On 3rd May Londoners face a choice between a Labour Mayor and a Tory Mayor. That choice is this simple, and its a clear choice that matters on May 3. It’s a choice between a Conservative party that will carry on ripping off Londoners and a Labour party determined to make you better off.

The Conservative Party has:

• Pushed Britain back into recession
• Hiked up bus, rail, Tube, tram and DLR fares
• Introduced a ‘granny tax’ to fund a tax-cut for the rich
• Hit young people and students, including scrapped the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)
• Cut funding for childcare
• Allowed rip-off energy companies to hike up bills

A Labour Mayor of London would:

•  Cut fares, saving the average fare-payer £1,000 over four years
•  Reverse Boris Johnson’s police cuts
• Create a £30-a-week London EMA for 16-19 year olds
• Provide grants and loans for childcare 
• Offer Londoners cheaper electricity and heating through a London Energy Co-op
• Oppose the granny tax paid for by the tax cut for the richest – and freeze Council Tax

The central choice on Thursday is between a Conservative Party continuing to rip you off, or a Labour Party that will make you better off.

Don’t let the Tories get away with it. Vote Labour in London on Thursday.

Offending islamophobic comments in London Elects booklet

Having had a number of constituents complain to me about an offending islamophobic remark in the GLA election booklet on page 9, I have written a letter of complaint to London Elects, the election commissioners of the GLA election on the 3rd of May.  

The offending  quote from Robert West reads  ” I’m backing BNP because they support our traditional christian faith. We need strong leadership to protect our national identity from the threat of Islam ”   This is clearly islamophobic in its intent.

In my letter I have asked London Elects to explain how it saw fit to sanction such  islamophobic comments.  It is simply not good enough for them to tell us it’s not its role to make value judgements about the contents of the booklet from all the various political parties.  Such remarks fall foul of Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as it denotes that all persons of the islamic faith pose a threat to the wider population.  This is not only untrue, it is also detrimental to race relations between different faith communities to promote this belief.

Public authorities like London Elects must have due regard to the need to “eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited under the Act….and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it”   This has clearly not happened in this instance.

All this when l had earlier in the week complained about London Elects permitting political slogans on the ballot paper.  Lawyers at London Elect need to consider this again along with how the islamophobic comments were permitted to be published in the first place.  

Unfortunately, the damage has been done because the booklet has already hit the door mats of millions of homes!  Furthermore the quote from Robert West can also be found on the London Elects website. This at least can be dealt with and must be taken down immediately. You can email them at info@londonelects.org.uk or phone 020 7983 4444 to complain.

Ultimately the best way to counter this injustice now, would be to make sure that the BNP does not get another one of its numbers back into the London Assembly as they did in 2008.  For this, we have to make sure that enough people vote across all the political parties to ensure the BNP do not make the 5 per cent threshold needed to get one of their Assembly Member which were only serve to peddle further their islamophobic views.

I hope all readers will go out next Thursday and use their vote to stop this threat and such negatives messages reaching voters again next time round.

Offending ballot paper with slogans!

Like many over this past weekend, l received my postal vote for the GLA election which will take place on the 3rd of May.  There are 3 three ballot papers and the one which caught  my eye is the pink one, which is the vote for the Assembly across London.  There are some parties who have incorporated tag lines or slogans beside their name which is clearly designed to nab voters at the very last moment by igniting an emotional reaction in voters encouraging a reactionary vote.  For example, number 2 on the ballot is the Christian Peoples Alliance with the linet ” Supporting traditional marriage”    This continues further down the ballot paper to number 4 where the English Democrats tell us their are ” Putting England first!”.  Then at number 8 we have the National Front saying its ” Putting Londoners First” and finally number 9 is the House Party with the line ” Homes for Londoners”.  It seems to me, that these smaller parties are being allowed to bend the rules in order to help them get some last minute campagining across to voters at the critically point at which boxes are ticked off.  

Both the major parties could quite easily have slogans of their own, for example the Tories could have “The Boris Party” after its name.  Labour could have “For the many not a few”?

There is also another dimension which strikes me in this, and that is the prejudices which are revealed in the slogans .  For example, the Christian People’s Party seem to be having a go at homosexuality and the plethora of other relationships which exist outside of wed-lock.  Should those who are have to face these prejudices and indeed the rest of voters have to face these sorts of subliminal prejudices at the point of voting?  The English Democrats and National Front on the other hand are trying to define who is one of them, again in a subliminal way trying to exclude many of the communities in London.

