one of the many such outlets along the seafront. Those of a less adventurous bent could always take the train, which travels to the pier head every half hour on the half hour, and returns exactly fifteen minutes later.
All in all we did a lot of driving for two nights in two seaside towns, but it’s nice to get away. Next stop, as normal, will be the Isle of Wight.
At Cliftonville we stayed at the iconic Walpole Bay Hotel on Fifth Avenue. The hotel is simultaneously a museum, with antique furniture and artefacts strategically placed throughout, along the corridors and outside each of the rooms. Particularly quaint was the wonderful trellis gate lift which services every floor from the heart of the Reception area.
Cliftonville has a special significance for me as it was the place we used to travel to as a family for our summer holidays when I was a child. In those days however it was much, much different. Then the coastal road was dominated by several hotels run by Butlin’s – Queen’s, St.George, the Norfolk and the Grand – and over many years we both stayed at and used all of these. The hotels operated as a boxed set so that residence in one allowed for full use of all of them, including bars and dance halls, amusements, shops, television rooms and a children’s cinema with doubled up as an entertainment theatre.
TOP OF THE POPS
The mobility between TV rooms was particularly useful. In those days even the best hotel rooms did not have a television provided, and so by having three hotels with three televisions showing each of the three channels one was able to watch whichever side one wished at any time without there being any arguments. My particular penchant at the time was for Top of the Pops, so I would head to the Grand which, if memory serves me correctly, was the appointed venue for BBC1. There I and thirty or so others of a similar age would occupy the small viewing room and listen enthusiastically to the dulcet tones of Brian Connelly or Noddy Holder.
The Queen’s Hotel was on the opposite side of the road to the others and featured a large swimming pool, which later became a dolphinarium. It also hosted a spacious hall in which bingo was played and where I once (unlawfully) won the then immense sum of fifty pounds on the final, Friday night full-house.
Back on the “main” side and almost opposite the Queen’s was a really useful seaside shop, which sold all sorts of stuff from the usual beach paraphernalia and saucy postcards to Ghurkha knives and boxes of stink bombs (“Stinkbomben”, I seem to recall).
A short walk in the direction of Margate took one to the lido which boasted several amusement areas as well as a large entertainment bar where, during the later visits of my Margate period I would enjoy a refreshing (and again unlawful) Sunday afternoon pint of lager whilst listening to the liberating sound of the Wurlitzer. Oddly, my most abiding memory of this period was walking into the ladies’ lavatory by mistake and being observed by scores of puzzled people swiftly departing it again.
This all happened back in the 1970s. In those days Cliftonville was a popular and thriving holiday resort which complimented perfectly the brighter lights and seaside sounds and smells of Margate itself, a mile or so along the road. The Margate experience was epitomised by Dreamland, too grand to be labelled a funfair but too puny to be thought of as a theme park in the modern sense of the word. As well as providing amusements and rides Dreamland was also a zoo. Plus of course Margate had a pier.
TURNER CONTEMPORARY
By the time I visited Margate in the 1990s it had come to a sorry pass. Dreamland had been renamed Bembom Brothers – it was later to change back to Dreamland before closing entirely. The old seaside shop was derelict, the seafront was ghost-like due to the lack of any discernable activity at any of the adjoining buildings and the once proud Butlin’s hotels were no more. One of them seemed to be operating independently, still within the trade, but the character of Cliftonville had altered astonishingly. Whilst I happily acknowledge the duty we all possess towards those less fortunate that ourselves, the number of residents who were clearly living under the local authority’s duty of care, including by no means a few from various parts of Eastern Europe, had altered the demography of the town radically. This was no longer bucket and spade territory by any stretch of the imagination. All that seemed to remain was the sturdy old harbour and the hideous early 1960s tower block overlooking Dreamland – apparently called Arlington House – which can only have bypassed conventional planning procedures as no serious local authority anywhere, at any time, could seriously have considered it appropriate development in the surrounds in which it stood.
It is from this low ebb that Margate (and Cliftonville) needs to be considered today. Dreamland is still derelict, but its much anticipated relaunch is well under way (it is scheduled to open again next year). Plans are afoot for Arlington House, if not to demolish it at last then at least to make it somehow less of a slum. The fame and recognition achieved by local girl Tracey Emin and a local connection of some kind with the painter Turner seem to be in the process of transforming the town into some kind of oasis of art. A new building at the old pier head named the Turner Contemporary, observed not unreasonably by Caroline to resemble a large public convenience, opened in 2011 and has already attracted over a million visitors.
