Crewe's Missile Scores Direct Hit

Last night's by-election in Crewe & Nantwich sent several messages to Gordon Brown and the Labour Party. A massive 17.6% swing to the Conservatives saw Edward Timpson beat Tamsin Dunwoody to her late mother's seat.

There is a clear sense that it is time for change. Some of the decisions made by Gordon Brown as Chancellor are coming home to roost. The decision to abolish the 10% tax band was taken last year. The regulatory system that missed Northern Rock was put in place sometime ago. The electorate did not fall for the concession made by Alistair Darling, borrowing £2.7bn to fund a tax cut for those affected by the 10% change. They railed against the "Tory Toff" negative campaigning when Labour played the man not the ball. Surely after so long in power, they should be able to set out their track record - OK, maybe not.

The LibDems fell back as well. The infamous by-election specialists were squeezed with their vote share going down. People swapped straight from Labour to Conservatives, showing that the Tories have a fantastic base to build on as people are interested in listening to them and discovering more about their policies rather than simply protesting about an unpopular Prime Minister and Government.

Enough crowing. I am pleased to see that David Cameron and CCHQ are determined to see this as a stepping stone and not go overboard. People in Crewe and Nantwich have put their trust into the Conservatives. It is up to us to repay that faith and show that they have made the right decision. We will continue to work to earn votes in Sutton and the country rather than rely on other's misfortunes and fate. Plenty of work still to be done.

Demystifying Sutton Council

The 54 Councillors in Sutton represent over 150,000 people, yet I suspect very few know what we do on a day to day basis in their name. Sutton Scene is a corporate magazine concentrating on Council services, the local newspapers report a few political stories. The time that councillors spend in the Civic Offices gets less coverage but needs to be done. The LibDems, as the ruling group make decisions. We scrutinise them and question those decisions. Much of the work is not adversarial, instead concentrating on the general running of the Council. This doesn't make it less important.

You'll see in the video above, a brief run through of what happens in a typical Council meeting. Most decisions are made elsewhere, so we have been looking at ways of making Full Council meetings more relevant, more interesting and more effective...We're still looking.

You can help. There are plenty of residents that grumble over their afternoon tea when reading the local papers. You can submit a question to the council by emailing committee.servicesATsutton.gov.uk (Change AT for @; I'm trying to avoid spam). This is then answered at the Council meeting and you will have the opportunity to have a follow-up question. There is half an hour for this and it is very underused. You see, if no-one asks questions, they think that they must be doing OK, so there's a challenge for you. Have a look at the Council web page for dates of Full Council and other meetings. I look forward to seeing you in the Public Gallery. If you can't sleep at night you can even listen to us witter on via streaming audio on the same website.

The BBC won't be beating a path to my door to present any politics programmes and a ray of light affected Brendan Hudson's piece, but I hope that my amateur effort gives you some idea about what we get up to on a Monday night.

Just A Bit Of Fun

It looks as though the two local MPs and the Leader of the Council have been looking at the same ward breakdown of the London election results that I have.

The results that are the best indicator of the local situation in Sutton are those for the London Assembly candidate. The Conservatives won fourteen of the eighteen wards in the Borough and won the popular vote in both Parliamentary constituencies. If this was reflected in the General and Local elections, the three LibDem politicians would have failed in their quest to "Save Our Seats".

These breakdowns are only indicative of voting trends and it is difficult to translate this to national and local politics but they are useful. The variations between elections can be seen by the ballot where people had to tick which party they supported. Before postal votes were redistributed, the Conservatives won every single ward in the Borough. It would be rather Mugabe-esque to believe that this was anything else but, as Peter Snow would have said, "Just a bit of fun."

We've got a lot of work to continue over the next couple of years to clearly demonstrate the ever decreasing returns that residents in Sutton get from their LibDem politicians. What may have started as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed administration in the 1980s has become a tired one, with few new ideas coming from the elected leaders themselves.

We will also be setting out our positive vision for Sutton. Negative politics may be effective in getting people elected. It has no place in running a Borough. Instead only innovation, inspiration and hard work will see better value for money and the very best services. Don't forget you can help us with this by going to www.changesutton.org.uk and letting us know what you think.

Class War Desperation In Crewe

Earlier this year we saw the LibDems fight a by-election in Cheam with a negative campaign and no positive policies despite having controlled the Borough for 22 years. Something similar is happening in Crewe & Nantwich where the Conservatives are hoping for their first by-election victory in a Labour-held seat since Mitcham & Morden in 1982. The News of the World is publishing a poll tomorrow which shows the Tories in a 8% lead.

Government Ministers have all been up to Crewe with one notable exception, Gordon Brown. The Labour candidate has repeatedly refused to say whether she sees the PM as an asset or liability to her campaign. Labour activists are hiding their leaflets from reporters. The newsletters concentrate on asking whether Edward Timpson is posh or not, belying Gordon Brown's repeated claims that he is just getting on with the job in leading a successful Government. It's all getting a little embarrassing now.

Edward Timpson does live in an expensive house. His father built up the successful Timpson chain of shoe repairers. Crewe is in Cheshire, home to the WAG. Timpson's place is not Beckingham Palace. He was brought up along with 80 foster children that his parents looked after at various points in their lives. Timpson was brought up around the area.

Tamsin Dunwoody has dropped the second half of her double barreled name 'Dunwoody-Kneafsey' in order to maximise name recognition in trying to win her late mother's seat. Her grandmother had a seat in the House of Lords and her grandfather was a Party grandee. So much for abolishing hereditary succession. She also lives in a rather large house, except hers is 125 miles away in South Wales. The desperate regression to class warfare was capped when that great prole Quentin Davies rolled into town. I can't imagine having a Quentin and a Tamsin on my doorstep explaining how simply awful it would be to have toffs in charge. It would be funny if Gordon wasn't still clinging on by his fingertips at all of our expense.

LibDems On The Spot

There were several interesting questions asked at the Full Council meeting on Monday:-

Philippa Stroud asked about housing after the resignation of the Chief Executive and Chairman of Sutton Housing Partnership. This was after the failure of the organisation to get the two star rating which would have secured funding to bring our houses up to scratch. We have the second worst housing in the capital and need some £120m to bring it up to a basic standard of decency. Philippa highlighted a case where a single mother was living with her four children in one room.

Philippa also asked why more than 90 girls could not find secondary school places in Sutton. We know how many children enter primary school each year so we should be able to predict secondary school demand with a reasonable level of accuracy. The LibDem lead councillor shrugged this off with the comment that "sometimes the figures don't add up." Although thirty places have been made available in Carshalton Girls, sixty children will be left high and dry for sometime to come. Cllr Tim Crowley asked what advice should be given to parents such as one sat in the audience whose daughter had no place for next September. The resident was left disappointed when no answer was forthcoming.

Carshalton resident Paul Kelly, asked what the council was doing to support small businesses and shops in the outlying parts of the Borough like Worcester Park and whether cutting parking charges and increasing spaces would help. He had noticed an increase of boarded up shops and noted that 450 small business had closed in the Borough over the last year. Lynn Gleeson, lead councillor for Economic Development explained that because more women were obliged to work to pay their mortgages, they did not shop in the same way. Whereas it is true to say that shopping patterns are not what they were, Cllr Gleeson failed to explain what the Council was doing to reinvigorate our High Streets in the face of such changes. You may not be surprised to hear that she did not believe that parking charges were too high.

