Tubbs Road Allotments

I have come across a potentially big problem with the proposed food growing project between Tubbs Road and Willesden Junction. The Well London project was intending to use the land for a series of grow bags. Unfortunately a soil test has shown heavy metal contamination. I am still trying to find out whether this is fixable. There are lots of sites in London with previous industrial or railway uses, so it is not out of the question. The other problems with the Council taking over the site are mainly legal and money based, although apparently there is also some Japanese knotweed there.

Bertha Joseph and the LFEPA

The Evening Standard covers the continuing membership of the London Fire Authority here. It is obviously all about raw politics of a knife edge majority. After all if Bertha Joseph is judged unsuitable to exercise the office of Borough councillor, how can she be an appropriate person to be on the London Fire Authority?

Liberal Democrat Council Tax U-turn

The Taxpayers Alliance has an interesting view on the Liberal Democrat led Brent Council HERE. Apologies for the elderliness of the link, but it still holds interest. Normally, I would be reluctant to quote from this organisation which I suspect is a Tory front, but the story is based on the Evening Standard story HERE.

Since the Council Tax is one of the few parts of their income that Councils actually control, there are plenty of good reasons why any sensible Council Leader would want to retain flexibility. Indeed the Tories' decision to more or less impose a freeze makes David Cameron's professed belief in localism meaningless.

Nevertheless, not so long ago Cllr Paul Lorber and other Brent Liberal Democrats embraced a different attitude to freezing the Council Tax as you can see from this piece of 2006 election literature.

Tubbs Road: Some Sort of Answer

The answers to questions at Brent's Full Council meeting back in July have finally been put on the web site. Among them is a question covering Tubbs Road.

Unfortunately, the answer suggests that Tubbs Road is used "mainly by local traffic" and that the width restriction is widely known about. I think both these convictions are wrong. I think a lot of the traffic is going through to get to the A40. I also have been told be residents that heavy lorries routinely get stuck at the width restriction, as they don't realise it is there. Possibly downgrading the road from an A road to a B road might get it off peoples' GPS systems (apparently it is incorrectly identified as a through route without any width restriction.

Still, it is heartening to learn that the Harlesden Town Centre traffic scheme is being put in for next year. I will be interested to see the details.

Brent Council Drifting

I often complain that the Liberal Democrat / Tory coalition running Brent Council suffers from a sense of drift. One example of this is recycling. When the Liberal Democrats tried to form a coalition in 2006, they circulated a proposal that prioritised waste minimisation. That policy was quietly forgotten.

The officers decided to introduce compulsory recycling instead. The compulsory element is something of a red herring, as the most effective part of the policy is the doorknocking to educate people on what and how to recycle. The very high turnover of the population in Brent implies that this education programme will have to be regularly renewed, although the Lib Dems and Tories don’t seem to have acknowledged this yet.

A second thing that I only recently heard Cllr Irwin Van Colle (The Tory in charge of Environment policy) admit was that Brent Council might very well fail to meet its 40% target for recycling next year. He seemed quite unconcerned that this might happen, and had no plan to avoid it. All that I could get was a promise from one of the officers to come up with some options by the middle of next year (i.e. after the local elections). It looks awfully like just loading problems on to your successors, in the same way the Lib Dems are with the Crest Academies.

Comments Policy

Following the furious comments left about disgraced councillor Bertha Joseph, I have restored the ability to comment on each post. At least for the moment, I am going to moderate the comments before publication to make sure nothing libellous or grossly offensive gets published. Essentially, I will be like the Editor of a newspaper letters page. I won't necessarily agree with comments that are posted but I will block anything that is grossly offensive.

Also, it would be rather more courageous of the individuals (or individual?) posting to sign with a name rather than just "anonymous".

The Royal Oak Harlesden NW10

Just thought I would share the obscure sense of irritation I always get when I view the sign of the Royal Oak on Harlesden High Street.

The sign shows Charles I, who was executed after the world's first war crimes trial. The title "Royal Oak" refers to his son, Charles II. After losing the battle of Worcester in 1650, Charles junior had to go on the run. The story is that he spent some time hiding up an oak tree. Together with the other connotations of Oaks in England, especially association with the Royal Navy, this led to the name becoming a symbol of patroitism.

Bertha Joseph Comments

Unfortunately, I have had to temporarily disable the comments on some of these posts as they were becoming libellous. If you want to leave a comment please try to keep within civilised bounds.

Action for Tubbs Road

My Councillor Call for Action over Tubbs Road went to the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday. This is the first such call in Brent since the legislation is fairly new. Beatrice Barleon of the Junction Association and Cllr Bobby Thomas also spoke, and I think we are finally getting some progress on the area's traffic problems.

Prior to another meeting in December, the transport department will survey the traffic flows and come up with suggestions. Personally, I am still attracted to having a no left turn at the Station Road junction.

Buzzword Bingo

Tired of Bertha Joseph? Then you may want to relax with David Cameron's Buzzword Bingo.

Bertha Joseph: Sock Puppet?

The Evening Standard web story on Cllr Bertha Joseph, the now suspended Conservative Councillor for Kensal Green, is getting some rather curious comments posted HERE. There are two Council officers mentioned by name, which is odd since most people don't even know who their councillors are, let alone Council officers. There is also an obsession with Cllr Ann John running through the posts, including the eccentric idea that Ann John is running the Council despite being in opposition. Could Bertha Joseph be taking a line out of her erstwhile friend Rocky Fernandez's book, and be posting all these comments herself?

Bertha Joseph: What will Boris do?

Bertha Joseph's suspension has been covered by the Evening Standard HERE and in Paul Waugh's blog HERE.

