Premiership football will always attract big names from overseas

There are rumours afloat that one of Boris’s aides was behind the letter in the Financial Times last week which was signed by a group of Economists calling for the 50p rate of tax to be axed in the UK. The letter has successfully reignited the “50p” tax debate and has continued to rage in its letter pages.  It was also picked up by the Sunday papers last weekend.  Boris even managed to weave it into his Daily Telegraph column this morning when writing about the proposed Thames super sewer, gleaming that the 50p tax debate “seem to be moving in the right direction”.

For me, the letter would have had a lot more gravitas if any of the signatories to the letter had been economists who’d predicted the financial crisis. However, like the vast majority of the profession, most had little to say when it came to foreseeing the evolving financial crisis. How then, or more to the point, why then, should we invest any faith in their prediction about the effect of marginal taxation on the rich? Moreover, it would be interesting to know how many of the signatories are themselves paying that rate?

Contrast, Warren Buffet in the USA and the rich in France signing up for more taxes on the grounds of national interest and equality. It seems that the UK’s calls for a scrapping of the top rate of tax is not indicative of a wider universal revolt by the super rich against higher tax. (The Boris camp must be asking where the self-publicity seeking Richard Branson is when you need him?)

Take also one part of the economy which has seemingly not even blinked an eye during the financial crisis – premiership football.  There are still a plethora of top international players keen to ply their trade in England. One does not hear many of them complaining about the top rate of taxation when they arrive at their new club.  In fact it would a story in itself if we heard about any top player leaving because of the 50p tax!  Player’s decision to leave are often football related, on the hunt for more trophies, prestigious clubs or sometimes personal family reasons.  A 50p tax regime has never even been mentioned. 

So, I think the Mayor should start speaking up for all Londoners, most of whom would delight in being in the privileged position of pay a 50p rate of tax and stop flying the flag for his banker chums.  He would also do well to take note of the rest of the world’s super rich on this issue, not forgetting the foreign footballers clambering at our door. 

Qureshi has highlighted three "major navigational concerns" relating to the project, which include whether the Thames will continue to allow two-way traffic along the river.

Other concerns include whether the proposed floating walkway will be able to withstand the impact of a vessel and whether barge access will be secured between Southwark Bridge and Cannon Street.

Qureshi said: "Unfortunately, the mayor was not able to reassure me and the many others who have serious concerns about the safety logistics of this plan."

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The list of ticket offices proposed for closure is buried in the small print of the ‘McNulty Report, the government’s plans for the future of rail services in Britain. London and the south-east have been hardest hit, where 265 stations could be left unmanned.

In Ealing the following stations could be left without a ticket office and staffed for only part of the day:

Acton mainline railway station

Castle Bar Park railway station

Hanwell railway station

Northolt Park railway station

South Acton railway station

West Ealing railawy station

According to the Office of Rail Regulation, as many as 759,796 people a year use West Ealing station.

Local London Assembly member, Murad Qureshi, described the plans as bad news and said stations would become more inviting for criminals and less inviting for passengers.

Murad said

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Murad Qureshi is a Londonwide Labour Assembly member

A full list of stations earmarked for closure can be found

Office of Rail Regulation station useage figures can be downloaded

For further information please contact Alison Marcroft, 020 7983 4363.

here: "This is more bad news for passengers. Not only are fares under this mayor and government rocketting but now we’re being told ticket offices could be closed and stations left without staff. I’m really worried that stations that can already feel less than safe will become more intimidating places for passengers and more inviting places for criminals."here

Like many before the EDL march in Tower Hamlets, I’d argued for its banning but after last weeks show, l found myself  being put in my place by a local Bengali boy, off Brick Lane.  He simply said to me ” What EDL march ban? They were still able to come and make their presence felt and insult my families faith”.   lndeed he was right given, the static march which did take place  involved some 3,000 policemen to marshall and also drew out the anti-fascists out as well. This young boy’s perspective has had me thinking ever since.

Many like myself welcomed the ban by the Secretary of State, Teresa May, however, we did not appreciate the severity of the 30 day ban across several boroughs in East London.  the result has been the curtailment of other demos and rallies like the East End Pride march on the 24th September and most importantly the Cable Street commemoration march on the 2nd of October.

