'Talking Point' by Councillor Ian Sharer, leader of Hackney Council's Liberal Democrat group, for the 'Hackney Gazette', 27 November 2009
Sometimes when you wake from a deep dream, you struggle to grasp what is reality. Is it the dream that seems so vivid as your mind emerges into wakefulness? Or is it the still vague apparition of the "real world" as the shadows clear away? That, I am sure, has been the feeling of many observers of the recent political scene.
Amidst the fairy-land pageantry of the State Opening of Parliament, we have had the announcement of an apparently impressive programme of law-making that on closer inspection turns out to be no more substantial than the flimsiest gossamer webs caught in the autumn sunshine. Apparently it's all about political 'dividing lines'. Very clever, I'm sure, in the Westminster hot-house but in reality, can there have been a more cynical and dishonest government since the days of Stanley Baldwin?
Then there has been the farce of the European Union presidential elections. Not, of course, elections as universally understood in any democratic society but elections by cabal worthy of the most retrograde communist politburo. The outcome has been utterly insignificant and, in this strange world of bureaucratic fantasy, that may be an advantage. Yet when politicians bemoan the lack of public interest in what they like to call "politics", can they really be surprised?
My guess is that there are far more people in Hackney talking about Thierry Henry's "Hand of God" goal against Ireland in the World Cup qualifiers than there are those debating the merits of the European Union's new High Panjandrum. There was certainly far more exuberant celebration in Finsbury Park of Algeria's qualification than was evident in the tired jowls and jaded soundbites of our representatives in Brussels and Westminster. Which, then, is the "real world" for most of our citizens?
The danger is that between these two extremes, the really important issues are locked out. And the really important issue in the coming weeks must be the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Crucial decisons affecting all of us and future generations must be taken. They cannot be allowed to fall victim to self-indulgent populism on the one side and political self-interest on the other.
Here in Hackney I hope the opportunity will be taken across political 'dividing lines' for the kind of thoughtful contribution in the 'Gazette' by Councillor Shuja Sheikh on waste and consumerism. That is why I have invited opposition groups on the Council to come together with interested Hackney residents to produce a genuinely alternative "green budget".
It's time for hard-headed innovation, not dreary electioneering.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
The party's over
'Talking Point' by Councillor Ian Sharer, leader of Hackney Council's Liberal Democrat group, for the 'Hackney Gazette', 15 October 2009.
"So the political party conference season is finally over. The good citizens of Bournemouth, Brighton and Manchester can clean out the bars, sweep away the piles of abandoned leaflets and bric-a-brac and batten down for the autumn storms. Delegates from every part of the country are now back home, some enthused, some despairing, most sombre in the knowledge of what is to come.
"I must confess that I was slightly disappointed not to be able to trace the now notorious Hackney Council stall at the Liberal Democrat Conference. Surely they could not have forgotten us? Perhaps they were keeping such a low profile that I missed them stuck in between the Green Liberal Democrats and 'The Liberator' stands. Perish the thought! Unhappily I was not in a position to detect whether they had then pottered along the coast to join their soul-mates in Brighton. Possibly they may even have joined the Gadarene rush of lobbyists, vested interests and quangocrats scenting the shift of political power that always accompanies a moribund and decaying government.
"What does all this portend for Hackney? For a start, who apart from a very small minority pays any attention to the party conferences? I'm sure that 'The Sun's clamorous headline 'Labour's Lost It' will have raised a giggle and even some debate around the pubs. It was also inspiring to hear of Councillor Luke Akehurst's incredibly brave conference address speaking from a wheel-chair. It won't be long until the gloves are off and hard words will be spoken on either side of the political divide but whatever the outcome, the very best of luck to him in his courageous struggle against a debilitating disease.
