Mr. Davey gets ANOTHER new job

Lib Dem MPs have new party roles

A reshuffle of the Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet last week saw local MPs Edward Davey and Susan Kramer stay on in the cabinet (sic) but change their responsibilities.

Mr Davey held on to his role as campaigns and communications chairman, but swapsped (sic - new Lib Dem verb!) the trade and industry portfolio for the position of chief of staff.

He said: "I am delighted with my new role".

Source "Surrey Comet"

He hasn't exactly distinguished himself in his short stay at Trade & Industry, shadowing a department his party wanted to abolish. I wonder what his 'new role' will involve this time.......

Surbiton Hospital latest blow

Read this link from the Surrey Comet of this week.

http://www.surreycomet.co.uk/display.var.1062905.0.nhs_hits_trusts_deficit_with_2m_interest_charge.php.

Kingston PCT now has a new Chief Executive. We hope he can turn things around - but things like this are hardly helpful.

KU grammar KOed by apostrophe

'Private Eye' 7th December carries the following from a Kingston University advertisement:-

Kingston University is recognised as one of the country's leading modern university's.

O tempora! O mores!!

The end of an era

The Conservative office at 200 Ewell Road is now closing for the last time. Kingston and Surbiton Association will move into temporary accommodation until such time as they can fulfill their long-held desire to move into somewhere more suitable to the needs of a 21st century campaigning organisation than a 4 storey Victorian mansion with massive overheads.

I can't help feeling some nostalgia as I have been associated with the building one way or another since 1989. All organisations need to move on, however, and it is a pity we were prevented from doing so 2 years ago, as we had planned.

The Berrylands Trial

Some people are concerned that my Conservative colleagues and I subjected the proposed new waste collection trial in Berrylands to such scrutiny that the matter was sent to full Council last Tuesday and the start thereby delayed. The reasons are:-

1. The location and nature of the trial should have been disclosed to the Scrutiny Panel at a meeting devoted exclusively to the future of waste management on 5th September. They weren't and, indeed, it subsequently transpired that even the Executive member didn't learn about them until the following day.

2. The trial involves changing the frequency of collections and changes in what can be collected and how. We presume the intention is to roll this out across the Borough in due course. We were not satisfied that there had been adequate consultation with the people affected by a more complex system than they are used to or that the bins intended for use were adequate for the purpose.

3. It is intended that the general waste bins should be fitted with readable microchips. While these are usable, as stated, merely for counting bins to ensure none are missed, it is disingenuous of the Administration to suggest that this is their sole purpose. They can also be used for charging by weight the householders whose bins they are. This isn't going to happen yet but it could in the future. The Liberal Democrats were VERY insistent that this proposal should not be dropped, as the Conservatives' motion to Council proposed.

4. The area selected is not typical of the cross-section of dwelings in Kingston as a whole, causing concern about the applicability of any 'results' which might be forthcoming from the trial.

5. We were concerned that Council resources had been committed to the implementation of this trial before any elected member knew of it or even the Executive had debated or approved it. That has to be the implication of what we were told at Scrutiny, when the matter was called in, by the Executive member herself. This goes much deeper than the question of the trial itself and raises grave questions of accountability and transparency in the way the Council is being run.

6. Our reference to Council gave Berrylands members an opportunity to vote on the matter in public, instead of behind closed doors in the obscurity of a Liberal Democrat group meeting.

Bus stop in Thornhill Road

It's 12 days since we contacted RBK officers and TfL/London Buses about the desired adjustment to the site of the stop at the junction of Douglas and Thornhill Roads. This would involve moving the planned stop about 5 metres to the East to make the bus stop alongside the garden wall of no. 180 instead of alongside the lounge wall. There are 4 buses an hour in each direction.

We had a very positive response from London Buses,who were very willing to accommodate the change but say it was vetoed by the two Liberal Democrat Neighbourhood Co-Chairs. This surprised me at first as I thought they were well disposed.

I wrote 12 days ago setting out the position - not for the first time! I hoped for a response from the Borough to match that of London Buses. Sadly we have had no response at all from Kingston's officers or the Neighbourhood Co-Chairs to match the attitude of London Buses or from our Liberal Democrat MP, Edward Davey, who was also very supportive at first.

We have written again today and hope to report progress soon.

A little bird tells me........