So I’ve written to the acting commissioner of the MET, Tim Goodwin stating that the orginal application of the ban under Section 13 of the Public Order Act should have specified the particular class of public procession in the area.  This distinction is clearly permitted by statute and would have avoided the “blanket” ban which has ensued.  The blanket ban has been denounced by many as a serious attack on civil liberties.   Martin Bright in his Spectator blog has put it well when he writes ” the whole point for those of us advocating a ban on the EDL was that there was a specific threat of violence associated with their extremist view.  Such a measure suggest the police and government are suspicious of all protests…. And while l accept that these are particular difficult times for the MET in the aftermath of the riots, l can’t accept all street protest should be off limits.”

So not surprisingly, I’ve asked the commissioner to reconsider the MET’s position on this issue by applying for the current order to be revoked or varied so as to bring to an end this unnecessarily far reaching ban. I await his response and trust that both the East End Pride and the Cable Street commemoration march can go ahead without the threat of a banning order hanging over their heads.

The City of Westminster’s police force spent £107,746,387 last year. But figures released by the the Metropolitan Police under the Freedom of Information Act reveal their proposed budget for next year (2011/12) has been reduced to £104,373,734.

In addition to the reduced Borough policing budget, the Royal Parks’ police force will be losing over £2 million next year, down from £8,914,525 to £6,769,857.

Local London Assembly member, Murad Qureshi, described the cut as deeply worrying. The recent looting, arson and riots in London should make the mayor and government think again, Murad said.

Murad said: "I’m deeply worried that slashing our local police will affect their ability to keep us safe and keep us feeling safe. We saw in August how important it is to have police on the streets when trouble hits. The mayor and the government should take note and reverse their police cuts."

According to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), London is set to lose almost 3,000 uniformed officers by 2015 – 1,907 police officers and 902 police community support officers.

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Murad Qureshi is a Londonwide Labour London Assembly member.

Details of the budget shortfall for each borough can be found

HMIC’s report detailing the cuts to Metropolitan Police officer numbers can be found

For further information please contact Alison Marcroft on 0207 983 4363

herehere

The Mayor announced plans to build a floating 12 metre wide river walk along the north bank of the river Thames between Blackfriars and the Tower of London in time for the Olympics next year.

Murad’s letter highlights three major navigational concerns:

1.       It seeks reassurance that the navigational channel will not be intruded upon so as to allow two-way traffic along the river and the free movement of vessels during refurbishment works on the bridge arches.

2.       Murad asks for confirmation that the structure of the walk way will be robust enough to withstand vessel impact in the event that a ship’s engine or steering fails and

3.       It requests safeguarding of the barge access between Southwark Bridge and Cannon Street as well as the emergency lay-by moorings.

Murad said “I have been contacted by a number of people who have considered the Mayor’s plans and who have serious concerns about whether this idea has been thought through properly, I would have liked the Mayor’s assurances that the walkway will be sensitive to the existing river functions and most importantly whether a safety assessment has been carried out, however, he simply responded by saying that “the [City of London] Corporation will determine the application in due course” with reference to a “…..range of supporting documents”.  Unfortunately, the Mayor was not able to reassure me and the many others who have serious concerns about the safety logistics of this plan.

Murad’s letter followed a question which he put to the Mayor in June asking whether navigational concerns would be taken into account.  The Mayor’s response was again vague and therefore prompted Murad to seek further clarification.  Unfortunately, the Mayor’s response failed to do this and therefore Murad has urged planners to place these concerns at the fore of their considerations.

Since writing to the Mayor, a major recycling waste management and energy recovery company have also written to the Department of Planning and Transportation expressing a number of similar concerns.

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Murad Qureshi is Chair of the London Waterways Commission and also the London Assembly Environment Committee

For further information please contact Nikki Salih, PA to Murad Qureshi, on 020 7983 4400

And as post mortems begin on the possible reasons for eruption of lawlessness on this scale, there is not, and can never be, any justification for human beings threatening and ultimately destroying the lives of those who live beside them, particularly amongst London’s varied communities.

The catalyst appeared to be the peaceful protest, which began on Saturday evening, by friends and family in response to the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan a few days earlier. This event may have created the conditions for the gathering of people outside a police station in one of London’s most deprived areas. However, the stand-off by Mark Duggan’s family did not incite what was to follow. It simply set the scene, which enabled a section of society to claw their way through its cracks and vent a much deeper and wider frustration with their lot in life.

What started out as a disturbance in a small section of North London soon snowballed into a London-wide phenomenon by the following evening, and news about pockets of disturbances in areas completely detached from the original location began to emerge. This spread around the nation just when additional police forces were deployed in London.

