Lovely

Hand drawn map of Honor Oak Park. Lovely.

Angry scenes at tonight's council meeting

Tonight Lewisham council were discussing and voting on a sixty million pound cuts package in public services. One eye witness took this rather exciting footage of the crowd (estimates of around 400?) as they tried to get into the meeting.



Second video here. Third video here. Thanks 'Hangbitch'!

One report talks of police dogs and horses (here) and the Lewisham twitter feed is going mental. (here). There were a whole host of Goldsmith's students there as well as campaigners for local libraries, against education cuts and to save the nurseries.

The cuts package was approved 36 for, 3 against and 11 abstentions. That's Labour for, Lib Dems all abstained and Greens and Tories voted against.

Darren Johnson explained why he was going to vote against the budget here and I had some some other thoughts about councillors in a time of cuts here. Pic of protesters on council balcony as councillors look up in awe (good shot of the back of Darren's head there) here. BBC report here and pic of loads of horsies and cop cars here more arty one here.

More here;

Blackheath Bugle. Lewisham Right to Work. Dave Hill in the Guardian. Transpontine. Brockley Central. AVPS. Guardian.

Labour Leadership: How did Lewisham Labour vote?

I just noticed that the Labour Party has rather neatly published a breakdown of the recent leadership vote in which Ed Miliband won. I thought it would be interesting to have a look at how Lewisham Labour Party voted in the election.

If you take all three constituencies the breakdown looks like this;

Which looks like this in numbers (you can click to make them clearer);

The obvious headlines are that Labour Party members in Lewisham pretty heavily voted for a candidate that did not win and that in the West there was a surge to Balls and Abbott, in the East to Burnham...

Any explanations for this? It looks on first examination that the East, with it's heavy vote for David Miliband (and Burnham surge) is certainly the most right wing party of the three.

You can also see how the MPs voted here. Lewisham Deptford's Joan Ruddock cast her vote for Ed Miliband and gave none of the other candidates her second preferences (just as well he won I suppose).

Heidi Alexander, from Lewisham East, voted Andy Burnham [1], which may explain the East's Burnham vote or be a product of it. Her second and third preferences were for David and Ed Miliband.

Jim Dowd of Lewisham West took a leaf out of Joan Ruddock's book and only voted for one candidate. However, like many of Lewisham Labour members he choose the losing Miliband brother, David.

Supporting the tube workers

I have a confession to make. I support the tube strike. In fact I've two confessions to make, the second one even more terrible... the strike didn't even inconvenience me, but I'd still have supported it even if it had.

The Evening Standard today reports of a third near tube collision in the space of three months. This underlines the need to maintain and improve safety on the tube, but management are intent on cutting costs, something that could end up costing lives.

The proposal to slash 800 jobs and close ticket offices means yet more inconvenience and hassle to us God-fearing travellers (and there are no atheists in fox holes or rush hour) which we could all do without - but more importantly it puts people in danger.

It was very disappointing to hear that yesterday Conservative Assembly Member walked out of the Assembly in a cynical move to prevent any discussion on tube safety. It's a real problem that the Tories are more interested in party political games than the safety of the travelling public.

That's why the strike is so important, and why we should all support the demands of the rail unions that their jobs and our safety should come first.

Save Crofton Park Library

I wasn't able to attend Monday's meeting on Crofton Park library so I asked fellow Green Charlotte Dingle, who was there, to send me a quick report on this important issue.

Lewisham council recently revealed that it has identified libraries as a prime target for cuts over the next few years, with plans afoot to shut a number of them for good. On the council’s hit-list are the Blackheath Village, Crofton Park, Grove Park, New Cross and Sydenham libraries.

Crofton Park library has been earmarked as the first candidate for closure because the building is in dire need of refurbishment and, after Blackheath library, it is the library currently costing the council the most money. A consultation meeting on its proposed shutdown took place at St Saviours Church in Brockley on Monday 23rd August, with around 100 people in attendance.

The consultation saw various proposals outlined by council officers, including keeping the library open by allowing volunteers to run it. However, they didn’t really outline any particularly well thought-out alternatives, and spent a lot of time skirting around questions, such as where the volunteers would come from. Perhaps they expect the sacked Crofton Park librarians to come back and work for free? Their suggestion that existing staff would be ‘redistributed’ amongst the remaining libraries in Lewisham was nonsense to anyone with a basic grasp of maths, so despite their best efforts, there was little doubt in everyone’s minds as to the inevitable fate of the library’s current staff.

