onionbagblog

Plans for a Bank Holiday booze session were put on hold, with news coming my way that BIG politics was heading over to my little patch of South London. Having chased down Dave in vein around Kennington, and then slept through Gordo’s Brixton Hill blink and you’ll miss it church visit the day before, the Boy Clegg was Streatham bound on Bank Holiday Monday.

Blimey.

This has been something of an arse of a stage-managed election campaign. Fear of the Little People has kept the Little People away. One word out of context, and that carefully handled PR campaign comes crashing down all around you.

Which is why I like to keep it local. Doorstepping a local Councillor in the kitchen of a community hall, and then locking the door until you have got the answers out of him, is the way that our politicians, both local and national, need to be held to account.

Dave and his Bullingdon toffs aligned themselves last week with some bonkers right wing free market meets Bible Bashers event in SE11. Meanwhile yer Big Man Gordo locked the church doors in Brixton Hill, along with a congregation you can count on your left hand. Or even right hand, as the case must be with Nu Labour.

Not so the LibDems.

Ah, the Love Me I’m a Liberal Lot. You just gotta, um, love ‘em. I think.

Cripes.

So yeah, news broke on twitter over the weekend that the Boy Clegg was coming my way. It was an open invite, and an opportunity for the Little People to come and see what the Messiah nonsense was all about. Attendance and first hand debate has to be better than accepting the twaddle that has been coming out of the mainstream media since that epochal first Leader’s Debate.

There was a sense that you could almost smell the power (behave) at the Palace Community Centre just off Christchurch Road on Monday morning. You could certainly smell the booze from some old boy who was taking the ‘refreshing’ approach of the LibDem agenda perhaps slightly too far left of centre.

The Nu Labour boys were also out in force. General elections aren’t won by the size of your placard. If that were the case, then you may as well reduce the whole farce down to a willy measuring competition. There were some big dicks loitering around the mean streets of SW2 as we awaited the arrival of the Messiah.

I welcomed the appearance of our friends from @LambethLabour, and encouraged some local political debate with a self-proclaimed “Nu Labour activist.”

“Do you support the policy of the right wing Nu Labour cabinet in Lambeth to build a temporary ice rink on Streatham Common,” I asked the activist, ever keen to keep it the #hyperlocal.

The smell of booze from the Brixton old boy suddenly became a smell of fear.

“I’m not that familiar with the specifics of what you are talking about,” came the response. Which is a perfectly fine Nu Labour style of argument for dealing with the Little People. Deny all knowledge and grin for Gordo. The activist had been trained well in the political skills of inactivity.

She did lead me however to a local Labour candidate who was also awaiting the arrival of the Messiah by making rather a lot of over-excitable noise. In all the excitement, our friend from @LambethLabour forgot to give me his name.

No worries. I pressed him on the issue of the temporary rink on the Common, a debate that has divided the local community, and all through the making of @LambethLabour bending over backwards to accommodate a multi-national superstore.

“Ah, but @ChukaUmunna is AGAINST the plans for the rink,” came the response.

And yourself, um, un-named Sir? If you were elected to @lambeth_council, would you too take the principled position that is allowed by an (as yet) unelected PPC, or would you roll over and tickle the underbelly of @cllrstevereed?

Our @LambethLabour friend took this opportunity to get even more excitable, and waved his big banner around at the LibDems, without answering my question.

Like I said - there was a lot of big dicks around SW2 on Monday morning.

But anyway - about that yellow and orange Messiah…

We waited, waited, and waited for Saint Nick to show up in Streatham. A religious themed Gospel band kept us entertained and amused. I prefer to think that religion and politics don’t make the best of bedfellows. I almost took to the stage though for some good ‘ol fashioned South London moonstompin’ when the Gospel kids broke into a verse of Monkey Man.

Ruuuuude!!!! Boi!!!!!

It was around about this time when the slick, election machine of the political party became slightly chaotic. Labour placards jostled with LibDem placards. The Tories were nowhere in sight (which is a bit weird, seeing as though @ChukaUmunna reckons that only the Tories can topple him in Streatham.)

All that Gospel; all that political hot air. I needed a breather ahead of the arrival of the Messiah (still stuck in Lewisham, was the tweet that dropped from the good @Darryl1974.)

My 3G signal was crap inside the community centre. I had content waiting to escape from my iPhone and I knew just the man who was able to free me from the restraints of the political rally.

“Wolfgang!!!!!” I shouted, having spotted revolutionary leader Wolfgang Moneypenny, spokesperson for @FreeSouthLondon, standing outside the Palace Community Centre.

For some reason, the good LibDem folk didn’t think Wolfgang was part of the community, and left the poor chap loitering outside. What happened next I take full responsibility for, and make no apologies for acting in the dark art of political spin behind the scenes.

