For a town that has many dark tales to tell all about black magic, here’s something slightly more uplifting heading our way over the May Fair weekend: Urban Magic by Lee Moss is heading our way, to liven up the streets of the town with some magical performance throughout the Bank Holiday.

Alfie, the finest barber in Wivenhoe, is bringing Lee down to Wivenhoe over the May Fair weekend to try out some of his urban magic skills with the locals. Black Buoy Hill isn’t exactly the urban environment of Brixton, but it will be interesting to see the reaction that Lee is able to achieve.

Lee describes his art as:

“A unique and contemporary twist to magic, leaving even the most sceptical of people picking their jaws up from the floor.”

Which is more or less the scene that you can see at closing time at The Station on any given weekend night.

The last time I was involved in a local card school it involved half a bottle of whiskey, sexual politics and a sore head (and the rest) the following morning.

Ace, etc.

The @BrockwellLido close of season coincides this summer with the arrival of the Great Escape. With the lido shutters now pulled firmly shut, the bag packing can start in earnest as I seek to find a new outdoor swimming experience somewhere deep within the wilds of North Essex.

When @AnnaJCowen and I sat down some eighteen months ago to compile a list of Reasons to Stay in London, my plus column consisted of a solitary entry: Brockwell Lido. Cricket almost got a look in, as did track cycling at Herne Hill. Replacing cricket is relative; I’m too crocked now to compete seriously at le velo.

It was the absolute love of @BrockwellLido that *almost* kept me in South London. You can’t survive on the last of the summer wine forever, and a lido lifestyle can be a miserable ball and chain to be shackled with during those dark winter months.

But how to say goodbye to an activity that has been at the centre of my South London #hyperlocal universe for the past fifteen summers?

My love affair with the lido started almost as soon as we first moved into South London during the summer of ’95. I kept on hearing about this mythical outdoor pool during my first few weeks in Brixton. A weekend run around Brockwell Park led me to the formal introduction. We’ve had an intimate relationship ever since.

The start of May until the end of September have been put aside for the past fifteen years as Lido Days. It is an addiction that means my working day is not complete unless I have indulged. Breaking the Brockwell habit is going to come at a high cost.

The attraction is mainly physical, partly emotional. I embrace the freshness of the water washing over me each morning in an almost ritualistic manner, providing clarity and perspective for the working day ahead.

The lido has become my thinking place in South London. Most of my major life decisions have been made here in an environment where I am truly clear of any outside distraction or influence. Ironically, the decision to leave South London was made whilst under the cool waters of Lake Brockwell.

Starting your morning with a gentile introduction, albeit a rather physically brutal and mentally bruising experience, leaves you with positive thoughts that remain throughout the day. Colleagues have long since stopped asking me why I am grinning insanely at 9am.

Catching the dancing rays of the sun as they reflect down on to the pool basin is better than any sterile, soulless Brixton Rec indoor swimming experience. Seeing a flock of geese provide you with a personal flyover is an added bonus.

The lido is MY lido. This is a claim that every other lido swimmer would also no doubt make. It can also be yours if you choose it to be. The experience and routine of the daily dip becomes a highly personalised one. You are in complete control of your own immediate environment. No one can touch you [um, not quite true] and anything is achievable.

I feel that I know every physical feature of the pool, from where the uneven white edges around the perimeter start to crack, down to the gradual tethering of the shallow end and the exact spot where you need to raise your knees to prevent grazing on the pool basin.

I can judge with my eyes closed (and usually they are) the precise point where my feet need to make contact as I push off from the deep end as I turn around to do it all again. I swim blind – not in the literal sense, although the pool is home to a number of sight-impaired swimmers.

I have seen many weird and wonderful sights down by the waters of Lake Brockwell over the years. The bonkers underwater hoover, the official Hold Yer Breath Underwater National Championships, and even having to share my lido experience with some model submarines that tried to dive bomb me in the deep end. That’s not something you see every day down at Brixton Rec.

But perhaps the weirdest experience is that of my fellow lido swimmers. All lovely, all totally bonkers. It is the defining feature of someone who chooses to swim outdoors in a water temperature that your body wants to resist, but your mind wants you to indulge in.

My favourite lido moments are the extremes – falling asleep in the suntrap terrace on a South London scorcher of an afternoon, or swimming in the rain mid-September and being the single custodian of the waters of Lake Brockwell. The mid-winter Brockwell Icicles experience takes this crazed approach to aquatic hedonism a stage further.

The building itself may change, but the ambience remains. I was alarmed over the architectural vandalism that the winter 2006 re-build by Fusion proposed. The demolition of an art deco wall, and then replacing it with a full on body pump style gym, could have killed off Brockwell Lido for me.

Somehow the smoke and mirrors trick has managed to hide away the dirty business of the gym bunnies. What goes on behind that wall we don’t talk about, but at least it brings in the money for Fusion, and guarantees a future for the lido.

Remarkably the unique lido ambience is still more or less in place after the most significant building works in the pool’s seventy-year history. This is a place of community, a place to meet people and a place to escape the nearby madness of the city.

It is this companionship that I treasure the most. Seeing fellow swimmers for the first time in the season is always a diary date to look forward to. Saying farewell at the end of September only reminds you of the winter misery months to come. I confess to slipping out quietly on Sunday, not wanting to cause a scene, not wanting to blubber on my final Brockwell Lido day.

