Today when scanning the front-page headlines in my local newsagent one in particular caught my eye, and it did not surprise me to see it on the front of the Sun: “We Must Be Rental”. The story was of a jobless Somali family of nine supposedly being handed a luxury £1.8 million West End home at taxpayers’ expense. Turning to the full report on page 9, I immediately recognised the block of flats that had drawn the attention of the Sun.

Firstly, such commentary by the Sun and the other papers that took up the story is highly inflammatory. You have only to look at the email responses on the Sun message board to see what I mean, with hate-filled rants about asylum seekers and praise for the BNP. You can only imagine what the telephone messages left on the SunTalk number must be like!

As for expecting some accurate journalism, you can forget that. For example, the block of flats is neither in nor even near the West End. It has an NW1 post code. Nor is any property in the neighbourhood worth £1.8 million – the actor Sienna Miller is having enough difficulty trying to sell her propertyoff the Edgware Road a few blocks away, after dropping the price to under a million. Nor can the block of flats be described as a particularly desirable property, given that it directly backs onto the Marylebone flyover.

The block was built during the peak of the property boom in Central London, and when the developer was unable to sell any of the units it was taken over by receivers. As a result it has been lying empty for a number years. I have argued that such developments should be picked up by social landlords and rented out as social housing in a neighbourhood like this with acute housing need. I should know, having been one of the local councillors for eight years between 1998 to 2006, undertaking surgeries on Church Street where overcrowding and rehousing was the major issue. The Shirley Porter legacy had left every little council and social housing in this neighbourhood available for families in desperate need.

The real lesson to be drawn from the Sun story is that a means should be found to get this block into social ownership rather paying extortionate rents to the receiver – or anyone else taking the rent!

This is the text of the chapter I contributed to the Labour Friends of Palestine pamphlet, Stop Building Hatred.

THE occupation of the West Bank is rightly seen as central to the campaign for Palestinian rights and has been the main focus for media coverage of Israel’s construction of illegal settlements. But this has led to relatively little attention being paid to Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights, although these are equally in violation of international law and the continued occupation of the Golan stands as a major obstacle to a regional peace agreement.

Like the West Bank, the Golan Heights were seized by Israel in 1967 during the Six Day War, in this case from Syria. Most of the population was expelled (or fled voluntarily, if you believe the Israeli version of events) and Israel systematically destroyed 244 of the 249 Arab villages in the Golan so that the former inhabitants could never return to their homes. The displaced Golan Arabs and their families are now said to number about half a million.

In 1981 Israel passed the Golan Heights Law which annexed the region, declaring it to be subject to the Israeli state’s “laws, jurisdiction and administration”. Syria continues to insist that the Golan is part of its own territory, under foreign occupation, while Lebanon lays claim to a small area known as the Shebaa Farms.

The 1981 annexation was condemned by UN Security Council Resolution 497, adopted unanimously, which stated that “the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect”. The UN has consistently upheld this position and last year the General Assembly voted 161-1 in favour of a motion reaffirming support for Resolution 497 on the “occupied Syrian Golan”.

The issue of Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights hit the news recently when a pro-Israeli website bearing the misleading name of Honest Reporting launched a campaign under the slogan “Golan residents live in Israel not Syria” in protest against Israeli settlers being required to register Syria as their country of origin on Facebook. Regrettably, Facebook appears to have backed down in the face of this campaign, which was plainly aimed at legitimising Israel’s illegal occupation, and Golan residents are now allowed to register their country as either Israel or Syria.

In the years immediately following the Six Day War, Israeli civilian settlement of the Golan Heights proceeded slowly, as the area was seen as a potential future battleground and in 1972 there were still only 77 settlers there. After the end of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War numbers began to increase sharply and by 1989 the figure had reached 10,000. Today there are some 20,000 Israeli settlers occupying the territory in over 30 settlements.

The figures for Golan settlers may seem small compared with the 300,000 settlers in the West Bank or the 200,000 in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem. But the growth of settlements has now reached the point where Israelis constitute over half the population of the Golan Heights – the remainder being members of the Druze community who remained there after the Israeli invasion in 1967. The Israeli-occupied areas include farms, cattle ranches, orchards and vineyards and even a ski resort, in addition to a number of military bases.

The objective of expanding Israeli settlement in the Golan Heights is of course the same as in the West Bank – to establish a permanent Israeli presence as one of the “facts on the ground” that will serve as an obstacle to any re-drawing of borders.