The harbour itself has more activity than of old too, with two excellent little bars and a café having been established. Here we enjoyed a couple of pints of Old Rosie cider at the folky Harbour Arms (which at 7.3% ABV meant at all times having to remain alert to the severe drop into the drink from the unfenced harbour wall).
Cliftonville had changed too. The magnificent buildings of my childhood holidays, once proud hotels and later hostels for those in need, are now smart flats. It’s becoming “nicer”, property prices are doubtless on the up, but the spirit and soul of Butlin’s (pre-Bognor megadump) are long departed.
SOUTHEND
Over in Southend I had less to ponder upon. I’d only been there, at most, four or five times, the most recent being in February 2013 when I had checked in for the night at the splendid Ilfracombe House Hotel in Wilson Road before flying to Portugal from the absurdly-named “London” Southend Airport the next morning. Having had a good experience at this modest but wonderfully well-run little hotel on that occasion I took the risk of taking Caroline along on Bank Holiday Monday, and I’m pleased to report that the experience was repeated. Immaculate rooms, friendly staff, a relaxing comfortable bar and unhurried “eat as much as you like” breakfast combined to make a perfect stay in spite of the horrible Bank Holiday weather.
During our stay we took a stroll up the 1.33-mile Southend Pier, the world’s longest leisure pier, and back – all in horrendous driving wind and rain. A nice and very popular café at the head of the pier breaks the mission up nicely, and we returned for fish and chips at one of the many such outlets along the seafront. Those of a less adventurous bent could always take the train, which travels to the pier head every half hour on the half hour, and returns exactly fifteen minutes later.
All in all we did a lot of driving for two nights in two seaside towns, but it’s nice to get away. Next stop, as normal, will be the Isle of Wight.
Monday, 25 August 2014
On Taking My First Church Service
This evening I did something that I've never done before and which I have been dreading all week. I took a service at my local Church, the Isleworth Congregational.
A few weeks ago our long-serving Pastor the Revd. Antony W. Ball retired after forty years of thorough, loyal and dedicated service to our Church. As our Pastor it was always a pleasure to listen to Antony whenever he was in the pulpit. The scholarly, logical and analytical way in which he dissected the texts always captured my attention and even on my tiredest days my concentration seldom drifted. We have had some excellent visiting preachers, but speaking personally Antony's sermons were always the ones I gained the most from.
Fortunately although he has stepped down from the post to take well-deserved retirement he has assured us that he is happy to continue to preach to us, as well of course as serving still as a Church member. For this we will be eternally grateful (npi), because he is in my view irreplaceable.
Whilst I am under no illusions about my own abilities as a "preacher", I stepped into the breach tonight as I and all of my fellow Deacons attempt to fill the massive void created while he spends a few weeks away from the Church. Although I have spoken at many a political and public meeting, to audiences of up to 3000 in number, giving a sermon in a Church is so thoroughly different that it is reasonable to consider tonight as having been "my first time". I was very nervous.
I spoke (rather than preached, I guess) about the logic of Christianity and the way in which the laws given to us by God are for our own benefit and for that of wider society rather than being arbitrary or gratuitous. It was in essence a justification from a Christian perspective of the principles that guided me throughout my time as a community activist.
In numbers terms it was a modest audience, but those who were there seemed to think I did okay. Ideally I should have spoken for longer as the service finished about ten minutes earlier than usual. If there is a next time, I will know better.
Wednesday, 20 August 2014
The Community Forum That Never Was
I had an interesting meeting last week with the pastor of a local church, who was keen to hear of any ideas that I and/or the ICG may have had with regard to the role that organisations such as his own could play in community-building.
It was a poignant reminder, if any were needed, of the sheer depth of involvement and potential participation that exists within our local environment. It is when we step into a church, a temple or a mosque - or indeed into a tenants' meeting or a social club, or see a self-help group or a local charity in action - that we come to really appreciate the strength in depth of what a real community actually has to offer.
Then we visit the local Area Forum and see half a dozen or so politicians, mostly from the same group, huddled together nodding sagely in recognition of perceived mutual wisdom, and we so naturally despair for what could be.