And so where to now? Nearby Colchester has the new Garrison pool (fitness swimming) and Leisure World (wave machine hell.) I’m hoping to continue the outdoor aquatic lifestyle, by finding my own personal space downstream in the Colne estuary.

Perhaps this will be the biggest personal legacy that @BrockwellLido leaves upon me. Outdoor swimming is the purest form in which to participate. But to participate effectively, you need companionship. The unique collision of an art deco building in South London with a collective of crazed outdoor aquatic types, is going to be simply irreplaceable.

I regret that I am not going to be around for the BLU AGM next month. It is a social highlight of the lido season, and provides me with my annual opportunity to ask why I should have to pay twice to swim in pools owned by @lambeth_council. Fifteen years of swimming, and I still haven’t heard a satisfactory answer.

But anyway: come on in – the water’s… Brrrrr.

Only yesterday and I was commenting to the lovely Lido Peter how the clear, blue waters of Lake Brockwell have returned, just in time for the season close at the end of September. Sunday morning however had the familiar “chemical imbalance” given as the reason for the lack of aquatic action.

Bugger.

To be fair to Fusion, all members have been offered a 10% discount on the joining fee for the 2011 season. Cynics might say that this serves only as an incentive to sign up yet again. What’s the point if you’re buggering off @BrockwellLido continues to suffer the same fate next summer?

Having dragged my backside down to Brockwell Park early on Sunday morning, the inconvenience for me was more of a personal and emotional disappointment.

The tally chart counting down my final days of outdoor swimming in SE24 is almost in single digits. A closed pool is about as welcome as a LambethLabour pledge of “free swimming for every resident” right now.

Ah yes – about that pre-election promise of “free swimming for every resident…”

In the absence of any @BrockwellLido action, I returned down Railton Road and found myself staring into the abyss of Brixton Rec.

Blimey.

The queue at reception finally cleared after five minutes – this was 9am on a Sunday morning, after all. Ahead of me to be served was a young mother with three small kids. She asked for an adult swimming ticket, and three passes for the free swimming for her children.

“Sorry,” said the GLL receptionist. “Free swimming is no longer available.” A price was quoted, which didn’t leave much change out of a £20 note. Not surprisingly the young mother had to explain to her three small kids that swimming wasn’t going to happen today.

I paid my £3.50, and then walked past the petition on the wall set up by the Brixton Rec Users Group. It calls for @LambethLabour to reconsider its decision to slash free swimming for under 16′s and over 60′s. The election pledge of “free swimming for every resident” has long since been sacrificed.

I’m told that just over 2,000 signatures have so far been collected by local leisure users – quite an achievement. One thousand more are still required for the Rec Users Group to force the next Full Council meeting to actually take the petition seriously and debate the matter.

That Lambeth Life Power to the People twaddle of a headline is looking more false as the @LambethLabour cuts start to kick in.

With the disappointment of Brockwell behind me, and now ready to experience the delights of Brixton Rec on a Sunday morning, I showered and slipped into the pool. Five minutes later and I was finished.

It was simply impossible to undertake any form of exercise in a public pool that is rammed bumper to bumper with swimmers early on a Sunday morning. That’s what happens when the “success story” of leisure in Lambeth leads to only one pool that is actually open in the entire borough.

I’ll be back at the waters of Lake Brockwell come Monday morning. If the “chemical imbalance” is still lingering, I’ll have to admit defeat and accept that the buggers have won.

“Free swimming for every resident?”

Only in the Rotten Borough…

I arrived in Brixton back in the summer of 1995, full of hope, high on optimism and with a huge appetite for ambition. None of these have been played out to their full potential, but I feel that I am leaving London as an all round better person.

I’ve been enlightened, enriched and inspired by London. But it comes at a high price, both financially and physically. London demands everything of you. There’s no hiding away if you want to experience the benefits that this city has to offer – you’re either in or you’re out.

I want out.

After fifteen years of running around town, it’s time to come up for some air. We both need a break, and one that allows us to put our feet up, laze around in the garden with a bottle of bolly and just generally live a slower pace of life.

Plus if truth be told, the tipping point came last summer when South London Yoof decided to camp out on my newly varnished front garden fence. It wasn’t particularly anti-social behaviour, but then neither was my response of blasting out some Billy Bragg from my front bedroom to shift South London Yoof along.

I just want a bit of peace, space and respect, bruv. I can’t find that in Sunny Stockwell any more. I live in fear of becoming what I despise – a right wing bigot, albeit with some sense of justification, given the actions of those around me in my current surroundings.

We have lived in the city for fifteen years because we wanted to. We wanted the convenience of being close to the cultural capital of the world; we wanted the opportunities that living in such a densely populated environment presented, and most of all, we wanted to be part of something that was much greater than we as individuals could ever be. London allowed us to live this lifestyle.

But that period in our lives is now in the past. We’re both ready for the next phase, searching for more solitude and a less frantic lifestyle – and yeah, one which probably involves keeping a well stocked wine cellar and not feeling guilty about procrastinating and enjoying life for itself, rather than with a specific reason to achieve or obtain career fulfillment.

I’m failing to find the love that I once had for this great city. Weekends of hunting down specific events or meetings are long gone. The enthusiasm for anything outside of my micro #hyperlocal patch of South London is non-existent. I’m even struggling to see anything of interest for me around here locally. A man who is bored of London is bored of life. I need to therefore try and find a new life out in the wilds.