Three years ago settler leaders launched a $250,000 advertising campaign to attract young Israelis to the Golan with the promise of free land, the declared aim of the campaign being to double the Jewish population to 40,000 over the course of the following decade. In 1999, when the settler population stood at 17,000, Israeli treasury officials estimated that, in the event of a pull-out from the Golan, compensation to the settlers for losing their homes would amount to $10 billion. Obviously, existing Golan settlers calculate that the more Israelis they can persuade to join them there, the greater the financial obstacle to withdrawal.

The Syrians have repeatedly stated that if Israel will agree to end its occupation of the Golan Heights they are prepared to join Egypt and Jordan in signing a peace agreement with Israel. But Syria insists on a complete Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 border, which would return the eastern shore of the Sea ofGalilee to Damascus, whereas Israel wants to retain its control of the whole ofGalilee.

Talks between Israel and Syria over the future of the Golan heights have continued on and off over the years but without ever reaching a conclusion. Danny Yatom, who was head ofMossad during Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s first term of office in 1996-99, recently stated that Netanyahu had at that time indicated that Israel was willing to withdraw from the entire Golan heights in exchange for a peace deal with Syria and the normalisation of relations between the two countries.

However, since forming his new administration in March this year Netanyahu has adopted an intransigent position over the Golan heights. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad points out that it is futile trying to pursue negotiations over the Golan when there is no partner for talks on the Israeli side.

Obama has stated that the resumption of talks between Israel and Syria is one of his main foreign policy goals. Certainly, given Israel’s political, economic and military reliance on the US, the Obama administration is in a position to exercise serious pressure on Netanyahu if the political will exists. The future of the Golan Heights therefore hinges on the question of whether Obama, unlike his predecessors in the US presidency, will defy the powerful pro-Israel lobby and confront the Israeli government. Adopting a carrot and stick approach, an Israeli hand-over of the Golan could perhaps be sweetened by the promise of a financial contribution from the US to help underwrite the cost of withdrawal. It’s President Obama’s call.

Mayor Boris Johnson has refused to extend the pedestrian crossing time on the Marylebone Road, ignoring a petition signed by 318 people.

Murad Qureshi AM, who lives locally, presented the petition to the Mayor in July asking for more time at the crossing, which is near to several local primary schools. It was signed by many parents who are worried that their children do not have enough time to cross the road safely in one green man phase and have to wait on the over-crowded central islands for a second phase, breathing in pollution from the passing traffic.

Murad Qureshi said: "Yet again, the Mayor is pandering to the car and disregarding the people. The current phasing of the crossing lights on Marylebone Road is putting children’s safety at risk on their way to and from school each day."

Murad added: "The current crossing arrangement is also compromising the health of pedestrians who have to stand in the middle of a busy road, breathing in pollution from the traffic thundering past. We know London’s air quality is unacceptable and we know that children’s lungs are more vulnerable to the effects of pollution. In parts of London nearly one in five children currently have asthma. We should be keeping children away from main roads where possible, not making them stand in the middle of them every day."

Ms Hobley, who is a parent at the school, said: "It really doesn’t seem right that so many people are stressed and endangered on a daily basis for the sake of literally a few seconds longer crossing times. It really shows the true priorities of TFL and makes a mockery of any green initiatives or encouraging parents to walk their children to school. Which is more important – the lives of children or a tiny delay for the traffic? There will be a child killed or badly injured on that crossing before too long – it’s that dangerous."

Murad said: "We’re only asking for a couple of extra seconds of green man time, but the Mayor has written to me to say he won’t change the timing because it would have a detrimental effect on the flow of traffic in the area, but what about the children’s safety and the detrimental effect on people’s health?"

Notes

• Murad Qureshi AM is the Labour Group environment spokesperson on the London Assembly and Chair of the Assembly Environment Committee.
• Murad Qureshi submitted the petition to the Mayor on 22nd July:

"We the undersigned ask that the two pedestrian crossings on Marylebone Road near Enford Street are timed so that able-bodied adults and children can cross from north to south without having to wait for a full cycle of lights in the central island. The central islands become crowded and children travelling to the nearby schools are pushed close to the traffic. The timings require a very short extension of the pedestrian green light. As they are timed at present, parents and children are forced to run into the road in the pause between green and red, and run serious risks which could easily be eliminated with very little effect on traffic flow. We ask that TFL and the Council protect this vulnerable group from the serious health and safety threats posed by rush hour traffic on the Marylebone Road."

