Shakespeare and the Boys

Just been reading this piece in the Guardian.  What strikes me is that the author complains that female parts in Shakespeare don't have the same heft as male, but does not mention that Shakespeare wrote the female roles for boys.  Might Shakespeare have been constrained by inexperienced actors?

Eric Pickles Suppressing Emails

The department of Eric Pickles, who regularly lectures Councils on the need to be open, has been caught out trying to suppress emails for "political" reasons, according to the Independent.  They even said they would refuse information to the opposition, again on the basis of political convenience. Fortunately the Information Commissioner has now forced Eric Pickles to follow the same rules that he insists everyone else should follow.

How Important are Books to Libraries

One of the puzzles of Brent Libraries Transformation Project is that Increases in library visits greatly outstrip the increases in book loans.  Since we passed the strategy in 2011, all Brent's libraries have seen numbers increase, but the branches where visits have gone up most markedly (such as Kilburn and Wembley) have not had a commensurate rise in book loans.

This is quite contrary to my expectations.  One of the main points in the April 2011 proposals was to maintain the bookfund, meaning that it now accounts for a bigger part of the overall budget.  Complaints about the range of books available was one of the most common features in the 2011 consultation, so maintaining the level of spending on books seemed sensible.  Sure enough, levels of satisfaction with the physical quality of the books and the range of titles have gone up.  If you go into our newest library, Wembley, the titles include a good range of the latest publications in both fiction and non fiction.  In fact, the range strikes me as just as good as a good bookshop.

I was prompted in these reflections by an article in the American Libraries Association (towards the back of this link) which suggests that books are crucial to maintaining library usage.

Congratulations Blobfish

Congratulations to the blobfish, which has been voted the mascot of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society.  It is easy to see why.

Wembley Library a Great Success

As we are quite a long way into the year, I decided to look at our library performance.  Year to date, up to the end of August, we continued the improvement from last year.  We had 630,446 visits, an improvement of 11.6% on the same period the previous year.  We also had 407,563 book loans, an increase of 1.3%.

There has been a big fall off in numbers at Willesden library during its rebuild, although the interim library service remains Brent's second most popular in terms of visits.  The other notable thing is that the new Wembley Library has been a massive success.  In its first two full months of operation (July and August), it has 103,991 visits and 36,754 loans.  The former Town Hall library in the same period last year had only 41,717 visits and 20,141 loans.

The success of the Wembley Library is despite all the building work that is still going on around the Civic Centre.

Library Closure and Judicial Review

My eye was drawn to the decision of Moray Council to close half of its libraries.  This was taken despite clear officer advice that the decision could expose the Council to legal challenge.  That goes beyond bold to foolhardy.

The main objection is that the authority did an equalities assessment, and officers advised scaling back the proposed cuts to limit the effects of closures.  Unlike Brent, there appears to be no compensating investment in the library services, but what could be portrayed as simply a rush to save money.

The comments of the Tory and independent councillors concerned seem to imply that saving money does indeed over ride all other considerations.  I don't believe this actually contravenes the public sector equality duty, which is to be aware of equality outcomes rather than guarantee a limited impact.  Nonetheless, I would imagine that Moray councillors have exposed themselves to charges of irrational decision making, and possibly pre determination.

Whatever the legal situation, I am not sure that the comments will exactly delight their constituents either.

Is Sarah Teather Smarter than we Think

After my weekend post on Sarah Teather, I have had conversations suggesting that my approach fails to take into account the trickery of Ms Teather and the deviousness of Liberal Democrat politics.

This may be so.

One suggestion made was that La Teather had timed her "resignation" immediately before the Lib Dem Conference in order to destabilise Nick Clegg.  Her past record on Charlie Kennedy lends credence to this, but I can imagine a scenario where she is preparing the ground for some more credible figure.  No doubt followed by a suitable reward afterward.

An anti-Clegg coup would rid the Lib Dems of a permanently discredited Leader, and give them a new one that they could try to unite under.  It would do nothing to help people suffering from the policies of the current government.

Article 4 Directions

One of the topics that came up at the Planning Committee last week was the possibility of using an Article 4 direction to overcome various issues.  The one in the news at the moment is the permitted development right to convert offices into housing.  This was a concern to local residents in Willesden a couple of months ago, and has been the subject of various legal actions in other authorities.  Our discussion turned up several areas where we were frustrated by our lack of ability to fulfil residents' wishes in terms of limiting the proliferation of betting shops, amusement arcades and other anti-social  activities.

My mine own experience of judicial review leads me to want to avoid legal action if at all possible.  Although we won our case on libraries overwhelmingly, it still took up a huge amount of time, money and energy which could have better directed to other things.

Wildlife Photographs

Here is a gallery of some extraordinary images of wildlife in a new book by the Natural History Museum.  The skill and dedication of the photographers is awesome.

Teather Going

The announced departure of Sarah Teather from Parliament has not been greeted with universal dismay to say the least.  She has always been unpopular on the Labour side of course, but many Tories and Liberal Democrats also seem to dislike her.  As well as basic dishonesty, she has been disloyal to her colleagues and thoroughly sanctimonious to boot.