I’m giving up pretty much everything that has been my social existence for a third of my life: the korfball club, watching cricket, the cycling community at Herne Hill and of course the lovely lido (although if truth be told, it’s not been a great season down in SE24.)

I feel that I’ve run my course with each activity. With no physical or geographical work restrictions keeping me in place, it’s time to move on. I am a nomad of technology: have broadband (just) will travel.

And so where to next? Well, we’re going back to the future to find a familiar lifestyle of old. Almost twenty years ago to the day, @AnnaJCowen and I first met as undergraduates at the University of Essex in Colchester. We’re now heading back to North Essex / Suffolk border, just up the road from the campus to the quayside town of Wivenhoe.

When we lived in North Essex, we couldn’t wait to leave for London. Weekends were spent going back and forth to Liverpool Street. It now seems that we have come full circle, and we can’t get wait to get back to the Wivenhoe rural way of life.

The city has served me well, but I can no longer keep up. I need an environment that hopefully will begin a new period of discovery. Yep – I’m becoming a hippy.

There’s a cycling club, estuary swimming, county cricket in nearby Castle Park, a sailing club and a jazz club. I think I’ll be busy, in a more laid back, middle-aged sort of way. Plus Wivenhoe is Constable country. I don’t think I’m going to take up landscape painting, but think of all those wonderful wildlife photographic opportunities.

That purveyor of objectivity and truth, um, the urban dictionary, rather helpfully adds:

“[Wivenhoe ] Small town in North East Essex. The town is home to an abnormally high percentage of musicians, artists, actors, and assorted TV and media people. The University of Essex at the top of the town is famous as a Communist stronghold in the 1960′s – the town also was home to The Angry Brigade at that time.

The Wivenhoe Folk Club is recognised as one of the best in the country, and regularly attracts big name acts. Other Essex villages consider Wivenhoe to be full of drunks, layabouts, hippies, arty-farty types, Pot-Heads, gays, and prozac-dependants. Small wonder then, that it was recently rated as the second most popular place to live in the whole of the UK.”

Blimey.

We’ve bought an old Victorian cottage with views out across the North Essex estuary. We’re keeping our properties down here in South London, still doing the landlord and tenant nonsense. Needs must. Plus you never know when you might miss the mean streets of Sunny Stockwell and long for a return.

Or maybe not.

As for m’blog? Well, it never really was about South London per se – more about my life in South London. The Wivenhoe lifestyle will undoubtedly present many new opportunities, and I’ll probably end up blogging all about these.

The countdown to the North Essex coastal adventure started in earnest some eighteen months ago when the plan was first hatched. We’re now approaching the Sunny Stockwell end game, with all the final arrangements being put in place.

Many, many thanks to everyone who has helped to make our London life so special. The memories will remain (um, online…) as we reach out to create new ones.

London loves, the misery of a speeding heart.

Time for the Great Escape.

Ah – but have they? Not on my watch etc, and it is of course those nasty ConDems who have been doing the cutting, according to the Comrades @LambethLabour. Using this logic, and your entire election manifesto might as well have been written on the back of a fag packet, with the handy opt out cause of blaming the bigger Westminster political picture whenever you get your kickers in a twist over the calculations locally.

Cripes.

But swimming is still a public service that resonates with many. There’s votes out there in those swimming lanes, doncta know. Right of centre politicians, be they ConDems or @LambethLabour, know this all too well. This is the political logic behind the passing the buck policy of #bigsociety and #lambethcoop.

But could swimming actually be left to the Little People to run? Patrick Butler has posted up an excellent blog post over at Guardian Society, examining specifically what is required for the pubic to take over the management of a local authority owned pool.

The sales pitch for #lambethcoop states that everything is up for grabs – housing, education, swimming. It’s the great Rotten Borough give away – the buggers will give to the Little People, and then bugger off until polling day comes around once again.

Butler makes the worthy point that the public management of swimming pools will probably only work in middle class suburbs where the locals have the time, knowledge and political capital to make such a proposition happen. The only collective spirit you’ll find at Brixton Rec is the continued moaning over the state of the changing rooms, the queues at reception or the over crowding of the pool.

The advice offered by Butler to any Speedo clad civic minded swimmer is to get support from the local authority:

“The state and its agencies still matter: big society swimming pools don’t survive in an infrastructure support-free zone.”

Too true here in Lambeth. Streatham is propped up (and closed) with support from the corporate paymaster of Tesco. Clap’ham is propped up (and running two years plus behind schedule) thanks to the Cathedral Group’s mismanagement of private capital.

I often think that we have reached the nadir of leisure provision here in Lambeth. It was looking bleak when Streatham closed last year. Clap’ham soon followed, and then in the same month, Brixton operated the bonkers 7am – 9am only swimming policy.

With only one leisure centre now remaining in the Rotten Borough, and ALL free swimming removed, the plug has all but been pulled from the public provision of leisure in Lambeth.

Maybe it is this absolute rock bottom that might just kick start the Little People to fight back and actually consider running the facilities collectively? Offering an inferior service than that currently provided by @LambethLabour isn’t possible.

But then this would be the reaction that the Comrades at the Town Hall would no doubt see as an endorsement of the PR farce that is #lambethcoop. The reality would be the exact opposite – collective action against the inability of the local authority to provide a service, rather than a co-operative partnership working in support of the local council.