• The Mayor’s written response is attached below.

Oops – another environment report fails to appear on time

Last week my office was informed that the Mayor’s draft Waste Management Strategy will not now be available for consultation till the 18th of December, when we had been expecting it to be released at the beginning of the week and it had originally been scheduled for publication back in the Summer. In this instance I’m told it’s the lawyers who have stopped the release of the document, suggesting something must have gone badly wrong for them to get involved so late in the day.

Unfortunately, this delay is par for the course with the Mayor’s environmental strategies and consultations. Boris’s Environment Direction of Travel statement was due in the Spring but was not published till July, while his draft Water Strategy which was also due in the Spring was not published till August. Boris’s draft Climate Change Adaptation Strategy was another publication due in the Spring but it has yet to see the light of day. His draft Air Quality Strategy was due in the Summer but was not published till October, while his Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Strategy was due in the Autumn but has still not been published.

What does this say about the ability of the Mayor’s office to progress environmental concerns? Not much at all is the short answer, but this is perhaps to be expected from an administration that has cut its environment team from 41 posts to 24 and now relies on outside consultants to do most of the work.

As I have remarked before on this blog, no amount of charm, bluster and hot air from Boris on green issues can substitute for making an impact and a real difference to the environment. The Mayor’s credibility has already been seriously undermined here. So much for voting blue and going green.

Summary table of delays

As an Assembly Member I am accustomed to a close-up view of Boris at Mayor’s Question Time at City Hall, but I quite literally had a ringside seat for his appearance at the Mayor’s Cup boxing tournament at Porchester Hall this past Friday night, which I attended in support of the All Stars Boxing Club who hosted the event.

While Boris is happy to turn up to such events in search of a photo-opportunity, it is not at all clear what practical support he’s offering to the club, despite the pledges of financial assistance he made during his election campaign. Indeed, when I questioned the Mayor about it last month, I got a distinctly non-committal response. While the Mayor is evidently reluctant to offer the club financial assistance, the three local councillors certainly have done so by giving £5000 from their ward budget.

Truth be told, the City of Westminster Council could also help by CPOing the premises in Harrow Road where the All Stars Boxing Club is based, but that would mean admitting their folly in selling it off in the first place a few years back.

In the meantime Friday’s event rather died a death after Boris’s brief appearance, which does not bode well for the long term future of the Mayor’s Cup. The least Boris could do is assist with the marketing, brand the event with the mayoral logo and do his hosts the courtesy of staying for the whole evening.

The most telling point was that there was no show from the new heavyweight champion of the world, Londoner David Haye, who had attended last year. Clearly he’s a bigger figure in the boxing world than the Mayor of London, and what was more embarrassing was that the Mayor’s office made out Haye was coming when he was actually in Cyprus taking a well-earned break with his family. I certainly know who the punters came to see but I am not sure Boris did.

Over the past few years Maida Vale residents have suffered a spate of flooding in the W9 area. At the last Maida Vale Area Forum held in Paddington Academy on the evening of the 11th of November, residents were told by Thames Water representatives that the water industry regulator OFWAT will determine whether TW can make the long term investment necessary to sort this issue out once and for all. (For the background and subsequent developments see coverage in the West End Extra.)
 
Now I was very surprised to hear that OFWAT micro-managed Thames Water’s investment programmes so tightly, given that OFWAT’s role is to protect consumers. Yes, major projects like investment in the Thames Tideway Tunnel would require OFWAT consent, I thought, but surely not some localised investment. However, I was later told that 90 per cent of Thames Water’s investment programme had indeed been approved by OFWAT. So the question now is: why wasn’t the investment required in Maida Vale included in TW’s approved investment programme? I have written to David Owen, the CEO of Thames Water, to that effect and await his response

On the doorstep we often find that when climate change issues are brought up it goes over most people’s heads and they respond with glazed eyes. So it was with keenness that I went along to the Beethoven Centre in the heart of Queen’s Park for a evening entitled “Save Money, Save the Planet” on Wednesday evening.

There, to a full house, I saw a very a different approach to these issues and one that many of those in the audience responded to very well. Residents received energy saving advice, found out how to take advantage of the local car sharing club and learnt how others are making environmentally friendly life changes such as taking up composting. This while being entertained by the Paddington Academy’s Eco Team and marvelling at the Queen’s Park children’s play on “Thinking global, acting local”.