Amongst those speaking from the floor were a foster mother who said her charges had found their lives transformed by the library; a primary school pupil who begged the council not to take away her primary source of research materials for school projects; a disabled woman in her 90s who told us she would be unable to travel to a library further out; and the library’s head librarian, who claimed to have seen the library consistently well-attended for the past 50 years.

The cuts have to be made somewhere (although perhaps not to the draconian degree that Lewisham council seems to believe), but taking away valuable community resources is surely not the answer. The woman who pointed out that various council officers are raking in around £100,000 a year perhaps made one of the most valid points of the evening...

End of an era: Adhesive Specialities Ltd.

This is actually in Ladywell, rather than Crofton Park, but I felt a touch of sadness none the less seeing what was happening to such a lovely old iconic building. I thought the crows seemed particularly ominous in this setting.




There's something I found quite touching about this image of the stopped clock, the useless door that leads off a ledge and the abrupt finality of closing off the entrance.

Steve Bullock disrespects local campaigners

First posted at The Daily (Maybe)

To think I voted for Sir Steve Bullock second preference at this year's Lewisham Mayoral election. Anyway, he's repaid my act of charity by branding protesters against the cuts "fucking idiots" and demanded that they "get real" - all while he was chairing a cabinet meeting. That's multi-tasking for you.

So much for Labour being the anti-cuts party. In Lewisham we're blessed with the fact that those fighting the cuts find themselves opposed to both the Liberal-Tory national coalition and the Labour council who were announcing closures before we even knew who the national government was.

Last night around one hundred protesters lobbied the council over their plans to, among other things, close five local libraries, shut down nurseries and reduce council staff. For an area where unemployment is on the rise the loss of local services and laying off workers seems completely the wrong way to go.

Hangbitch who attended the protest says that "we all know that these immediate economies are false economies. Bullock’s huge list targets people we (literally) can’t afford to target."

Meanwhile what does Sir Steve have to say about his disrespect for those who want decent public services and had hoped that this Labour council would fight to keep every job? “I think I may have left the mic on while I was making an aside.”

I'm assuming "aside" is a euphemism that we'll all be taking up soon in Lewisham. I'm pretty sure they'll be plenty of "asides" made about Sir Steve's attitude in the coming months as the council prepares the redundancy notices.

Keep watching the skies

Apologies for the light blogging of late, this may be a trend that continues for a while! Anyway, the News Shopper has two bird related articles that made me smile this week and I thought I'd pass them on.

First we have the vital news that Swans and chicks (or is it signets?) have been snapped using a zebra crossing. Glad to see they are being road safety conscious and crossing in the correct place.

Can't be too careful where the young ones are concerned.

That probably sounds snarky but I'm all for a bit of froth in my paper as long as it doesn't take over. Very cute pics.

The second piece is on the front page (although don't forget to check out the hilarious pictures in the associated story). Killer crows? Picking off joggers? With what - a sniper rifle?

Click on the pic for a clearer image which will tell you that this menace has a "grudge against blondes"... now I don't mean to cast doubt on the News Shopper's journalistic credentials but I may retain a little bit of healthy scepticism on this one.

The official advice against this "deranged" bird that could end up killing someone? "Wear a hat".

Glorious comedy gold. Thank you News Shopper.

When was Lewisham Tory?

Just seen on the BBC news that Labour have taken Lewisham council from the Tories. Blimey, I didn't know I was that out of touch!

While we all know that our electoral system is not wholly democratic but I'm not sure that the handful of councillors the Tories had for the last four years, no matter how effective, could actually be deemed to have been in charge of the council.

Thought I'd take a screen shot for posterity.


Currently at this link;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/england/8675886.stm

Labour of course has taken the council from 'No overall control' at the expense of the Lib Dems and Greens.

Results in: thanks to everyone

Well, the results are now in for the elections and the Greens have both happy and sad news.

At last we have achieved that historic first with Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavillion with the first Green MP in British history. More people voted for us across the country than had ever voted Green in a general election before and outside of London we are welcoming new Green councillors in areas we've never had them before.