Either way, it still represents a failure of the right wing privatisation of leisure in Lambeth by @LambethLabour, and the long-term consequences that this will leave for years within the Rotten Borough.

But with an Evening Standard praise piece, and the clock counting down ever faster towards the Great Escape, I thought it was about time I took in the weekly highlight of Thursday Lates that has got so many locals buzzing about the bottom up regeneration of Brixton.

The basic idea is to extend the highly successful spacemakers pop up shop formula to a late night opening once a week. Since the start of the year, Brixton Village has had new life breathed into the empty units. Spacemakers has encouraged local businesses and event organisers to work alongside the more traditional traders.

With an art angle added into many of these ideas, it makes sense to open up the Arcade into the evening once a week, and to encourage diners to try out the many new restaurants. Weekly open meetings take place on a Tuesday across the road at the Dogstar. Anyone with an idea or theme for a future Thursday Late is invited to share his or her thoughts.

It all sounds incredibly altruistic, not to mention slightly idealistic -but it also works rather well. Thursday Lates has seen the coming together of old school Brixton, affluent young professionals and the Bright Yong Hipsters, all working and learning together to create something that is uniquely Brixton in outlook.

The old school Brixton boys provide the bass, the affluent young professionals pontificate over the fine food (in a picky, but appreciative manner.) The Bright Young Hipsters simply hang around and add a creative edge.

Meanwhile, @AnnaJCowen and I simply wandered up and down the diverse aisles, looking slightly out of place, but still not feeling left out. I like to think that there is some of the old school Brixton, the affluent young professionals and the Bright Young Hipsters contained within our collective coupling psyche.

The very existence of spacemakers at Brixton Village is a short-term proposition by choice. The business model (if there even is one) is directly related to the direction that the economy may, or may not take, over the coming months.

But by breathing life back into the area, spacemakers has helped to stimulate Brixton Market at a time when our friends from @lambeth_council seem intent on giving the traders a bloody kick in the teeth.

The decision to relocate the permanent temporary Streatham Ice Rink to Pope’s Road Car Park could well wipe out all of the economic goodwill that spacemakers has helped to put in place.

A public meeting to keep the temporary ice pad out of the market is being held at 7pm next Tuesday at the nearby Karibu. If any sense of the co-operation and community that can be found at Thursday Lates is present at the meeting, then Pope’s Road just may well have a future in supporting the traders, once spacemakers feel that it is time to move out.

YOU ARE SUMMONED TO ATTEND A MEETING of the COUNCIL to be held in the Council Chamber, Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton Hill, SW2 1RW on Wednesday, 28 July 2010 at 7.00 pm.

Cripes.

This was the message on the agenda front sheet from Lambeth Chief Executive Derrick Anderson to his fine democratically elected and (just about) accountable local politicians.

Strange then that the self-styled “third hardest working Councillor” was absent, as was @ClaphamCommoner, the newly elected ward councillor for, um, Tulse Hill.

[Happy to correct on the record any reasons for non-attendance / delays on the 88 Clap'ham omnibus etc.]

But anyway – about that second Full Council meeting of the new @LambethLabour
led @lambeth_council – warning: the word “cuts” is likely to feature heavily, but not half as heavily as “blame.”

Blimey.

Petitions were presented first to the new Mr Mayor, proudly sporting a rather civic dandy goatee beard. In particular, a petition against a new Tesco (the rotters!) in West Norwood received the highest number of signatures.

A total of 800 is impressive, although it would take a further 2,200 names to trigger any council debate under this new Power to the People era of local democracy.

Deputations were then heard from invited citizens residents. A powerful speech followed from a concerned local about the possible closure of a Children’s Centre in Kennington. The guest spoke of how:

“The #lambethcoop White Paper speaks of co-operation between council and citizens. This is clearly not forthcoming in Kennington

In response, @cllr-robbins, the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People set out the response from the Labour party:

“We hope the Conservative Government continue to fund the centre. Moving the centre away from Kennington may be part of the process.”

Definitely one to scrutinise over the coming weeks and months. Speaking of which – it’s only the Annual Report of the Scrutiny Committee up next.

Cripes.

Scrutinising the scrutinisers is a strenuous process. @LambethLibDems Councillor Clyne certainly made is sound as such:

“Scrutiny doesn’t work in Lambeth. Ever since the ALMO was introduced, Lambeth Labour has said that 30% of council property is not up to the legal standard. A recent report quoted 40%, a figure that has been denied by Labour. Now we find that the figure is nearer 49%. Meanwhile, tenants have been hit with a rent rise.”

All of this navel gazing led to further, um, scrutiny, as Mr Mayor moved on to Councillor Questions. In the absence of the holidaying @LambethLibDems Leader, Councillor Lumsden (wish you were here!) Tory Leader Councillor Whelan took up the cause celebre of the Love Me I’m a Liberal Lot: Lambeth Life.

Oh Lordy.

Once again, the disappointingly unworkable trilogy of @LambethLabour, the opposition parties and *shhh* @SthLondonPress – the three organisations that between them *should* be able to improve, promote and celebrate the borough – proved to be completely incompatible. Driving a wedge through all three, and subsequently through the heart of Lambeth politics is of course Lambeth Life.

Councillor Whelan asked @cllrstevereed:

“What cost saving plans do you have for Lambeth Life? What plans are in place to make it clearer that the publication is published by the Labour led Lambeth Council? And are you aware of the impact that Lambeth Life has on other local media?”