Amongst many other things I told the pastor that during the administration of 2006-2010 a serious proposal had been mooted, and discussed with a number of local residents' groups, to establish a local "community forum" to shadow the "official" Council body that was at the time called the Isleworth and Brentford Area Committee. It had been our intention to subordinate IBAC to the power of such a body, either by adapting the constitution of the Council to enable it to happen or, in the event of us being unable to do that, by the simple expedient of an Area Committee majority (which, with the support of the Lib Dem member, we had) voluntarily relinquishing its authority in recognition of the primacy of the community body.
The outcome of this would have been to transfer true decision-making powers to the real community rather than a bunch of politicians – albeit that that power may not have had any formal legal status.
As well as being morally the right thing to do, this would have had the added advantage of circumventing the numerical stalemate which would have existed on IBAC should our Lib Dem ally have lost his seat in 2010 and we been left with a 6-6 split between the ICG councillors of Isleworth and Syon and the Con-Lab establishment councillors of Osterley and Brentford, who throughout the 2006-2010 period had tended to band together to oppose most of our more ambitious projects.
For whatever reason, this project never came to fruition during the 2006-2010 administration and any idea of introducing it during the following one was dashed when we lost all six of our seats and IBAC was returned to a Labour majority. The rest, as they so often say, is history.
There is still, of course, a role for faith groups and for all other stakeholders and that role will be forever present. The pastor and I bounced some useful ideas around and hopefully one or two will be set in motion. But it was a spiritually useful, if practically pointless exercise considering for a moment how things might have developed had the maths been different.
The idea is out there in the ether, who knows it may happen someday somewhere?
It was a poignant reminder, if any were needed, of the sheer depth of involvement and potential participation that exists within our local environment. It is when we step into a church, a temple or a mosque - or indeed into a tenants' meeting or a social club, or see a self-help group or a local charity in action - that we come to really appreciate the strength in depth of what a real community actually has to offer.
Then we visit the local Area Forum and see half a dozen or so politicians, mostly from the same group, huddled together nodding sagely in recognition of perceived mutual wisdom, and we so naturally despair for what could be.
Amongst many other things I told the pastor that during the administration of 2006-2010 a serious proposal had been mooted, and discussed with a number of local residents' groups, to establish a local "community forum" to shadow the "official" Council body that was at the time called the Isleworth and Brentford Area Committee. It had been our intention to subordinate IBAC to the power of such a body, either by adapting the constitution of the Council to enable it to happen or, in the event of us being unable to do that, by the simple expedient of an Area Committee majority (which, with the support of the Lib Dem member, we had) voluntarily relinquishing its authority in recognition of the primacy of the community body.
The outcome of this would have been to transfer true decision-making powers to the real community rather than a bunch of politicians – albeit that that power may not have had any formal legal status.
As well as being morally the right thing to do, this would have had the added advantage of circumventing the numerical stalemate which would have existed on IBAC should our Lib Dem ally have lost his seat in 2010 and we been left with a 6-6 split between the ICG councillors of Isleworth and Syon and the Con-Lab establishment councillors of Osterley and Brentford, who throughout the 2006-2010 period had tended to band together to oppose most of our more ambitious projects.
For whatever reason, this project never came to fruition during the 2006-2010 administration and any idea of introducing it during the following one was dashed when we lost all six of our seats and IBAC was returned to a Labour majority. The rest, as they so often say, is history.
There is still, of course, a role for faith groups and for all other stakeholders and that role will be forever present. The pastor and I bounced some useful ideas around and hopefully one or two will be set in motion. But it was a spiritually useful, if practically pointless exercise considering for a moment how things might have developed had the maths been different.
The idea is out there in the ether, who knows it may happen someday somewhere?
Monday, 30 June 2014
That Election Result - One Month On
“What do you think you’ll do now?” asked Ruth Cadbury, long-time Brentford Labour councillor and Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Brentford and Isleworth, at the local election count last month.
“That’s easy,” I replied. “I’m going for a beer”.
It would be an overstatement to say I’d sidestepped the question. As far as I was concerned a well-earned drink once the formal business of the day was finally done was as long ahead as I could be bothered to contemplate at that particular moment in time.
The ICG had just fought what had without doubt been its hardest, most high-intensity election campaign in its twenty-year history. More literature had gone out, more doors had been knocked, and more residents spoken to on the doorsteps than in 2002, 2006 or 2010. The outcome of it all had been a substantial defeat. We had held second place in both Syon and Isleworth, indeed widening the gap between ourselves and the third-placed Tories from the previous contest in 2010, to the obvious surprise and disappointment of the victorious Labour teams, but we were still a very long way behind Labour in both.
