An investigation is under way into how London intends to stage ‘the greenest Olympics ever’ in 2012.

The London Assembly is looking into the environmental sustainability of staging the Games to match the successful bidding made five years ago to play host and how the organisers plan to make it a reality.

Sustaining the environment is one of the key themes of preparations for the event. The Assembly’s environment committee investigation is examining what progress the Olympic Organising committee and the GLA are making in their preparations.

"London’s Olympic bid promised these would be the greenest Games ever," said the Assembly’s environment chair Murad Qureshi. "We need to ensure that work is underway now so we can achieve that pledge.

"London has big plans to reduce carbon emissions and recycle more of its waste. The 2012 Games are a chance to show how this can be done." read more

The future of the main 2012 stadium could be decided within months, the Olympics legacy czar said today.

Baroness Ford urged sports clubs, including West Ham, to begin tabling their bids because marketing of the venue begins in two weeks.

But she insisted she had no intention of ditching the commitment to an athletics track remaining at the stadium after the Games and hoped there would be interest in a mixed legacy.

Lady Ford said: "I think athletics will sit quite happily side by side with something else but the proof of the pudding is in the next two to three months. I can’t prejudge what bidders are going to come forward. If nothing else changes, it will be a 28,000-seat stadium and used for a range of things. It will be a living stadium."

Lady Ford, a Chelsea season ticket holder, said that the views from seats at the Olympic stadium would be far superior to those at Stamford Bridge when she sometimes strained so hard for a view that she was "falling over".

At the end of the marketing process the Olympic Park Legacy Committee board will decide on the future of the stadium but City Hall and the Government, as the main funders, will have the power of veto.

London Assembly member Murad Qureshi said: "This [track] has become an albatross around your neck, this is Seb Coe’s folly." read more

They say that political loyalties can change but never football ones. So it was a strange experience to find myself at Old Trafford as a Cockney Red changing my colours to green and gold (“till the club is sold”) in protest against the Glazers’ control of Manchester United and the mountain of debt the club is under. Tens of thousands of supporters were wearing the old colours of Newton Heath, United’s forerunner club. The penny has dropped for all those singing: “United we love, Glazers out” along with the chants for the players on the pitch. And Manchester United fans are even joining forces with arch-rivals Liverpool to make club ownership an electoral issue in the north-west of England.

We have been here before at Old Trafford, when supporters groups and fanzines helped to thwart Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to take over the club in the wake of the glorious 1998-99 treble season. That battle was won, only for the Glazers to buy the club for £790 million in the summer of 2005. Basically, this was borrowed from the bank and then laden onto the club in order to complete the takeover.  Manchester United is no longer a public limited company. It is a wholly-owned family business. And the supporters have been made to pay for this with higher prices for tickets and replica kits. Recently, the Glazers restructured the finances of the club, with investors stumping up £500 million in bonds in order to pay off high-interest debts. Meanwhile, they have extracted millions in “consultancy fees” from the club.

In hindsight, supporters should have challenged proposals to turn United into a PLC in the first place. This was back in 1991 under the Edwards family – when this whole sorry saga began. The ideal now would be mutual control of the club, with Manchester United owned and run by its supporters and investors. Something similar already happens in Spain with Barcelona. According to Barcelona’s statutes, the club exists for the pursuit of sporting excellence. It is run by a body elected for a term of five years whose annual reports have to be reviewed and approved by a general assembly of representatives of the membership, which numbers well over 100,000. The assembly is responsible for fixing entrance and subscription fees and has to approve various other matters, including television rights and mergers or takeovers.

The current debate among Manchester United fans is about how we can achieve something similar. There is talk of a group of “Red Knights” – wealthy United supporters – riding to the rescue and then selling back their holdings incrementally to the fans over time.

It was such new forms of mutualism that the late Tony Banks, Labour’s former sports ministers, argued offered fertile ground for expansion in football. He proposed that greater supporter ownership of clubs would provide a solution to a number of problems in the sport. This is an idea whose time has clearly come – for small clubs and big clubs alike.

