After a blogging break whilst I have been running some training at Bath university I am back and the priority matter in hand is the recently announced London Mayor Parks Makeover with our very own Camberwell Green in the running to be one of the 10 successful Parks to be awarded £400,000! But as we know from X-Factor you need to vote to win and the link below takes you directly through to vote for Camberwell Green so do it now....it is your duty! -

http://www.london.gov.uk/parksvote/region/southeast/camberwellgreen.jsp

The other big political news of the week was the Alistair Darling's Pre-Budget Report which will inject £20 Billion into the UK Economy over the next year and it has to be the right thing to do! Certainly it is what President Elect Obama and many other World Leaders will be doing.....but of course not the Tories or the Lib Dems if they were in power!! What a surprise that it!!!

I have spend some enjoyable days at Bath University over the past 2 weeks delivering some training for their staff with more to come next year. It is a very beautiful City and the pic is of the lovely venue that i used for the training!


After a string of very poor results Hibs had a stunning 4-1 away win at Motherwell with 4 fantastic strikes to easily beat Motherwell (even their goal was a great free-kick!)
This is much more like it from Hibs and hopefully will rebuild a knocked confidence as we run into the critical Christmas and New Year programme with games against all the big teams coming up.
It looks like Fletcher will go in the January transfer window and I suspect it will be to Celtic? Rangers have plenty of strikers not even getting on the bench so hard to see them wanting him? Hopefully he will go for good money as he has recently signed a new contract but impossible to keep players after the Old Firm come knocking!!

Camberwell Community Council and the Arts, SE5 Forum and Knife Crime and the mysterious Hibs slump goes on!!

I attended the Camberwell Community Council Meeting last night at the Synergy Centre which focussed on the Arts in Camberwell and how they could be developed and play a key role in the Regeneration of Camberwell.
It was a really positive meeting with lots of good initiatives outlined and evidence of clear cooperative working between the main players, Camberwell College of Art, Camberwell Arts, CoolTan Arts and the South London Gallery all now working togther under the banner of "Creative Camberwell".
This is all very positve and timely as we seek some key funding for the area and we agreed to fed all the comments from last night through to the current Camberwell Scrutiny process.
Other interesting news was to hear that the Camberwell College of Art are very interested in the Council complex of offices which are soon to be disposed of as everyone moves to the "Tooley Street Titanic" and it would be really fantastic to have those buildings retained for an educational and community use rather than the sites be flogged off for more flats!

Tonight I am attending an SE5 Forum Meeting on Knife Crime which should be very interesting and useful for me on the back of the recent BBC programme that I was involved in on Tuesday! With a number of serious incidents in camberwell in recent months and the knife death of a young man from Camberwell last week (although it took place in Wandsworth!) has raised concerns locally, even although all of these deaths have been gang and drug related rather than more generally there was a fatlal shooting in Walworth during the summer based on mistaken identity so it does happen and it needs to be tackled!
It should be an interesting discussion?

I am off to Bath very early Monday morning for the first of a double header of visits to run some courses at The University of Bath. I have never been to Bath so am looking forward to it even though it means getting up at 4.30am for the next couple of Mondays! !!

Another shocking Hibs performance to report with a 2-o defeat to Dundee united at Tannadice last night!
After some good performances and defeats to Celitc and Rangers a couple of really poor performances and two more defeats with a slide all the way down the table form 3rd spot last month!!
The fans are unhappy and Mixu is a bit perplexed but serious improvement needed for Saturday and a tricky home game against Aberdeen!

World Have Your Say BBC Broadcast from Camberwell 11th November 2008

Last night I was involved in a really interesting BBC World Service Broadcast live from the Crawfors Estate in Camberwell talking about the probelms of gangs.
The show was held in AJ's bedroom (pictured) a young man, originally from Nigeria, who has been involved in gangs and now involved in a group called Alpha Juniors which campaigns against gangs, knives and guns.
I was invited as a local Councillor to join the discussion and there were also direct calls taken from people in New York, California, Soweto, Nigeria and kenya so it was a really exciting broadcast which you can listen to through the link below:
http://worldhaveyoursa.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/on-air-living-with-gangs/

The Producer and Presenter Ros actually lives in Camberwell so he had a lot of local knowledge and kept the show together really well giving everyone a fair crack of the whip so all in all a really interesting experience and I would love to do it again soon!