"That said, we are now well into what will probably prove the longest election campaign in British political history. Isn't it always the longest? It will also, I guess from some of the party leaders' speeches of the last few weeks, be one of the nastiest. I'm not so sure that the rather silly slanging match at the recent Council meeting in the Town Hall was a sign of things to come. There are far larger issues that promise to raise political hackles and provoke angry exchanges. Whatever the colour of the government in power this time next year, decisions will have been taken that can only have an injurious impact on the great majority of Hackney residents, whether they are public sector workers, entrepreneurs, parents and carers, young people starting their careers or our older citizens. Inevitably tempers will be frayed. That is the stuff of democracy.
"This, then, is the time for honest political leadership preparing the ground for some very tough times. It was only intermittently evident at the party conferences. Is it any more apparent on our own patch emanating from Hackney Town Hall? Well, I deliberately leave that as an open question. What I am sure none of us want in Hackney is the extension of that rotten political culture that has taken hold in the last twelve years: the black art of the personal smear intended to intimidate and discredit; the deceitful distortion and withholding of information that should be in the public domain; the cynical attempts to grab credit for other people's hard work. Hackney people deserve and expect better than that."
"I must confess that I was slightly disappointed not to be able to trace the now notorious Hackney Council stall at the Liberal Democrat Conference. Surely they could not have forgotten us? Perhaps they were keeping such a low profile that I missed them stuck in between the Green Liberal Democrats and 'The Liberator' stands. Perish the thought! Unhappily I was not in a position to detect whether they had then pottered along the coast to join their soul-mates in Brighton. Possibly they may even have joined the Gadarene rush of lobbyists, vested interests and quangocrats scenting the shift of political power that always accompanies a moribund and decaying government.
"What does all this portend for Hackney? For a start, who apart from a very small minority pays any attention to the party conferences? I'm sure that 'The Sun's clamorous headline 'Labour's Lost It' will have raised a giggle and even some debate around the pubs. It was also inspiring to hear of Councillor Luke Akehurst's incredibly brave conference address speaking from a wheel-chair. It won't be long until the gloves are off and hard words will be spoken on either side of the political divide but whatever the outcome, the very best of luck to him in his courageous struggle against a debilitating disease.
"That said, we are now well into what will probably prove the longest election campaign in British political history. Isn't it always the longest? It will also, I guess from some of the party leaders' speeches of the last few weeks, be one of the nastiest. I'm not so sure that the rather silly slanging match at the recent Council meeting in the Town Hall was a sign of things to come. There are far larger issues that promise to raise political hackles and provoke angry exchanges. Whatever the colour of the government in power this time next year, decisions will have been taken that can only have an injurious impact on the great majority of Hackney residents, whether they are public sector workers, entrepreneurs, parents and carers, young people starting their careers or our older citizens. Inevitably tempers will be frayed. That is the stuff of democracy.
"This, then, is the time for honest political leadership preparing the ground for some very tough times. It was only intermittently evident at the party conferences. Is it any more apparent on our own patch emanating from Hackney Town Hall? Well, I deliberately leave that as an open question. What I am sure none of us want in Hackney is the extension of that rotten political culture that has taken hold in the last twelve years: the black art of the personal smear intended to intimidate and discredit; the deceitful distortion and withholding of information that should be in the public domain; the cynical attempts to grab credit for other people's hard work. Hackney people deserve and expect better than that."
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
VTF1255
VTF1255. Yet another anonymous number on a nasty-green steel security door. "Warning. These premises are protected by Hackney Council". The "premises" were once a home, a family, a life. For VTF1255 it was the home of Lilian Karpin, committed Labour Party member when - long ago - that meant fighting for genuine values and integrity. She was a wonderfully generous and fair-minded lady. Did any slick, busy, promotion-hungry New Labour politician ever pass by to say hello? Maybe at election time. Maybe to make sure of the vote. Maybe.......
We salute Lilian Karpin and the many decent, honest folk like her. And damn VTF1255.
