Brent Council Poverty Commission

I see Brent council is sponsoring a poverty commission.  This is a good idea, but it does seem to replicate the Social Mobility Commission chaired by Lord Knight that was set up round about 2012.  That did not see any of its conclusions pursued because of a lack of political support.  I hope it works out differently this time.

Barnhill Election Petition

Remarkably the Barnhill election has been subjected to an election petition.  This is an extremely unusual proceeding.  The last time it happened in Brent was in 2006 in following a result in Dudden Hill where an employee of the Council was elected as a councillor (representing the Liberal Democrats).  

The Barnhill case is brought by the losing Conservative candidates.  It alleges a miscounting of the votes, but does not say whether they mentioned this to the Returning Officer or examined the ballot papers, as they had a right to do.

Misguided Reforms in the Labour Party

A plea here for more realism on local government governance will hopefully be heard by the winners for the Labour Leadership battle.  Separating the appointment of the Leader from the councillors s/he is supposed to work with is indeed disastrous for reasons I have described.  The new Leader will have the perfect opportunity to look again. 

One Sided Endorsements

More on Graham Durham, the now apparently suspended candidate for the Labour Party NEC.  He appears to be endorsing Jo Bird, but it is not clear whether she is endorsing him. 

I first came across this tactic with Ken Livingstone's runs for London Mayor.  A number of anti-Labour candidates would endorse him even though he was asking people to vote Labour in the Assembly. 

Brent Council Budget 2020

What with the Labour leadership and all, I have not had the opportunity to fully review the Brent Council budget which will be going forward at the full Council today, but I have noticed:

• A property review to maximise income, which I take it calls into question any promises of peppercorn rents.
• A general commitment to large savings from future budgets without a clear pathway to achieving them, which strikes me as a worrying sign of a Council kicking potential problems down the line.  For example there is a commitment to as extra £245k in environmental services through unidentified "efficiencies".
• A general commitment to "robust challenge" in terms of the cost of Council services i.e. gatekeeping on people accessing services combined with with refusing to pay beyond a certain level.

Labour's NEC Nominations

Those who follow the internal workings of the Labour Party, a select breed I imagine, may be interested in progress on the two by elections to Labour's National Executive.  Labour's official list of nominations is available.

The only Brent resident I am aware of going for this is a person called Graham Durham who recently achieved notoriety over his opposition to Rebecca Long-Bailey at one of her own rallies.  Sienna Rogers, the editor of Labourlist has commented:

Andrew Sabisky and Boris Johnson

I have argued before that Boris Johnson may through either ineptitude or sheer hubris start chipping away at his own authority, but I am surprised at how quickly this is happening.

According to the Huffington Post, he is refused to distance himself from Andrew Sabisky's offensive comments on race, eugenics and so on.  Given his own record of comments on black people, this amazes me.  He is wide open to the accusation that he agrees with his aide.  Mashing up vaccination programmes with compulsory sterilisation is the kind of thing that delayed the eradication of polio.  It is profoundly dangerous coming from some one in Downing Street.  Mr Sabisky' views also mean that he has such a skewed view of the world that his advice on policy will be useless.

Any sensible Prime Minister would have got rid of him immediately. Instead Johnson waited until the press had cottoned on, and only did it last night, making himself look both weak and stupid.

Passover in the Kiln Theatre

I saw Passover at the Kiln theatre recently.  Billed as a mash up of the Moses story and Waiting for Godet, it is as powerful a piece of drama as I have seen for a long time.  It seems to be one of a number of such plays taking long established classics and giving them a different modern twist (as in Wife and When the Crows Visit earlier in the season).  It is also the first production to be put on in the round.  Thus it takes advantage of the enhanced flexibility which was one of the points of the refurbishment. 

Spread of Coronavirus

The spread of the coronavirus, which now appears to be inevitable, reminds me of Amartya Sen's work on famine.  He pointed out that famine had only occurred in non-democratic countries, and that a key reason was the absence of a free press.  This meant the authrities themselves don't realise how widespread the problems are until it is late in the cycle, and I suspect something like this may have happened in China.

Council Carbon Footprint

Many English Councils don't know the extent of their carbon footprint, according to the Guardian.  That is truly worrying.  Without knowing that how can they say they are seriously committed to reducing it?  I am glad to say that Brent Council is a lot more advanced, thanks to the Civic Centre and other projects.

Johnson's Buses Oversold

It should come as no surprise that the £5 billion for local transport in the regions of England is overblown.  Firstly, it is over years i.e. £1 billion capital spend year split between England's eight non-London regions.  That is £125 million per region for five years.

It sounds as if it is mostly capital spend, and I am not sure if it is even new money or a recycled announcement.  Given repaving one kilometre of pavement costs about £150,000 and resurfacing one kilometre of carriageway about £100,000; that kind of sum will not go far with say, the whole of East Anglia.

It certainly does not begin to make up for the last decade of cuts.

Cabinet Shuffle

The Cabinet shuffle appears to be much more consequential than expected.  It is currently reported that Javid is going as he will not accept all his advisers being sacked.  This kind of thing, so early in his tenure, suggests that Johnson's Prime Ministership could be a lot shorter than expected despite his huge majority.

