May 2010
The beginning of May saw the final week of the General Election and local election campaigns. Sunday 2nd May I attended the Pakistani community show on Westside FM where the Tory candidate upset a listener by swearing on air (not a good idea when it is a Sunday lunch time programme!). Monday 3rd Gurcharan Singh and I appeared on Apnes Pardes, a Punjabi TV channel debate and Tuesday 4th we both attended the Tiemo "Talk of the Town" debate at the at the Southall Campus of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College in Beaconsfield Road. Wednesday 5th my Lib Dem colleagues and I spent the day delivering an eve of poll leaflet in Elthorne and then went canvassing in the evening. I had a great reaction on the doorsteps which gave me great encouragement that things were moving in our direction - one lady told me that her family were staunch Labour supporters but that she liked Nick Clegg and was deciding to vote Lib Dem this time. Another lady said that I worked hard for our area before wishing me good luck for Thursday and telling me all her friends were voting for me. Thursday 6th - polling day - my Lib Dem colleagues and I were up at 5am to deliver our "Good Morning" leaflets before the polls opened at 7am. I then spent most of the day knocking on doors to get our vote out and telling at polling stations in Elthorne.
When the polls closed at 10pm, my agent John picked me up from my home and took me to the count in Park Royal. Given my interest in politics, I have always enjoyed watching election results coming in from across the country, but it is a completely different story when you are actively involved in waiting for your own result. Over the last three General Elections and all the other counts that I have attended in the past ten years, Ealing Council has always been one of the slowest to declare election results. This year was no change, and the three Ealing constituencies were not declared until around 8am! The result in Ealing Southall was never really in doubt. I had heard that there had been very high turnouts in Southall and this would be to the advantage of the incumbent Labour MP. The shame was that this campaign seemed to be dominated by a petty dispute between the Labour and Conservative candidates to the exclusion of any discussion on policies or the future of Ealing Southall. Unfortunately, apart from brief period when the Elthorne votes were coming in, because I had spent most of my time there to the exclusion of the rest of the constituency, it meant that I would be a disappointing third this time. Steve Pound was re-elected in Ealing North and, despite some signs that my colleague Jon Ball was challenging Angie Bray hard in Ealing Central and Acton, he still finished third almost twelve hundred votes behind the Labour candidate.
Having been up for the best part of 28 hours, the last thing I wanted was to go through the whole thing again a couple of hours later with the agonising wait for the Elthorne ward and local election results. Counting began again at 1pm and this time finished at around 9pm. A high turnout seemed to help Labour around the borough and they took advantage of Steve Pound's win in Ealing North to gain council seats as well as taking back the five Southall seats they lost to defections including the prized scalp of Gurcharan Singh. The good news for the Lib Dems was that we went up from three to five seats this time. Andrew Steed picked up the third seat in Southfield ward from the Conservatives and I was elected in Elthorne ward. Elthorne ward was a tight contest with all three parties working the area hard during the campaign, and that is reflected in the result with one Labour, one Lib Dem and one Tory councillor elected. My joy at finally being elected onto Ealing Council at the third attempt was therefore somewhat tempered by the fact that my colleagues Dave Randles and Peter Hutchison were not successful as I really believe they were brilliant candidates and would have made great councillors.
On Saturday 8th, new councillors like myself went to Percival House to have our photos taken for the council website and ID passes, and sign official forms to take up office. The make up of the new council is 40 Labour 24 Tory and 5 Lib Dems and there are a number of new councillors on all sides. I went out with my colleagues Jon Ball and Gary Malcolm to the Sir Michael Balcan pub on Saturday night and I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of guys from Hanwell who voted for me. We had our first Lib Dem council group meeting on Monday 10th where Gary Malcolm was elected as our new council leader, Harvey Rose was made deputy leader, and Jon Ball was elected as our chief whip. I also had council training on Tuesday 11th, Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th where I was briefed on the major strategic issues facing the council, the decision-making process and local government finance. One of the biggest issues facing Ealing Council is the likely reduction in the council's budget by an estimated £50 million over the next four years. Given that the majority Labour group campaigned on maintaining a council tax freeze, it is likely that there will have to be cuts to services to meet this target and it will be our responsibility as an opposition group to monitor the council's performance and raise any concerns we may have about the effect of cuts on the provision of front line services. The Labour group also seem to be positioning themselves to blame the Tories for wasting £6 million on the £50 cashback scheme at the end of last year, even though they supported it at the time and only the Lib Dem councillors opposed it!