It raises an interesting point about the LFEPA, where Bertha Joseph remains as a member. The LFEPA is currently on a knife edge Tory majority, following a Labour defection. Will Boris Johnson choose to keep Bertha Joseph, or will he stick to his campaign promises to clean up cronyism at City Hall by removing her?

Cllr Bertha Joseph Suspended

I have just heard that Cllr Bertha Joseph, the conservative councillor in Kensal Green, has been suspended for six months by the Brent Standards Committee. This is the maximum penalty a Local Authority Standards Committee can impose, and the first time Brent's Standards Committee has ever imposed such a penalty.

UPDATE: I suppose if she is suspended as a councillor, I should probably not refer to her by the title Cllr, so just plain old "Bertha Joseph has been suspended."

Leghorn Road Changes

Brent Council have suggested changing the emergency vehicles exit at the junction of Leghorn Road and Park Parade to allow cyclists through (via a bollard instead of a gate). That seems a good idea to me. What do you think?

Boris Johnson: Another Tax Rise

Dave Hill of the Guardian reports HERE that Boris Johnson is about to announce another rise in Tube fares well above the rate of inflation. If so, how threadbare is his Council Tax precept freeze going to appear?

Tubbs Road Update 2

Tonight, there is a follow up meeting on my Councillor Call for Action on Tubbs Road. Unfortunately, Brent's Planning meeting meets at the same time so I may have trouble going to both, but I hope it will finally lead to some progress.

Liberal Democrats: The Policies that Dare not Speak their Name

If I were an ardent believer in Brent Liberal Democrats, I would find the current lot running Brent Council a big disappointment as far as crime goes. That is because they are not really implementing any of the policies that they trumpet as radical; they just allow things to continue implementing Labour's policies. Supposedly, Brent Council leads the Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnership, but I haven't seen any signs of the Liberal Democrats trying to influence it to adopt some of their key ideas.

Let's take a look at some of those radical Liberal Democrat Ideas:

• Replace prison sentences of less than 3 months with community service (Lib Dem Conference resolution March 2007). NO ACTION
• Never lock up a young person who breaches an ASBO (Lib Dem Policy Paper August 2008). NO ACTION, although Brent Liberal Democrats do dish out ASBOs.
• Non prosecution for possession, cultivation and social supply of illegal drugs (Lib Dem Policy Paper, March 2005). NO ACTION
• Ending "high visibility community punishment" as a gimmick. (Lib Dem spokesman, 6 May 2009) Lib Dem led Brent Council continues to do this.

What is the point of the Liberal Democrats developing these policies if they make no effort to promote them. Indeed, aside from the promotion of Sarah Teather's political career, what is the point of Brent Liberal Democrats?

Sarah Teather MP's Fiscal Incontinance

Vince Cable and Nick Clegg have tried hard to convince people of their hard headed austerity floating means tests for child benefit, cuts in child tax credits, an end to the Child Trust Fund, public sector pay restraint, reductions in public sector pensions and so on. Unfortunately, Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East, is busily making new spending committments all over the place. Here are the schemes press released on her web site just in the month of August:

03.08.09
Restore Housing Budget
£225 million
17.08.09
Increase in Freedom Pass funding
Uncosted
20.08.09
More School Places
Uncosted
24.08.09
Jubilee Line Refund
Uncosted

If the Liberal Democrats want to be treated as a serious party, they are going to have to start exercising some collective discipline.

Pubs

I see that the William IV pub in Kensal Rise is being renamed as King William 4th, which seems a bit unnecessary. When the Island was renamed, after formerly been known as the Buccaneer, it was a piece of rebranding. It had formerly been one of the grottiest pubs in London, and is now much improved. The new owner of the William IV also owns the Black Lion and the Brondes Age in Kilburn, which are reasonably similar to the William IV, so I don't suppose there will be major changes.

Dawn Butler MP and Barack Obama

The total irrationality of a lot of political debate deeply worries me. We have seen the debate in the USA over healthcare seems to have been seriously divorced from reality: with all this stuff about death panels, the forced euthansia of Stephen Hawking and numerous accusations of Nazism.

Over here, we had a small example of a similar conspiracy theory when Dawn Butler MP met Barack Obama and grabbed his autograph in Downing Street. Several bloggers tried to make out that he had never met her, which as you can see from the photo below he did.

At least most people would see that he did, but some of the people who maintain political blogs apparently would see evidence of a forged image of a meeting that never happened. In the case of Dawn and the President, there aren't any serious consequences, but sometimes this can get serious.

The Liberal Democrats are famed for raising these baseless accusations about non-existent tower block applications, healthcare and police closures, threats to the Freedom Pass and so on. They have as much credibility as Sarah Teather's election promises or the rightwing nutters in America claiming that Obama wasn't born there.

The trouble is, how do combat this kind of thing when political discourse so often doesn't report the facts at all? Reported the horse race is easier than reporting the policy. Reporting personal details about who claimed for what makes better copy than the dry administrative details. Journalists these days often interpret "impartiality" as meaning "he said this, she said that", even where it means "he said the Earth goes round the Sun; she said the Earth is flat." Too often, the actual facts don't get reported at all.

Maybe it has to do with the rise of relativism, but the effect is corrosive on democracy. In local government, there used to be one remaining bulwark against Teather-style irresponsibility, and that was taking power. If you formed an administration and failed to implement your promises, you could get hammered at the next election. However, these days fewer and fewer people know how local government woorks and the Liberal Democrats have become adept at pretending they are campaigning against their own administration.

I don't know what the answer to all this is, but the system is seriously broken.