Have They Gone Yet?

Another full Council meeting last night. The questions threw up some interesting exchanges but I'll concentrate on the main business for this post.

We discussed two corporate documents, the Sutton Strategy and the Sutton Plan. The former is agreed by the Council and partner organisations such as the NHS Primary Care Trust and the Police. The latter is supposed to translate the LibDem manifesto into actions.

This is all well and good in theory and much of this was required to tick another box for national government in order to get funding but they both highlighted one fact. The documents explained what the Borough was like now and targets listing what they would like to do but there was precious little about how to do any of it. The section detailing implementation ran to a single page with even an Ethnic & Diversity Statement running to five. It clearly demonstrated the fact that the Liberal Democrats have become an unneccesary adjunct to the council; the Borough's appendix if you will, with officers pushing on with running the show despite the LibDems rather than because of them.

The officers should be there running the day to day administration but the lead councillors are there to give political leadership, setting out their vision and keeping officers on the path to delivering this vision. The case in Sutton is that the majority party have run out of steam, hanging onto the coat-tails of the officers and the council's partners.

Busy Boris

Boris has certainly hit the ground running in his first week as Mayor. He has made some bold appointments with Ray Lewis becoming Deputy Mayor for Young People. Ray is the inspirational head of Eastside Young Leaders' Academy with a fantastic track record of providing real change for young people in Hackney.

Patience Wheatcroft, former Business Editor of the Times will lead a 60-day audit of City Hall. She will be helped by Stephen Greenhalgh amongst others. As leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, Stephen has already been incisive in his approach to local government finances, cutting council tax in his borough by 3% each year for the past two years.

Boris has met with Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York to draw comparisons and with Council leaders from across the city further demonstrating his desire to work closely with those people that know their part of London best. If you are going to build transatlantic relations, Bloomberg is the better bet than Hugo Chavez.

His first action was to ban alcohol from the underground and buses. In his campaign, Boris concentrated heavily on making public transport safer. This is an important first step and it is good to see such quick action despite Bob Crow's typically blinkered approach. I'm sure that if Boris had not done this and assaults on staff went up, the call for strikes would have been deafening.

Finally according to Iain Dale comes my personal favourite. Boris showed the basic common sense that has been sorely lacking for eight years. I'll leave it to Iain to tell the story:-

"When Boris sat down at his desk on Monday morning he was presented with a huge press cuttings file, which included loads of articles from the Morning Star. 'Why on earth are you including these?' he asked one of his staff. 'Well,' said the staff member, 'Mayor Livingstone was keen to support the Morning Star'. 'In what way?' asked Boris.It transpired that the GLA Building had a subscription of forty - yes, forty - copies of the Morning Star delivered every day. Boris's first action as Mayor was to cancel all forty subscriptions to the lefty rag, thereby halving its circulation with one stroke of the mayoral pen. That's what I call the mark of a real Conservative - annoy the leftists and save the taxpayer £10,000 a year at the same time."

K.O. for the P.O.

The Post Office have revealed their decision on the future of branches in London. All five that were earmarked for closure in the Borough are to be axed, leaving hundreds of people inconvenienced and having to suffer longer journeys and longer queues.

One is here in Carshalton, opposite the BP garage on Carshalton Road. BP are putting an M&S Simply Food branch on their site. Without postal services, I fear that the shop will find it hard to compete with the might of M&S and BP. Another nail in the coffin of diversity.

Ken Andrew, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Carshalton & Wallington did a terrific job in raising awareness of the threat and collected a petition with well over 3000 signatures on it. Despite best efforts, the decision had pretty well been made with only 7 branches reprieved in London out of 171.

Money For Old Rope

Under rules agreed by the Labour Government earlier this year, Ken Livingstone stands to get a £69,000 payoff after losing the election, at least £30,000 of which will be tax-free. You may think that this is a small price to pay to be free of the man.

Departing Assembly Members will receive around £25,000. There is a weak case to be made for this when someone has lost an election. However, there is no case when someone steps down at the election as a planned retirement such as LibDem members Graham Tope and Sally Hamwee, both members of the House of Lords. They did not stand for election yet qualify for a payout. I didn't stand for election either, where do I queue up for my handout? If I find out, I'll let you know.

Red Tape In Ivory Towers

Two stories that I have read today and

then thrown away (having completed a risk assessment, applied for a waste licence with the commensurate fee and written to the Secretary of State in triplicate):-

From the Sunday Telegraph:

Havant council spent 34p on a letter demanding payment of a 1p tax bill. Guy Shepperd, 36, of Horndean, Hants, was told he could pay by instalments.

From Private Eye:

Citywest Homes, the "arm's length" company which manages Westminster council's housing stock, is inviting oldies to get in touch if they need any help with a variety of tasks, including "filling in forms". To avail themselves of the service all the tenants have to do is, er, fill in a form!

Boris Brings Hope To London

The last few days have been fantastic news for the country with Gordon Brown getting the clearest message possible that he should start packing his bags and finding a publisher for his memoirs. The culmination of the elections was the news that Boris had become Mayor of London sending that other blinkered Labour politician into retirement on a wave of expectation for real change in London.

Boris has a great vision for London, however he knows that he couldn't and shouldn't do everything on his own. He has constantly told me and other councillors that we know our areas best and should be trusted. I am happy to have a Mayor to take a strategic view but who will not micromanage every borough to attempt to force through unpopular policies. He has already met his campaign pledge to increase the number of police on the streets, albeit just the one, Brian Paddick.

Outer London residents came out in huge numbers to vote for a change and I am determined to remind Boris at every opportunity that we need his attention in Sutton. Crime, transport and housing problems don't stop at the end of the Victoria Line. The London Plan for development requires urgent attention to drastically reduce backgarden development. Antisocial Behaviour on our streets, parks and buses needs battling.

Steve O'Connell, new Assembly Member for Sutton & Croydon had a fantastic result too, doubling the Conservative majority to a whopping 42,000. He has worked hard to prove that he wants to work closely with people in our Borough rather than looking at Sutton as a poor relation to the largest Borough in the City. He deserves his success but we will keep him on his toes as a shopping list of Sutton priorities wends its way up to City Hall. The vote count at Olympia yesterday was interminably boring, lasting 14 hours or so. We were considering a wager to see which result came first, the Zimbabwe Presidential election or London. The counters including many Sutton Council officers worked effectively, the Spanish machinery less so. I'll leave you to work jokes about Spanish Working Practices into the equation.

The full results in Sutton & Croydon can be seen at the London Elects website, a few of the main points follow:-

Mayor
Boris Johnson 48.36%
Ken Livingstone 28.34%
Brian Paddick 11.77%

Constituency vote
Steve O'Connell (C) 43.34%
Shafi Khan (Lab) 19.16%
Abigail Lock (LD) 18.32%

This resulted in an increase in Conservative vote of 6.55% and a decrease in the LibDem vote of 1.80% compared to 2004. Nick Clegg described this as 'counfounding expectations' and 'regaining momentum'. Having seen local LibDem councillors peversely celebrating their loss of the Cheam by-election by holding up the margin of defeat on scraps of paper at the last council meeting the myopia has lost its shock value now. UKIP's share of the vote decreased by more than 5% and were worringly beaten by the BNP in two of the three ballots. There is no doubt who has the momentum to bring change now, we must continue to work hard to show that the Conservatives can bring positive change. No party matches everyone's wishlist, but Gordon Brown and the local LibDem machinery will be offering forlorn prayers for a splintered vote to give them a glimmer of hope to return to power at the next election. I'll be working hard with my Conservative colleagues to offer a vision locally that offers people in Sutton a positive reason to vote Conservative to add to the increasing desire to get rid of the incumbents.

