Bangladesh electorate have photo id to minimise potential for fraud

Last week and in anticipation of the forthcoming Mayoral elections in London on the 3rd of May, the Evening Standard exposed potential electoral fraud in Tower Hamlets.  Although not overtly, the piece is a slur on the Bangladeshi voter.

However, the high levels of voter turnout amongst the Bangladeshi community, both here in the UK and back in the ancestral home establish them as keen voters, anxious to exercise their democratic right. Unlike many western electorates, voter apathy is not a problem amongst this group of voters. Furthermore, if we look to Bangladesh, the potential for voter fraud is also much less. For example, at the last general election in Bangladesh in 2008, we saw the use of an electronic photo ID electoral register, like the one shown above.  This shows the voter’s name, address and most importantly a photograph of them.  By all accounts, that election was viewed as fair and well run by all observers including many from abroad. Given voters can be identified with their photo in Bangladesh, you’d think this was something that would be taken up here as well.  So let’s see the Electoral Commission introduce something similar in the UK with an electronic photo ID electoral register.

While we’re at it, why not also consider starting the count at the polling station. Instead of waiting for the polls to shut and then have the customary race to count, another improvement to the system would be to allow counting to start  there at the polling stations. Most people, probably including candidates themselves, lose the will to stay up until the very small hours to hear the election results in local, general & regional elections.   The late declarations also detract from the momentum of the result as people start a new day before discovering the outcome of their vote.  Again this is something which is practiced in other parts of the world and could well be an improvement to our system here.  Perhaps then, we have more to learn about voting amongst the Bangladeshi community then it’s being suggested. And the mother of democracies should get use to the idea of learning a few things from other parts of the world.

Small shops champion Mary Portas was among the residents fighting plans to bulldoze the Big Table Furniture Co-op in Westbourne Park to create an electricity substation for the Crossrail link. Crossrail has now decided to use a smaller amount of land, so only the shop’s yard is needed.

Stephen Bond, director of Big Table, which has produced and sold beds for 30 years, said demolishing the shop would have cost jobs and harmed suppliers.

Local historian Maggie Tyler said the 1901 former Temperance Society building was "a powerful reminder of the history and identity of Westbourne Park’s railway heritage".

More than 2,000 people signed a petition demanding the business stay open.

Crossrail’s powers meant it would have needed little government consultation to demolish the store. But land and property director Ian Lindsay said: "We have reduced the extent of land required for our substation and negotiated an alternative access."

Crossrail also faces anger over plans for new lorry routes to building sites at Westbourne Park and Royal Oak. London Assembly member Murad Qureshi called for tunnel linings and segments to be transported along the Grand Union Canal.

Crossrail said there would be "huge challenges" unloading materials from barges because of limited room under the Westway.

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The criticism follows an announcement from the Mayor that only 40,000 properties have received insulation as part of the RE:NEW scheme. Originally 200,000 properties were to be retro-fitted, the Mayor then reduced this target to 55,000 by March 2012 and now it emerges that only 40,000 have been completed.

“The mayor is failing to deliver on one of his flagship environmental projects," Labour Assembly Member Murad Qureshi. "This is cold comfort to all those Londoners suffering from a late cold winter, huge hikes in fuel bills and there only defence is to make their homes more energy efficient. This is a damning indictment of his failed environmental policies that he has only achieved a fifth of his original target, and even that will be late.”

“This is less than 2 per cent of London’s 3.3 million homes, he completely lacks the vision and ambition required to tackle the pressing issues of high energy bills, cutting CO2 emissions and helping people, especially the old and vulnerable, out of fuel-poverty. According to London Council’s 1 in 4 households in the capital are in fuel poverty.”

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The mayor made tackling youth violence and knife crime a key priority.  But according to figures released this week by the Metropolitan Police, the number of knife victims aged under 20 has jumped 23 per cent since he was elected.  Serious youth violence, which the Mayor has repeatedly claimed is falling, is also up. 

The Mayor claims he has "eased the burden on households.”  But his fares policies are costing residents in the City of <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>Westminster</place></city> hundreds of pounds a year more than in 2008.