........that it was announced at a meeting of the Alpha Road Residents' Association last week that boarded up windows on the estate are to be replaced with glass.

No great shakes, you might think, except that we have been trying to get similar windows in School Lane replaced for the last two years and have been told there isn't money to do it. The Lib Dem councillor (elected last May, only Lib Dem gain in Kingston - VERY marginal - smallest majority 6) who give out this info was apparently very embarrassed at having blurted it out. 'I wasn't supposed to have said that was I?' was a fairly accurate quote. Why ever not, pray, if it's all open and above board and all estates are to be treated alike?

Which might lead a person of a suspicious cast of mind to speculate on whether it was a pure coincidence that the Neighbourhood Committee was not given any breakdown of how it was proposed to allocate the sums on repairs and maintenance for next year in the Report to the Neighbourhood Committee on Housing the day after the residents' meeting.

Spooky?............Perish the thought!

ID card debate

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6120220.stm.

Tony Blair has really gone to town on this issue in the last couple of days. Is this going to be the famous 'legacy' he wants to leave behind?

I'va always been opposed to ID cards myself but others may not share this view. Have a good read of the article and then feel free to comment.

ANOTHER 3G MAST APPLICATION IN OUR AREA

Hutchinson 3G want to put in planning application for a 15m mast at the junction of Ewell Road and Kingsdowne Road, near the tree stump and the traffic lights.

The Informer, reporter Robert Cumber wishes to help high-light this issue to a wider audience. An Informer photographer is coming on 8th November at 9:15AM to the proposed Location.

• If you want to comment on the application, look on the Council website at www.kingston.gov.uk , find the Planning section and look in the Unitary Development Plan (UDP) and base your comments on what you find in there. The Council has to abide by what the UDP says
• Write to your Councillors to make your views known and reasons you have found in the UDP why they should reject the application.
• Contact the Surbiton Planner at RBK: Paul Bradbury 020 8547 5414. email: paul.bradbury@rbk.kingston.gov.uk
• Contact Hutchinson 3G: Gareth Coombes-Olney 01628 767803 or e-mail gareth.coombes-olney@three.co.uk
• Come to the meeting of the Neighbourhood Planning Committee when the application is being discussed.

Chip 'N Bin - the sequel

The Scrutiny Panel met on Tuesday and spent 3 hours of its 5 hour meeting scrutinising the proposed trial in Berrylands (see 'Chip 'N Bin - Tories intervene' below).

It emerged that the scheme had been in the planning stage since June and yet the Executive member says she knew nothing about it until 6th September. Conveniently this was the day after the Scrutiny Panel on the 5th. She continued to defend, with more doggedness than conviction, her contention that the trial had, even so, been discussed and approved on 5th September. None of us who was there can remember this.

Whatever - It is incredible that communication is so parlous between the Executive Member and her officers that they would not at least brief her on it at all stages of its development.

The Panel decided to refer the trial scheme to the next available meeting of the full Council, where all the elected members will be able to have their say.

Too many cameras?

We even have a car advert now which draws attention to the fact that 'you're caught on someone's camera 200 times every day' and advises you to buy a Peugeot to 'give them something to look at.'

This news item from Sky (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/02112006/140/britons-most-spied-world.html) is worth a read. Speed cameras, CCTV everywhere - are they just a cheap substitute for policemen? Do they really deter criminals or merely provide the authorities with a cover for their growing failure to tackle crime and disorder while infringing the personal freedom and privacy of citizens who are merely going about 'their lawful occasions'?

Madonna's inter-country adoption

See http://uk.news.yahoo.com/31102006/344/madonna-set-appear-newsnight.html

I'm just curious about this. I sat on the Kingston Adoption Panel for about 5 years and inter-country adoptions such as this were very carefully scrutinised by the Panel (mostly lay and independent people) and professional legal, medical and social advisors. Surely this must be a legal requirement and it should have happened in this case too.

Surbiton Hospital -latest

Meeting with CEO's of the Primary Care Trust and Kingston Hospital took place last night. It seems that Surbiton Hospital is not now expected to complete its refurbishment until 2010 or thereabouts, though plans for discussion will be around shortly. It seems the lead-in period gets longer each time I hear about it. We were talking 2008 at one time!

