A Weekend of the Boss and the Bard!... and I take a taxi! ...and the Hibs clear out begins!

My sister was down for the weekend primarily to see Bruce Springsteen play at the Emirates but we also took in a bit of the Bard as well! We spend the afternoon in the Camden Passage Antique Market at the Angel and then on Upper Street before making our way to the Emirates.
Bruce was his usual excellent energetic self and the E Street Band sounded fantastic. Not bad going for a 59 year old! I saw him in 1985 at Wembley and he sounded just as good! The Emirates was a really good venue as well!

On Sunday we went to the Globe to see King Lear after lunch in the Globe's Swan Brasserie. David Calder was brilliant as Lear and deserving of his great reviews and the eye plucking scene was especially gory!
We ended up with a few drinks in the George Pub in Borough High Street so all in all a good if busy weekend!
back to normnal tonight with OSC, then the Camberwell Community Council on Tuesday and the Camberwell Branch Labour Paty meeting on thursday!
Good news is that the University Academic Year ends on Friday!!!

At OSC I agreed to Chair one of the new "Taxi Rank" Scrutiny Committes with Barrie taking over at Education and Children's Services. I do like the idea of these new Committees as Scrutiny may become far more responsive and community focussed so I am looking forward to taking part in the exercise and no doubt making mistakes along the way!
We have a Camberwell Community Council meeting tomorrow night and are agreeing the Cleaner, Greener, Safer bids for the year.
I hope that we can support some really good projects within Camberwell Green Ward such as making planters out of old ventilation shafts on the Wyndham Estate, refurbishing the green space on Grimsell Path on Brandon 3, funding security fencing on the Crawford and lighting the car park and the trees on Castlemead!


On the Hibs front the end of season clear out is underway with Beuzelin off to Coventry, and rumours that Ma-Kalamby, Benjouloun and O'Brien are on their way out? Antii Niemi may be on his way to Easter Road from Fulham which I think will be a very good signing! Looks like we are also after Liverpool's Adam Hammill who cost us a place in last season's Scottish Cup Final almost single handedly when on loan to Dunfermline, also looks like a very good buy!
It looks like Mixu is after less style and more substance in order to get a more disciplined and consistent approach which is desperatley needed so long as we keep enough quality to keep scoring!

The Wedding of the Year in Liverpool,the European City of Culture, and CGS Decision Time!...and Hibs to play Barcelona at Murrayfield!

Just back from a fantastic Bank Holiday Weekend in Liverpool at the Wedding of Ashwin and Alison held in the magnificent Liverpool Town Hall.

The journeys there and back were not without incident as it took 5 hours each way due to Main Lines being closed and some kids threw a concrete block through our trains window which added another hour onto the journey and a lucky escape for the driver. it happened just outside Crewe so not sure if I can read anything onto that after last week's By-Election?

I had a bit of time to do some sightseeing including the Cavern Club of course and Albert Dock. lots of pictures on the Facebook site!

There was lots of European City of Culture stuff going on, in particular a street theatre festival so the City Centre was very active and vibrant the whole weekend.

Of course the main event on Sunday was the wedding itself and Chris Page and I were honoured to be asked by Ashwin and Alison top "compere" the Milni Ceremony where the 2 families exchange garlands. I sold us as the "Ant and Dec of the Southwark Labour Group without the phone rigging" and we got through it without any major pronunciation problems!

It was a really brilliant day and a real privilege to have been there! I of course wish Ashwin and Alison a very happy future together and am lucky to have a pair of good friends like them!

In the Merseyside Maritime Museum I spotted this Titanic Lifebelt and thought of Nick Stanton as he tries to keep afloat with the hugely expensive move to what I call "The Tooley Street Titanic" but he is not losing too much sleep as the Iceberg is still 2 years away!

In saying that there is mutiny amongst the ranks with Columbo Blango "on holiday" for the Constitutional Council and Helen Jardine-Brown going AWOL for the Mayoral Vote apparently screeching "I can't do it!!"
Nick may be very lucky not to get himself keel-hauled before too long if he is not very careful, even with Chief Petty Officer Humphries minding his back?

The Camberwell Labour Councillors are meeting this week to discuss this year's CGS bids and as usual we have bids costing more than 3 times the money available . I do think that the money available has to be increased perhaps to £500,000 with staff costs not included so that all the money can go into actual improvements. I also think that money should be allocated on a needs basis rather than the crass 8 way split that happens currently!

The Community Fund Bidding is also up and running at the moment and I hope to get something for the Camberwell Green Fair that we plan to resurrect and hold in August?

Good news that Hibs are to play Barcelona at Murrayfield on Thursday 24th July.