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
3 September 1939
'Talking Point' by Councillor Ian Sharer, leader of Hackney Council's Liberal Democrat group, for the 'Hackney Gazette', 3 September 2009
I'm sure there are still many Hackney residents who will remember where they were this day seventy years ago. They will have heard the lugubrious tones of the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, declaring over the radio that this country was at war with Germany. How many, I wonder, realised how profoundly that short announcement would affect them over the succeeding years? And how many of us now have any real understanding of the impact of that moment on our present lives?
It was only a month previously that the 'Hackney Gazette' had assured its readers that "the ordinary citizen may go on his holidays without any alarms or qualms". It seems ironic that it was glorious weather at the beginning of that September. Thoughts of battle and bloodshed appeared deceptively unreal. Yet throughout Hackney sandbags were being assembled and air-raid shelters prepared. Trenches were being dug in Stoke Newington. Evacuation was in full swing in Hoxton: according to the 'Gazette's reporter, "Thousands of parents, principally mothers, accompanied their children to the school gates. Here there were many affecting farewells but for the most part mothers and children accepted the situation as inevitable and did their best to brighten up."
Evidently the new black-out regulations didn't go down well with some citizens - complaints abound of over-officious wardens and police call-outs to break up squabbles - and there are sightings of a new "road pest", the local authority official dashing around the streets with 'Air Raid Precaution Priority' emblazoned over his car.
Some emergency measures, however, look as if they might be singularly sensible today: the Defence Regulations order prohibiting the purchase of excessive amounts of food, for example, or the provision of 'growing spaces' for residents to grow their own food with help to purchase plants and tools - a project remarkably similar to Islington Council's imaginative 'Edible Islington' initiative in the present day.
Inevitably normal life went on. A young hooligan, put on probation for harassing his neighbours, is described by the local constable as suffering from a "swelled head". Stores of potassium chloride and detonators for making bombs are discovered in Clapton. Arsenal, as always, "are confident that the coming season will be more successful". 'The Secret Service of the Air' is showing at the Stoke Newington Savoy starring Ronald Reagan. The ruling Labour group on one of the local councils dissolves in acrimony amidst shouts of 'Dictator!' hurled at the Mayor. There are protests about "the adverse effect of delayed rebuilding whereby large and ugly vacant spaces are left derelict to the detriment of local residents". Nothing new there, then!
What comes across so strongly from the local press reports seventy years ago is the all-pervading poverty, the domestic violence caused by necessary penny-pinching, the lack of decent clothes for evacuated children, the poor health. Little wonder that even as the first air-raid sirens were sounding, the 'Gazette' was demanding completion of a previous Liberal Government's health insurance reforms - soon to be realised in the attack by another great Liberal reformer, William Beveridge, on "the Five Giant Evils of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness" and the creation of the National Health Service.
I'm sure there are still many Hackney residents who will remember where they were this day seventy years ago. They will have heard the lugubrious tones of the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, declaring over the radio that this country was at war with Germany. How many, I wonder, realised how profoundly that short announcement would affect them over the succeeding years? And how many of us now have any real understanding of the impact of that moment on our present lives?
It was only a month previously that the 'Hackney Gazette' had assured its readers that "the ordinary citizen may go on his holidays without any alarms or qualms". It seems ironic that it was glorious weather at the beginning of that September. Thoughts of battle and bloodshed appeared deceptively unreal. Yet throughout Hackney sandbags were being assembled and air-raid shelters prepared. Trenches were being dug in Stoke Newington. Evacuation was in full swing in Hoxton: according to the 'Gazette's reporter, "Thousands of parents, principally mothers, accompanied their children to the school gates. Here there were many affecting farewells but for the most part mothers and children accepted the situation as inevitable and did their best to brighten up."
Evidently the new black-out regulations didn't go down well with some citizens - complaints abound of over-officious wardens and police call-outs to break up squabbles - and there are sightings of a new "road pest", the local authority official dashing around the streets with 'Air Raid Precaution Priority' emblazoned over his car.