@cllrstevereed is of course all too aware of the impact that Lambeth Life has on *other* local media – that’s all part of the plan, stooopid.

As for more accountability and transparency, @cllrstevereed’s current flavour of the month, the @LambethLabour Leader replied:

“Our aim is for Lambeth Life to make a net profit. This will then be used to help reduce Council Tax.”

It’s a viscous circle spinning out of control here. Read about how good your local authority is in the local authority self-published propaganda sheet, the paper then makes a profit, Council Tax is reduced and… read about how good your local authority is in…

Strangely absent from the response was the call to incorporate Lambeth Life into the one size fits all fix of #lambethcoop. The former is about making money, the latter is about cutting. Never the twain shall meet.

Gamekeeper then became poacher, as @cllrstevereed turned the tables on the @LambethLibDems and put forward his question to the Leader of the opposition. It was a wasted moment, with the holidaying Councillor Lumsden clearly (and not for the first, or last time) the target of the @LambethLabour Leader.

It was left to Councillor Braithwaite to brush away the tit for tat question of:

“Do you agree that a 20% increase on VAT will hit the poor the hardest?”

“This question comes straight from the pages of Lambeth Life The Daily Mail,” replied the @LambethLibDems Deputy, in an almost disappointed manner. Keeping up the theme of local irrelevance, Councillor Braithwaite added:

“The health inequality gap is greater now than it has been at any stage in the post-war years. The old Labour government is to blame for this”

Ask a silly question, etc.

A Nu Labour plant then completed Councillor Questions. @labourstockwell‘s Councillor Bigham asked @QueenFlo, the Cabinet Member for Culture, Sport and the 2012 Games, what legacy will be left in Lambeth after 2012.

Councillor Bigham also spoke about “my great friend Kate Hoey.” Cripes. If Nu Labour great friends behave by trying to unsettle the sitting MP and campaigning to replace her agent, then you can see why the Nu Labour project is still greeted with some cynicism within Lambeth.

@QueenFlo ticked all the right 2012 boxes, although strangely the sport (and legacy) of swimming didn’t feature in her reply.

The Cabinet Report from the meeting on Monday night followed. I say Cabinet Report, but really it was a debate focussing entirely on the Emergency Budget that has been bludgeoned through. This is a crucial matter, but equally important is Streatham Hub, another heavyweight agenda item on Monday night. Not a word was uttered all evening about the relocation of Streatham Ice Rink down the A23 to Brixton.

Councillor McGlone, the Cabinet Member for Finance, opened for @LambethLabour, stating:

“The ConDem government has delivered a war on local government services. Thanks to my colleague Councillor Dickson, we are now on a sound footing in Lambeth. The future however is out of control.”

With a bit of finger pointing across the party benches, Councillor McGlone added:

“You have no political mandate in Lambeth to attack public services.”

Which is just as well, seeing as though it is a Labour council ( a LABOUR council!) that is proposing four hundred public sector redundancies, and not a ConDem local authority.

Speaking for the opposition, @LambethLibDems’ Councillor Dodsworth delivered a macro economic speech, which although was well founded, it did little to address the cuts that are coming locally to Lambeth:

“There is not point blaming the government that has been in power for only eight weeks, when your party was in power at Westminster for thirteen years.”

Leave it to the lovely Lambeth Tories (seriously) to keep it #hyperlocal. Councillor Memery reminded the Nu Labour sheep that her party called for a 5% drop in Councillor allowances only last month, a move that was blocked by the @LambethLabour whip. Councillor Memery also spoke of the £5.8m debt in uncollected Council Tax.

With a nod towards *shhh* co-operation, Councillor Memery concluded by asking @cllrstevereed if he is willing to work with a neighbouring borough that has a proven track record in efficiency, and not a partner that is purely aligned because of political affiliation.

I wonder whom exactly Councillor Memery has in mind?

Moving on…

The slumbering big political beast that is @AnnaJCowen was soon awoken by the booming voice of Councillor Bradley, the @LambethLibDems’ lone voice in the Vassall ward. The straight talking local politician may like the sound of his own voice, but it is not to the liking of the Nu Labour sheep. Which is perhaps good reason to increase the decibels further still.

“I have been hearing fairytales in the chamber tonight. Here are three facts: (i) the national crisis is the fault of the old Labour government. (ii) Cuts didn’t start with the coalition government. They first appeared in Lambeth in 2006 with the local housing officers, in tandem with a 17% rent hike, and (iii) your pain is self-inflicted. The £10m overspend, the temporary housing scandal and the situation of only one swimming pool that is open in the borough.”

Blimey.

Following the reverberations echoing around the chamber after Councillor Bradley’s roar of a rallying call, a nervous hush fell over the Nu Labour benches as Mr Mayor called upon Labour Independent Councillor Abrams to speak.

Oh Lordy.

Having been suspended from @LambethLabour for no apparent public reason, behind the scenes and the Nu Labour whip has been doing his best to whip the popular local figure back into voting with the right wing of the party. A reply of “bugger off” would be considered polite, given the underhand circumstances.

Councillor Abrams chose instead to vent his disgust at his Vassall ward fellow representative, @LambethLibDem’s Councillor Bradley:

“With £85m of cuts, the ConDems have gone out of their way to attack the working class. It is a disgrace that Councillor Bradley supports a party that is withholding all money from Charles Edward Brooke School in our shared Vassall ward.”