Many commentators have looked to the enhanced communication tools such as Blackberry messaging and Twitter to explain how rioters were able to coordinate and congregate quickly and easily in targeted areas. This is just silly. Blaming new technology for the riots is like blaming previous riots in London, like the one in 1981, on the push-button landline. Indeed, Twitter and the like are as powerful in the service of peace as well, helping to launch post-riot clean-up efforts in London for example. Furthermore, the use of technology will, on the contrary, probably aid the authorities in tracking down the sources of messages.

So what has London to be ashamed of? Well, our young people are trashing London’s streets and looting to gain HD plasma TVs and latest mobile phones, while we have seen young people in the Middle East protest to achieve democracy and basic freedoms our young take for granted. No doubt, the thread of deprivation and poverty runs through almost all of the areas in which disturbances have taken place. However, deprivation is relative, so a starving orphan in Somalia would not feel deprived even in the worst estates in London, where they would at least have food, water and warmth.

The tectonic change in world economic power is seeing a shift away from the western debt-based economy towards the east, which is largely credit based. Britain is, inevitably, caught up in this shifting balance of power. The British government’s unforgiving agenda of cuts underpinned by declining world markets is no doubt a factor. Riots and unrest tend not to happen during times of growth, employment and prosperity. Equally, though, we do not see unrest, at least not on this scale, every time things get bad.

In my mind, the real catalyst for the riots has been the incessant growth of aspiration among young people to be at the top of the consumer tree. Fast changing technology, and our somewhat voyeuristic obsession with how the superrich live and play, means that young people who have little to aspire to in their own lives are bombarded with images and tales of how the superrich live. This is a magnet for young minds that have yet to understand that, actually, most people in the world will never have the means to live such lives, yet this aspiration has become entrenched.

So, although western youths do not suffer absolute poverty, they feel relative poverty in a city where some parts, like central London, have become a playground for the superrich and where they feel excluded from the game of consumerism. The scale of inequality which exists in our society is undoubtedly an underlying factor, however, it is tragic that young people seem to believe that the only way to fix this is by clinging onto the goods which they snatched from buildings they destroyed in order to get them, as though, somehow, this will balance the scales of injustice which they feel in their lives.

So as we look ahead to the London 2012 Olympics, we must believe that time, the great healer, will erase the memories of the tragic scenes of the last few days. It has undoubtedly damaged London’s image and visitors may be deterred from coming. Much of the security planned is not for public disorder but for terrorist threats, so in the light of the events we must cover public disorder as well.

Whatever happens, we must remain resolute in our commitment to ensure that police resources are not cut at a time when they are most needed, and, even more profoundly, that governments begin to think about how, in a world engulfed by the values of consumerism and a desire to have more, we can begin to instil in our children the value of true happiness and aspiration which does not come in a Sony box.

Murad Qureshi AM, London Assembly, Greater London Authority, City Hall. http://www.muradqureshi.com

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An environmental report, the European SootFreeCities Ranking, ranked London fourth from bottom of a table of seventeen major European. London was graded “F” for its record on reducing soot emissions and helping improve air quality. 

The ranking puts London below Glasgow and Paris and way below Berlin which achieved the highest score of 84 per cent compared to London’s 58 per cent.

Labour’s environment spokesman, Murad Qureshi, said: "Our ranking was heavily affected by three major factors which can be laid firmly at Boris’s door: his decision to halve the size of the congestion charge zone, postponing the next phase of the low emission zone – allowing thousands of vehicles to go on polluting, and his prioritising car use over public transport by increasing fares. 

“If Boris Johnson had continued on the course mapped out by the last Mayor, I am in no doubt we would be ranked far higher up the table.”

·         In February 2009 Boris Johnson suspended the next phase of London’s Low Emission Zone. The third phase was due to come into force in October 2010 but was postponed until January 2012

·         In January 2011 Boris Johnson halved the size of the congestion charge zone. Just half the income from the western extension of the zone would have raised enough money to pay for the greening of London’s polluting vans and minibuses

·         Research shows that twenty times more people are killed by London’s poor air than in road traffic accidents

Murad Qureshi’s response to the Mayor’s draft air quality strategy included proposals for:

·         Targeted "low emission zones" to cut traffic in pollution hot-spots

·         Improved information for Londoners on local air quality levels – via text message alerts, for example

·         The introduction of a vehicle retrofitting subsidy scheme

·         Improved transport to Heathrow airport as new figures show three-quarters of toxic nitrogen oxide pollution in the local area could be caused by road vehicles

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There were 184 fatalities caused by road traffic collisions during 2009 (http://bit.ly/94fGRH). An Institute of Occupational Medicine report commissioned by the Mayor and published in June 2009 estimated that 4,267 deaths in London could be attributed to the city’s air quality (http://bit.ly/aPu8GF)

For further information please contact Nikki Salih on 020 7983 4400

While British Muslims have disproportionately been the victims of the riots – the compassion and dignity shown by the victims to their assailants shows them in a very different light, one that could change perceptions of Muslims altogether.