Hoey To Join Team Boris

Boris has just said that if he wins the election on May 1st, Kate Hoey will join his mayoral team as a non-executive director advising Boris on sport and the Olympics.

Hoey, Labour MP for Vauxhall and Chairman of the Countryside Alliance may face expulsion from the Labour Party as a result despite Gordon Brown's 'big tent' exercise of last summer. Kate Hoey has long been seen as a potential defector with centre-right views and a healthy dose of euro-scepticism. She served as Sports Minister, has worked for several football clubs and is a former Northern Ireland High Jump champion.

Boris said "I am delighted to announce that Kate Hoey will join me in my administration if I win on May 1. She and I agree that there is much more that can be done to promote sport and to develop sporting facilities across London. Kate has a huge and well-known commitment to sport and to London, and I am determined to bring talent from across politics and the community to a new administration.”

There has been speculation over the last few days if Hoey would defect following an event at which she was due to appear with Boris but pulled out last minute. When asked if she was supporting Boris for Mayor, she answered "I am a Labour MP, I am not endorsing anyone." Scant comfort for Ken then!

I see that she is the one of the most rebellious of all Labour MPs according to Public Whip and has made plenty of noise about councils closing swimming pools. It'll be interesting to see what she makes of the LibDems' handling of Cheam Baths when Lead Councillor Graham Tope contradicted himself in a single letter to the Guardian, starting the letter saying that there were no plans to close the pool but finishing off by calling for a rational debate about what to replace it with. All of this schizophrenic behaviour whilst the Council are ploughing £500,000 of our money into the pool with no future. No doubt they'll be trying to fill it up without putting the plug in next.

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

I bumped into the chairman of Carshalton Athletic FC yesterday who gave me some very welcome news. The club will be submitting a planning application to replace the floodlights at the War Memorial ground in Colston Avenue this week.

Residents have complained about the old lights for a number of years as they shine into their bedrooms, especially in the winter when the trees are bare. The new lights should reduce this problem considerably as well as reducing energy costs and providing more effective lighting for the club. Sounds like everyone might be a winner.

Carshalton also avoided relegation this week so congratulations all round.

Back To Moderation

Part of the problem with getting anything done in politics is that often it is the few that shout loudest that attract the attention to the exclusion of everyone else. This blog, the first in Sutton, is an attempt to exchange views with people who are interested in Carshalton and the Borough of Sutton but don't normally get involved.

I usually respond to comments quite quickly as it is important to have a dialogue rather than a polemic blinkered approach. Unfortunately one regular correspondent does not take this approach instead spending an inordinate and quite frankly unhealthy amount of time on waging a personal vendetta. This is not the place for it. I don't want to put off people that want to debate issues that affect our everyday lives but this is not a club for disaffected politicians. One of those has been set up elsewhere to continue the one-sided discussion.

Some may consider this censorship, some may wonder why I didn't do it earlier. I'm only too aware that most people in the Borough would shrug their shoulders and not care. Either way, I haven't got time to concern myself with people who are what civil servants call a vexatious persistent correspondent. I'll concentrate on trying to change Sutton for the better for the rest.

Caring About The Community

This afternoon, I spoke at a public meeting organised by the Queen Mary's Christian Care Foundation. It was open to all candidates for the London Assembly or a representative. Steve O'Connell was busy at a prearranged event in Croydon so I stepped in. Only David Campanale from the Christian People's Alliance joined me. The third person in the photo standing in the middle is Dr Richard Cooling of the Foundation.

They have a vision for a care village located on part or all of the Orchard Hill site in Carshalton that you can read about here. At present, there are two main plans being considered for the site, just housing and the new Stanley Park High School plus some housing. There are some fundamental issues that have to be resolved before anything can happen. Firstly, the NHS Primary Care Trust own the land. Their finances are not looking too clever at the moment so they need every penny to reprovision the service for the current residents of Orchard Hill. Secondly, Sutton Council have agreed that the proposal should be considered as part of the supplementary planning document which will determine what development will be allowed on the site, yet issued a document that fails to mention the Foundation. Finally, if the land is sold for housing, it is lost to public services forever. A care village can evolve over time as thoughts about service provision changes. Breaking up the plot into small parcels of privately-owned land precludes this.

Residents of Sovereign Park are happy to see this take shape. As a Governor of Stanley Park, I can see synergies between the new school and the centre with shared facilities and opportunities for vocational training and as a local politician, I would welcome any initiative that improves access to such services. The group have proved their committment over a number of years in pushing the Council and PCT to consider making them a preferred purchaser, giving them a level playing field. They are not asking for a step up. They are a good example of a group of organisations and committed individuals seeking to offer a service that Whitehall or even the Civic Office cannot provide. I say, trust people not bureaucracy to deliver.

Bit Late For Tears

Is it just me or is the spectacle of a series of Labour Ministers not quite resigning over a policy that they were cheering about on its announcement over a year ago faintly ridiculous and unedifying?

In the last budget that he delivered, Gordon Brown announced a headline 'tax cut' to great cheers from the Labour benches. Cutting the headline rate by 2p was paid for by scrapping the 10p tax bracket payable on the first £2,230 of taxable earnings. Of course commentators saw further than the back-slapping backbenchers, understanding that this would have a disproportionate effect on the less well-off. 5.3 million families will be affected by this change that has just come into effect with one in five families being worse off by anything up to £464 each year. Gordon explained it away as simplifying the tax system, despite the fact that he had introduced this extra tax bracket himself a few years before.

Smug Labour MPs looking forward to an autumn election have turned into a cynical bunch of politicians staring at the abyss. Seventy of these people have signed an Early Day Motion objecting to the move, some junior ministers have taken the commanding step that must make their constituents proud, of writing to the Prime Minister. Angela Smith, PPS to Yvette Cooper, resigned, spoke to Gordon who interrupted his photoshoot with the various presidential
hopefuls in the US and promptly caught the bottling bug explaining that 'resigning her position was not envisaged.' I love hate to say "I told you so!"

We are standing on the edge of an economic precipice. Trust Gordon Brown to want to push us forward. See you at the bottom.

A Pong For Europe

Following the mystic mayhem reported in a post yesterday,

there's a real stink coming from the European Union.

This time it's not from Brussels. Many newspapers have reported a stench carried on the winds from continental Europe to places as far west as Swindon. Apparently the culprits are German farmers spraying liquid manure. This has put paid to the original Gallic-sounding nickname of the phenomenon, Le Whiff.

I Just Didn't See It Coming

The EU often come under some deserved stick for the rules, regulations and laws that it comes up with. However, when you have to spend your time legislating to prove your worth, occasionally you hit upon gold.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Britain's 1951 Fraudulent Mediums Act is to be repealed next month and replaced by the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, which comes into force on May 26. Under the outgoing legislation, the prosecution had to prove that a medium or spiritual healer had intended to be fraudulent in order to secure a conviction. But under the new European consumer protection directive, it will be the psychic's responsibility to prove they did not mislead or coerce credulous consumers.