LABOUR GAMEPLAN
This, according to the script which had been written in earnest by Labour strategists in the immediate aftermath of 2010, was the contest following which the ICG would finally chuck in the towel and collectively take up fishing. That’s not going to happen, so in that much at least the Labour gameplan had failed to come to fruition notwithstanding the party’s decisive win at the polls.
But there was no hiding from the scoreline – the ICG’s vote had been pinned back to 1998 levels whilst Labour had chalked up tallies of 1500 to 2000 and beyond in every ward outside of Chiswick. The Tories were down to eleven seats (which came almost as a relief to them after persistent whispers of a total wipeout in Osterley and Spring Grove) and the spectacularly mismanaged UKIP adventure had predictably ended in tears.
As always many things were said on all sides during the course of the campaign, and one comment on a local Internet forum from a perennial Labour Party mouthpiece to the effect that “voters aren’t buying into ICG ideology” repeated on me in the light of the result. The lady in question, whilst no longer an activist nor even technically a party member, is nevertheless somebody who wields influence with Labour in Isleworth and who would have been relaying feedback from the stump rather than speculating.
Nevertheless I believe she is wrong. Or wrong at least if the point she was trying to make was that voters who had formerly supported the ICG are now consciously rebelling against attempts to involve them in decision-making and preferring instead the lazy option of deliberately electing politicians who will make decisions on their behalf based upon their own agendas rather than having consideration for the wishes of the wider public. The idea that electors who just a few years before had marched against library closures and embraced litigation against Thames Water over Mogden have suddenly decided to put their placards down and to collectively present their backsides to be kicked makes absolutely no sense at all.
In support of my view I would cite Labour’s own election material, excellent as it was in its layout and presentation, in which the party’s “community” credentials were given pride of place. From (definitely false) claims that Isleworth’s Labour councillors had fought to save Isleworth Public Hall for the community to (probably false) promises that no libraries or community centres will be closed during this administration, Labour outgunned the ICG not by trumping our ideology with its own, but by persuading a good many of our erstwhile voters that it now shared our primary concerns and could at last be trusted with the (our) family silver.
SUPERIOR
That Labour’s campaigning techniques are now immensely superior to those it had adopted during earlier contests was also a major factor. It is hard to credit that in 2006, when we won all six seats across Isleworth and Syon wards, Labour did not put out a solitary leaflet in the latter, far less knock on a single door. Instead its “campaign” during that year was apparently based entirely upon an assumption that the party would win simply because the locals had a duty to give it their support. Or that in those days ours were the only candidates who paid particular attention to wooing postal voters.
Today we find ourselves up against campaigns in which canvassing data provided by ward activists is processed and responded to by a central, computerised and often salaried party machine, in which individual letters tailored as “responses” to individual concerns can be mailed to individual voters without any extra effort having to be expended by the local teams, which themselves are fortified by squads of activists drafted in from other areas. Tens of thousands of voters throughout the borough were known to have been contacted by telephone canvassers, and none of this takes into account the additional ballast of Labour election material coming through the letterboxes in support of the party’s European election efforts, which would have had some kind of positive spin-off for the local teams however unintended.
But then again all the same things can be said about the Conservatives, who had some very impressive candidates in the field (Fadi Farhat in Isleworth and Ron Mushiso in Syon spring immediately to mind) as well as some less inspiring ones . They too (absurdly) channeled most of their efforts into wards such as Isleworth and Syon, leaving themselves more vulnerable than they needed to have done in marginal areas such as Hounslow South (which they lost) and Osterley & Spring Grove (where they dropped a seat). They too contacted thousands of voters by telephone, and drafted in outside help on the stump, not least from their sitting Member of Parliament. They too produced a dazzling portfolio of glossy, money-no-object leaflets. Even so they once again came in in third place in both wards, just proving the old adage that one cannot make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.
CONVERGENCE
Labour’s victory in the ICG’s target wards, thus, was not down primarily in my opinion to the vastly superior resources that it was able to call upon, although that undoubtedly was a big factor, but to the (for us) unhappy convergence of an unpopular Tory-led government with a feeling amongst residents that the time had come to trust a local Labour Party which at last was proclaiming the virtues of community engagement, even if (as some old cynics believe) it did so with fingers firmly crossed.