The Election Commission should not have allowed any such slogans in the first place.  Although, as much as these slogans are used to identify certain types of parties, voters can also use them to identify who not to vote for!  It is probably premature to start mentioning any lessons to be learned from this forthcoming election but I hope that this is one practice which will not be carried through to the elections in 2016.

The much-loved “snackeria” in Charing Cross Road was originally set to close next month after the council granted developers Montagu Evans and freeholder Gascoyne Holdings Ltd permission to convert the famous deli into a premises suitable for a chain café.

But its proprietor, Gaby Elyahou, said Gascoyne Holdings Ltd, the company of landowner the Marquess of Salisbury, had now informed him he could stay open until August.

Gaby’s, which was established in 1965, serves up delicious and affordable salad, falafel, salt beef and Mediterranean dishes.

Soho resident and longtime campaigner David Bieda, who has supported the campaign to save Gaby’s, stopped off in the deli on Wednesday to congratulate Mr Elyahou on the apparent stay of execution.

He was joined by Labour London Assembly Member and Marylebone resident Murad Qureshi, who has written to the Marquess of Salisbury and this week received a lengthy reply confirming that he was aware of the furore around the Gaby’s saga.

The deli is popular with actors including Simon Callow and Henry Goodman, who have performed there in support of the Save Gaby’s campaign.

View article here

SRtRC dvd on homophobia

Last night at the new HQ of Unison in Euston, l attended the launch of the Show Racism the Red Card(SRtRC) dvd against homophobia.

As ever,  SRtRC demonstrated their credentials as an organisation comiiteed to promoting equality in all walks of life by venturing into this arena when they could have stuck with their normal ground in tackling racism in sport.  It’s difficult enough to deal with racism in its many forms like the recent growth in islamophobia, let alone homophobia at the sametime.  It was only after the careful cultivation of the Northern Rock Foundation, that they moved into this altogether different front.  And we are all the better for it, judging by the contents of the dvd launched yesterday.  It was immediately apparent to me that SRtRC’s experience with dealing with racism will be very useful in the battle against homophobia.

Yet showing homophobia the red card in football is clearly going to be more challenging then in cricket and rugby were we  at least have players confident enough to “come out”  like Gareth Thomas and Steven Davies respectively.  You only have to look at the Justin Fashanu case to realise it’s a particularly charged issue in the dressing rooms of many football clubs with well groomed footballers being labelled as being gay on the terraces.  Football needs a different approach as no doubt social class may well be playing apart here.  It’s the only factor that may divide the game from rugby and cricket. 

This said, learning to tolerate  players regardless of their sexual orientation is not the only lesson  football could learn from these other popular field sports in the UK in such a social campaign.  For example, they could adopt TV replays when critical decisions have to be made on the field of play by referees – this is an aside I know, but one I couldn’t resist after last weekend’s football events.

Casual water leak in Marylebone

With the New York style weather (bitter cold with clear blue sky and sunshine) we’ve been experiencing recently in London, there is a downside. The effect has been to intensify the drought situation in the UK. With half the country now under a drought order following two dry winters and a relatively dry spring, this is not good news for consumers.

What has exacerbated the situation is the high volume of leaks still occuring on our streets. Above, is an example of one that I recently came across in Marylebone. Having just reported it to Thames Water’s leak line, I’ll be able to see first hand how quickly this gets dealt with. That said, we also have an awful lot of water works happening in Maida Vale & St John’s Wood which largely appear not to be worked on when ever l pass by them.

My anecdotal observations appear to stand up when you realise that Thames Water tops the table of leaks whilst millions face a hosepipe ban. Thames Water is truly in a league of its own with an average of over 600 megalitres per day leaked. Yes it is the case that Thames Water which serves 8.8 million customers met its leakage targets set by OFWAT over the past six years. However its leak rate is five times higher than the 5 per cent that will be saved by the hosepipe ban. Indeed it has led to Fred Pearce, the New Scientist’s environment consultant to comment that “Thames Water’s leakage rates are obscene” .  It’s quite clear that the targets are not sufficiently challenging in the first place.