Little known, even in the world of football, is the Football Association’s Rule 34. This stipulates that, in the event of a club folding, its assets should go to other local sporting institutions. Along with other provisos, such as imposing articles of association that debarred profiteering by club directors, this rule was drawn up more than 100 years ago to protect the integrity of the game. Perhaps it’s time to resurrect Rule 34 when clubs go to the wall, particularly with regard to those currently in administration.

These issues have been raised in raised in the House Commons by Tony Lloyd, the Labour MP for Manchester Central, with an Early Day Motion and a debate in Parliament that had representatives from all sides insisting that the Government must intervene. However, it is questionable whether this is realistic in light of the demands on the Government from sectors of the economy that have fared far worse than the Premier League in the global recession.

Nevertheless, the enforcement of Rule 34 should be considered, as the FA already has the power to carry out the role of the regulator, but appears unwilling to act. This is unsurprising, given that no one has ever failed the FA’s “fit and proper person” test when it comes who is able to own a football club.  However, pressure on the FA to intervene when a club is in trouble would surely assist fans. Pro-supporter legislation in the next Parliament would also help.

In 1997, the incoming Labour Government set up the Football Task Force as a direct response to widespread public concern over the health of the “people’s game”. It was honouring a pre-election pledge. It’s time for Labour to go for something similar again.  This would undoubtedly go down well with fans at Old Trafford, Anfield and Fratton Park. Otherwise, the business side of the people’s game will still be able to go laughing all the way to the bank – suggesting that, at least as far as Manchester United is concerned, it will be “till debt do us part” for the fans and the Glazers.

Published in Tribune, 5 March 2010

Medway campaign poster on Boris fantasy island

The debate over airport expansion in London has rightly concentrated on the plan for a third runway at Heathrow and its potentially damaging environmental consequences. However, for the citizens of east London, a more immediate concern is the noise and nuisance caused by flights into City Airport following Newham council’s decision to give planning permission for an increase of flights from 80,000 to 120,000 a year. So I was pleased to move a motion at last week’s Mayor’s Question Time which called on Boris Johnson to show leadership on the issue by initiating a review of the impact of flights into City Airport. The motion received cross-party support and was passed unanimously by the London Assembly.

The depth of local feeling on this issue was made clear at the Mayor’s “Environment Question Time” event in Ilford in January, where I was on the platform as chair of the London Assembly’s environment committee. During contributions from the floor, speaker after speaker complained about the disturbance suffered by those living under the City Airport flight path. In reply, Boris told the audience that he felt their pain, but unfortunately there was nothing he could do about it. The planning authority in this case was Newham council and he had no powers to intervene.

But Boris’ expressions of regret were the purest hypocrisy. Under his predecessor, there was a clear and robust policy on City Airport expansion. Ken Livingstone’s administration had urged Newham council to reject City Airport’s application for an increase in flights on the grounds of environmental impact and noise. If the council did not agree to this, the Mayor’s position was that the government should call in the application and convene a public inquiry, and that the Government Office for London should prohibit Newham from granting planning permission pending a decision by the Secretary of State.

One of Boris’ early decisions as Mayor was to overturn this policy. In July 2008, in a letter to Newham council, he paid tribute to “the contribution London City Airport makes to London’s world city status, and the benefits the airport offers to the City and Canary Wharf”. In light of that, he continued: “I offer support for the expansion sought by London City Airport…. I shall therefore be writing separately to the Government Office for London, withdrawing earlier objections, and confirming my support for the current proposals.”

So while Boris was bidding for popular support by opposing airport expansion at Heathrow, he was giving it the green light in east London. To cap it all, Doug Oakervee, the architect of the Mayor’s plan for a new airport in the Thames Estuary, has declared himself unavailable to defend that proposal before the environment committee, suggesting that Boris’ fantasy island is dead in the water. The Mayor’s lack of any coherent strategic policy towards airport expansion in London is plain to see.

Published in Tribune, 5 March 2010

Murad Qureshi AM has learned that the Mayor decided to delay phase III of the Low Emission Zone knowing full well it would cost TfL an additional £600,000 to do so.