It was a fighting speech from Councillor Abrams, and perfectly balanced to show his continued support of the Labour party, as well as his dignified stance in keeping to his left of centre principles. It even led to an endorsement from @cllrstevereed, and it may have just given Councillor Abrams a return ticket back into the Labour fold.

Back on the ropes after the heavyweight Councillor Abrams floored them, and @LambethLibDems reverted back to form, heckling inexperienced local politicians, rather than old brusiers like Red Jimbo Dickson. @LambethLabour’s Councillor Smith was lined up as the punch bag, with his maiden speech being the target to be shouted down and ridiculed from across the floor.

Defiantly he carried on, and it is to the credit of Councillor Smith that not only did he silence the LibDems, but also that the substance was relevant to his Knight’s Hill ward, Lambeth as a borough as well as the overall national picture.

More of the same, please.

But it’s a funny business this Nu politics. One minute you are selling out your principles and doing a deal with the Tory bogeyman, and then the next you’re bending over backwards and allowing Nu Labour to shaft you from behind.

A joint motion submitted by @LambethLabour and @LambethLibDems (Lordy) then followed, attacking the severe cutting in Lambeth of the BSF cash by the national coalition government. Politicians that were finger pointing only minutes earlier, were now lining up to arse lick one another.

All except the Lambeth Tories though. Bed hopping is not a Conservative pastime in the borough. Councillor Whelan complained of how his group was not invited to support the motion. The implication was that someone has to be to blame (someone always has to be to blame in the Rotten Borough) and the Tory bogeyman was the easy target.

But be careful where you are putting your tongue in this austere new age of Nu politics. It didn’t take long for @LambethLibDems to declare that the taste wasn’t to their liking, with Councillor Best stating:

“It is a shame that Labour didn’t act sooner in Lambeth over BSF. The funding withdrawal wouldn’t have applied if action had been taken earlier.”

Now go and wash your hands, dear.

Fifteen minutes was all it took for the Nu politics to last in Lambeth. The buggers are probably lining up their kiss and tell stories already. If you can’t be sensible, be safe.

Yeah, right…

Whoops.

Bumped up ahead of items including the Schools Exclusion Scrutiny Commission Action Plan, the Council Performance Digest and the Response to Dogs Scrutiny Commission (cripes) were the small matters of the Emergency Budget and Streatham Hub.

Blimey.

It was a collision of cabinet management, or even mis-management, depending on your own political point of view. Judging by the packed attendance in a sultry Room 8 at Lambeth Town Hall, it tended to suggest that the electorate had turned out to witness how the mis-management could best be resolved..

The Emergency Budget has mobilised a broad *shhh* coalition of objectors – Unison, the NUT and even the lovely Lambeth Tories. There was a vocal protest ahead of the meeting, but not much placard waving from the Blue Rinse mob on the steps of the Town Hall.

You can’t but help think that the Union representation is left wondering exactly who is the enemy here – the ConDem coalition for picking up the pieces left by the fag end of the New Labour government, or the local @LambethLabour party that is implementing the public sector cuts locally.

Inside Room 8 and I was greeted with the sight of @lambeth_council Chief Executive Derrick Anderson standing on top of a committee table. Cripes – was the big man about to stage his own one man Chief Exec protest, or perhaps even participate in some table top dancing?

Um, nope – he was simply getting more seats down to accommodate the larger than anticipated angry crowd at cabinet. That’s what I like about Lambeth politics – the big cheese is even doing his bit to appease the Little People.

@cllrstevereed introduced the debate, pointing the finger of blame for the Lambeth cuts on the ConDem coalition government. Councillor McGlone, the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources followed the lead.

Repeating the Nu Labour manifesto strap line of “we’re on you’re side” [clever] Councillor McGlone pointed out how the BSF and Connexions shortfall in funding are directly accountable to the national government. He was heckled down within the first minute.

Speaking for the @LambethLibDems opposition, Councillor Gavin Dodsworth stated that this was a “shocking introduction to the emergency budget.”

“No figures have been available and so we are not in a position to see if there is a better way of managing these cuts. It is complete gibberish. Lambeth Life has just been given a £1m plus increase in funding, and you have made no reference to the synergies [urgh!] that were pledged in the Lambeth Labour manifesto.”

Conservative Councillor John Whelan was then left in the absurd position to criticise the @LambethLabour cuts, a financial necessity that is of a direct consequence of his own political party. The good Councillor just about got away with it, adding:

“You should have put in place this Emergency Budget before the election, rather than wait to blame the Conservatives. The local Labour party speaks to the media about taking legal action against the BSF programme, but I have yet to see any evidence of this.”

Which is a good point and well put.

But it is at the blunt end of the frontline activity where these savage cuts will be felt the strongest. This is a point recognised by the Unison representative, who like Councillor Whelan, was left with a ridiculous ideological position in criticising a Labour council that is keen to make cuts and redundancies. It’s a funny old business this Nu politics.

“I am so disgusted and angry that it is hard to get my feelings out. A Labour council is planning to make 400 people redundant. This is unforgivable.”

A somewhat tenuous link was then made that this is a racist policy and is in breach of the Race Relations Act. The misguided thinking is that it is ethnic minority staff that will suffer as they are predominantly employed within this sector.