In London though there has been a massive surge to Labour that has managed to sweep all before its path in the council elections. The Guardian's Dave Hill describes well the scale of Labour's resurgence winning back councils and seats that many had long thought were long lost.

For Lewisham this has meant that Labour has won seats from all the other parties on council including the Greens who have gone from six councillors to just one, Darren Johnson in Brockley. If the elections had been on different days we may well have been looking at an increase in councillors not a near wipe out, and more people still voted Green across the borough than have ever voted Green in Lewisham council elections before, but it wasn't enough.

Here in Crofton Park we fought a strong and honest campaign and I'm really proud to have worked with my fellow candidates Hati Gunes and Roger Sedgley as well as our campaign rock Anne Scott without whom we would have been totally lost.

Although more than a thousand people in Crofton Park voted Green at least once we came a disappointing third place. That's life, but it doesn't mean that the Green Party is just going to disappear.

On Monday we're having our first party meeting after the election and over the next few months we'll be reassessing how we move forward from here to fight for a fairer society, against privatisation, low pay and climate change, to build a stronger movement that gives communities a real voice and direct say regardless of who is and is not in the council chamber.

Mayoral election: second preferences

One of the three elections you'll be able to vote in on Thursday is that for Lewisham Mayor. It's not a brilliant way of organising local government because it leads to too much power in one person's hands, less collaborative decision making and far less accountability. If we ever get the chance the Greens would like to see us dispose of the directly elected Mayoralty and return more power to our directly elected council.

We've got a great candidate for Mayor in Dean Walton, who is currently a Brockley councillor and has built up a good reputation of working with others and, as the Green's national treasurer, his head for figures and prioritising budgets is second to none.

I'm enthusiastic for Dean and hope to see him get a great vote.

The way the system works of course is that you get two votes, first and second preference. This allows you to vote with your principles for first choice and then the 'lesser of two evils' for second. It's quite a neat system which, for London Mayor, allowed the Green Party to promote our excellent candidate Sian Berry without harming Ken Livingstone's campaign to keep Boris Johnson out.

Lewisham Greens are not taking a position on who to vote for second preference at this election, but there's no reason why, in the spirit of mature politics that refuses to demonise the opposition we shouldn't have a personal preference on who to vote for in second place.

Personally I'll be voting Dean Walton [1] and Steve Bullock [2], not because I love Labour or think that there is a huge gap between the policies of the three old parties but because there is a question of weight and seriousness.

Steve Bullock, as Labour's Mayor, has shown time and again that he takes difficult decisions seriously and, whilst I definitely do not agree with all of the decisions he's taken, his priorities are about the effects these decisions have on the people of Lewisham not on the size of his vote.

In contrast the Lib Dems have simply never shown an ability to see politics as anything other than a vehicle for their own propaganda and Chris Maines, who seems to be a very nice person, seems extremely thin politically when placed against his Labour rival.

For me I'm glad of the opportunity that I can vote for a radical Green vision that fights against cuts in services and for decent wages for the lowest paid *and* be able to express a preference on who I'd like to see as Mayor of Lewisham if Dean doesn't quite make it. For me that second choice is Steve Bullock, although as I say there's no 'line' on this from the Greens and some will no doubt be voting for other candidates as their second choice.

Women candidates: national and locally

I was pleased to see that the Green Party is leading the way with the number of women candidates at this election. At this General Election 21% of the candidates from all the parties over all are women.

This is up from 20% in 2005 and 19% in 2001, at this rate they'll be 50% of the candidates in a mere 150 years time.

However, 33% of Green general election candidates are women. This compares well with the others parties who stand at;

30% for Labour
24% for the Tories and
21% for the Liberal Democrats (which surprised me)

This means a substantial increase of Tory or Lib Dem MPs at this election would probably mean a reduction in the number of female MPs. link

Locally we have 54 places for councillors in Lewisham.

The Greens are fielding 26 female candidates
The Lib Dems are fielding 23 female candidates.
Labour are fielding 21 female candidates.
The Tories are fielding a shockingly low 14 female candidates.

Interesting stuff.