This reminds me of the old joke about the psychic fair that had to be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.

Note: Only UKIP members with a sense of humour may post a comment here:-

Boris in Sutton

A few weeks before his trip to Carshalton, Boris timed a walkabout up Sutton High Street perfectly, missing the snow flurries that gusted down the hill. The response from members of the public was phenomenal with people coming to shake his hand, have a picture taken and wish him well. He is a celebrity without doubt, but remember he is still a politician, so this treatment is testament to the refreshing approach that he takes; a sensible appraisal of the problems that Londoners face with a cheeky smirk sufficiently visible to remind us of someone that does not take himself too seriously, unlike the incumbent who has finally begun to believe his own propaganda.

The highlight for me was the impromptu ska anthem by local band the Dualers. Whilst the lyrics "New Mayor of London, Boris Johnson" won't be winning any BRIT awards any time soon, the sheer spontaeity of the occasion was excellent.

You can see this on the video which I have only managed to lay my hands on a couple of days ago, hence the delayed post. It's a little rough and ready but, like Boris, not everything needs to be perfectly polished to be effective.

Boris in Carshalton

I brought Boris to Carshalton High Street a few days ago. We discussed the contrast between the village feel of Carshalton and the different types of problems that we face here compared to Zone One.

You may recall that local business owners and residents had complained about underage drinking and vandalism in and around the High Street and the two parks. Shopkeepers articulated their concerns whilst appreciating that not all young people hanging out around the canal were looking for, or causing trouble.

Victor Eve collared Boris to highlight the bleak future for patients of Malvern Ward in Sutton Hospital, a specialist Alzheimers unit which is earmarked for closure. The owner of Village Bathrooms bemoaned the fact that since TfL had taken control of the High Street as a red route, getting anything done was both time consuming and costly. Even seeking permission for decorations at Christmas was proving to be a headache.

Finally we rested the campaign-weary feet at Harry Brooks' coffee shop where Boris chatted with John Faulkner, Chairman of Woodstock Road Residents' Association and Steve Mendat, a local Neighbourhood Watch Street Co-ordinator and caretaker at All Saints School. He also had time to spend a few minutes giving an interview to Lisa Williams of the Sutton Guardian.

I was determined that Boris would not simply be surrounded by the party faithful, instead meeting "real" residents of the village such as John and Steve who could tackle Boris on issues that concerned their friends and neighbours rather than pushing an election message to them. We have a long way to go before the result of this election is known. However, if and when Boris enters City Hall as the new Mayor, I want him to know exactly where Carshalton is and what he can do for us. Time and time again since being selected as the Conservative candidate, Boris has given me confidence that he will not ride roughshod over areas such as ours, instead seeking guidance from those who know the area best including our hard-working London Assembly candidate, Steve O'Connell. I'm looking forward to the refreshing change.

Newsnight Debate

I've just caught up with last Tuesday's debate on Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman interviewing the three leading candidates which you can see on BBC iPlayer for the next two days.

Three transport points stuck out for me. Firstly Brian Paddick unequivocally stated that he would scrap the Western extension to the Congestion Charge. This is a good thing since the Mayor introduced it in the face of opposition by the majority of residents. However the LibDem candidate failed to point out that he would replace it with a peak time congestion charge stretching over the vast majority of Greater London, the boundary being the limits of the Low Emission Zone. Woe betide anyone who lives in Worcester Park which would be split in two with this proposed charge.

The second two were about bendy buses. When confronted with the fact that bendy buses kill more people than Routemasters, Ken Livingstone explained that this was not because they were long, but because more people fell underneath them; an oblique and somewhat blinkered response. I've seen a few near misses with pedestrians toes - fortunately nothing more serious- as the buses turn corners.

Boris Johnson pointed out that bendy buses were hotbeds of fraud with some £8m of fares being lost. I have rarely used a bendy bus in London but used them frequently over the last few days in Rome - did I say that I had been away on holiday:)? There, the buses were packed, making it physically impossible for anyone to validate their ticket unless they happened to be pinned against the machine and feeling dextrous.

Click on the picture to see the full transport leaflet from Boris.

Since the election imprint was on the second page of the transport leaflet, I've added one below to cover the document cover shown above.
Promoted by Ian Sanderson on behalf of Boris Johnson, both at 30 Millbank London SW1P 4DP

Welcome To Britain

I've just got back from a few days in Rome. We had a fantastic time but it wasn't without a couple of examples of Italian officials showing the worst of their bureaucracy and buses breaking down. But that only happens abroad doesn't it?

Not a bit of it. After ten years of this Government losing control of immigration policy and process, Stansted had a 3/4 hour queue for passport control (probably longer for those outside the EU). This was after midnight so hardly peak time.

The drive back along the M11 and M25 had miles of coned lanes with speed limits reduced and no visible sign of any work having taken place during daylight hours. Now we don't even have a 'Cones Hotline' to rant at (pointless at the time, definitely pointless now since you can't use a mobile whilst driving) although Big Brother watches us via digital speed cameras.

At least in Rome, an earthquake, a Pope and two thousand years of history caused the Colosseum to get to the state that it is in. Though it is ragged around the edges, it is still very impressive - I'm still talking about the Colosseum. We need a change of Government and real reform before the final shine is taken off - I'm not talking about the Colosseum any more.

Where's Livingstone?

Local Conservative campaigners in Wallington have been asking ‘Where is Ken Livingstone?’ As the contest for the next Mayor of London draws closer, people in Sutton have been campaigning to highlight Ken Livingstone’s neglect of London’s outer borough of Sutton.

Steve O’Connell, Conservative candidate for the London Assembly said:
“The current Mayor of London has been running an administration for zone 1, not for the rest of us who live in Greater London. We need a Mayor who will represent all Londoners and Boris Johnson has already demonstrated his commitment to doing this by visiting Sutton High Street and Cheam Village.

We are fed up with Ken Livingstone’s out of touch approach to running London. After eight years as Mayor all he seems to be interested in is preserving his job and looking after his cronies.

It is time for a change. Boris Johnson is campaigning on the issues that matter to the people of Sutton and offering fresh solutions on issues like Crime, Transport and back-garden development. We want to see a Mayor who cares about Sutton and is committed to working for all those who live in Greater London. Boris has clearly demonstrated he is the man for the job.

Letts v. Harman. Part II...

...This time it's personal.

I enjoy the writing of Quentin Letts (inset), sketchwriter for the Daily Mail and contributor to any number of other newspapers and magazines. He has a wicked sense of humour and a healthy disdain for most politicians. Now John Prescott has gone, he reserves his ire for replacement Labour Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman.

I must be one of the few people sad enough to sit through most of the last few No. 10 press conferences but it was worth persevering to the end to hear this question to Gordon Brown:-

"You just dodged Graham's question about Harriet Harman. We all know she is a nightmare but she is there, she is your Deputy. Can you tell us was she right to wear a stab jacket and should she wear a stab jacket next time she is in Downing Street?"