As reported yesterday, the CEO has got a new job elsewhere and will be leaving shortly. At the current turn over rate it will be the CEO after next who sees the job completed. Quite apart from the insane Government 'targetry' beloved of 'new' Labour, this constant changing of senior personnel can't help the cause of effective public services either - can it?

Hospitals

Seeing the CEO's of the Primary Care Trust and Kingston Hospital tonight. I note the CEO of the PCT is off to another job and has already got a successor. That will make (I believe) four holders of the post in about 6 years.

See www.pauljohnston.info for recent postings on the problems of Kingston Outpatients as seen through the eyes of one sufferer - this one! And feel free to add your own comments, either here or there.

‘CHIP ‘N BIN’ – TORIES INTERVENE

Conservative Leader and Scrutiny Panel Chair, Cllr Howard Jones, has delayed the implementation of the Berrylands waste collection trial so that the Scrutiny Panel can check the Lib Dem Administration’s plans before they are put into effect.

We Tories were incensed that no mention of the planned trial (due to start on 6th November) was made at the detailed Scrutiny of the Waste Disposal Strategy by the Council’s Scrutiny Panel on 5th September.

Plans for such a lengthy and far-reaching trial, due to start only two months after the meeting, must have been well advanced by September 5th – yet no mention of them was made to the Panel by any of those who gave evidence, including Cllr Liz Shard and Cllr Derek Osbourne.If the plans were genuinely thrown together in haste, there’s a real risk that they haven’t been carefully thought through and that the scheme will prove an expensive failure.

The Executive decided to proceed with the trial on 3rd October. The Council’s Constitution allows any 100 citizens or three Councillors or the Chair of the Scrutiny Panel to call in any such decision within five working days of the Executive minutes being published. If the decision is not ‘called-in’ it can be proceeded with without further ado.

Howard Jones called in the decision after the 3rd October minutes were published – only to be told that resources had already been committed. His reaction? ‘I was flabbergasted to be told that Cllr Shard had evidently authorized the commitment of resources, although she must have known what the Constitution said about the decision making and implementation process. In reality she must have committed resources ahead even of the Executive’s endorsement of the action she intended to take.’

Last week Howard Jones tried many times to resolve the situation by letter and email, agreeing to scrutinise the decision without holding up its implementation on condition that Cllrs Shard and Osbourne apologise for acting ultra vires and promise not to do so again in future. He also wanted assurances that the Executive would take on board Scrutiny Panel concerns about the implementation of the trial.

In my view these might range around the micro-chipping of bins, fortnightly collections of waste and provision of adequate bins for separating out recyclable materials.

Instead of apologising for the failure to follow the Constitution, Cllr. Shard embarked on a feeble defence of her actions, trying to suggest that the trial had been discussed on 5th September after all. Howard pointed out to her, ‘If you failed to take account of (our right to scrutiny) in your planning, that is your fault and so is the possible dislocation resulting from our decision to exercise it.’

The final position, reached on Friday 20th October, was that the full Scrutiny will go ahead at the next meeting of the Panel on Tuesday 31st October and that all work on the trial will cease until that has taken place.

The Lib Dems have needlessly created a mess as a result of their arrogance. We tried honestly to help them out of it. All they had to do was to say ‘Sorry’ – but that word seems not to be in their vocabulary.

The perils of a slight majority

The Lib Dems got an unexpected flavour of their true predicament in the new Council on Tuesday.

They assumed that they would be able to change the Constitution at will (as per usual) as they wished to send the all-party Grants and Awards Panel into oblivion, keeping all say over major grants to the Voluntary Sector in the exclusive hands of the exclusively Liberal Democrat Executive.

One of their members didn't turn up and another went home early. The arithmetic was thus Lib Dems 23; Conservatives 21; Labour 2. The Conservatives and Labour voted together to preserve all-party involvement. One Lib Dem had a sufficiently open mind and strong conscience to abstain. So the vote was For the proposal 22; against 23; abstentions 1. And the mayor didn't even get to use her casting vote.

Sorry England

I'm not one to comment over freely on football. Playing it from memory at age 35 (first time in 16 years) has left me with a badly damaged left knee which the wonderful NHS has failed conspicuously to do anything about.

However I do recall what I thought was the softest own goal of all time. It was in the 1978 'Home Internationals', Wales v Scotland, when a back pass to the Scottish keeper bobbled slowly and inexorably into the Scottish goal. Why? The fool of a fullback had failed to look where his keeper was, i.e. a good 12 metres to his right about 10 metres off his line.