Since the General Election ended in a hung parliament, we have seen the Lib Dems in negotiations with the other parties. While many of us in the Lib Dems may feel closer ideologically to the Labour party, especially in terms of joint support for proportional representation, the fact is that the Conservatives ended up as the largest party winning 306 seats, just 20 short of an overall majority. Despite claims by my Tory opponent during the campaign that if you vote Lib Dem you get Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, the fact is that Nick Clegg was clear during the election campaign that the Lib Dems would talk to the party with the largest mandate in terms of votes and seats won so we were obliged to talk to the Conservatives first, especially if we wanted a strong, stable government over the term of the this parliament. Given that Labour finished on 258 seats and even with the 57 seats won by the Lib Dems this would only come to a total of 315 which is 11 short of an overall majority, any Lib Dem/Labour government would need support from other parties like the SNP,PC, SDLP, Alliance or the new Green MP to have a majority. Whilst a deal with these parties may have been possible, it would not represent stable government if the government could be defeated when one or two of its MPs missed a vote. Even though Gordon Brown offered to resign as Labour leader, once backbenchers like John Reid and David Blunkett came out against doing a deal with the Lib Dems, any hope of a Lib/Lab pact was dead. The Lib Dems have therefore ended up in a coalition with the Conservatives and struck a deal which gives us the chance to implement a number of Lib Dem policies which we campaigned for in the election campaign like fairer taxes and electoral reform. Although it is the first time that this kind of partnership arrangement has happened in the UK parliament, these kind of agreements with other parties is part and parcel of governments in many other countries around Europe including the Scottish parliament and Welsh Assembly. At the same time, Nick Clegg has become the new Deputy Prime Minister and we now have Lib Dems in the Cabinet for the first time so we are able to exert real influence in shaping government policy in the future rather than standing on the sidelines complaining about a minority Conservative government. Obviously, it will only be judged by history, whether this Lib Dem/Conservative Government is able to put the differences between our two parties behind and works to the benefit of the country.
After more than a month since I last saw my family, I went down to Brighton for the weekend on 14th May. My father was in the UK so I was able to go out for a meal with him on Saturday night and spent Sunday with my brother, his partner Helen and my mother. As a cricket fan, one of the highlights of the weekend was that I was finally able to watch England win a major world cricketing title when they won the T20 World Cup in the West Indies. After Brighton, I went to Venray in the Netherlands on Monday 17th and Tuesday 18th to meet Xerox colleagues who manage the supply and order fulfillment in the Eastern Hemisphere. I hadn't been to Venray for over four years, and it was good to meet some of the people I speak to every week, many of whom I have not met before or, for those I have met before, since I started my current job nearly twenty months ago. Tuesday 18th was also my first full council, so my boss and I had to rush back to the UK in order to make it on time. As it happens, we had no problems in France, Belgium or Holland but we were stuck in traffic outside London and I ended up being about 45 minutes late for the council meeting. The only subject for the meeting was the future of Ealing Homes with a Labour motion to bring it back in-house. Ealing Labour had made a manifesto commitment in the local elections to bring Ealing Homes back under council control even though it had been a Labour Government which had proposed setting up Arms Length Management companies (ALMOs) like Ealing Homes in the first place. The Lib Dem group proposed an amendment which called for greater involvement of tenants in the management of their estates, while the Tories proposed an amendment freezing the council rents or keeping the increases below inflation for the next four years. We ended up supporting both amendments and then, when they were both defeated, supporting the original Labour motion.