This is a really good project so wel done BBC World Service!!

Remembrance Sunday at Camberwell Green Memorial, Arsenal are Super and Hibs are Shocking!!!

On Remembrance Sunday I laid a wreath for the Camberwell Councillors at the Camberwell Green Memorial with Bernie, Barbara and Connie, all relatives of the Wright family who were so tragically killed in the bombing during WW2.
It was really good to be there with them and to show them that we have not forgotten the sacrifice that their family made!

I spent Saturday at the Emirates with Tsui watching an absolutely fantastic game as Arsenal took on Manchester United and beat them 2-1! It really was end to end stuf of incredibly high quality for 96 Minutes and Sami Nasri scored both Arsenal's goals to get a crucial victory which keeps them in the chase with the other "Big Three"!
This is me in the Coronet Pub on Holloway Road after the match where the Doormen checked as to whether you were an Arsenal fan!

Hibs miserably performance and 1 -2 defeat at home at the hands of Invernes Caley is probably best glossed over as a bad day at the office but this is a nice picture of the Hibs shirts with a poppy woven into them.
This was copied at every League match in the UK along with a minutes silence at the start of every game!
The plan is that the shirts are raffled with money going to ex-serviceman's funds! A great initiative which I hope is repeated every year!! Well done to the FA and the SFA!!!

Glenrothes is held by Labour!, Obama Wins a stunning victory, Armistice Day and a visit to the Emirates!

Good news at last for the Government with a comfortable victory in the Glenrothes By-Election after the last few bad results.
Labour's majority of 10,664 at the 2005 election was reduced to 6,737, although the number of votes it polled actually increased.
This confirms the Labour Party's current revival in the Polls as people now see Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling as the people they want to lead the UK out of the current financial difficulties over "Tory Boy's" Cameron and George "Oik" Osborne!
Not really that much of a surprise though is it?
Really exciting to see the Obama victory and the early days of him putting his team together. I stayed up most of the night to see that remarkable victory which has really shaken up world politics!
I am sure that Obama and Brown will work well together and signal the start of a left of centre coalition dominating world politics! No place for the Burlington Club policies of Cameron, Osborne and Boris!!









I shall be laying a wreath at the Camberwell Green War Memorial on Sunday marking the 90th Anniversary of Armistace Day when the unimaginable slaughter of World War 1 came to an end on he 11th November 1918 at 11am.
It is important to remember all of those who have fallen or were injured in all wars and conflicts since then up to the present day and to never forget their sacrifices!
I am looking forward to going to the Emirates tomorrow to see Arsenal take on Man Utd. ("Manure" ) in the early kick off!
Arsenal are on the back of a few bad results and need to turn it around tomorrow but it is a very tough ask !


Hibs take on Inverness Caley at Easter Road tomorrow, a bit of a bogey team for us, and we need a win to get us back on track after a few bad results in recent weeks despite all round good performances!

Well today is the day when hopefully record crowds will get out across the USA and sweep Barack Obama to the Presidency!
This is a really exciting and pivotal moment, as someone said to Stephen Fry in his programme, "shooting a black man was not a crime in some states 40 years ago!"
I have booked the day off work to stay at home and watch the end game and hopefully the new President Elect Obama accept victory!!

It is a busy week for me in and out of the Town Hall this week with a long OSC looking at the Elephant and Castle and Council Assembly on Wednesday night! At least we have now agreed on a cross-party motion on violent crime which is good news and ensures that we can progress to the Summit positively and focus on the areas where we can learn form others and improve! Having some sort of strategic approach is in my view essential and I will keep the pressure up on the Administration to swallow their pride on this one, admit we were right and get on with it!
Sunday is of course Remembrance Sunday and the 90th Anniversary of the 1918 Armistice so it will be a day of particular poignancy and I will of course be at the Walworth Service which I always really like and I will lay a wreath at the Camberwell Green Memorial.



Hibs fought out a really dull 0-0 draw away at St. Mirren on Saturday but there are promising signs of a really good sqaud coming together with Ma-Kalamby building on his Olympic confidence in goal, Van Zanten looking good (Man of the Match on Saturday!), Murray looking back to his best in Midfield and the strike force of Nish, Fletcher and Riordan looking very strong (obviously not on Saturday!).
I really like the look of Uruguayan Fabian Yantorno who now looks fully fit and playing well and could be one of our players of the season so things looking up!