Some emergency measures, however, look as if they might be singularly sensible today: the Defence Regulations order prohibiting the purchase of excessive amounts of food, for example, or the provision of 'growing spaces' for residents to grow their own food with help to purchase plants and tools - a project remarkably similar to Islington Council's imaginative 'Edible Islington' initiative in the present day.
Inevitably normal life went on. A young hooligan, put on probation for harassing his neighbours, is described by the local constable as suffering from a "swelled head". Stores of potassium chloride and detonators for making bombs are discovered in Clapton. Arsenal, as always, "are confident that the coming season will be more successful". 'The Secret Service of the Air' is showing at the Stoke Newington Savoy starring Ronald Reagan. The ruling Labour group on one of the local councils dissolves in acrimony amidst shouts of 'Dictator!' hurled at the Mayor. There are protests about "the adverse effect of delayed rebuilding whereby large and ugly vacant spaces are left derelict to the detriment of local residents". Nothing new there, then!
What comes across so strongly from the local press reports seventy years ago is the all-pervading poverty, the domestic violence caused by necessary penny-pinching, the lack of decent clothes for evacuated children, the poor health. Little wonder that even as the first air-raid sirens were sounding, the 'Gazette' was demanding completion of a previous Liberal Government's health insurance reforms - soon to be realised in the attack by another great Liberal reformer, William Beveridge, on "the Five Giant Evils of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness" and the creation of the National Health Service.
Thursday, 13 August 2009
'Mouthpieces'
"I went to this meeting. I don't know why. I've been to so many meetings that were a complete waste of time. You know, someone from the Council stands up and says how wonderful everything is going to be, then someone I've never seen before but calls himself a 'community representative' stands up and says how wonderful everything is going to be, then they ask for questions and someone complains about the blocked drains, then they say that's alright then, everyone's agreed and there's tea and biscuits at the back. So everyone clears off without any idea of what's been going on. Only thing is, the drains still haven't been fixed.
"So what's new after ten years? Nothing at all. Different lot of council people saying the same thing. Different lot of 'community representatives' saying the same thing. 'Mouthpieces' is what I call them. They just say what they're supposed to say and feel rather good about it. When they find out that no-one's taking much notice of them, then they hop off and there's another 'mouthpiece' takes over. So it goes on and the politicians are laughing because they say they're 'consulting with the community' but nobody actually gives a damn about the community because if there ever was one, it's long since vanished. So really, what's the point? Better to stay in and see what's on the telly".
So much for "community consultation", one of New Labour's more insidious confidence tricks and a primary cause of alienation from the political process. But is it really possible to consult genuinely with a whole community, even if that community is just a street or a block of flats? After all, even surveys and questionnaires need to have questions set. Who then decides on the questions? Another set of surveys and questionnaires just for that purpose? No, the only possible way is talking to people on the doorstep about their concerns as they perceive them for themselves. Time-consuming and untidy and often a vehicle for a deal of pent-up anger and frustration but ultimately the only legitimate means of "community consultation". It's called democratic politics.
Monday, 20 July 2009
Woodberry Down: the true story
At its inception in 1949 the Woodberry Down Estate adjoining the Stoke Newington reservoirs was the largest public housing estate in Western Europe. It was a pet project of Herbert Morrison, a former Mayor of Hackney, and was designed as a model London County Council estate with integrated schools, shops, communal facilities and a health centre. Its influence can clearly be seen in other similar estates such as the White City Estate. The original residents consisted in the main of families from the East End displaced by wartime bombing and the general turbulence of the immediate post-war period. In consequence there has always been a strong community spirit that has easily accommodated successive waves of newcomers, especially from the 'New Commonwealth', until fairly recently.