In addition, the Mayor was made aware that the postponement would also delay improvements to London’s air quality – just as the UK was about to fail EU pollution limits, which is likely to land us with a fine of up to £300 million. The rest of the UK has met the EU standard – only London is still in breach.

An internal document seen by Murad sets out options presented to the Mayor by TfL in December 2008. It clearly shows the Mayor’s preferred option would cost more and achieve less in terms of improving London’s air quality – begging the question just why he chose to delay the next phase of a scheme that has improved the quality of life of many Londoners.

London Assembly Labour Group environment spokesman Murad Qureshi said: "Boris claimed he wanted to help 90,000 van owners, but the information I’ve seen shows this delay would benefit just 30,000. In effect, Boris has spent over half a million quid – £20 per van – to keep polluting vehicles on our streets for 15 months longer than necessary. I can’t see how Boris squares this with his stated desire for value for money. It looks to me like he’s spending more in order to achieve less."

Murad added: "You would have thought value for money would be a major consideration for him given TfL’s financial black hole that the Mayor constantly harps on about. All this while the EU shows up London as the bad boy of air pollution. And that’s even before you look at the health costs of London’s poor air quality."

Ends.

Notes

Murad Qureshi is a Londonwide Labour Assembly Member, is Chair of the Assembly’s Environment Committee and is the Assembly’s Labour Group Environment spokesperson.

Experts believe that up to 5,000 people die prematurely in London each year due to pollution.

Murad’s original question to the Mayor on the advice he received on suspending the LEZ can be found here: http://mqt.london.gov.uk/mqt/public/question.do?id=26935

Demands are being made on Boris Johnson to step into the controversial decision to expand London City Airport.

The London Assembly has called on the Mayor today for an urgent review of the decision by Newham Council in East London to give the green light for a 50 per cent increase in flights.

Assembly members voted unanimously a resolution concerned at ‘overflights’ causing noise nuisance over Greenwich, the Isle of Dogs, Bow, Hackney, Leyton, Wanstead, Dagenham, Hornchurch and Bexley.

Murad Qureshi, who proposed today’s motion, said: "City Airport cannot be allowed to expand at a rate which threatens the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of Londoners.

"The increased flight numbers, type of aircraft and the flight paths have an impact on the residents living far beyond the boundaries of Newham.

"This is clearly a strategic issues that the Mayor can and should offer leadership on." read more

The Economist has just published an article (“Ordeal by Water“, 20 February) based on Policy Exchange’s proposals for an expansion of commuter transport on the Thames. The author would have been advised to cast a more critical eye over the report on which the article is based, along the lines of Adam Bienkov’s well-informed post on the issue.

The Policy Exchange report, entitled At a Rate of Knots, asserts that the current Transport for London (TfL) subsidy to Thames Clippers amounts to a mere 14p per passenger journey compared with 33p for buses. This struck me as an unbelievable claim, since an earlier report by the London Assembly, London’s Forgotten Highway, had quoted a TfL figure of 69p. So I tabled a question about it to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

The Mayor replied that the most recent monthly figure from TfL is 56p per passenger journey, four times the level of public subsidy claimed by Policy Exchange. He explained the discrepancy between the two figures on the basis that it was “likely that the Policy Exchange figure has been arrived at by dividing the TfL contract payment over the whole of the Thames Clipper operation, i.e. both the supported and the commercial elements”.

In other words, Policy Exchange got their sums wrong.

I take the view that there is much scope for the Thames to play a greater role as a transport highway – but as a means of moving freight rather than passengers. This would have a positive environmental impact by reducing the number of HGVs passing through London. However, if the case is to be made for increased public subsidies to underpin a large-scale expansion of passenger transport on the Thames, it requires more than a dodgy dossier based on faulty arithmetic.

Murad Qureshi is a Labour London Assembly member who lives in the Church Street area. He has been on the assembly for six years. Prior to that, he was a Westminster City councillor for eight years.

