onionbagblog

As I have already blogged before, good work @cllrstevereed and the @labourstockwell #labourdoorstep team for walking the mean streets of Sunny Stockwell. You are genuinely welcome around here, and it is great to see local politicians out and about engaging with the electorate.

But about the issue though: electioneering petitioning the fine folk of the Bolney Meadow estate to get Presentation Housing to fit security doors on old council stock.

…as our friends at the ‘community information site’ covering all the community stories coming out of the Nu Labour camp in the Thornton ward so reliably inform us:

If you live in Lambeth, you can apply for a free home security improvement thanks to £100,000 of funding from the Labour government

Safe as houses.

I’m sure there is some perfectly explainable bureaucratic response involving council stock managed by an ALMO, run through Lambeth Living and then outsourced as a cooperative John Lewis style of housing arrangement, that creates red tape with regards the grant.

Phew.

But it’s all about the residents and their security doors, isn’t it?

For all the political posturing within Lambeth ahead of the local elections, sometimes a story comes along that puts all the micro level real politik jostling into perspective.

The South London Press chief journalist responsible for covering the Lambeth patch has been arrested in connection with a physical and homophobic assault of a Lambeth Council cabinet member. Greg Truscott admitted the assault and received a police caution.

A mere caution for this level of offence seems incredibly lenient. Witness statements supporting the attack made this difficult for the solicitor representing Truscott to advise anything other than a confession. With no previous convictions, a caution was as far as the police could take the case.

There is no mention of any internal disciplinary punishment for an offence that is clearly a conflict of work interest. @SthLondonPress has finally caught up with the modern interweb and has created a twitter account. The conversation is all one way – requests for clarification have been ignored.

A physical and homophobic assault inflicted on any individual ranks as incredibly vile with me. It is this very same kind of crime story that Truscott is familiar with, as his newspaper has covered homophobic attacks taking place in Lambeth.

The implication however for @SthLondonPress is one of absolute accountability. As we approach the local elections, any credibility on reporting @lambeth_council matters has now completely disappeared.

At least the local paper will have some form of excuse for its policy of not sending its chief Lambeth reporter to local council meetings. The paper fails its readership, the politicians get an easy ride and the local electorate loses out on any objective reporting.

Meanwhile, @streathamnews has picked up on the policy of the flagship local paper being funded by carrying ads for prostitutes. Tit for tat journalism benefits no one. The solution is for @SthLondonPress to finally come clean and stop being funded by the exploitation of women.

It would be one less stick for its opponents to beat the paper with and @streathamnews could go back to reporting proper political stories. It would also remove the justification by @lambeth_council for publishing Lambeth Life as the only means of printing statutory ads in a borough wide paper that is not funded by prostitution.

Violent and homophobic attacks, two pages of ‘adult service’ ads twice a week – why does Sir Ray Tindle still believe that he is publishing a family newspaper?

A quick check of the diary reveals that it is four weeks since the award winning @lambeth_council planning department confirmed that demolition work would commence “within two weeks” on the Clap’ham Road / Crewdson Road property without planning permission.

Here is the rather ugly scene from earlier today:

Same old same.

Don’t be fooled by the scaffolding – it’s simply a ruse to confuse the award winning @lambeth_council planning department, put up by Mukesh Andani [still the top search on m'blog, closely followed by 'jason+cobb+libdem' - arf!]

The scaffolding has been in place (sort of) for five months. Not a single builder has worked on the property to remove the top floor that was put in place without planning permission.

Back in August 2009 and Mukesh Andani was given the option (i) of removing the top floor of the flat or (ii) face a six-month jail sentence. The third option of putting up scaffolding and say yah boo sucks to locals residents wasn’t mentioned at the time.

Put frankly, the property is now a bloody eyesore. The scaffolding net has become loose, and the corner of the Clap’ham and Crewdson Road looks rather a sorry state.

Meanwhile, local residents that choose to abide by the law are no better off. I received a letter this morning, notifying me of planning permission applied on the property next door but one to me.

I can sympathise with what the new owners want to do, but I feel that their plans haven’t taken into account the needs the local environment. I’ve objected, but with a view to a possible compromise.

The easy option it seems is to simply go down the Mukesh Andani route, and bypass the award winning @lambeth_council planning department.