People who weren't alive and/or kicking at the time may feel grateful to the two England players who contrived a near replay in giving Croatia a second goal last night.

The spirit of Sven lives on......

Straw and the Veil

Jack Straw has obviously touched on a raw nerve but he has also garnered quite a lot of support.

His comments about veiling of the face have ignited a debate about Integration vs Multiculturalism generally. The newspapers have quite a few articles on the subject today and there has been increasing concern about the growth of minority ghettoes in parts of Britain for some time.

What is remarkable about Straw is that he has been part of the government that has been most at pains to promote 'celebrating diversity' at the expense of integration for the last nine years - for four of them as Home Secretary - and he seems to see no connection between what he identifies as a problem and the policies of his own government.

I taught in a school in London which was very ethnically diverse but where the Christian religion formed a common ground among all the pupils. Attempts by some pupils to create little ethnic blocs very quickly foundered on this rock.

Don't get me wrong; I would not wish to impose a common religion on all people in Britain - that policy led to some very gruesome consequences in the past. But we must find a common ground as a society - a set of values around which all can unite to perform the same function as religion in my school. While acknowledging diversity as a fact of our national life we must not let it dominate in the way that it has. We must think more of the things that bind us together and less about our differences one from another.

Bournemouth 2006

Have spent the last few days in Bournemouth at the party conference. Quite a bit of the time was spent visiting the Accreditation Office. I received my pass on Sunday evening. Daphne didn't get hers until Tuesday morning. This put something of a restriction on our doings and enjoyment of the occasion. Someone has blundered BIG TIME!
This was David Cameron's first Conference as leader and there was a distinct air of difference from times past, and not only that we didn't get our passes on time this time. What's refreshing is that there is definitely more openness, a greater readiness to 'think outside the box' than at previous conferences. However some of us have been thinking outside the said receptacle for some time, taking a very pragmatic look at the problems our communities face and trying to devise ways to deal with them which are not constrained by ideological shibboleths.

The Tory Party has done this since Robert Peel was a lad. So in a sense Cameron is in an authentic Tory tradition, if this is what he is about.
But he must avoid picking up some new shibboleths of his own in his eagerness to ditch the perceived ones of the past. Let him emphasize protection of the environment, but not make a fetish of it. By all means be economically prudent, but also recognise that this government has tried tax and spend solutions to the problems of the public services to destruction and they haven't worked. Finally, Blair stands discredited as I always believed he ultimately would. Now above all is not the time to run up to him shouting 'me too!'

Travails of Tony 3? - no Gordon surely!!

The Labour Conference in Manchester is over. There were full and frank exchanges of views everywhere. So full and frank that people were even stabbing each other (figuratively) in the chest - and Mr. Wolfgang managed to go through the whole thing without being thrown out once or even arrested for being unkind to Margaret Becket.

There were two undoubted stars. First was Bill Clinton, one of the most persuasive tricksters ever to occupy the White House. I actually prefer George W. Bush - at least he's a WYSIWYG president. Bill wowed them as he's done before. This is becoming fashionable - to have American politicians at British party conferences - I think it started when Caspar Weinberger addresses a Tory fringe meeting in the late 1980s.

The other star was undoubtedly Tony Blair. Perhaps he felt lifted by the prospect of never having to do it again. He was certainly more relaxed than Gordon Brown and more fluent than Alan Johnson - and nicer than John Reid!

But listening to Gordon Brown I was reminded of the performances of David Davis at Blackpool last year and I'm not in the least surprised that the odds against him succeeding Blair are lengthening. This could really mark the start of the travails of Gordon. Stay tuned!

My personal award for least convincing ministerial speech goes to the former chairman of the Young Liberals, Liberal candidate for Putney and menace of cricket pitches, Peter Hain. This is for his pathetic attempt to portray devolution as a Unionist policy and his suggestion that Tory objections to Scottish and Welsh MPs being able to vote on English issues while they (like English MPs) can't vote on a whole raft of things that affect their own constituents in Scotland and Wales was 'creating second class MPs' and damaging the United Kingdom. Is the man so purblind that he really can't see that the damage has been done by the constitutional dog's breakfast his ham-fisted master has created?