We follow that up with games against Middesborough on Saturday August 2nd and Wigan on Tuesday 5th August.

I really cant mis the Barcelona Game so will be going up for that and the link below of the last great encounter 44 yeasr ago:

Hibs Vs Barcelona Fairs Cup 1964

Bring them on!!!!!!

Hoisted on my own petard and the Wedding of the Year!

I recieved a bit of well deserved flack last night from the Lib Dems after my previous Blog bemoaning the tedious Constitutional Council Assembly last night!! In truth it was quite enjoyable and reasonably good natured so I had to take it on the chin.
I even laughed at Richard's Thomas's jibe about Hibs!! Good to see he is regaining his sense of humour!!

I thought that we made all the right points about keeping some key strategic decisions for Council Assembly and bringing back real accountability and democracy to the Town Hall but not surprisingly it all fell on deaf ears!!
Anyway not nearly as tedious as I had expected apart from the voting at the end that it!

I shall be spending most of Sunday in Liverpool at the Wedding of the Year as Ashwin and Alison get married and Chris and I will have a role in the Milni Ceremony beforehand so I am really loooking forward to it!
pics on the Blog next week!!
Looking forward to a weekend in the European City of Culture as well!!

Camberwell Green Tree Lights, a visit to the Hornimans and Mayor Making and Constituional Council Looms on the night of the Champions League Final!!

I attended an unveiling last evening of the Camberwell Green Tree Lights Plaque which explains the background to them being installed.

Whilst the Street Drinking problem has not gone away the multi-agency approach to problem solving was very positive and the situation is much improved on what was before! particular credit has to go to the then Camberwell Safer Neighbourhood team and PC Tim Otway who spent many hours and days on the "coal face" tackiling this long established problem!

I took Shauna to the Hornimans which is fast becoming my, and her, favourite place in South London.

The Aquarium is always interesting but there is also a bee colony with perspex walls to observe the colony in action.

There is currently a really good exhibition on Indian music and in one of the pics Shauna is drawing the Taj Mohal to display on the wall. In the other picture she is hanging around in Camberwell Green !
A monumentally tedious evening looms with the Mayor Making and Annual Constitutional Council on the same evening on Wednesday! We argued against it at last CA but the Lib Dems and Tories agreed and now are apparently whining about it. The re-write of the Constitution will ensure a long night even if they move everythuing to the vote and the whole meeting looks likely to turn into a complete shambles with no invites being given out and a major clash wuith the Champions League Cup Final!!

looks like Cllr. Blango will be a no show (no surprise there) and perhaps another couple of disgruntled Lib Dems who have not been given the SRA they were expecting? As I have said previously management by SRA will always come back to bite you and Stanton may get a nasty flesh wound on Wednesday? perish the thought that any of this bunch were actually in it for the politics!

Lib Dem/Tory leadership drink champers whilst Southwark burns!, Camberwell Green gets best Labour vote in Southwark and the Labour Group AGM !

The local press had a lot of fun at the Lib Dem/Tory expense covering the £6000 party with Veolian after the hand wringing whining from them about how financially stricken the Council was and of course the closure of the Livesey. At best this was crass stupidity to attend something like this but it really highlights how out of touch they really are!
The news report illustrated the tone of the coverage:

"A TOWN hall that claims it’s hard up has defended spending £6,000 of taxpayers’money on a posh champagne party.
The event, at the exclusive Vinopolis next to Borough Market, was held by Southwark council bosses on April 25.
Council Leader Nick Stanton, deputy leader Kim Humphreys and Tory councillor Toby Eckersley quaffed champagne and tucked into nibbles with 60 guests at the £100-a-head extravaganza.
A council spokeswoman said the party was organised to “foster good partnership”after completing a deal to contract out its waste collection service to private company Veolia.
But pensioners have reacted angrily after seeing the council hike the price of meals on wheels and reduce the number of people eligible to receive social care. Southwark Pensioners Action Group member Stan Hardy said: “If they needed to celebrate, they could have gone somewhere a lot cheaper. “Councillors should be a lot more sensitive to the needs of people suffering their cuts.” The move comes as the Lib Dem/Tory-run authority claimed it was short of cash due to a lower-than-expected Government grants and closed the Livesey children’s museum last month. Southwark Labour leader Peter John said: “We’ve had to listen to Nick Stanton preach about the council’s difficult financial situation for months. “Now it seems he’s happy to guzzle champagne but can’t find the money to keep meals on wheels prices at an affordable level and has scrambled to sell off the Livesey Museum to try and raise quick cash.” "