Mr Qureshi believes that the national election will be much closer than people are anticipating and thinks the recent Joanne Cash furore is indicative of deep cracks within the Tory party. He said:

"There are some natural gravity laws in politics which you get after an administration has had eight to 10 years. But I am not sure that what the Tories are trying to put over is coming across very well. You just have to look at the recent conflict with Joanne Cash and the local party.

"It is very revealing and I really do think there is a difference between the Cameron representation and what is materialising on the ground. If it goes on much longer like this, it will have its own momentum on election day and certainly works in Labour’s favour."

Mr Qureshi is in favour of the general and local elections being held on the same day because it will result in more people voting locally and concentrating on local issues.

"Politics is all local," he said. "Same day elections emphasises the local aspects more so than people realise and means that more people vote in the local elections, which is a good thing.

"The local issues are much more important than people realise. Karen Buck is a fantastic constituency MP and she is focusing on the local people and keeping her nose down because essentially this is not just a contest between Brown and Cameron.

"We do not put a tick next to their names – we vote for the parliamentary candidates in our constituency. The individuality of MPs is what we vote for but it seems to be more presidential at the moment rather than about the parties."

Hampstead & Highgate Express, 18 February 2010

It’s not surprising that there is a massive gap between what Boris says and what Boris does to mitigate climate change. Barely eight years ago he was a massive climate change denier stating categorically in his Telegraph column: "There is no evidence that the planet is suffering from the extreme weather patterns associated with climate change".

As an opportunistic MP he changed his spots when Cameron, a believer in climate change, invited him back into the Shadow Cabinet. At the time many felt that he only went along with this to avoid political oblivion.

During his campaign for Mayor and in his first couple of years he has shown himself to continue to be a shallow opportunist; he is scrapping the western congestion charge zone, postponed phase 3 of the low emission zone and has "taxed" the public transport user with a swingeing 30% hike in fares since coming to power. Retrograde steps lifting measures designed to promote climate change mitigation.

His grasp of the matter can only described as tenuous; in December last year he suggested that people should have fewer babies to save the planet while accusing environmentalists of being "miserablist, morose, bullying, judgemental and negative". At best all the measures he is putting forward will only make one third of the cuts in emissions needed to hit his target of 60% cuts in emissions over the next ten years.

Turning to electric cars, the opportunistic Mayor spouts forth; he boasts a £60 million scheme of which only £20m is coming from his purse, Transport for London. The rest will be found from "potential funding sources".

He talks of 25,000 electric vehicle charge points. The Mayor only aims to provide 500 of these "on street" and 2000 in public car, rail, underground and retail car parks. The Mayor proposes that 22,500 should be provided in the private sector.

Why do we believe him; his history tells us he is a reluctant convert, that he is happier to blame Government than to do what is needed, and he is only prepared to do the minimum to feebly grasp a headline in the lead up to the next General Election.

Poor show Boris. Stop lining your pockets writing pithy columns in the Telegraph and spend more time standing up for Londoners and driving the changes needed to mitigate climate change.

This morning I joined activists from the World Development Movement who were protesting outside the Department for International Development against plans to channel climate change aid to Bangladesh through the World Bank.

I welcome the UK government’s offer of bilateral aid to Bangladesh for climate change adaptation, but like the Bangladesh government I fail to see the need for a multilateral organisation like the World Bank to control the Multi Donor Trust Fund for Climate Change (MDTF) that the UK proposes should administer the aid.

The strings the World Bank may attach to the aid are clearly a concern for the Bangladesh government – and rightly so, given the Bank’s record of insisting on the adoption of neo-liberal policies as a condition for economic assistance to developing countries. And the exhorbitant fees charged by the World Bank for administering the fund would divert money away from the basic task of dealing with the consequences of global warming.

Bangladesh already has Trust Fund of its own and is in the process of setting up a management team for it. The Bangladesh government proposes that the MDTF should be managed by the same unit. While there is no objection to the World Bank acting as a technical consultant on behalf of the donors, the administration of the aid should be in the hands of a national unit.

It is important that these concerns are addressed at the donor conference currently under way in Dhaka and that we show full confidence the civilian government elected in Bangladesh. So it is a big yes to bilateral aid but a no to control by the World Bank.