While the next few weeks are going to be dominated by nations negotiating at the Copenhagen Summit over targets for CO2 emissions and in all probability not getting very far, it’s worth reminding ourselves what the campaign against climate change means on the doorstep of homes in wards like Queen’s Park.

So well done to the Queen’s Park Forum.

Murad Qureshi AM, Labour’s environment spokesman on the London Assembly, has called for London’s autumn leaves to be used more strategically after it emerged that many of them are disposed of like ordinary litter.

Leaves swept from streets are considered likely to be contaminated with other rubbish. However, Murad believes that a more strategic approach to promoting composting by councils could see more of this kind of natural waste used to good advantage.

"A good amount of autumn leaves could be usefully made into compost", Murad claims. "It seems too many local authorities are sending the leaves they collect to landfill, which is a big waste. The Mayor, as official Chair of the London Waste and Recycling Board, needs to take a creative approach to natural waste like leaves and garden refuse. There is the potential for some innovative ideas to be looked at. If the boroughs could be encouraged to co-ordinate their leaf collections and deal with them in a way that reduces waste it could benefit everyone. Boroughs could develop their own compost supplies or we could even look at a Londonwide compost heap!"

The London Waste and Recycling Board looks at ways to strategically reduce the use of landfill. Murad added: "According to reports, England and Wales’ local authorities are paying £1.5million a year on putting leaves in landfill. I believe there must be ways to reduce this and if this could provide good quality compost for the capital’s gardeners then that would be a winner for everyone."

Murad Qureshi, Labour’s environment spokesman on the London Assembly, has expressed concern that the city’s bid may have been undermined by Boris Johnson’s regressive environmental decisions. This follows comments from Professor Frank Kelly of the Kings College Environment Research Group indicating that London may have to ban cars and reschedule events during the 2012 Games to provide good conditions for athletes.

The International Olympic Committee’s evaluation of London’s bid expressed concern about London’s "increasing levels of ozone pollution" but said that "legislation and actions now in place, such as the ‘low emission zone’ and ‘congestion charge’, are aimed at correcting that trend and ensuring all air pollutants are within World Health Organisation and EU target levels by 2010".

Since this evaluation was made, and Boris Johnson was elected Mayor, London’s measures to tackle its poor air quality and ozone pollution have been rolled back. The Congestion Charge Zone will be halved in size and the third phase of the Low Emission Zone, which was due to prevent the most polluting vehicles from entering Greater London, has been delayed by two years.

Murad Qureshi, Labour’s environment spokesman on the London Assembly, said: "It is bad enough that over 3,000 Londoners die prematurely every year because of the state of our air. The last thing we want is for this still to be an issue when the world comes here in 2012, as we saw in Beijing and Athens. If the Mayor continues along the road down which he has started, this sadly could well be the case."

A recent London Assembly report into the city’s air quality found that it could be responsible for up to 3,500 premature deaths and 12,000 children being hospitalised for respiratory failure. It has been reported that the Government is considering countermanding the Mayor because his actions may have undermined their fight against an EU fine of £300 million for its poor air quality.

Notes  

Murad Qureshi is Labour’s environment spokesman on the London Assembly and Chair of the Assembly’s Environment Committee.

Professor Kelly made his comments in an interview on November 11th.

The IOC’s evaluation of London’s bid can be found here: http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_946.pdf. The section on London’s air quality is on page 67/68

The London Assembly’s report in the state of London’s air, Every Breath You Take, can be found here: http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/environment/air-quality-report-200904.pdf

With Leroy Rosenior and Zesh Rehman at the SRtRC launch

I was very pleased to host the launch of Show Racism the Red Card’s new campaign office in London and the South-East at a well-attended event in London’s Living Room at City Hall on Wednesday night. I look forward to SRtRC bringing their successful anti-racist work with young people here from their base in the North East.

Most fans judge players by the colour of their jersey and not their skin, yet we are in danger of the seeing the beautiful game taken over by the likes of the English Defence League, who are misusing football to incite hatred. SRtRC’s campaign promotes the true spirit of football – respect, multiculturalism and diversity.

This will be well reflected at the World Cup next year in South Africa, as well as illustrated every weekend up and down the country in the Premiership and Championship games. And remember London won the 2012 Olympics on this basis as well.

On the back of this launch, l am glad to see that the Islam Channel and Eastern Eye have also picked up on the issue.