The stats came through about the recent Elections showing that Camberwell Green brought in a great result for both Val and Ken!
The votes for the GLA Seat were as follows:
1747 Lab , 390 LD and 358 Tory We also secured 2007 votes for Ken so we did not let him down!
The real story in London behind the obvious Ken disappointment was the collapse in the Lib Dem vote, resulting from the inevitable squeeze from the big two parties and the woeful choice of candidate.
The Lib Dems took a real battering in Southwark, not just from us but the Tories also and Surrey Docks looks really vulnerable in 2010!
It may be that the poor Lib Dem vote actually did for Ken as many Lib Dem voters switched to Boris once again showing how the Lib Dems and Tories are merging into one at a local, regional and national level!
The Southwark Labour Group had Part 2 of it's AGM on Monday night and I am back on the Shadow Executive as Spokesperson for Community Safety and back as Scutiny Chair in Education and Children's Services.
I did not stand as Camberwell Community Council Vice Chair as with Dora as Chair I felt it better to have a VC from one of the other wards and nominated Ian Wingfield.
I am not on Planning and not doing Tenants Arbitration as it was conflicting too much with the day job although I did find it interesting. I am still on the Corporate Parenting Panel and am now a full member of the Disciplinary Appeals Committee so enough to be getting on with!
I attended 2 T@RA Meetings this week at the D'Eynesford and Poets Corner and was really impressed with their organisation and level of activity and it appears that many T@RA's in Camberwell Green are having a new lease of life and really developing strongly which is great to see!

The Hibs season comes to an end this weekend with no good cup runs and 4th in the SPL which is really disappointing after last season and the start of this season but Mixu is getting new players in and we have to look for progress next season showing the same flair on the ground but a bit more defensive steel at the back. Two pre-season friendlies against Wigan and Middlesborough already set up and perhaps an Inter-Toto adventure as well so time to look forward to the new season!

I attended the Southwark Civic Awards on Saturday, an event I have always strongly supported and this time it was on my doorstep in St. Giles Church in Camberwell.
It was as ever a really nice event and good to see Steve Hedger get the "Man of the Year" Award!
The reception in the Towen Hall was a bit cramped but all in all an enjoyable event.
We have Part 2 of our Labour Group AGM tonight with competition on a number of fronts so I will have argue my case tonight for anything that I get which of course is no bad thing!

I dont quite get Wendy Alexander's call for a Referendum on independance. I thought at first that the "bring it on" was just a "macho" taunt but it appears that she really means it which is a worry to me as we have always argued of the damage of the refendum process no matter what the result and argues strongly against it ! There is also a risk of the SNP misusing their position to ensure that anti- UK propaganda is sent out disguised as news upto any vote and we could really risk a catastrophe if the vote went in favour of independance!

Hibs finally blew any chance of third place with a 2-0 defeat at Parkhead against Celtic. Getting a result was always going to be tough but once again we could not keep 11 players on the field with Murray getting a red card and once again we end up with 10, or 9, men on the field! Mixu has to focus on this in the summer and sort it out!
Hibs have signed St. Mirren's david Van Zanden and rumours are that Rocastle could come back 4 years after playing on loan from Chelsea.
Mixu is clearly focussing on his defence which is right but we just dont know if Fletcher will be around for next season and not off to Celtic, Rangers or even Real Madrid.
Al in all a disappointing season after that brilliant 10 match unbeaten run, 4th place is just not good enough!!! Must do better!!

Boris, a Safety Conference, Broadstairs and Hibs race for 3rd place!

Well it has been quite a week for me but all overshadowed by the nightmare at city Hall with "Bonkers Boris" now in the "driving seat" for the next 4 years!! Of course Tory Central Office with have at least one and perhaps both hands on the steering wheel as Boris spends all day trying to decide which tie to wear! If it was not so politically incorrect I might make reference to lunatics and asylums but I better not!
The results also worryingly showed the BNP in 4th place not far behind the Greens and of course they now have a GLA Seat! What is going on? I cant believe that it is all down to the unpopularity of the Government? Good to see Paddick get less than a third of the other two candidates and the Lib Dems only just get 3 on the GLA, losing 2 seats with Caroline Pidgeon squeaking in!
I know that it sounds like "apart from that Mrs Lincoln did you enjoy the play?" but we held on to our seats and grabbed one back and as far as Southwark and Lambeth is concerned Val Shawcross quadrupled her majority in a result which really bucked the national results.
We worked very hard during the Campaign and on the day itself and my flat was the Camberwell Green Committee Room and we had fantastic support from party members on the day and the voters in Camberwell Green. No Lib Dem Candidate was elected in a Constituency which really speaks volumes about where they are going!! A great result locally but oh Boris!!! I wonder how many sleepless nights he will give Cameron before the General Election is called?