Sights of Crofton Park

Yesterday the London launch of the Green Party's Parliamentary campaign took place in Crofton Park in front of our green Party billboard. For the first time we're standing a candidate in every London constituency and are hoping for an extremely strong result right here in Lewisham deptford of course!

Darren Johnson on the web

Just saw this YouTube video this morning of our Parliamentary candidate, Darren Johnson. I thought it was excellent, so I'm passing it along.



There is also an article about him and Lewisham Greens at Red Pepper, which is worth a read.

More general stuff about Darren can be found at Darren for Lewisham Deptford.

Don't lose your vote

I've spoken to a couple of people recently who are not on the electoral register (due to recent moves) and have told me that it's too late for them to register to vote. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact if you're not on the electoral roll you have until April 20th to ensure you can vote in the coming election.

April 20th is also the deadline for registering for a postal vote, so if you're going to be away or very busy on the day of the election you can still vote by contacting the council's elections department and registering for a postal vote. You don't need to give a reason you just need to apply.

To register to vote call 020 8314 6086 or check out the council website for details.

April fools in Lewisham

I decided to be a responsible blogger this year and not write an April Fools post for Green Crofton Park. However, not everyone is the upstanding pillar of society that I am.

For example, the Green Party's Mayoral candidate Cllr Dean Walton has proposed turning Ladywell Pool into an eco-aquarium. Nice.

Brockley Central also choose today to announce they'd be running a Mayoral candidate. I particularly enjoyed their promise to be 'draconian'. Oh it's like Thatcher all over again!

The South London press has announced councils will be using left over tea bags and biscuits to fill in the capital's pot holes. Could be worse.

Haven't spotted any other Lewisham Fools - but if I missed someone, let me know.

Funny what people vote on

When I was canvassing yesterday I spoke to a lovely old fella on the doorstep. He told me he hadn't decided who he was voting for yet but it was probably between the Greens and Labour.

As you do we fell to chatting about politics and the conversation quickly turned to Ancient Rome. After a lengthy discussion on Sulla he looked at me and said "Do you know what, I think I will vote Green this time."

I'm not sure how representative he is, but after giving it some thought I can exclusively reveal that our next newsletter's lead item will be entitled "Scandal as Labour silent on decline of Roman Empire".

I tell you, we can't lose. Tackling the issues that Crofton residents most care about!

YES to housing NO to highrise

I mentioned the controversial Loam Pit Vale development in a previous post but thought I'd highlight the fact that, according to the NewShopper, a group of protesters have been kicking up a fuss with one woman chaining herself to the gates.

She said: “We call on the council to stop patching up unworkable schemes and enter into fair and open discussions with local residents about what they would like to see.

“We hope that all the other political parties will now pledge to call an end to these ill-fated unsuitable schemes to Croydonise Lewisham. Stop throwing good money after bad.”

Not sure about poor old Croydon getting singled out but certainly agree with her point. I'm very pleased to see local residents taking action to make sure their voices get heard.

As I said before "I've never heard a convincing reason from Labour as to why they voted en bloc for a proposal that seems so ill conceived." It doesn't seem local residents have either.

Some other London Green Party blogs

This site is one of a number of Green Party blogs around London and I thought people might be interested in knowing about a few of the others.

Round Lewisham we have, of course, Green Ladywell and Green Telegraph Hill, as well as our Mayoral candidate's blog Dean Walton. There's quite a few others further afield, I may have missed a few off but these are the ones that have come to hand, do tell me if I've accidentally snubbed someone!

• Brent Green Party blog
  
• Camden Green Party blog
• Croyden Greens
• Farid Bakht 2010 (Bethnal Green)
• Green Greenwich
  
• Green Highbury
• Haringey Greens (and candidate Sarah Cope)
  
• Joseph Healey for Vauxhaul
  
• Lambeth Green News
• Matt Sellwood for Hackney
  
• The East is Green (Tower Hamlets)
  

Obviously there a number of members who run their own personal blogs (like me) but I thought I'd leave them off this list for now and keep it to more 'official' blogging, if there is such a thing.

Sights of Crofton Park II

I pass this sign most days.


It's probably my odd sense of humour but I always imagine it's a permanent reminder of a historic football score. "Oh yes, that was the time Peckham beat Catford 2-1 in the Crofton Cup" I say to myself.

Yup, just me then, as always.