Many things in the Rotten Borough are the direct fault of @LambethLabour, but a wider sociological study linking ethnicity with social status would probably provide a more informed response.

Sarah Thompson of the NUT added:

“It is so frustrating that cabinet has only given me three minutes to talk about over three hundred job losses. The people of Lambeth didn’t vote Labour to be hit by public sector cuts.”

@cllr_robbins, the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People looked elsewhere for the blame, stating:

“The ConDem coalition has taken a wrecking ball to public services. It is the government that is making savage cuts.”

Councillor Jim Dickson, the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing offered a partial solution:

“I have been in local government for twenty years. It makes sense to make these cuts in bureaucracy rather then frontline services.”

Which is all rather strange, seeing as this is the exact opposite of what @LambethLabour is proposing.

“We need to share the pain fairly. We will be working with our neighbouring boroughs.”

I wonder if this *shhh* co-operation will also include Wandsworth? It would be a shame if in this new spirit of co-operation, @lambeth_council only chose to partner neighbouring boroughs that share the same political persuasion.

Speaking of co-operation – no one actually did. There wasn’t a single mention of #lambethcoop throughout the half hour Emergency Budget debate. Let us not forget that the rolling out of #lambethcoop is all about balancing the books. @cllrstevereed has stated previously:

“The Labour Government and Conservative and Lib Dem parties nationally have signalled significant cuts in public spending after the General Election. The cuts facing local councils could be greater than 20% overall. This means all councils are looking at how they can deliver services differently in future.”

#lambethcoop is all about the budget, isn’t it?

Isn’t it?

The removal of democratic responsibility and accountability of elected councillors would be a mighty high price to pay if the cost-saving agenda wasn’t actually bundled in with #lambethcoop.

It was then left to @cllrstevereed to close the cabinet Emergency Budget debate with the Leader of @lambeth_council arguing:

“We are operating under the constraints of a government of a different [political] colour to us. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be any pain, but we need to minimise this. We will not be making cuts that are not inflicted by the government.”

At least that is what I think @cllrsteverred said. It was difficult to hear underneath all of the heckling.

As with all @lambeth_council matters, the Emergency Budget was passed without debate from the cabinet. No objectors, and the agenda item was ticked off the list.

Deep breath. Here comes Streatham Hub.

Oh Lordy.

Pretty much everything that has to be said about the failed Hub project was spoken @ChukaUmunna‘s People’s Question Time staged in Streatham last week. Listening and answering questions at Dunraven School on Thursday was @QueenFlo, the Cabinet Member for Culture, Sport and the Olympics.

@QueenFlo made no reference at cabinet to the packed People’s Question time that she attended in Streatham less than a week ago. Not one person at @ChukaUmunna’s crisis meeting spoke in support of the Pope’s Road compromise. It seems that the strong message coming out of SW16 wasn’t relayed to cabinet.

Speaking about the plan to shift the temporary ice rink away from Streatham and to Pope’s Road car park in Brixton, Councillor Prentice, the Cabinet Member for Regeneration, admitted that:

“This is not the prefect solution.”

As for swimming in Streatham, @QueenFlo added:

“We did investigate a site for the temporary pool. The priority was always the continuity of ice. We don’t wish to peruse temporary swimming in Streatham.”

Not wishing to peruse swimming seems to be a strong theme within the Rotten Borough right now. The Brixton Rec Users Group have found out on this very same evening that cabinet is now planning to axe free swimming for under-5′s and over 60′s. Where this leaves the @LambethLabour election pledge of “free swimming for every resident” is open to speculation.

But back to Streatham. Or even back to Brixton. @LambethLibDems’ Councillor Alex Davies said:

“This is a further assault on Streatham. Tesco said that it can’t afford to help fund the temporary rink to remain in Streatham.”

This is no laughing matter, although @JackHopkins_Lab, my local Oval councillor, couldn’t but help find some humour in this rather serious point.

Meanwhile, @LambethLabour’s Councillor David Malley spoke as though a loaded gun was pointed towards his head, accepting with no opposition the removal of one of the major cultural and economic landmarks in his Streatham South ward.

A local Streatham swimmer tried to offer his view, but his three minutes at the mic were curtailed somewhat by @cllrstevereed, who was keen to question the swimmer under what capacity he was speaking – a swimmer or as a member of a local political party.

*sigh*

It’s all about the swimming, isn’t it?

Peter Newmark from the very successful Hands Off Our Common group was:

“Happy that the temporary ice rink is not going to be on the Common, but the alternative site should be in Streatham. Brixton has had plenty of regeneration. Streatham remains in relative poverty.”

But it’s not all about Streatham – Brixton is going to take a huge economic hit if Pope’s Road car park becomes a new ice rink. More to the point, Brixton Market will be left to die on its backside.

This was a point ably demonstrated by the Secretary of the Brixton Market Trader’s Association, who brought into cabinet an industrial size packet of rice and a barrel of cooking oil.

The message was that with nowhere to park cars in central Brixton, locals couldn’t be expected to carry such items on public transport. Members of cabinet were invited to road test the weight of the items. I had my camera at the ready, but sadly this was a photo opp that wasn’t going to happen.

“The multi-cultural, working class market will cease to exist” was the claim.

“Shops specialise in selling in bulk. This move is contrary to the council supposed support of the Brixton £. The council PR states that Brixton is Open for Business. Not anymore it isn’t.”