There is widespread speculation that she stood down as she knew she would lose in Brent Central.  That seems likely.  Her departure makes it even more likely that Labour will win Brent Central easily, as the incumbent Liberal Democrat MP will not be fully committed.  Her announcement follows tumbling Liberal Democrat membership and a succession of poor election results in the GLA and Council by elections.

Teather is currently saying that she will be campaigning for the Liberal Democrats.  Quite how you campaign for a party by telling a national newspaper you find it "catastrophically depressing" I am not sure.  It is clear that she didn't believe in the present government even when she was a minister voting through the policies she now claims are repugnant.  Of course in the past, she has put out literature of highly dubious honesty (part of a long standing tradition for Brent Liberal Democrats).

Nonetheless, I don't see how anyone can announce that they are standing down as a Liberal Democrat MP because they find their party's performance so repugnant, but still ask other people to vote for the Liberal Democrats.  Indeed, I don't see how Teather can still keep the Liberal Democrat whip with any credibility as she is now claiming to be fundamentally opposed to major aspects of their programme.

Sarah Teather Standing Down

Fancy seeing this story on the Guardian web site.  Sarah Teather standing down in 2015 from Parliament.

Falling Standards in Local Government

I was surprised to see that a councillor has brought an action challenging the new local government standards regime.  This is because the Tory government's changes have made the whole process more or less meaningless.  Indeed, the government's own advisers have come close to saying so.

Food banks and Austerity

Patrick Butler has a piece about how the government is relying on food banks while trying to spin that it isn't.  It really does seem as if the government believes that it can just conceal reality from people forever.  This does not strike me as a sustainable long term strategy.

Cars and Planning Transport

Rob Cowan's cartoon sums up all the reasons that urban planners are trying to reduce car dependency better than a long policy document could.

Street Trees in Colindale

Last night the Planning Committee discussed two major items.  The wider development policies of the Council can wait for a later post.  I want to focus now on the narrower issue of street trees in Colindale.

The document we looked at last night was more imaginative in seeing the wider role of street trees than others I have seen.  It suggested, for example, that Burnt Oak would benefit from a "feature" tree, rather as another area might from a major work of public art.  There were also some interesting ideas about creating more of an avenue effect for the A5, and using some form of central reservation to mprove road safety.

It is clear that to deliver the regeneration agenda in Colindale, we will need a better level of engagement between Barnet and Brent.  There seem to be good links at officer level, but nothing much at councillor level.  The new Director for Planning promised to take this on board in developing the policy.

Universal Credit Disaster

It now appears admitted that universal credit is a disaster.  I pointed out recently that Iain Duncan Smith appeared to be blaming civil servants for the failure.  There used to be a convention that a minister whose policy failed fell on his sword.  Mr Duncan Smith's policy has certainly failed, as has been often pointed out.  His response has been to bluster.

It is time for him to behave as the honourable gentleman he claims to be, rather than blaming others.

Harlesden Town Centre Round Up

I thought I would do a quick round up on the progress around the Harlesden Town Centre works.  Works on Manor Park Road, which is the first phase, should be completed by 23 September.  After that, Conway AECOM will move on to Tavistock Road and Crownhill Road.  Once Manor Park Road is fully clear, a bus stop will be put in front of the Salvation Army.

Will there be a Universal Credit Mea Culpa

It looks as if Iain Duncan Smith is finally going to admit that Universal Credit is badly off course.  At least I assume that is the reason for the story in today's Telegraph.  Such an acknowledgement would be all to the good, although the Telegraph hints that he is simply going to blame his own officials rather than the inherent difficulties of the subject.  

One of the differences between the current Tory government and the previous Thatcher government is that Thatcher at least had a reputation for competence.  The present gang appear to rush into schemes without giving them proper thought.   This applies as much to Syria as to domestic policy.  Universal Credit was always going to be an IT and bureaucratic challenge.  Since it means changing client behaviour at the same time as changing all the systems to deal with clients, it had every prospect of becoming a nightmare.  Iain Duncan Smith's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the difficulties must have made it significantly more difficult to overcome them.

Place making in Colindale

The next planning committee meeting, in a few days, will be considering placemaking strategy in the Brent part of Colindale.  I think this has huge importance, but is often overlooked.  If (say) South Kilburn had paid more attention to the way urban communities worked back in the 1960s and 1970s I think it would have had a beneficial effect on all kinds of health and economic outcomes.

Zero Hours Contracts

There have been calls for more investigation into zero hours contracts, which strikes me as very sensible.  At the moment, I don't think anyone understands how these work or why they are becoming widespread.  I don't buy the argument from some quarters that everyone on zero hours is happy and delighted to be "flexible".  At least some of these contracts must be exploitative, and we need to find out how many are.  It is of a piece with the wider agenda that Ed Miliband is pursuing around squeezed living standards and raising wages to give a reasonable living standards.