The Mayor claims there are 31 more police officers in <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>Westminster</place></city>.  But official Met figures show he has cut the number of officers by 178 in the last two years.

Londonwide Assembly Member Murad said: “Boris Johnson needs to be honest about what is happening in <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>London</place></city> and the fact is the number of young victims of knife crime has gone up every year since he was elected. It’s just the latest in a whole host of broken Boris promises.”

“To add insult to injury, the Mayor has been making a big fuss about not taking more from Londoners in council tax, then he pretends that the eye watering fare rises he has authorised don’t matter.”

On his re-election website Boris Johnson has made claims that do not stack up:

Police Numbers

The mayor’s re-election website claims there are 31 more police officers in <city w:st=”on”>Westminster</city> and almost 1,000 more police officers in <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>London</place></city>’s boroughs

·         But official Met figures show there are 96 fewer officers in <city w:st=”on”>Westminster</city> and only 19 more officers across <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>London</place></city> today than when Boris was elected.

·         In the last two years <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>London</place></city> has lost almost 1,500 borough-based officers

The mayor’s re-election website claims there are 6 more police community support officers (PCSOs) in <city w:st=”on”>Westminster</city> and 362 more PCSOs in <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>London</place></city> than when he was elected

 Â·         But, according to official Met figures there are 106 fewer in <city w:st=”on”>Westminster</city> and 149 fewer PCSOs across <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>London</place></city> than when Boris was elected.

·         In the last two years <city w:st=”on”>London</city> has lost 921 PCSOs including 145 from <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>Westminster</place></city>.

Crime

The mayor’s re-election website celebrates a fall in overall crime

 Â·         But according to new Met figures the number of young victims of knife crime is up 23 per cent

·         Crime has flatlined ““ only falling by 4% compared to a 12% cut under Ken Livingstone

In <city w:st=”on”><place w:st=”on”>Westminster</place></city>, burglary, gun crime and homophobic crime have all gone up in the last year and robbery against the person has gone up by 24.7% .

 Fare rises

 The mayor’s re-election website says he has “eased the burden on households”

 Â·         But anyone who uses public transport is now paying between £200 and £300 more a year in fares than they were in 2008 ““ around one hundred times more than the £3.10 saving from his council tax cut.

Opening welcome from myself at Comedy gig for Show Racism the Red Card

After a successful evening of stand-up comedy against Racism at City Hall immediately after the Saurez belated apologises on the 13th of Feb, l came away from the event feeling that we need to pinch the issue at its source on the pitch itself.

In recent times, campaigns like Show Racism the Red Card have dealt well with racism in all its forms on the terraces, outside stadiums as well and all its forms old and new like islamophobia & anti-semitism. But recent incidents on the pitch between players tell us its still a very live issue in the dressing room as well. So we can never be complacent about tackling racism, even after the huge progress thats been made in football since the 1980’s.

But with the splat of incidents between players l do think our referees need to deal with it at source, when at earshot of racist remarks, with an immediate red card. Referees may very well have these powers already but we need to see them used and them given very clear instructions by the FA that in such instances the refs will be supported by them. 

I well appreciate that refs have got a difficult enough job anyway but my instinct tells me that the biggest sanction against players making racist comments on the pitch would be letting their own team down on the field of play. All the fines, apologises and bans afterwards don’t have the same impact is that to a player.

So l trust that at the summit at Downing Street, showing racism the red card on the field of play, the pitch itself, is a measure thats agreed and acted on immediately.

The criticism follows an announcement from the Mayor that only 40,000 properties have received insulation as part of the RE:NEW

Labour Assembly Member Murad Qureshi said: 

"This is less than 2 per cent of London’s 3.3 million homes, he completely lacks the vision and ambition required to tackle the pressing issues of high energy bills, cutting CO2 emissions and helping people, especially the old and vulnerable, out of fuel-poverty. According to London Council’s 1 in 4 households in the capital are in fuel poverty."