Now then, here’s an interesting proposition…

And so I write a hashed considered blog post all about the perceived threat of crime in SW8, and then an hour later, I receive a letter through the door:

Residents of XXXX House, XXXX Road SE8 [it's actually SW8]

Dear Residents

RE: The Bill

I am writing to inform you that The Bill will be filming in the location named above, on Wednesday 17th March 2010 between the hours of 08:30 and 19:30 approximately.

As a result you may notice a little more activity in the nearby area; I would like to offer assurance that the schedule has been planned to ensure you are caused minimal inconvenience and disturbance.

Yours faithfully

David Downing: Unit Manger
For and on behalf of Talkback Thames Television.

Who sanctions such filming? How much do they get paid? Where does the money go?

For an area that is suffering an increase in local crime of late, I find it in extremely poor taste that the mean streets of Sunny Stockwell are going to become the back drop for some TV friendly violence.

Our neighbourhood is still coming to terms with the death of a teenager following a stabbing incident here just over a year ago. For a TV production company to return to this patch and record a crime drama, all in the name of viewing figures, seems slightly incredulous to me.

Have these people no shame or morals? I live in a community, not a TV production set. We have enough of our own problems around here right now, without having to deal with a TV production crew trampling around with their clipboards all day.

It is beyond comical. The Police Dispersal Zone that was introduced into this area to deal with ASB is now going to provide the backdrop for this very same kind of activity.

It’s like crime has been sanctioned in SW8 for one day only. Roll your cameras, do the crime tourism thing and then bugger off back to media land. Not a second thought for the crime that remains around here, once you have the money shot.

Here’s hoping that the failure so far of the PDZ to control Mad Rupert of SW8 continues when the boys from The Bill are walking around my little patch of South London.

Yer man Mad Rupert will introduce them to the demands of front line policing. Welcome to Sunny Stockwell.

Crime is an issue that concerns many around my little patch of South London. Not wanting to sound like Nick Ross, but it’s usually a fear of crime, rather than crime per se, that is often the real threat.

Our friends over at Stand Up For Stockwell have published their response today – a video which looks at the Conservative party’s national policy on crime, rather than addressing the real issues on the ground here in Stockwell.

At least this move is in line with @LambethLabour’s election policy of uploading videos to youtube that criticise others, rather than offering any genuine local solutions.

I’ve managed to have a look at a presentation delivered by the Safer Lambeth Partnership, an organisation that includes the council, police force, probation service, health agencies and other organisations who work together to deliver the Community Safety Strategy.

The data presented was used to assist the Police Tasking and Coordination meeting in the allocation of resources to help reduce crime in Lambeth over a two-week period in February.

It must be emphasised that all data relates to only reported crime. This is often distorted, with bizarre policies such as having to report the disappearance of a wheelie bin as theft.

But hopefully by looking at some of the micro level crime taking place around here right now, it will offer a more positive response to crime in Stockwell than simply posting up a fear of crime video.

The Burglary Performance is steady around my area. The Oval and Larkhall wards both report a rise of one. Stockwell shows a decrease of two, showing that the figures are more or less stable over the previous period. Ferndale and Tulse Hill have been highlighted as priority locations.

The recommendations are for Lambeth Living to identify vulnerable homes. This is an issue that the @LambethLabour #labourdoorstep team have been electioneering with over on the Bolney Meadow estate area of late. I’m still not sure why a party in power has to organise a petition to get security grills placed on council owned stock. I’m not alone, either.

Speaking of door knockers… My personal policy is to never answer the door unless I am expecting someone at my home. This may mean that I don’t get to engage with the good local door knocking politicians; it also means that I am unlikely to be taken in by the many chancers that come door knocking with their tales of endless woe.

As the presentation identifies, door knocking is also used as a tactic to assess if a property is empty or not. I usually get around this concern by playing rather loud music.

It’s incredibly depressing that I can’t feel safe to open my door to strangers. The constant tales of needing bus fare to visit a sick relative, or a girlfriend about to give birth, sadly means that community around here has been reduced to living behind a bolted door.

I feel very uneasy about the deployment of mobile CCTV as a safeguard. I feel equally uneasy about the current fear of crime. It’s a tough balancing act, and one that is hard to equate. Possibly the timely call for a higher policing presence on the streets is a solution?

On a micro local level and it seems that CCTV is being employed to tackle “night time economy issues.” This is a euphemism for binge drinking and drug dealing around Clapham High Street.