Yesterday l attended the very moving funeral service of the three young men killed in Winson Green, Birmingham. Haroon Jahan and brothers, Shazad Ali and Abdul Musavir all died after being hit by a car during the rioting. I also attended a rally last Sunday for a United Birmingham rally before the game at the Hawthorns where the players wore black arm bands. Yesterday, I wanted to show some solidarity with the grieving families who in such difficult times have shown immense compassion and dignity, and it’s something one can only admire, explaining why l wanted to return after last week. 

In his hour of desperate emotional support, Tariq Johan, one of the fathers, made an impassioned and eloquent speech calling for all races in Birmingham to come together. Some of the moving words included some Muhammad Ali like prose ” …..Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise calm down and go home  ” But he may have not just averted further rioting in Birmingham but also placed Muslims in a different light. A community not often projected well since the Muslim references made in the media headlines after 9/11. We even found EDL joint leader Kevin Carroll, making respectful remarks about his comments at their Telford demo last week, such was the impact of his words. 

Some of the Pakistani women at the funeral inferred this much as well in their conversations, pointing out that when terrorism is involved, we are Muslims but when we are victims of crime we suddenly become Asians. 

Tariq Jahan said “l can’t describe to anyone what it feels like to lose your son. I miss him dearly but two days from now the world will forget, no one will care” Well he was not forgotten.  Along with his two other friends, they were remembered by more than 20,000 people who showed to pay their respects at the joint funeral service at Summerfield Park off Dudley Road.  This was a fitting testimony to their memory. 

On top of this community loss, we also had the Malaysian student, Ashraf Haziq. He was mugged on the Monday night of the riots in Barking, London after only arriving in the country for further studies a month earlier. He was mugged by youth posing as good Samaritans which were filmed and put on You Tube, the clip becoming an over night sensation. Ashaf also expressed compassion and dignity in his own geeky manner, when he said “Britain is great. Before l came here l was very eager and l don’t have any ill-feelings about what happened” He could have easily said otherwise and potentially lost the further education sector of the UK, 10,000 Malaysian students. Instead he was incredible generous to our shores given his “welcome” in Barking. 

So while Muslims have been high profile victims of these UK riots, the personal responses to attacks by the victims, their relatives and friends may well change perceptions of Muslims in wider British society for the better. Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi at the funeral service remarked so much, saying that British Muslims were at a turning point.  As one of the most poignant victims of the riots, they have as a group, been able to project themselves as compassionate and dignified.   Let us hope this legacy is not forgotten. 

White Hart Lane

As the political classes and the media camp-out in the epi-centre of the London riots in Tottenham, l have to admit that l’ve only travelled up to Tottenham once a year for a certain fixture at White Hart Lane – Spurs Vs Man Utd. Now that may well be good enough for me as an away fan but residents of Tottenham need their area to offer them a lot more and if Spurs leave Tottenham, then the area will be losing a major asset which places it on the map and perhaps the only attraction which it has to offer those of us from other parts of town.

While the club is probably the biggest private land owner in Tottenham, it also has a CEO Daniel Levy, actively pursuing moving the club elsewhere shown by their Olympic bid and its subsequent legal challenge of the OPLC decision to negotiate with West Ham. What seems to be troubling the club are the transport links to the ground, or more accurately, the lack of good links especially by tube. So what’s the problem with extending the Victoria line to Northumberland Park? The depot for the tubes along the Victoria line actually go pass the side of the ground at Northumberland Park. The sticking point with this option appears to be the cost and logistics of a footbridge which could accommodate the huge numbers from the side of the station to the stadium on match days especially evenings.

However, not long ago, the LDA provided for a footbridge over Wembley Stadium rail station to get to the new Stadium at a cost of about £11 million so why can’t something similar be done to plug the gap in funding for a footbridge at Northumberland Park? This I believe, would be a small price to pay to keep the club in its neighbourhood, which without it, would suffer a huge gap in its urban fabric. Otherwise we are in danger of seeing Tottenham being lost on the map of London, losing its historic identity and becoming more renowned for the riots and looting of 2011.