"The mayor is failing to deliver on one of his flagship environmental projects. This is cold comfort to all those Londoners suffering from a late cold winter, huge hikes in fuel bills and there only defence is to make their homes more energy efficient. This is a damning indictment of his failed environmental policies that he has only achieved a fifth of his original target, and even that will be late." scheme. Originally 200,000 properties were to be retro-fitted, the Mayor then reduced this target to 55,000 by March 2012 and now it emerges that only 40,000 have been completed.

Ends

Notes:Murad Qureshi is a Labour Londonwide Assembly Member and Chairs the London Assembly’s Environment Committee

For further information please contact Alison Marcroft on 020 7983 4363. Numbe

The cycle hire scheme has only been used by a fraction of Londoners and is costing the taxpayer millions despite a manifesto promise it would be free.

His record on electric vehicles is even weaker.

Johnson announced with much fanfare at the Seoul C40 Climate Change Summit in 2009 that he was going to make London the “electric car capital of Europe”. His aim was to get 100,000 electric vehicles on London’s streets, served by 25,000 charging points and 1,000 electrical vehicles in the City Hall fleet by 2015. As we approach the end of his mayoral term, the question is: has Johnson delivered on those promises?

A new report from the London Assembly’s environment committee finds that, of the 25,000 promised recharging points, only 1,000 have been delivered. Of the 100,000 electric cars the Mayor wants to see on London’s streets, only 2,313 have so far been registered. The Mayor has also failed to take a lead with his own City Hall fleet. Of the 1,000 vehicles he promised to electrify, only 48 have been delivered.

Having been in power for nearly four years this is a pretty pathetic record and indicates a lack of attention and seriousness to these issues. When there is headline or a photo opportunity to grab the Mayor is there leading the charge, but when it comes to actually implementing and delivering effective policies, he is nowhere to be seen. It is time we had a Mayor who keeps on top of delivery and actually does what he says he will, rather than taking a hands-free laissez-faire approach.

The reality is that delivery has been much slower in London than we would expect and hope for. Lessons can certainly be learned from other cities who are forging ahead with their own electric vehicle revolution. Paris and Sunderland both have more charging points per person than London. They have shown that a clear strategy is essential to ensure that the locations of the charging points are appropriate for drivers. Sunderland have demonstrated the importance of providing sufficient rapid chargers at key points on major roads to help ease drivers’ “range anxiety”. This would make electric vehicles much more appealing to longer distance drivers.
Boris Johnson has no clear strategy and his lack of progress is the result. His grandiose promise to make London “the electric car capital of Europe” and his failure to get anywhere near his goal exposes the gulf between rhetoric and reality.

Murad Qureshi is Labour’s spokesperson for the Environment on the London Assembly

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Removed railings along Edgware Road

I’ve recently noticed how the rails along the middle of the Edgware Road have disappeared and thought at first it might be related to the spate of metal theft we’ve been experiencing in the UK lately. Perhaps TFL are cashing in now that metal has risen in value so much?, or maybe they’re aware of a future war effort which would mean using all the spare metal we had for armaments,as occurred during World War 2 in London ?

Anyway, I was prompted to put in a written question to the Mayor to find out what’s being happening. It transpires, that the disappearances are a result of a policy change by TFL, with some 70 kms of pedestrian guard rails removed since April 2009. Along the Edgware Rd some 640 metres worth have been taken down to make things more convenient for pedestrians and interestingly to make it easier for cyclists who can often and dangerously be trapped between a lorry on one side and railings on the other.

As someone who has (only very occasionally) been known to jaywalk across roads, it’s a welcome change, assisting my crisscrossing along the Edgware Road chasing buses and popping in and out of my local coffee establishments.

The various bodies involved in delivering the event have long aspired to providing "the greenest Olympic and Paralympic Games yet" and planned for sustainability, but judgments of their success depend a lot on how greenness is defined and how broadly those judgements are made.

Organisers LOCOG have taken a bit of stick over the 4,000 mostly fossil-fuelled BMWs that will be shipped to the capital to cart officials and dignitaries between sporting venues and their hotels using the road network’s dedicated "games lanes," in some cases with personal chauffeurs.