The presentation includes details of the new Antisocial Behaviour Reporting Line. This is a brilliant move, especially so around the Police Dispersal Zone in SW8. I hope the phone line has more success in curtailing ASB than my recent efforts in approaching three officers to deal with Mad Rupert of SW8.

Sticking with ASB and I was rather shocked to see that Larkhall suffers from the highest level of substance abuse in the borough. Twenty calls relating to substance misuse were made in the Larkhall ward during the two-week period.

This is a figure higher than areas such as Brixton Hill (17) and Coldharbour (7) where blatant drug dealing is seen as the norm. I wonder why the figure is so high for Larkhall? My only thought is that Larkhall Park becomes something of drug dealing hotspot once the evening falls.

The presentation concludes by stating that the Partnership Action Team will be deployed at the weekend around Clapham. This is once again related to the nighttime economy.

There is nothing new in the presentation to suggest that crime around my little patch of South London is running at a level that I wasn’t previously aware of. It’s not a positive news story, but at least it is being addressed.

It would be useful if our friends @labourstockwell addressed the local issues, rather than point towards the national picture.

Ah – lookey here – the party political propaganda piece, as put out by those caring, sharing sorts @LambethLabour has been removed by youtube. It seems that a “copyright issue” over an image of Lambeth LibDem leader Ashley Lumsden is the technicallitiy that tripped up the highly offensive offering.

That’s a shame. I would have preferred for the video to have been removed for simply being a bit rubbish. As stated in the previous post, it added absolutely nothing to the political debate in Lambeth as we head towards the local elections.

It only served the purpose of putting across the manifesto that the Labour led administration plans to use – name calling and negative campaigning. The electorate within Lambeth deserve a more constructive form of political campaigning.

The Facebook comments posted by the Nu Labour chums talk of censorship, and further negative campaigning to come. Shame on them. To confuse censorship with vile electioneering is not an easy mistake to make.

Publicly calling the leader of the opposition party “Slumsden” sums up the juvenile nature of some of our local politicians. I wonder if such robust language is used when the campaign teams do their much hyped #labourdoorsetp thing every Saturday afternoon?

The video represented all that is rotten at the core of Lambeth Labour – portioning blame elsewhere for present failures, arrogance and a complete betrayal of the answers that the electorate want to hear right now.

Here is the justification from Lambeth Laboour leader @cllrstevereed in using the video nasty as part of a progressive local election campaign:

The good Councillor once again totally overlooks the positive campaigning that we want to see around here. In the absence of any uplifting message from the #labourdoorsteppers, the electorate will be able to judge for themselves on 6th May.

Here’s the latest party political propaganda piece, as put out by those caring, sharing sorts at Lambeth Labour. Pretty vile, isn’t it? Of course I’m completely aware that by embedding the offensive video on m’blog, I’m giving it a *slightly* wider reach. All news is good news, ‘n all that.

But nope – I give the electorate in Lambeth a lot more credit than the current Labour led administration clearly does. The video would be comical, if it weren’t so negative.

The good @chukaumunna, Labour’s PPC for the Streatham ward, took issue last week with my use of the phrase the ‘Rotten Borough.’ We talked about how as Lambeth locals, we should be celebrating the area, and creating a positive image for outsiders.

I rather like yer man Chuka and he won me over. I took his points on board. Sadly it seems that his local party on the ground, the one that he has been trying to distance himself from, isn’t so understanding when it comes to the negative portrayal of Lambeth.

What makes the video even pithier is that some fool has actually sat down and spent some considerable time creating all the content. They either have a very lot of time on their hands, or are seriously concerned about the outcome of the forthcoming local elections.

I’m often accused of picking political points (usually by the very same local politicians I think political points needs to be picked with.) I’d find it a very soul destroying task however to come up with such a pessimistic manifesto as portrayed in the video.

I don’t want to hear about allegations of past failures in Lambeth. If we’re going down that particular route, then you may as well overlook yer Rotten Borough metaphors and trace the route right back to Loony Lambeth.

I don’t want to see a Petri dish of a social lab experiment road tested in a borough that suffers from some of the most extreme social deprivation in the country.

I want to talk about the future. I want to find solutions for an area that has become a political playground for career politicians that should know better.

And so yeah, I’ve embedded the video in the hope that others can see what a complete pile of twaddle it is. It tells you all you need to know about the priorities of the current Labour led administration in the Rotten Borough (ooh – get you) and little about the people that really matter in Lambeth.

Shame on you.