A marked decline began with the transfer of the estate in 1982 from the Greater London Council to Hackney Council. Housing resources were concentrated on traditionally Labour-voting areas nearer to the centre of Hackney, routine maintenance and repairs were neglected and the quality of housing management noticeably deteriorated. The estate increasingly attracted problems of squatting, drug-dealing and inner city deprivation. It nevertheless retained a robust tenants' movement and an enviable record for effective community policing.
In 1999 residents on the estate voted overwhelmingly for housing management responsibilities to be transferred to Paddington Churches Housing Association in the face of strident opposition from the Council's Labour group. Although resources remained restricted, there were some immediate improvements in the provision of basic services to the estate and useful innovations such as the pioneering introduction of neighbourhood wardens were funded from efficiency savings.
It was also agreed by a majority vote on the Council, again despite Labour obstruction, that the inclusion of Woodberry Down should be sought in a long-term regeneration programme centred on renovation of the housing stock and provision of enhanced community facilities. It was recognised that tenure on the estate would need to be opened up and opportunities for private development and finance maximised in favourable locations, especially where the condition of the existing dwellings made refurbishment impracticable or uneconomic. In 2000 the Government agreed that Woodberry Down should receive Single Regeneration Budget funding on that basis.
The following year the Council returned to Labour majority control. For Woodberry Down the intervening period has been marked by contant changes of plan, incessant consultations, a marked decline in housing and estate management services, increasing blighting and a collapse in residents' morale. Many have got out. Elderly residents complain that they are being dragooned to shift into inappropriate sheltered accommodation elsewhere. Whether older people or young families, remaining residents are fearful of a protracted period of increasing environmental degradation and deteriorating housing conditions. Leaseholders are left in limbo with the Council unwilling to give them any information or take decisions that would enable them to move on. Properties have been boarded up or increasingly occupied by short-let tenants. Hackney's old bane of dubious practice in the housing letting process appears to be re-emerging. There has been a significant increase in illegal occupation of property, drug-dealing and gang activity. Perhaps unsurprisingly many residents are convinced that Hackney Council has long been intent on surreptitious 'social cleansing' in an area where Labour's political support is limited.
The most recent proposals approved only nine months ago and still subject to continuing modification foresee the complete redevelopment of the estate over a period of ten to fifteen years very heavily dependent on private finance and a concentrated scale of social housing that appears tailor-made to reproduce the tower block squalors of the past. Fears that the principal developers, Berkeley Homes, would pull out as a result of the 'credit crunch' and last year's problems in the housing market have been temporarily assuaged by an injection of funds under the 'Kick Start Programme' but the whole project still appears fragile and the essential public funding element vulnerable to adjustments in public spending programmes inevitable in the next few years.
As always, the most telling comments on this saga of mismanagement and broken promises are by the residents themselves. Fairly typical of the complete alienation felt by many is the following: "Last time I voted Green, this time BNP. I don't care for either of them but I want to get my protest in".
.
A marked decline began with the transfer of the estate in 1982 from the Greater London Council to Hackney Council. Housing resources were concentrated on traditionally Labour-voting areas nearer to the centre of Hackney, routine maintenance and repairs were neglected and the quality of housing management noticeably deteriorated. The estate increasingly attracted problems of squatting, drug-dealing and inner city deprivation. It nevertheless retained a robust tenants' movement and an enviable record for effective community policing.
In 1999 residents on the estate voted overwhelmingly for housing management responsibilities to be transferred to Paddington Churches Housing Association in the face of strident opposition from the Council's Labour group. Although resources remained restricted, there were some immediate improvements in the provision of basic services to the estate and useful innovations such as the pioneering introduction of neighbourhood wardens were funded from efficiency savings.
It was also agreed by a majority vote on the Council, again despite Labour obstruction, that the inclusion of Woodberry Down should be sought in a long-term regeneration programme centred on renovation of the housing stock and provision of enhanced community facilities. It was recognised that tenure on the estate would need to be opened up and opportunities for private development and finance maximised in favourable locations, especially where the condition of the existing dwellings made refurbishment impracticable or uneconomic. In 2000 the Government agreed that Woodberry Down should receive Single Regeneration Budget funding on that basis.