It is worth relating that having spent several months on the doorsteps speaking, and listening, to many thousands of local voters, I didn’t encounter any hostility whatsoever towards the ICG – other than, of course, from one or two who had been hostile to us to begin with, whom I had called upon partly in the forlorn hope that they might have had a change of heart and partly out of devilment. Nobody had “turned” on us per se. But what I did to be honest witness, and almost exclusively from those whose “traditional” sympathies had been with Labour before they had turned to the ICG in the first place, was a tangible dilution of their enthusiasm towards us. Many who had told us in previous contests that they would “definitely” be voting for us were telling us this time that we could “probably” count on them (which as any experienced canvasser will confirm translates into “probably not”).
In the event it was our trusted core support – those who have become almost “traditional ICG supporters” now that our participation has extended over several contests – who stuck with us. In a conversation with a Labour councillor recently I joked that I could almost name the people who voted for us this time around – an exaggeration, but not a ludicrous one. This was particularly so in those areas where one would expect the Tories to perform relatively well. In the owner-occupied areas of Isleworth ward, off the Worple Road and around Old Isleworth (ironically the areas targeted by the “UKIP” candidates, presumably at Labour’s suggestion) we outperformed Labour, whilst the Tories received proportionately fewer votes, considerably fewer, than they did on Ivybridge. It would appear that the votes we had previously taken from the Conservatives remained with us, whilst those we had taken from Labour on the whole drifted back. This is worth bearing in mind because it means that, for the short term at least, Labour clearly now has a psephological as well as an ideological interest in us continuing to take part in elections.
WHERE TO FROM HERE?
Which brings me nicely to the question of where the ICG goes from here because it is clear that, more than ever before, any decision on our part to abandon the electoral path (a logical decision on account of the growing disparity in resources between community-based candidates and national political parties) is unlikely to meet with the approval of our erstwhile Labour opponents. It was, in my view, our biggest mistake of the 2010-2014 period that our decision as to whether or not to stand this time around was permitted to hang so much on us receiving that approval. We should never again, in my opinion, allow our critics to set the agenda for us in such a way – our strategy henceforth must be determined solely by what suits us and our community best.
Labour’s victory, both in our target wards and across the borough, was massive, but perhaps ironically the local party is now inevitably a prisoner of its own success. With an “official” Conservative opposition which is not only small in number but also weak, demoralised and stale (the “newest” amongst them – Sam Hearn – having been first elected to the Council at a by-election in 2008) the temptation for local Labour to revive its proud tradition of factional infighting will be tremendous. Amid all this, those Isleworth and Syon voters who “returned” to Labour from the ICG on account of its commitments to community-building are unlikely to respond favourably to any reversion to the bad old ways. Having made the commitment, Labour is now obligated to deliver.
Will it do so? The signals, as is so often the case, are mixed and in some respects conflicting. Our aforementioned Labour forum correspondent has delivered herself of the interesting view that with the Conservatives in such utter disarray, Labour’s likely “opposition” will for the purposes of this administration be the ICG and the G15+ group of residents’ associations. Flattered though I was, being an active member of both, it ill portends that a political administration charged with the task of governing in the best interests of a whole community should instinctively consider organised groups of residents to be its opposition.
But can the views of one party spokesperson be accepted as those of an entire organisation? Particularly one that has historically been so fractious and factional?
Appointments to the new Cabinet may offer us some clue. The new Leader of the Council is Syon’s Steve Curran, who as an officer of the Griffin Park Residents’ Association a decade or so ago impressed me a great deal but who since, having been transformed from poacher into gamekeeper in his role as a senior councillor, has worried me in equal measure. On his watch Councillor Curran has overseen the demise of HFTRA (the Hounslow Federation of Tenants’ and Residents’ Associations) and the attempted marginalisation of G15+, but as Leader he may have fresh ideas (at the election count he assured me that he was in favour of a “HFTRA Mark 2” to give the tenants back their voice – I told him we would see soon enough whether this was so).