Other bloggers and the dead-tree press have covered the ridiculous sight of Harriet Harman wearing a stab vest in her own constituency. This follows Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith's admission that she doesn't feel safe when buying a kebab in her patch. Boris Johnson quipped at a recent mayoral hustings that his aim was to make the kebab the most dangerous thing in Smith's constituency.

Anyway, back to Quentin Letts. He has form. Take this earlier question to Gordon Brown at the December PM's Press Conference:-

"Shall we just try one more time, Prime Minister, on the Harriet Harman question? How much are you behind her? Are you 100% behind her, 90, 20, 10? Do you wish she would go and jump off a cliff? Do you really want her to be in this job?"

He really must stop mincing his words about Hattie:)

Boris' Freedom Pass Guarantee

I was pleased to see Boris highlighting his pledge to keep the Freedom Pass on his website. There has certainly been a lot of misinformation given by Ken Livingstone and his cronies over the last year or so, suggesting that the concessionary travel scheme was under threat from the Conservatives.

This has never been the case, but Livingstone repeated the claims to divert attention away from the main argument. At the moment, London Councils, an umbrella organisation representing all of the Boroughs administers the cost of running the scheme taking money from each council. Transport for London set the price for the pass. If London Councils feel that they are getting a raw deal, they have recourse to bring it in front of an arbiter; one Ken Livingstone. This is hardly equitable and ensures that TfL can squeeze yet more money away from local control into the centralised pot being dished out from City Hall.

Each party believes that it is a good idea to provide free travel for over-65s and disabled people. However Ken Livingstone has attempted to make it received wisdom that because the Conservatives - who are the largest Party on London Councils by controlling the most Boroughs - deign to disagree with Livingstone, we would make the fantastical jump of scrapping the whole thing. Definitely a case of saying a falsehood enough times to make people believe it!

In For a Penny, In For a Pound

Having consulted on a council budget based on a council tax increase of 4.9%, the ruling Liberal Democrats eventually bowed to our pressure by restricting themselves to 3.4% extra. Each year the Conservative Opposition highlight innovative approaches to reducing the tax burden around London such as Hillingdon where they are freezing tax for pensioners. Each year Sutton's tax continues its relentless increase with little extra in return for residents.

This year's increase was pegged back after the intervention of David Dombey's impassioned plea on behalf of pensioners. I notice that in a recent Sutton Guardian (6 March), Mrs Dombey is campaigning to stop the demolition of a public toilet in the ward represented by her daughter, a deputy leader of the council. Maybe they can succeed where other politicians have failed in getting the Lib Dem administration to listen instead of their traditional 'consult, consider, ignore' approach.

Ruth Dombey responded when her father told her how to spend the pounds. Will she act now her mother has told her how to spend a penny?

Philippa Fighting For Social Justice

Philippa Stroud, the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Sutton & Cheam has worked closely with the Conservative councillors over the last year, adding a good brain, relevant experience and an extensive address book to our work. I hope we have been able to reciprocate.

Philippa will play a key role in any future Conservative Government through her work as Director at the Centre for Social Justice, a thinktank founded by former Conservative leader, Iain Duncan-Smith. The CSJ produced a doorstep of a report, Breakthrough Britain with 190 recommendations to follow up the interim report Breakdown Britain which highlighted social problems arising from social breakdown in the UK over the last few years. It looks at such areas as worklessness, debt, addiction and families. Gordon Brown has since adopted 16 recommendations as his own and David Cameron has incorporated 27 into his policy development.

We all know that the economy, public services and foreign policy are vital areas for any government. They tend to be easier to understand, attracting simple headlines and short-term solutions. Areas such as family breakdown are far harder to tackle. Many people I meet, shrug their shoulders and say that society is not what it was in years gone by without really stopping to think why and how we can effect change. It is good that someone is and has the drive and influence to see results.

Philippa appeared on Newsnight at the end of February on the eve of Gordon Brown's announcement about Welfare Reform. Paxman didn't need to ask her the same question more than once, never mind fourteen times as she handled herself very well as you can see in the clip above.

Common Sense For Westmead Road

On Wednesday night, my colleagues and I heard Ken Andrew speak at the Carshalton & Clockhouse Local Committee about the issues around the proposed changes to Westmead Road. He presented a petition which attracted significant support from residents that would be most affected by the proposals. I was pleased to see a good number of residents at the meeting to tell us their views.

At the meeting, Ken articulated concerns about the changes to the Hail and Ride bus service and the introduction of speed humps. No-one could disagree with making our roads safer – hence my support for the introduction of the two mini-roundabouts and other limited changes as called for in the petition - but the rest of the scheme appears to address a problem that is not there. Lower Road has an accident record that requires some action. However the plan affects the entire length of Westmead Road and unduly affects bus users and drivers.

As previously reported, when this scheme was first presented to me and Eric, we both queried why speed humps remained in the proposal after being clearly rejected in the consultation. We were told that residents only objected to humps because of possible loss of on-street parking and since no places would be lost, there was no reason to remove them from the scheme. This explanation was derived from the comments that a few residents had written. We were not satisfied with this as we believed that there were insufficient comments to jump to this conclusion and so demanded that speed humps were removed from the design.

With many of these schemes council officers come under pressure to push through plans in fear of losing the funding at the end of the financial year. The choice that we had on Wednesday was described as “take it or leave it”. Councillors unanimously voted to leave it, rejecting the proposal. It is unfortunate that we did not have the option to pick and choose the parts of the scheme that residents believed would have most benefit to them, due to the cumbersome bureaucracy of Transport for London.

Ken Andrew and local resident Paul Kelly did a great job in organising the petition and I was pleased to see how well supported it was. We often take this Council to task for not seeking and responding to residents’ opinions and I am pleased that in this instance, residents have grouped together effectively to ensure that their voice is heard. Eric and I will continue to do our utmost to reflect your views and concerns about Carshalton.

LibDems Get Post Office Worried

I walked past this Post Office in London Bridge on Saturday. It was closed as it was early morning and so no-one was around. This is in stark contrast to a few days ago when, as reported in Private Eye, LibDems queued up to have their photo taken with Mayoral hopeful Brian Paddick to save post offices.

Kingston MP Ed Davey, Hornsey & Wood Green MP Lynne Featherstone and a councillor made the pilgrimage to London Bridge to be snapped with Paddick.

Two minor points stick out. With four post offices closing in Featherstone's patch and five in Davey's backyard, could they not go along to one of those. Secondly, with 169 post offices in London for the axe could they have not at least found a post office that is at least threatened. The London Bridge post office is not on the list. The sub postmaster must have been confused.

We have all been campaigning to keep our local post offices open but this is another example of a posturing empty gesture from the LibDems that is all about electioneering and nothing to do with the future of our communities. I hope they at least bought some stamps while they were there.

Fair Deal For Sutton Tenants

On Wednesday, I joined Philippa Stroud, our Parliamentary Candidate in Sutton & Cheam and more than fifty supporters of a campaign organised by Jean Crossby and the Sutton Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations. They presented a petition to Downing Street to a fanfare of support as we watched them going in with coaches and cars giving us the occasional honk of solidarity.

The campaign which has attracted cross-party support demands an urgent review of the policy which takes £10m from our social housing rent account to maintain council houses in other parts of the country.