Source: OFWAT

On top of all this, Thames Water’s customers have had to endure an above average price and above inflation increase of 6.7%  from the 1st of April and a payment of almost £2 million in bonuses ( p 47 ) to it’s top 3 executives.   Thames Water have responded by saying that half the bonuses were incentive plans from previous years paid only after tough financial targets were met by them, and further that the company invests £1 billion a year in improving pipes, sewers and other facilities.  However,  looking at the figures in the table above for Thames Water, their efforts appear not to be making significant impact on the volume of leaks but simply sustaining them at the same level.  So on the day that millions were made the subject of a hosepipe ban,  received bills with record inflation busting price rises for the year ahead, it’s little wonder customers found such bonuses had to swallow.

Others like the Economist magazine suggest that the housepipe ban is a poor solution to a water shortage as it maintains a cap on price whilst reducing the quantity of water.  So if customers can’t pay for it, they will commit their time to finding other ways to obtaining it.  As a result, a considerable amount of effort will be spent on side-stepping the ban by exploiting the loopholes, for example,  pretending the use helps on health and safety grounds or supporting wildlife which the rules permit.  Still others will choose to ignore the ban, as the last time it happened in 2006 some 2 in 7 ignored the rule!

The upshot of these bonus payments, price rises, poor performance and low level targets, is that we appear appear to have the worst of both worlds when it comes to our water industry. We have private utilities, but no competition, in short, regional private monopolies with little incentive to reduce our consumption of our precious water resource.

Some journalists have recently commented on London appearing to have become the home of many crooks and fugitives from around the world. For example,  Marina Hyde in the Guardian suggests London has become a full-blown creep haven as she points her finger to many of  global scumbags now residing in London whom have often very unsavoury allegations against them. Other like Max Hastings have specifically pointed the finger at certain communities like the Russians in London on live TV on respectable shows like the AM Show on sunday morning, suggesting its a result of London having become the libel capital of the world.

Its also been something l have been asking questions about to Mayor, in response to the  some of the things l have noticed in my particular neighbourhood in response more often then not to the rumours l hear along the Edgware Road!  For example  former President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf   whom its rumoured we were spending over £ 25,000 a day on his security in Hyde Park Ward. This when his approach to opponents in Balochistan was to send them body bags of their colleagues. Or Rifaat Al-Assad, the uncle of the present President of Syria Assad who stands accused of being the butcher of Homs in the early 1980s.  And not least, we have some 44 referrals of war criminals to the MET by the Border Agency whom the MET has seen fit not to do anything about at all, by just saying we just have not.  This by of all departments, the anti-Terrorism Section which makes you wonder how come its seen as a terrorism threat!  Finally some journalists have even seen fit to give me some credit for such questioning of the Mayor in his position as the ultimate boss of the MET.

This trend continues today in the Sunday Telegraph, as we have Gilligan reporting from Dhaka about one particular case we know too well in the Bangladeshi community – Chowdhury Moeen-Uddin. Its alleged he committed war crimes during the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 which involved abductions and disappearances of leading Bengali intellectuals towards the end of the war. It is likely he will be prosecuted during the summer in Dhaka and the UK government could face extradition requests by Bangladesh government. What ever happens we could do without this albatross around the neck of the body politics of Bangladeshis both at home and aboard to be finally dealt with once and for all. The victims of 1971 deserve to get their justice and their families closer on these horrific events.

I just ask that if London’s going to become more ethical that we deal with these peoples deeds from other parts of the world before letting them into the country in the first place. And those already in the UK who have clearly not been telling us the truth about their past, should have their British nationality removed from them. Lets get rid of all these global scrumbags living in our London and if necessary through the British courts.

At this morning s launch of the Manifesto for London 2012 sub-titled “better off with Ken” in Grenwich Pennisula, we saw him weep at the end of the political broadcast that will be make tonight. He was comforted by the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Milliband as he realised what a responsibility he has taken on if he’s going to make Londoners life easier in our city.

If you want a first hand look at its contents before you read all the political commentary on it, see the attached link  to the Manifesto for London 2012  

If you also want to have a look at what made him emotional this morning, see tonights political broadcast here.

Ed and Ken called on Londoners to vote for Labour policies which will make them better off in contrast to Boris Johnson’s fare increases.