Perhaps more enlightening – or alternatively perhaps not – are the appointments of the community-minded Syon Councillor Theo Dennison as Lead Member for “Citizen Engagement”, and of Isleworth’s Sue Sampson for “Communities”, a role which includes as a subheader “Community Engagement”. There are all manner of permutations to be read into this one. Do they represent two factions, each appointed to a near-identical role by two different power blocs within the Labour Group? Has the Leader appointed both in the hope that they will counter-balance, maybe even neutralise, one another? Or are they to be two distinct roles in spite of the apparent similarities? It is known that Sue fought hard within the Labour Group to have this particular job appended to her portfolio – is it, for her, just about having the capacity to pour funding into pro-Labour community projects on her own patch (before anybody mentions it I have never suggested that Labour in Isleworth is anti-community per se, just that it has historically been highly selective about which community projects it embraces and which it opposes, invariably depending upon where said projects are perceived to stand politically)?
CHANCE ENCOUNTER
I have made it my business to try to find out more about where the administration is likely to be heading with all this. I have already had the benefit of long discussions with two prominent local Labour Party members, one following a chance encounter and the other by appointment. I am optimistic that at least some elements within the new administration, particularly much of the new intake, are serious about wanting to take a new and more enlightened approach to community engagement and I think that they at least should be supported by those of us within the community whose causes are likely to benefit from any success they might enjoy.
I also think we should be prepared, both as a community and (for the ICG) as an organisation, to be open-minded about whether local Labour as a whole is prepared, and indeed structured, to deliver on its promises. Those who are keen to may need our support or even our help in their struggles with those who are perhaps less so. It is my hope that, in such an event, the ICG’s support or help will be readily forthcoming.
Above all we need to remember why it is that we have fought elections in the first place – not through force of habit or because we as individuals desire to be councillors but because we want to realise specific objectives for our community. If those objectives can be realised in spite of our electoral defeat then there can be no valid argument for not recognising the fact and no justification for regarding the political powers that be as our adversaries any longer. No reason to fight against them.
There is an awful lot that we can achieve whilst free of the organisational straitjacket that being committed to fighting elections has consigned us to. It is a fresh new approach which I sincerely believe has, for us, come of age.
“That’s easy,” I replied. “I’m going for a beer”.
It would be an overstatement to say I’d sidestepped the question. As far as I was concerned a well-earned drink once the formal business of the day was finally done was as long ahead as I could be bothered to contemplate at that particular moment in time.
The ICG had just fought what had without doubt been its hardest, most high-intensity election campaign in its twenty-year history. More literature had gone out, more doors had been knocked, and more residents spoken to on the doorsteps than in 2002, 2006 or 2010. The outcome of it all had been a substantial defeat. We had held second place in both Syon and Isleworth, indeed widening the gap between ourselves and the third-placed Tories from the previous contest in 2010, to the obvious surprise and disappointment of the victorious Labour teams, but we were still a very long way behind Labour in both.
LABOUR GAMEPLAN
This, according to the script which had been written in earnest by Labour strategists in the immediate aftermath of 2010, was the contest following which the ICG would finally chuck in the towel and collectively take up fishing. That’s not going to happen, so in that much at least the Labour gameplan had failed to come to fruition notwithstanding the party’s decisive win at the polls.
But there was no hiding from the scoreline – the ICG’s vote had been pinned back to 1998 levels whilst Labour had chalked up tallies of 1500 to 2000 and beyond in every ward outside of Chiswick. The Tories were down to eleven seats (which came almost as a relief to them after persistent whispers of a total wipeout in Osterley and Spring Grove) and the spectacularly mismanaged UKIP adventure had predictably ended in tears.
As always many things were said on all sides during the course of the campaign, and one comment on a local Internet forum from a perennial Labour Party mouthpiece to the effect that “voters aren’t buying into ICG ideology” repeated on me in the light of the result. The lady in question, whilst no longer an activist nor even technically a party member, is nevertheless somebody who wields influence with Labour in Isleworth and who would have been relaying feedback from the stump rather than speculating.
Nevertheless I believe she is wrong. Or wrong at least if the point she was trying to make was that voters who had formerly supported the ICG are now consciously rebelling against attempts to involve them in decision-making and preferring instead the lazy option of deliberately electing politicians who will make decisions on their behalf based upon their own agendas rather than having consideration for the wishes of the wider public. The idea that electors who just a few years before had marched against library closures and embraced litigation against Thames Water over Mogden have suddenly decided to put their placards down and to collectively present their backsides to be kicked makes absolutely no sense at all.