This equates to 19 weeks rent each year that some of the most vulnerable residents in the Borough are paying whilst living in the second-worst housing in London. Only Tower Hamlets has council-owned housing in a worse state of repair. £125,000,000 is required to bring our housing stock up to the Decent Homes Standard. This level of repair in no way equates to opulence or lavish changes. This will mean that our tenants can live in homes without mould and damp affecting their health, with an adequate kitchen and bathroom. This should not be too much to ask in a comparatively prosperous borough but we are working with one or two arms behind our back when the Government props up its marginal seats with extra money creamed off other Councils in the south.

Our Planning, Transport & Housing policy group will be looking at ways of tackling the problem of housing standards with solutions that lie within our remit. This campaign was well organised and very well supported. We are really happy to support the residents in having their say at the very top level. However, as politicians we cannot stop there. We must take a lead and ensure that we have used every channel and innovative idea that is open to us rather than simply sitting back, wringing our hands and blaming others. Leave any thoughts here or go to our Policy Groups web page and join the debate there.

Government Gets Above Itself Shocker

Geoff "Buff" Hoon is not the sharpest knife in the Government's block but as Chief Whip he has the unenviable task of whipping Labour MPs to vote for the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Bill. This piece of legislation contains some very unpalatable items for pro-life MPs including several Catholic cabinet ministers. Normally this would be a free vote so it is asking for trouble to push this through with a 3 line whip.

Today the Telegraph reports that he has granted Cabinet Ministers a dispensation to abstain if they write to him in advance. This is not normally within the remit of my blog but one line of the article made me smile. It was reported that Hoon was "irritated by the failure of some of his side to see the bigger picture."

Now I am not religious, but for the abstainers I struggle to see what they would consider bigger than the Creator of all things in heaven and earth.

The Bards of Westminster?

Now I know that MPs too often think their parliamentary orations are Churchillian but I saw that a bit of Shakespeare seems to be creeping in to the proceedings by the back door. My political anorak eagle-eyed colleague at work noticed that a Hansard reporter seems to have drifted off to a world of Shakespeare, perchance to dream. Have a look at the bottom of this page. Any rational explanations would be welcomed. Failing that your best Shakespeare/Parliamentary puns will have to do. Make them good otherwise I'll have to make the unkindest cut of them all.

Council Tax Through The Roof Again

The Council Tax increase has been confirmed at 3.4%. Only the LibDems could consider this a good news story, yet they gamely tried to justify it.

We were told that each of the neighbouring councils had bigger increases. This is true, though not the whole picture. Residents in Croydon, Merton and Surrey - all Conservative Councils - still pay far less that we do here in Sutton. One neighbour, Kingston not only had the third highest rise in London but retains the crown of having the highest tax burden of any London Borough. I'll leave you to guess who runs that Council (clue: same party as Richmond, the second highest tax bill in London).

Croydon residents know what they are getting for their extra money. £1.5m is being invested in extra policing and £4.75m is going into recycling initiatives including recycling facilities for every block of flats in Croydon, something we have failed to do in this Borough which sells its green virtues at every opportunity. Excluding flats means that a massive proportion of the residents in Sutton simply cannot recycle very easily. It also pushes the onus onto householders to meet targets that the Council sets.

This budget is merely treading water offering nothing new for residents except bigger bills. At the same time residents in Hammersmith and Fulham are seeing their bills cut by 3% for the second year in a row, there is a freeze for pensioners' bills in Hillingdon. Wandsworth and Westminster residents continue to pay just one-third of the amount than we do.

Keep School Money for School Children

Last night we had our annual bunfight that is the Budget debate. It was a strange affair, with little offered by the LibDems. Instead they say smugly attacking the Conservatives. As a politician, I don't mind this. As a resident, this leaves me fuming. Who on earth is running the Borough if the LibDems are continuing to act as an Opposition party rather than a group that should have a positive track record to boast about after 22 years with their hands on the purse strings.

I'll cover the Budget in two posts as one matter caught my eye in particular and illustrates the LibDem Council's approach to their Budget perfectly. We caught the LibDems out using the interest from huge sums of Government money to lessen its own council tax increase. Conservative councillors discovered that the mystery savings which cut the increase from the controversial 4.9% to the 'benign' 3.4% has come from a variety of sources including the interest creamed off from the Building Schools for the Future funding for Stanley Park High School in Carshalton, and a surplus of council tax from new homes.
This follows the previous controversy when the Lib Dem Council consulted on a 4.9% projected council tax increase in December 2007. The current above inflation increase of 3.4% has been set by using additional money from sources termed in council-speak as "slippage" and the "buoyancy of the Council Tax base". We confronted the Lib Dem finance executive councillor for either not being up-front about this hidden surplus when official documents announced a 4.9% increase or for simply not knowing of its existence through incompetence. No answer was forthcoming.

During the debate the LibDem executive councillor for learning services confirmed that quarterly instalments of £2.056 million have been received by the Council - from the Department for Children, Schools and Families - totalling some £6.168 million. He also confirmed that projected earnings in interest were £150,000 for 2007/08. After considerable pressure from Conservatives over the last week, he agreed that all revenue in interest should be 'ring-fenced' to be used exclusively on the project to build the new Stanley Park School.

It is good news that they have reversed their policy under pressure to ensure that the considerable revenue in interest from the school grant will be used only for the benefit of the Stanley Park School. Using this money's interest to partially offset the council tax increase is just not acceptable. School children should not be short-changed because this Council can't control it's spending.

This does mean that the budget is now incorrect to the tune of £150,000 because the Lib Dems cannot cream it off anymore. How will they make up this shortfall? Maybe we can do a swap with parents' School Vouchers?

Budget Day on Monday

No not that one. We have a Full Council meeting tomorrow where we will listen patiently to Cllr Drage telling us that we have never had it so good and that we should be grateful for only having to pay an extra 3.4% tax in the coming year.

He won't be speaking for an hour with a glass of whisky as in the Parliamentary debate. Fifteen minutes is more than enough for all of us before we correct him on a few points:)

I'll report back tomorrow

Congratulations to Jonathan in Cheam

After a hard-fought campaign, I look forward to the new version of the LibDem posters sprouting up around Cheam Village.

First the result:-
Conservative 1541
LibDem 1454
UKIP 260
Labour 106
Turnout 44.1%

So, Jonathan Pritchard was elected in a tight race. UKIP ran an campaign that, though negative and uninformed had a significant effect winning 7.5% of the vote.

The great surprise was the LibDems. I was taken aback by their newsletters which were cynical and negative. Despite running the Borough for 22 years, they resorted to personal attacks and failed to demonstrate any track record of success in that time. Instead they promised to tackle crime in Cheam despite regularly telling councillors and residents that Cheam had very little crime. They even started to steal some of the campaigning techniques from UKIP with some of the UKIP headlines being repeated word for word in the LibDem Focus. My surprise came from how clearly they demonstrated that they were living off their successes in the 1990s, with no new ideas for the Borough.

I could only agree with several women that I spoke to throughout the campaign who felt patronised by the claim that they should vote for Wendy Mathys because Cheam already had two male councillors and they didn't need a third. So much for the best man (or woman) winning. I would like to see the councillors being broadly representative of the community in which they live but quotas and female chauvinism is really not the way to go to acheive this.