The final word on Streatham Hub was left to Councillor Lib Peck, the Cabinet Member for Housing:

“We need to be clear with Tesco. We need to get out of it what we want, and they need to get out of it what they want.”

Ever danced with the devil in the Devil in the pale moonlight?

And so with apologies to the Schools Exclusion Scrutiny Commission Action Plan, the Council Performance Digest and the Response to Dogs Scrutiny Commission (the decent @imogenwalker showing that her bark is as fierce as her bite) – it really was all about cuts and ice-skating at cabinet.

One of them involves blaming the free market ConDem coalition; the other is all about doing dirty deals with a corporate paymaster to provide a council run service.

See what I’ve done there?

“I was impressed to see that in this time of economic constraint and belt tightening, my household’s copy of Lambeth Life cost only 5p to produce.”

Cripes.

I’m not sure if this is faint praise or taking the p*** from young Charlie.

Ella Cope, the esteemed Editor of the cost-cutting local council information free (ish) sheet, replies with some waffle penny-pinching stats, coming to the conclusion that yep, Lambeth Life costs “just over 5p per edition.”

Ella also confirms that the print run is 136,000 copies each fortnight, which by my back of a fag packet calculations makes that something like an annual Lambeth Life overhead of a cool £176,800.

It may not appear much in absolute terms, but in relative terms, that’s a hell of a lot of public money spunked up the wall to put across the voter friendly message of @LambethLabour. In absolute terms, it would keep seven people on the frontline payroll with an annual salary of £25k.

Ella continues:

“…our continuing aim is to be able to produce Lambeth Life for no cost at all to residents.”

Or maybe just don’t produce it at all then.

All of this cost-cutting sets the theme for what is a rip-roaring fortnightly read, which really should carry the strapline of: We’re Broke! Don’t Panic!

In a State of the Nation address, @lambeth_council Chief Executive Derrick Anderson leads on the front page with: Austerity Measures Hit Public Sector Jobs. It’s a softening up of the blow for what lies within. All this talk of austerity and you half expect spam sarnies to be served up at Lambeth Town Hall.

“Currently we know that there will be at least 400 fewer posts across the council in 2011, we will try to address the majority of these through deleting vacant posts and reducing the number of temporary staff working for the organisation.”

Cutting back on the £700 per hour Lambeth Living consultancy staff would be a good start. Speaking of which, there is something of a mixed message coming out of Lambeth Town Hall with regards temporary staff – 46 temporary contracts have apparently been handed out within Lambeth Living.

Whoops.

Let’s flick the page and look for something slightly more positive:

Co-op Commission Announced.

Cripes.

The #lambethcoop presser is then re-published (but only at the cost of an extra 5p per issue…) detailing how the Citizen’s Commission Co-op Commission has finally announced that not a single citizen has been invited to sit at the top table.

Brushing aside the woeful inadequacies in this bodge of a Third Way quango of Nu Labour wonks (WONKS) – what of the stated aims of #lambethcoop?

@cllrstevereed trots out the well-worn line about:

“Reductions on national funding mean we need to drive the community-led agenda forward even faster.”

Steady the buffers, my friend. “Even faster?” It will be a blink and you’ll miss it moment before the consultation is actually complete. Which of course was never the intention all along. Oh no…

And so with the party political blame game being used as justification for @cllrstevereed and his Nu Labour cronies walking away from all democratic accountability, it is only fair that I trot out my well worn line about how #lambethcoop won’t actually save any money.

Actually, nope – I’ll leave that to Ed Balls MP, the highest-ranking Co-operative party MP (stop sniggering,) who actually believes that #lambethcoop will cost MORE money:

“I don’t think it’s a way to save money to be honest. Cutting corners is not what a co-operative council is about. Does being a co-operator save money in public services? I’m not sure that it will. I think that it might actually encourage us to spend more money for local people.”

Council Lobbies to Save Lambeth Schools covers the savage ConDem cuts to the Lambeth BSF programme. Some unlikely alliances have been formed within Town Hall, and it is very decent to see that the local response to the cuts appears to have cross-party support.

Blimey.

“An e-petition [urgh!] has been set up for residents to oppose the cuts. Visit blah blah blah…“

Please do visit and sign the petition. Nope – please *really, really* do visit and sign the petition put online by @LambethLabour. So far only fourteen people in a borough of over 250,000 citizens have. Only another 2,986 more signatures required to trigger a debate at Full Council, under the recent chest beating Power to the People Lambeth Life headline.

A deep *sigh* and then we’re on to Streatham Hub at the bottom of page 3.

Oh Lordy.

Ice Rink Could Come to Brixton reads the headline. This of course details the mega U-turn by the @lambeth_council cabinet in shifting the permanent temporary Streatham Rink away from SW16 and into the voter friendly Brixton power base.

The move down the A23 is all about appeasing Tesco, the corporate paymaster. Lambeth Life recognises this, stating:

“A spokesperson from A Spenhill, the wholly-owned regeneration subsidiary of Tesco, said: We want to make sure that the Tesco store gives customers the best possible shopping experience and that the overall development delivers all the regeneration benefits previously promised.”

Sounds good. Keep talkin’ fella:

“We are therefore making some small changes to our plans.”

Too right, matey – a *small* increased retail space of almost 50%. Meanwhile, the ice pad, swimming pool and dry sports facilities [urgh!] are no nearer now than what they were a decade ago when the whole farce first started.

That’s Life!