In support of my view I would cite Labour’s own election material, excellent as it was in its layout and presentation, in which the party’s “community” credentials were given pride of place. From (definitely false) claims that Isleworth’s Labour councillors had fought to save Isleworth Public Hall for the community to (probably false) promises that no libraries or community centres will be closed during this administration, Labour outgunned the ICG not by trumping our ideology with its own, but by persuading a good many of our erstwhile voters that it now shared our primary concerns and could at last be trusted with the (our) family silver.
SUPERIOR
That Labour’s campaigning techniques are now immensely superior to those it had adopted during earlier contests was also a major factor. It is hard to credit that in 2006, when we won all six seats across Isleworth and Syon wards, Labour did not put out a solitary leaflet in the latter, far less knock on a single door. Instead its “campaign” during that year was apparently based entirely upon an assumption that the party would win simply because the locals had a duty to give it their support. Or that in those days ours were the only candidates who paid particular attention to wooing postal voters.
Today we find ourselves up against campaigns in which canvassing data provided by ward activists is processed and responded to by a central, computerised and often salaried party machine, in which individual letters tailored as “responses” to individual concerns can be mailed to individual voters without any extra effort having to be expended by the local teams, which themselves are fortified by squads of activists drafted in from other areas. Tens of thousands of voters throughout the borough were known to have been contacted by telephone canvassers, and none of this takes into account the additional ballast of Labour election material coming through the letterboxes in support of the party’s European election efforts, which would have had some kind of positive spin-off for the local teams however unintended.
But then again all the same things can be said about the Conservatives, who had some very impressive candidates in the field (Fadi Farhat in Isleworth and Ron Mushiso in Syon spring immediately to mind) as well as some less inspiring ones . They too (absurdly) channeled most of their efforts into wards such as Isleworth and Syon, leaving themselves more vulnerable than they needed to have done in marginal areas such as Hounslow South (which they lost) and Osterley & Spring Grove (where they dropped a seat). They too contacted thousands of voters by telephone, and drafted in outside help on the stump, not least from their sitting Member of Parliament. They too produced a dazzling portfolio of glossy, money-no-object leaflets. Even so they once again came in in third place in both wards, just proving the old adage that one cannot make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.
CONVERGENCE
Labour’s victory in the ICG’s target wards, thus, was not down primarily in my opinion to the vastly superior resources that it was able to call upon, although that undoubtedly was a big factor, but to the (for us) unhappy convergence of an unpopular Tory-led government with a feeling amongst residents that the time had come to trust a local Labour Party which at last was proclaiming the virtues of community engagement, even if (as some old cynics believe) it did so with fingers firmly crossed.
It is worth relating that having spent several months on the doorsteps speaking, and listening, to many thousands of local voters, I didn’t encounter any hostility whatsoever towards the ICG – other than, of course, from one or two who had been hostile to us to begin with, whom I had called upon partly in the forlorn hope that they might have had a change of heart and partly out of devilment. Nobody had “turned” on us per se. But what I did to be honest witness, and almost exclusively from those whose “traditional” sympathies had been with Labour before they had turned to the ICG in the first place, was a tangible dilution of their enthusiasm towards us. Many who had told us in previous contests that they would “definitely” be voting for us were telling us this time that we could “probably” count on them (which as any experienced canvasser will confirm translates into “probably not”).
In the event it was our trusted core support – those who have become almost “traditional ICG supporters” now that our participation has extended over several contests – who stuck with us. In a conversation with a Labour councillor recently I joked that I could almost name the people who voted for us this time around – an exaggeration, but not a ludicrous one. This was particularly so in those areas where one would expect the Tories to perform relatively well. In the owner-occupied areas of Isleworth ward, off the Worple Road and around Old Isleworth (ironically the areas targeted by the “UKIP” candidates, presumably at Labour’s suggestion) we outperformed Labour, whilst the Tories received proportionately fewer votes, considerably fewer, than they did on Ivybridge. It would appear that the votes we had previously taken from the Conservatives remained with us, whilst those we had taken from Labour on the whole drifted back. This is worth bearing in mind because it means that, for the short term at least, Labour clearly now has a psephological as well as an ideological interest in us continuing to take part in elections.
WHERE TO FROM HERE?