Paul Burstow MP must be concerned with the result. He allied himself very closely to the LibDem candidate but could not swing any extra votes. Midway through the campaign he rediscovered the art of communication using House of Commons headed paper to write unsolicited mail to residents. I'm sure his local electorate will take a dim view of using parliamentary stationary to influence a council election whether or not he paid for it himself. Maybe he hasn't noticed the media coverage about MPs using parliamentary resources for their own ends.

Cheam has the lowest Labour vote of any ward in London, so this was never to be a happy hunting ground for them. Nonetheless they sought to ask questions of residents to debate local issues. It was an interesting tack and deserved a few more votes from the LibDems for being positive.

As for us, we picked three main themes, crime, planning and council tax. Our campaign was positive, though taking the LibDems to task where necessary. Unlike their campaign we played the ball, not the man to take a footballing analogy. It has been a hard slog for the last few weeks. We did not take a single vote for granted despite the misquote in the Sutton Advertiser and I'm really pleased that Jonathan came out as the worthy winner. He will be an asset to the residents of Cheam and he will be an asset to the Conservative Group as we look to build on this in order to win the election in 2010 when we can really effect the change required to make Sutton a better place to live.

The Last Post For Carshalton Road

The latest round of Post Offices in London to be closed was revealed on Tuesday. 169 branches were identified with 2,500 closures in total earmarked across the country.

Sutton has its share with Carshalton Road, opposite the BP Garage joining Gander Green Lane, Bishopsford Road, Mitcham Junction and Wythe Lane for the chop. The shopkeepers seem to have mixed views but I fear for the less mobile who will find the mile or so travel to the nearest alternative difficult.

Conservative Parliamentary candidate Ken Andrew has collected 2,000 signatures around Carshalton and Wallington and Philippa Stroud has been proactive in raising support in Sutton for the campaign to stop these further closures. Philippa's petition is also online, so please show your support here. There are a few weeks of consultation. Any chance of success in reversing this decision depends on your support. Please take a minute to register your protest.

Considering Cheam Baths At Their Leisure

As the Battle of Cheam Baths rages, we are no further in finding out what future the Leisure Centre has. We were told that the LibDems do not know what the future of the site is and so cannot guarantee its future. The following week we were told that it will stay open for the time being as £500,000 is being spent on it. A costly consultation report has been sat on someone's desk since December which looks into future of Leisure provision in the Borough but consideration of this report seems to be going at a leisurely pace. It was supposed to be discussed at the January Executive Meeting. Towards the end of January we were told that it would be before Easter. Looking at the document which details the timetable over the next quarter for items to be discussed by the Executive, I see that the Leisure Centre Strategy has been quietly dropped. This means that it will be the summer at the earliest before we can see what may happen.

If this site closes there will be no public provision in the west of the Borough with the east benefitting from four centres. Jonathan Pritchard discussed the situation with Boris Johnson on a recent visit. The irony was not lost that as Stratford gets new Olympic facilities paid for by residents of Cheam and beyond, this part of the Borough suffers. The amount in Olympic tax paid for by Sutton residents over the coming years would be enough to bring both Cheam Leisure Centre and Westcroft up to a decent standard.

Scrutinising Scrutiny

The Council introduced a major change to how councillors scrutinised decisions by the Executive - the Cabinet of lead councillors - and departmental performance. Previously we sat as officers queued up to give us long verbal reports and asked a few polite questions. Now the process is member-led and works more in the style of a Parliamentary Select Committee where we choose what we want to investigate and gather evidence.

I welcome the changes but we still have a long, long way to go before the process is in anyway effective. Last night was a good example when we looked at the problems caused by the Kimpton rubbish dump to nearby residents. We listened to officers before Christmas explaining about noise at the site. We had to make decisions from reports which referred to various noises measured in dBa, dBeq and dBLA90. Now come on, stay with me. Don't glaze over just yet.

I asked that the residents were allowed to speak. Couldn't possibly came the reply, they have plenty of opportunity elsewhere. When I asked that they come to the next meeting to speak as we enquired further, I was told maybe and that the decision would be made in good time. Well they were except no-one told the residents. As it happened they had found out about the meeting themselves and come along. We heard from the officers and then heard from the residents about the problems that they had to face day in and day out.

I still am not sure what we acheived. We had two sessions with officers listening to solutions to noise problems and only then did we get to ask the residents what the problem was.

Apparently Kimpton Centre was not designed to move materials around. Yet it happens and this is what causes the noise. We were told that other state of the art recycle centres had split-levels. Yet this is how the previous Oldfields Road site had until is was flogged off to Tescos and a smaller site constructed. It seems clear that this administration still treat members of the public as the enemy paying lip service to consultation. We are here to represent residents by asking searching questions not ticking Government boxes whilst pushing away those people who look to us for answers.

Punish War Memorial Vandals Properly

At the end of last year, I called for Sutton Council to lobby the Government to make criminals who vandalise War Memorials face a harsher punishment to take into account the particularly heinous nature of the crime. This followed the desecration of Carshalton War Memorial. The motion at Council received unanimous backing from councillors of all parties.


Only a month before Remembrance Sunday a callous thief ripped valuable York stone slabs from the 80 year-old landmark memorial located next to the Carshalton Ponds. Last month Samuel Ware, 22, was convicted of criminal damage at Croydon Crown Court and sentenced to two months in prison. The sentence has compounded the call for tougher sentences to be created by a legally distinct new criminal offence. As the law presently stands vandalism to war memorials is treated as conventional criminal damage.

Sutton Council wrote to the Prime Minister on 23rd November and received a standard response Number 10's 'communications unit' on 6th December. The letter said that the request had been passed to the Home Office for further consideration. As of today - three months on - no response has been received prompting accusations that this serious request has been ignored.

I am dismayed that we haven't had a response from the Home Office yet and fear our request has fallen by the wayside. People who desecrate war memorials are the scum of the earth. The violation of these monuments deserves separate recognition in the criminal law with appropriate punishments attached.

Gordon Brown loves to postulate when it comes to protecting Britishness but let's see him put his money where his mouth is. Let me know if you agree with me that he should back our call for a new criminal offence of vandalising and desecrating our war memorials.

Marxism Never Tasted So Good

The LibDems like to think of themselves as a nice bunch of people with all other politicians demonised as negative and destructive. They appear mortally wounded when attacked even on their political record. Yet they so often fail to play by the same rules. Their research, however, is usually better than a placed letter in last week's Sutton Guardian. Over to Philippa Stroud with her response to accusations that she relied on BUPA membership whilst campaigning about the NHS.

Dear Mr Editor,
Last week a Rod Vincent from Wordsworth Drive, Cheam amusingly alleged in your paper that I had private medical care membership of BUPA. He then - rather rashly - promised "...that the day I see her queue for medical attention at St Helier Hospital I will eat my copy of Das Kapital."
My husband and I have always used the NHS and our three children were born in NHS hospitals. In fact, my son has recently had his appendix out - at St Helier hospital, I have recently been an outpatient at Sutton Hospital and our GP surgery is in Mulgrave Road.
I have bought Mr Vincent a bottle of ketchup to help him fulfill his culinary promise - namely eating his copy of Das Kapital. Could I deliver this to the offices of the Sutton Guardian for Mr Vincent to pick up at his leisure?
May I suggest that Mr Vincent sign up to the Conservative NH Yes campaign on www.conservatives.com .
Kind regards
Philippa Stroud
Conservative Parliamentary Candidate
Sutton and Cheam

The silver platter may be a little too bourgeoise for Mr Vincent's taste but I'm sure a range of condiments could be rustled up to make the book more palatable. There again, I've always found Marx makes me a little nauseous.