Just before the Election I attended the Universities Safety and Health Annual Conference in London which I really enjoyed and which gave me a couple of days rest before Election Day.


We ended the Conference with a trip on the London Eye which I had not done for a number of years!





I then spent the Bank Holiday weekend at Broadstairs with my old Councillor friend and Alderman, Ian Driver and his family and took my 7 year old god- daughter Shauna with me. It was a good break but we stayed up for the declaration from City Hall at around midnight!
There was lots of sun sea and sand and I am very red as a result!


Hibs fought out a decent 0-0 draw with Rangers on Sunday so third place is still on but it will all come down to a head to head with Motherwell on the last day of the season!

The Final Push for Ken and Val, Workers Memorial Day and Hibs lose third spot I think!

The Mayoral/GLA Campaign enters it's final week and we had another very successful Street Stall in the sunshine this time in Camberwell Green!
Lots of members supported the stall and like last week we had a good response!
It has been a busy week of doorknocking and leafletting and I have a few days of at a University Conference but back on Wednesday for the eve of Poll and of course I am running a Committee Room from my flat! Looking forward to me weekend in Broadstairs with Southwark Alderman Ian Driver!

It is Workers Memorial Day today and I stopped off at the Memorial at Tower Hill to meet a few friends and support the day.
It is a really important event to highlight construction site deaths in the UK and across the world and I will always show my support for the day including wearing my purple ribbon!



I think that Hibs may have blown the 3rd place spot as they went down 2-1 to Aberdeen after giving a way a stupid penalty, Gattheussi then got himself sent off and Nish followed him leaving us chasing the game away against a very good team with 9 men on the field! Ridiculous!! We have ended to many games over the last few seasons with 10 men on the field so Mixu needs to work on that in the summer!
To get the 3rd spot we will need to beat either Celtic or Rangers and I just cant see that at the moment!

We enter the last week of the Mayoral/GLA Election with Ken leading in the Polls for the first time and Paddick floundering on single figures, the Lib Dems facing the inevitable squeeze between the 2 major parties!
We are still campaigning full on in Camberwell Green Ward out most evenings leafleting and canvasing to a very good response. We have a really good Street stall on Saturday, so positive that we are doing it again this Saturday (after my Surgery and getting home in time for the Man Utd. Vs Chelsea match at 1pm!)
I am really enjoying it but cant wait til it's over!!


Southwark News gave us some good coverage today especially on the OSC item on Consultants and the
Exec plan to spend £2.5M on Consultants to tell us where to rearrange the deckchairs on the Tooley Street Titanic!
Their editorial and accompanying cartoon was also critical in a year when a Children's Museum was closed by this disgraceful Lib Dem/Tory Administration!
Talking about moving deckchairs on the Titanic they also report a lot of movement on the Executive with people in, out and a fair bit of shaking it all about ! best quote was from my Glorious Leader, Peter John, who said that Nick Stanton was was "trying to find people who can walk and talk at the same time" to fill the £50K positions! I dont think he is quite going to manage it?
Hibs go into the last 4 games of the season against Aberdeen and Celtic away and Rangers and Motherwell at home and I think really need 9 points to get the 3rd spot over Motherwell (even although their meeting is a "6 pointer"!. Bad news is that Zemmama, finding real form at the moment, broke his foot on a training match and is out for the rest of the season!
We have expressed an interest in the Intertoto Cup so there may be another more tortuous route but the 3rd place is the key for a UEFA Cup place so we need to get it!

Camberwell Street Stall, Bumbling Boris strikes again!, Hibs draw at Tannadice and Real Madrid move in for Fletcher?

We had a really brilliant Street stall at Camberwell Green on Saturday with Harriet and will be repeating it next Saturday!
there was a really positive response from the public towards the Labour Party and Ken so we were all buoyed up by the experience!
This morning Dora, Chris and I met Harriet and her team again outside Brunswick Park Primary School to catch parents bringing their kids to school!

On Saturday afternoon I went to a presentation from Film Lab, a project working with kid from St. Michael and All Angels and residents from the Wyndham and Comber and Brandon 3 Estates. They were taught how to write , act, film, edit and produce the films and they presented the completed films at the BFI and this was a showing for the Estate.
Antonio Ribero was also enrolling people for the next courses and I am tempted to sign up myself! It is a really brilliant initiative funded by the Joint Security Initiative and the Camberwell Community Council and I am keen for it to be expanded to other Estates in the Ward! in the picture Antonio and Roger Prince, Wyndham and Comber T&RA Chair introduce the films.
Boris is yet again having to make an embarrassing climbdown after suggesting that local Authorities determine whether to have a smoking ban in public places. The story is well covered by the BBC.
He forgot to mention that he was paid around £10,000 for a speech to the Tobacco Association last June!