BMW is "proud" to be the enterprise’s "automotive partner." But Caroline Pidgeon, the Liberal Democrat London Assembly member who chairs its transport committee, has said that only electric vehicles should have been considered and Green Party AM Jenny Jones, who is also her party’s mayoral candidate, thinks more of the VIPs should use public transport as we mere mortals are being urged to do.

The choice of Dow Chemical to fund the Olympic stadium’s decorative wrap has prompted widespread protest and the recent resignation of a member of the watchdog Commission for a Sustainable London 2012. Meanwhile, the dark cloud of air pollution continues to float above the build-up to July’s sporting jamboree. All those gas-guzzling BMWs seem unlikely to help.

There is, though, a happier tale being told as well. Jenny’s Jones’s fellow Green assembly member Darren Johnson wrote in Business Green last spring that some of the "greatest achievements" of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), which has been responsible for building the Olympic Park, have gone largely unrecognised. He praised the ODA’s work in "reducing the embodied carbon of construction" by, for example, making the main stadium lightweight by reusing gas piping and re-designing the aquatic centre’s temporary stands to reduce its use of steel.

The London Assembly’s Liberal Democrats applaud the widespread re-use of materials throughout the construction period, including for the park’s own combined cooling heat and power plant. They point out that the land the park has been built on was previously heavily contaminated and is now home to large quantities of greenery. The Environment Agency announced on Monday that the clean-up work is complete.

There has been political approval for all of the above, and for the improvement of the waterways that flow through and around the park. Labour assembly member Murad Qureshi is among those supporting a cross-party call for volunteers to help with tidying up the Lee Navigation canal in advance of July. He’ll be keeping company with Tory mayor Boris Johnson’s environment director and an environment minister at the launch of a campaign led by environment charity Thames21 at Hackney Wick on Wednesday.

But Qureshi also points to the disappointment of the games missing their renewable energy targets – it was announced last April that it will manage only 9% instead of their 20% target. Plans to build a wind turbine at Eton Manor were dropped in 2010. "It’s a real pity, because that would have symbolised very visibly what can be done," he says. (Darren Johnson has since persuaded the ODA to indirectly offset this by insulating homes around the Olympic Park).

Any green audit of the games would have to take into account everything from re-surfacing the local towpaths for walkers, cyclists and runners – I live nearby and am all three – to fundamental questions about the whole concept of the Olympics being held in a different place every four years, with all the draw on Earthly resources that entails. Qureshi would like serious consideration to be given to finding a permanent home for the Olympics. Alas, Greece, the obvious romantic choice, has a decaying stadium on its hands and other matters on its mind.

For London 2012 just avoiding that terrible fate will be a green triumph for a kind. But will it be as great it should have been?

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Murad encourages volutneers to sign up at the launch

 Despite it being a bitterly cold morning, the steely determination and commitment of the Thames 21 volunteers and others, was even more apparent at the launch of the Big Waterways Clean Up 2012  (BWCU 2012)launch this morning.  This is a campaign borne out of a collaboration between the London Waterways Commission (which I am proud to chair), the Environment Agency, British Waterways, Mayor of London, OPLC and a host of other partners. The idea is to build upon the existing efforts to clean up the canals near to the Olympic site by extending this to more of East London’s waterways.

The launch was attended by myself including Richard Benyon, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Environment and Fisheries and Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor’s Director for the Environment.  More importantly, there were volunteers, young and old including children from the local primary school, Gainsborough, all willing to give up their valuable time to help clean up their local waterways, not only in time for the Olympics but beyond into the legacy period.

The campaign aims to recruit no less than 4000 Londoners in more than 80 events to transform over 50 waterway locations along 30km of rivers and canals, all before the Olympics! The events will include waterway litter-picks and tree planting (full timetable can be viewed on the BWCU 2012 website). This morning, we were able to collect several bags full of rubbish from the waterfront which include plastic bottles, crisp bags and other plastic debris. London’s waterways are a vital, yet sometimes forgotten part of the city’s landscape. If we all do our bit to keep our rivers and canals clean, then the benefits would be huge, not only for us but also the local wildlife.

I wish the campaign every success and would encourage anyone to get involved, sign up and rediscover their local waterways as some of the most valuable and rewarding spaces in London.