Update: Just noticed this is my 200th post. No time to pop a cork, I've got the 201st to write before a committee meeting (which should give me the material for no. 202)

A Valentine Thought From Beyond The Grave

As we come to another Valentine Day, I think of my political widow Emma. I have always thought that behind every great man, there's a woman rolling her eyes.

I saw a card today advertising a Valentine lunch which included a quotation from the late US comedian Rodney Dangerfield who said "My wife and I were happy for years...Then we met."

Anyway with a by-election, a design meeting for Stanley Park School, a meeting with the new Head of Communication at the Council and a presentation from IPSOS MORI telling me that the Cheam residents are mistaken in their somewhat dismal view of the Council, I'll redouble my efforts to celebrate the day, lest I end up as green as the Warhol-like Dangerfield here.

LibDems Fading Here

Sakina Bradbury, a councillor in Surrey, has become the third Liberal Democrat to defect to the Conservative Party in the last four months. Sakina has been a Liberal Democrat councillor for Whyteleafe ward on nearby Tandridge District Council since 2002. She decided to join the Conservatives after becoming "increasingly impressed" by the way the Conservative administration of Tandridge District Council met the needs of local residents.

I've been taking a team of Conservatives around Cheam over the last few weeks where we have knocked on a few thousand doors. There haven't been too many people that are "increasingly impressed" with the LibDem Council in Sutton. This wasn't always the case. I first moved to Sutton in 1986, the year that the LibDems took over (22 years, I know...) They had some eyecatching schemes then. Some, such as the skip service worked and were popular. Others such as the £500m gas powered dustcarts didn't and were swept under the carpet. Now, as they rest on their laurels , living off past glories as a tired administration, we see year-on-year inflation busting increases without any innovation in service provision. It is not surprising that people who were promised a vision, look elsewhere. Sakina has joined many people including Sutton residents in seeing that the Conservatives are breathing new life into local politics and I wish her well.

Consult...Consider...Ignore

The LibDem Council have just completed their six-week consultation on this year’s budget. This meaningless exercise managed just 22 responses from the 180,000 residents of the Borough.

In order to show that people were interested in what tax they paid, I was joined by four colleagues on Sutton High Street and obtained 26 responses in a mere ten minutes.

This equates to one ten-thousandth of the population and our level of Council tax hinges on this. The Council needs to consult properly or give up the pretence. If the LibDem Councillors had just taken one form each home to get a neighbour to complete it, they would have got a better response.

I addressed the Council Executive (the inner LibDem Cabinet) on Monday, insisting that they stop demeaning the idea of consultation by either doing it properly or not at all. The questions were in the mould of American-style "push polling" which is not interested in your answers but passing on political messages within the question. Take this one for example: "Do you agree that any increase in council tax should be kept below the Government's national limit of 5% even though the grant the council is receiving from the government does not cover inflation?" I was surprised that 8% of respondents answered no to this. Firstly because, I find it amazing that anyone would want to see a rise of more than 5% and secondly because this equates to 1.76 people which makes me question who the 0.76 of a person was.

We go through this dance each year, with the LibDem Council buttering us up for another above-inflation increase. The budget that has just been consulted on, shows a Council Tax increase of 4.6%. If the increase comes in any lower than this, whilst extremely welcome, it will mean that the consultation was carried out on a totally different budget. Not that the vacuous questioning contained in the questionnaire would have to be changed, just the background papers.

Weapon of Choice

With a by-election only a few weeks away, I have been spending a lot of time in Cheam recently. Many people will think of it as a wealthy village with Jeremy Vine and Harry Secombe as previous residents and home to the fictitious Railway Cuttings of Tony Hancock. Nothing much else happens in Cheam does it?

As in most parts of London, traffic spoils what is a picturesque village centre but the beautiful church spire dominates the landscape reminding passers-by that Cheam has a long history dating back to at least 1018.

The congestion is not the only modern scourge to come to Cheam. I was astounded to read of a man attacked by a machete-wielding thug on New Year's Day. It is a testament to the proliferation of such crime in London that the yellow sign appealing for help has quickly become part of the furniture on the Cheam by-pass.

Sutton Police do a great job but they need far more help from the Mayor and central government in particular. We need to tackle gang violence in London. Nearby Croydon suffers terribly from this. Fortunately Carshalton only has comparatively minor antisocial behaviour problems from groups coming from Waddon and beyond. Left unchecked, this will get worse as gangs are able to get away with more and then look beyond their current boundaries. Police bureaucracy is a perennial source of moaning but rarely gets tackled. It takes 25 minutes for a police officer to complete a foot-long form every time someone is stopped in the street, even if only to account for themselves. I'll be pushing Boris to keep talking about how he will deal with this head-on when he is Mayor for London. We have to keep the crime in Sutton in perspective. We are not a Hackney or Tower Hamlets but there is nothing wrong in demanding that we are as safe as we can be in our homes, streets and parks.

Cheam Baths in Hot Water

Residents in Cheam were shocked and disappointed to read that Cheam Baths may be earmarked for closure by the LibDem Council as part of their leisure centre strategy. Instead, residents and schoolchildren who want to use the second most popular centre in the Borough will have to travel to Sutton or even out of Borough to Merton and Epsom.

At a recent Council meeting Graham Tope, LibDem spokesman for Leisure, justified the significant recent price hikes but refused to give a cast-iron guarantee that the centre would be retained. John Kennedy said in response that Lord Tope has gone from "the Cardinal Wolsey of the LibDems to the Gordon Brittas of Leisure in Sutton."

Jonathan Pritchard, Conservative candidate for the upcoming Cheam By-election said afterwards “Local people want local leisure services, they don't want to be forced to travel across the borough or to neighbouring boroughs. The threat looming over Cheam Baths will particularly impact on local residents, Cheam schools and the leisure centre staff. The Council needs to be up-front about this instead of claiming they simply don't know.”

Cheam Leisure Centre has the second highest footfall of all the Leisure Centres in Sutton behind Westcroft. Both centres need a lot of money spending on them to bring them up to scratch but the LibDems seem to be heading for the nuclear option by replacing them with a single centre in the middle of Sutton town centre. The consultant's report has been sat on a desk since December and any decision has been pushed ever further back to Easter. This could have a significant effect on Carshalton as well as Cheam.

Britannia in Downing Street

As I was working in Westminster on Friday, I was summoned by a friend to watch a spectacle planned outside Downing Street. Simon McGee, from the Mail on Sunday met up with "Britannia" to present a petition to No. 10 demanding that the decision to drop Britannia from the 50p is reversed. You can read Simon's version of the morning here.

The Mail on Sunday have the support of 30,000 residents. Britannia couldn't get her trident past the metal detectors so Simon had to pass on the views of so many himself.

Although Britannia has featured on our coins for some 336 years, she has had some time off for short-run commerative 50p coins. However, continued erosion of our sovereignty and civic pride means that people seek to retain these comparatively small symbols of tradition and nationhood. They are right to campaign against this move by a government who truly believe that history books all start from 1997.