Which brings me nicely to the question of where the ICG goes from here because it is clear that, more than ever before, any decision on our part to abandon the electoral path (a logical decision on account of the growing disparity in resources between community-based candidates and national political parties) is unlikely to meet with the approval of our erstwhile Labour opponents. It was, in my view, our biggest mistake of the 2010-2014 period that our decision as to whether or not to stand this time around was permitted to hang so much on us receiving that approval. We should never again, in my opinion, allow our critics to set the agenda for us in such a way – our strategy henceforth must be determined solely by what suits us and our community best.
Labour’s victory, both in our target wards and across the borough, was massive, but perhaps ironically the local party is now inevitably a prisoner of its own success. With an “official” Conservative opposition which is not only small in number but also weak, demoralised and stale (the “newest” amongst them – Sam Hearn – having been first elected to the Council at a by-election in 2008) the temptation for local Labour to revive its proud tradition of factional infighting will be tremendous. Amid all this, those Isleworth and Syon voters who “returned” to Labour from the ICG on account of its commitments to community-building are unlikely to respond favourably to any reversion to the bad old ways. Having made the commitment, Labour is now obligated to deliver.
Will it do so? The signals, as is so often the case, are mixed and in some respects conflicting. Our aforementioned Labour forum correspondent has delivered herself of the interesting view that with the Conservatives in such utter disarray, Labour’s likely “opposition” will for the purposes of this administration be the ICG and the G15+ group of residents’ associations. Flattered though I was, being an active member of both, it ill portends that a political administration charged with the task of governing in the best interests of a whole community should instinctively consider organised groups of residents to be its opposition.
But can the views of one party spokesperson be accepted as those of an entire organisation? Particularly one that has historically been so fractious and factional?
Appointments to the new Cabinet may offer us some clue. The new Leader of the Council is Syon’s Steve Curran, who as an officer of the Griffin Park Residents’ Association a decade or so ago impressed me a great deal but who since, having been transformed from poacher into gamekeeper in his role as a senior councillor, has worried me in equal measure. On his watch Councillor Curran has overseen the demise of HFTRA (the Hounslow Federation of Tenants’ and Residents’ Associations) and the attempted marginalisation of G15+, but as Leader he may have fresh ideas (at the election count he assured me that he was in favour of a “HFTRA Mark 2” to give the tenants back their voice – I told him we would see soon enough whether this was so).
Perhaps more enlightening – or alternatively perhaps not – are the appointments of the community-minded Syon Councillor Theo Dennison as Lead Member for “Citizen Engagement”, and of Isleworth’s Sue Sampson for “Communities”, a role which includes as a subheader “Community Engagement”. There are all manner of permutations to be read into this one. Do they represent two factions, each appointed to a near-identical role by two different power blocs within the Labour Group? Has the Leader appointed both in the hope that they will counter-balance, maybe even neutralise, one another? Or are they to be two distinct roles in spite of the apparent similarities? It is known that Sue fought hard within the Labour Group to have this particular job appended to her portfolio – is it, for her, just about having the capacity to pour funding into pro-Labour community projects on her own patch (before anybody mentions it I have never suggested that Labour in Isleworth is anti-community per se, just that it has historically been highly selective about which community projects it embraces and which it opposes, invariably depending upon where said projects are perceived to stand politically)?
CHANCE ENCOUNTER
I have made it my business to try to find out more about where the administration is likely to be heading with all this. I have already had the benefit of long discussions with two prominent local Labour Party members, one following a chance encounter and the other by appointment. I am optimistic that at least some elements within the new administration, particularly much of the new intake, are serious about wanting to take a new and more enlightened approach to community engagement and I think that they at least should be supported by those of us within the community whose causes are likely to benefit from any success they might enjoy.
I also think we should be prepared, both as a community and (for the ICG) as an organisation, to be open-minded about whether local Labour as a whole is prepared, and indeed structured, to deliver on its promises. Those who are keen to may need our support or even our help in their struggles with those who are perhaps less so. It is my hope that, in such an event, the ICG’s support or help will be readily forthcoming.
Above all we need to remember why it is that we have fought elections in the first place – not through force of habit or because we as individuals desire to be councillors but because we want to realise specific objectives for our community. If those objectives can be realised in spite of our electoral defeat then there can be no valid argument for not recognising the fact and no justification for regarding the political powers that be as our adversaries any longer. No reason to fight against them.
There is an awful lot that we can achieve whilst free of the organisational straitjacket that being committed to fighting elections has consigned us to. It is a fresh new approach which I sincerely believe has, for us, come of age.
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