Since the election, I have had lots to learn about my new role including dealing with casework and briefings about the council's services. Wednesday 19th I attended a briefing on environment and customer services including ward forums where I met Tan Afzal who will look after the Elthorne ward forum going forward. Thursday 20th I attended a briefing on children's services and found out about plans to expand St.Marks Primary School to cope with the growing demand for primary school places in the area. After that, I also attended my first training session on planning which is one of the committees that I am going to serve on. On Saturday 22nd I went to the West London Islamic Centre in Brownlow Road where they were having a fun day to raise funds for a new expanded mosque and community centre. The weather over the weekend was fantastic and all the children at the event were having lots of fun spraying each other and anyone else in who got in their way with water pistols. In the evening, I went out with Cllr Gary Malcolm and on my way home I met two of the members of the band The Lost Society who told me that they voted for me and told me that I could download a track from their website www.thelostsocietymusic.com and I was glad that I did! During the day on Sunday, I enjoyed a bike ride to Richmond and around Richmond Park. I am a keen cyclist and because of the elections it has been a while since I last had the opportunity or the energy to go cycling apart from the odd day when I cycle to work. Hopefully if the good weather continues, I will have the chance to cycle a lot more this summer. On Sunday evening, I attended a Global Day of Prayer held in the garden of St.Mellitus Church and organised locally by Churches Together in Hanwell. Steve Pound was also present, along with Councillors Ray and Lauren Wall and Colm Costello. Although I'm not particularly religious it was a lovely service only marginally spoiled by Steve Pound trying to make a joke about not knowing the colour of the new Government - obviously he is just a little jealous that it isn't red!
On Monday 24th the Lib Dem council group met and we agreed our portfolios and committees for the year. I will replace Harvey Rose in alternating with Jon Ball as the Lib Dem representative on the planning committee, and I will also serve on the Crime and Community Safety Scrutiny Panel. My portfolios will be Safer Communities, Equality, Diversity, Transport and Regeneration (although Jon Ball will be the lead for Regeneration in Ealing and Andrew Steed will be responsible for Acton and Chiswick). Tuesday 25th saw the Mayor-making meeting of Ealing Council. Councillor Rajinder Mann was appointed as the new Mayor and was immediately put on the spot when Tory Councillor Young questioned the legitimacy of appointing places to scrutiny committees which were new and not approved by the council before the meeting. After thanks were given by all sides to the outgoing Mayor Barbara Yerolemou and praise for the new Mayor - the Lib Dem contributions by Gary Malcolm and Harvey Rose who make an amusing rhyme- we went to dinner in the Victoria Hall. The Lib Dem group were all seated on a table next to the stage which proved to be a bit noisy for some of our members when the Punjabi dance act was on. We were joined on our table by Keith Townsend, Executive Director for Environment and Customer Services, which gave us an opportunity to quiz Keith about his responsibilities, for example spending on potholes and road maintenance where the Council is spending £800k on its current improvement programme of which central government is providing roughly £128k. More speeches followed the dinner and Tory Leader Jason Stacey made us all laugh when he revealed that he had received a personal letter from Labour leadership hopeful David Milliband MP congratulating him on Labour's success locally! Steve Pound again tried to wind us up by describing the new Dave and Nick show as "Brokeback Mountain", and then clapping when Stacey said that the local Tories wouldn't be getting into bed with the Lib Dems. Labour MPs are obviously quick to forget that it was their government that built up a record deficit which got them kicked out of office only a few weeks earlier. Steve Pound has also been quick to publicly declare his fears for the cuts planned by the new Government despite the fact that his party completely ducked the issue when in power and during the election campaign apart from a vague commitment to halve the deficit in four years.
On Wednesday 26th, I attended the Planning committee to speak as a ward councillor on behalf of the Hanwell Community Forum against a planning application to develop No.74 Half Acre Road which borders on the Brent River park. The development was recommended for approval by officers even though its neighbours, the William Hobbayne Trust, disputed the boundaries and it was passed by the committee with an additional condition that it should not break the UDP requirement for a five metres buffer with Metropolitan Open Land after I raised the issue in my speech. In the evening of Thursday 27th, I attended the Scrutiny Conference where we began scoping the work of the Crime and Community Safety Scrutiny Panel. The Chair of the committee will be Councillor Padda and we were joined by Councillor Kausar - unfortunately the other members of the committee were either on other committees or did not turn up for the meeting. There are five meetings of the committee in the year and we have provisionally agreed to focus on the subjects of anti-social behaviour, burglary, youth offending, knife crime, crime prevention and hate crimes. My contribution was to suggest that we focus on anti-social behaviour in our parks and open spaces as the subject of our first meeting given the timing of the meeting and so we hit the ground running when the committee first meets. As summer approaches and the weather improves, anti-social behaviour becomes a bigger issue in my ward especially in Connolly Dell and King George's Field where there can be a problem with groups of drinkers disturbing the peace for other park users, so i thought it would be good to understand what actions the Police and the Council are planning to take to regularly monitor these areas around the borough. I hope the panel can make some good recommendations and a positive contribution to improve community safety in Ealing.