I watched Hibs play Dundee United at Tannedice on Setanta on Sunday and actually it was a very skillful and entertaining game, from two clubs playing and wanting to play good football! Dean Shields scored a great goal running onto a through pass and rounding the goalkeeper before scoring only for us to concede a penalty 4 minutes later for a slight tug outside of the box! McNeil was excellent in goal again and although we had most of the play a 1-1 draw was probably quite a fair result.
Hibs are on 51 points after 34 games, the same as Dundee United who have better goal difference, with Motherwell on 52 points but crucially 2 games in hand! We obviously need Motherwell to drop points which I am sure they will and we obviously need to beat them but I still think that we can nick the 3rd spot which would actually make it not too bad a season for us! Good to see Hibs Ladies make the Scottish Cup Final and consultation is now underway on the new East Stand which will complete the Stadium and take the capacity up to around 20,000 so all in all quite positive things happening at Easter Road!
The Scottish sports pages are full again of rumours that Real Madrid will make a £4-5 Million offer for Steven Fletcher in the summer and I somehow suspect he will want to go! What a great opportunity it would be for him and of course great for scottish football!

Bonkers Boris and Calamity Clegg is a Tory!!

On the Mayoral campaign trail poor old Boris is completely paranoid about being caught out saying stupid things and guess what he is right! Just look at this You Tube Site!:

Boris in action!

The Lib Dems are of course in complete disarray as Clegg moves them further towards the "right wing" Orange Book dictates and it now is clear that he was in fact a young tory, and we all know what young tories are like!!
No wonder Paddick has decided that it is best to make up policy on the hoof even when in complete opposition to "official" Lib Dem policy! His interview on the Politics Show on Sunday really did show him up as the interviewer had to repeatedly remind him that his "policies" were not in line with official Lib Dem ones but he did not seem to be that bothered and his poll rating continues to bump along the bottom at 10%!
The Tory/Lib Dem Alliance in Southwark may really be a sign of things to come as it really is becoming harder to pick out where the Lib Dems start and the Tories begin?

Campaigning in Camberwell Green goes on a pace and we have had a really positive response from members comintg out to help and when we are on the knocker, in fact our level of support appeasr to be very similar now to what it was in 2006, dopwn to good organisation and hard work so it really is a positive experience and really enjoyable for all of us doing the work on the ground!

Election campaign hots up and the Camberwell Bible is on it's way! Hibs sign Yantorno!

Life is pretty hectic with the University still in full swing, the Council still operating as usual and a full of election campaign to get on with! I think I spent 5 hours yesterday working in the ward to go along with the 3 hours on Saturday! We are getting a very very good response so actually it is a very positive experience. The polls are looking much better for Ken and bottoming out for Paddick who I saw on the Politics Show yesterday again floundering under some very basic questioning, arguing against Lib Dem policy on at least 2 occasions!!! I am feeling ever more confident that Ken and Val will win but have no clear idea about the bigger picture in terms of how many GLA Seats we will get! Lots more to do as we are about maximising the vote in Camberwell and so it really is foot to the pedal until May 2nd!! Peter John's Blog mentions that Boris was in East Dulwich walking around the Estate with local people and was heard to say to one of his flunkies "who would want to live here?" Is he real or what??

My colleague Sandra Rhule has coined the expression " The Camberwell Bible" after a meeting with the Council Leader who has agreed to resource a project to put all of the miriad of Camberwell Strategy documents into one integrated document. It is a great idea and a great name and follows on from Veronica Ward and I's questioning of the Leader at OSC when we asked about regenerating Camberwell. Stanton said that he had no idea about a Vision for camberwell and asked me to sum it up in one line, an offer I did not take up but we then had a quite positive discussion about Town Centre Management within Camberwell.
It is clear that this Tory/Lib Dem Administration have absolutely no interest in Camberwell as "there are no votes in it!" but can be pushed and prodded over time to take some action and even on the Camberwell Baths front there are expressions of interest from a few developers so we have to continue to work in this vein, almost always against the grain, to get things done until we kick them out of the Town Hall (or anonymous Office block in Tooley Street!) in 2010!

Hibs have offered a contract to Gretna player Fabian Yantorno for next season as most of the Gretna first team have been sacked! He is injured but looked one of their best players and scored from a great free kick in the opeing game of the season which i was at where we eventua;lly won 4-2!