The following year the Council returned to Labour majority control. For Woodberry Down the intervening period has been marked by contant changes of plan, incessant consultations, a marked decline in housing and estate management services, increasing blighting and a collapse in residents' morale. Many have got out. Elderly residents complain that they are being dragooned to shift into inappropriate sheltered accommodation elsewhere. Whether older people or young families, remaining residents are fearful of a protracted period of increasing environmental degradation and deteriorating housing conditions. Leaseholders are left in limbo with the Council unwilling to give them any information or take decisions that would enable them to move on. Properties have been boarded up or increasingly occupied by short-let tenants. Hackney's old bane of dubious practice in the housing letting process appears to be re-emerging. There has been a significant increase in illegal occupation of property, drug-dealing and gang activity. Perhaps unsurprisingly many residents are convinced that Hackney Council has long been intent on surreptitious 'social cleansing' in an area where Labour's political support is limited.
The most recent proposals approved only nine months ago and still subject to continuing modification foresee the complete redevelopment of the estate over a period of ten to fifteen years very heavily dependent on private finance and a concentrated scale of social housing that appears tailor-made to reproduce the tower block squalors of the past. Fears that the principal developers, Berkeley Homes, would pull out as a result of the 'credit crunch' and last year's problems in the housing market have been temporarily assuaged by an injection of funds under the 'Kick Start Programme' but the whole project still appears fragile and the essential public funding element vulnerable to adjustments in public spending programmes inevitable in the next few years.
As always, the most telling comments on this saga of mismanagement and broken promises are by the residents themselves. Fairly typical of the complete alienation felt by many is the following: "Last time I voted Green, this time BNP. I don't care for either of them but I want to get my protest in".
.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
The people's game
It was salutary to see the recent comments of the chairman of the Hackney & Leyton Football League, Mr Johnnie Walker, about the adequacy of the plans for supporting grass-roots football on Hackney Marshes. He's not happy - and with good reason!
As the founder of a London-wide football league struggling to survive shortages of pitches and referees - the reason I became a qualified referee myself! - Hackney Marshes was a godsend. Even so, for most of our student players from overseas it must have been a strange introduction to British sporting life getting up at an unearthly hour on a Sunday morning, struggling to find the Marshes by public transport, taking a long walk to the very furthest pitch and finally recuperating under cold showers on a concrete floor in what appeared to be an overcrowded tin shack. What bliss when the first wonderfully-surfaced football pitches were laid out in Finsbury Park.
Mercifully, that was all a good time ago. Proposals for "world-class facilities" on Hackney Marshes are all the more welcome. However, they must not result in the kind of disruption that can shatter the morale of many amateur leagues and players. I guess Mr Walker knows what he's talking about. It looks like he also knows the need to keep up constant pressure to ensure that politicians' and architects' 'visions' actually work out for the benefit of ordinary people. All power to his elbow.
As the founder of a London-wide football league struggling to survive shortages of pitches and referees - the reason I became a qualified referee myself! - Hackney Marshes was a godsend. Even so, for most of our student players from overseas it must have been a strange introduction to British sporting life getting up at an unearthly hour on a Sunday morning, struggling to find the Marshes by public transport, taking a long walk to the very furthest pitch and finally recuperating under cold showers on a concrete floor in what appeared to be an overcrowded tin shack. What bliss when the first wonderfully-surfaced football pitches were laid out in Finsbury Park.
Mercifully, that was all a good time ago. Proposals for "world-class facilities" on Hackney Marshes are all the more welcome. However, they must not result in the kind of disruption that can shatter the morale of many amateur leagues and players. I guess Mr Walker knows what he's talking about. It looks like he also knows the need to keep up constant pressure to ensure that politicians' and architects' 'visions' actually work out for the benefit of ordinary people. All power to his elbow.
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