Passover at the Kiln Theatre

Tonight will be the first performance at the Kiln Theatre of Passover, which is billed as a mash up of Waiting for Godet and the Moses story and looking at the Black American experience.  Goodness knows what it will be like.

Momentum, Burgon and Angela Rayner

I don't often comment on internal Labour Party matters here, but it is striking that Momentum appears to be backing two different candidates for Deputy Leader. 

Officially, they had a ballot, but it was a yes/no ballot for or against a pre-picked Rebecca Long-Bailey and a pre-picked Angela Rayner.  In my view that is a travesty, but as Momentum is a privately owned company similar to Farage's Brexit Party rather than a democratic movement, the only person's opinion who really counts is its owner's, Jon Lansmann.

There is also apparently a break away faction, backed by John McDonnell MP, is supporting the controversial Richard Burgon MP.  Dawn Butler MP appears to be reaching out for similar territory. 

A similar level of disorganisation is reported for the NEC by elections.  

If this is the level of disunity they manage among themselves, how are they going to unite the Labour Party?

Mayoral Candidate in the West Midlands

As the Labour Party continues being distracted by its internal elections, it has finally selected its metro mayor candidate in the West Midlands, Liam Byrne MP.  This is a tough fight coming up for May, and will be one of the first electoral tests of the new Leader.  It really is a pity that a candidate is in place there so late and that the Party is still focused on internal stuff. 

Alan Simpson on the General Election Campaign

Alan Simpson has spoken out explosively about Labour mismanagement of the General Election campaign.  Perhaps the most significant thing here is that he is very much associated with Jermey Corbyn's own wing of the Labour Party. 

Community Organising and Brent Local History

The people who controlled the Labour Party during the tenure of the now outgoing Leader set up what they called a "community organising unit".  I think the unit was actually duplicating the work already done by good local Labour Parties and Labour Councils up and down the land and in an area where Brent Council was a pioneer.

The story starts more than twenty years ago when the Blair government was first elected.  Back then the new Labour government wanted to change both the Party and the Councils by making them more outward facing and in touch with the public.  There are some shocking instances of Councils that were completely divorced from their communities.  For example, I recall meeting a councillor (Not a Brent one) who told me that he literally never knocked on a door during his more than twnety years as a councillor.  Whereas he was an extreme case, he was not the only one.

The Labour Party first set about reforming itself to discourage this.  It was hoped that the large new membership in 1997/1998, which back was over 400,000 would become more active in this regard, and to support that the Party started to streamlining its activities to reduce the number of dull and routine meetings by having more all member meetings, fewer acronyms and confusing committees and so on.  It is fair to see that this was not always successful, but the effort was a genuine one.

In parallel, the Blair government put forward the crucial 2000 Local Government Act which abolished the old committee system which tied councillors up in seemingly endless town hall meetings, and sought to get councillors more involved in "frontline" activities, engaging their communities.  There were a lot of successes in this.  I listed some of the ones I was involved in on my Kensal Green page, and there are many more recent examples.  Councillors were also encouraged to meet local people in events such as Local Democracy Week and in community groups.  Naturally this can also involve a certain amount of protesting against unresponsive public authorities, although this should be just a subsidiary part of the whole. 

An active local councillor, such Cllr Janice Long in Dudden Hill can clock up a lot of this provided she/he doggedly pursues it over time.

Brent became a pioneer on this setting up training and structures such as the ward working scheme to make it happen.  Unfortunately ward working was abolished and replaced with councillors merely arguing for grants of CIL money to particular groups without really understanding what they are spent on or why.  This replicates the potential dangers of things like ward working, of making it a vehicle for favouritism and patronage without getting the advantage in promoting the community aspect.

The Community Organising Unit was essentially replicating all this, presumably because its proponents didn't really understand how local government or good local Labour Parties worked.

A second aspect coming out of the recent General Election is that the Community Organisers got diverted from this into old fashioned transactional campaigning of the kind that community organising was supposed to replace.  This is an understandable situation where political parties are struggling for funding, but destroys the whole idea of community organising which is more about longer term relationships.  Of course, the Labour Party's internal review has also suggested that the organisers were sent to the wrong places either because the senior figures in the Party had a seriously misjudged optimism about the result or in some case a personal dislike for certain candidates.

Islington North Leadership Nomination

I don't know if it is true, but I have just read a tweet by a reputable journalist (Gabriel Pogrund) that Islington North CLP has nominated Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership.

Stepless Access at Willesden Green

A long term project worth keeping an eye for is stepless access at Willesden Green Tube.  This has already been considered for some time, and a feasibility study is promised in the next few months.  However, the big obstacle will be paying for it as the re-elected Tory government is choosing to reapply austerity measures that prior to the General Election they said were gone. 

New Wards Have Passed the Final Legal Hurdle

The new ward arrangements are now in force, meaning that organisations can be reconfigured around them.  This may be important for the Police, as the Safer Neighbourhood Teams were designed to work on the ward boundaries.  It will also be important for the political parties, certainly for the Labour Party, and possibly Brent Council.