“Wolfgang, my fine chap,” I said. “You need to be over there…”

I thrust the placard and platitudes of @FreeSouthLondon straight into the throng of the mainstream media press corp. The snappers from Her Majesty’s Popular Prints lapped up the South London revolutionary.

F*** me, we’ve created a monster, I pondered, as the political agenda switched from the Clegg bounce to the Wolfgang limp. I look forward to the front pages of Her Majesty’s P0opular Prints with some interest come Tuesday morning.

I gave the nod and the wink to the LibDem doorman, leaving Wolfgang stuck outside (actually, that’s not quite true - @LambethLibDems leader Councillor Lumsden told the doorman “he’s one of us” (ooh - get you!) as I was ushered back in. I haven’t been so offended since @AnnaJCowen outed me as a closet Notts County fan.)

Back indoors and Floella Benjamin (blimey!) was keeping the crowd happy. If you can portray Humpty Dumpty as the life and soul of the party for half an hour on kiddies TV, then whipping up a storm with the Love Me I’m a Liberal lot has to be an easy gig.

And then finally, finally…

“The great man is upon us!”

Nope, Wolfgang Moneypenny wasn’t in the building, but the Boy Clegg was back in town, alongside Streatham PPC @Chris4Streatham. It was like a Biblical moment (seriously) as the Messiah parted the Great Red Sea of SW2 as he strode through the masses.

There’s a mixed up local political metaphor in there somewhere. Of course the sea may even have been Green, but this most certainly wasn’t a Blue sky day.

After a *shhh* overcast South London morning, the sun finally broke through, just as the Boy Clegg took to the Streatham stage. I’m not sure if the sun was shining upon the Messiah, or out of his backside.

But yep - Nick’s here…

The speech itself was uplifting, positive, and slightly too focussed on the national agenda for my liking. This is the man who has genuine ambitions to be the next Prime Minister, and so I think he is forgiven.

Education was a key focus, as well as criticism of the arrogance of the Tories. This speaks volumes as to the feeling around the Streatham LibDem camp, that the Tories are attacked rather than Nu Labour.

@Chris4Streatham spoke next, thanking the hard working local constituency members, and encouraging more work in the remaining days ahead.

Sadly there wasn’t any time for an audience Q & A. I wanted to ask about the increasing power of big business in our local communities, and how the LibDems can help us, as we try and take back control of leisure in Lambeth, rather than place all power in the hands of a multi-national superstore.

I was also keen to ask about the fear of the Tory bogeyman, a claim that has been put out by @ChukaUmunna around Streatham in recent weeks.

But nope - all the attention was now with the big boys from mainstream media land. Quentin Letts was sucking a lemon at the back of the hall, and The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland had been dispatched to deepest South London, showing his paper’s new found love for the Love Me I’m a Liberal lot.

I took the debate outside, and was thrilled to find the relative sanity of the South London #hyperlocal blogging community around me. @BrixtonBlog shared the same amusement as me over Monkey Man; @StreathamPulse was pleased to see that a gold dust story had landed right in the centre of his #hyperlocal news patch.

@SthLondonPress?

Come in @SthLondonPress?

Oh, as you are…

Wolfgang Moneypenny meanwhile was too busy trying to cop off with the delightful Mrs Clegg, and telling the lovely Miriam in Spanish that: “You are very, very beautiful.”

The cheeky South London scoundrel.

A lone heckler during the LibDem leader’s speech was later seen boarding the local battle bus of Tory PPC Rahoul Bhansali - ah… so *that’s* how local politics works.

I caught up with Caroline Pidgeon, my Vauxhall PPC, and asked her how she thought the event, and her campaign had both gone:

Wolfgang then gate crashed the conversation and I had the pleasure of introducing Caroline to a genuinely revolutionary South London fighting figure. Which must be a first, considering that Caroline is up against the complacent Kate Hoey.

Battle bus boarded for the Kingmaker to be, and @Chris4Streatham kindly offered me his thoughts as the banners were put away and Streatham returned to some sense of normality:

The Streatham constituency is still too close to call. The only certainty is that despite what @LambethLabour is saying about the fear of the Tory bogeyman, either @ChukaUmunna or @Chris4Streatham will be elected to Westminster at some time around 3:30am on Friday morning.

Having lost @AnnaJCowen in all the excitement of the political scrum, we rendez vouzed to exchange tales of political intrigue. The poor girl ‘aint much of a political beast, but she was thrilled to see Anthony H Wilson standing next to her during the speeches.

Ah - we need have a conversation together later, my dear…

And so that is how national politics works on a #hyperlocal patch. You plan, you stage-manage, and yet some form of anarchy still manages to break out.

There’s hope yet for the sleeping beast that is South London democracy.

Another wet South London Monday evening, another @lambeth_council cabinet meeting with leisure high up on the agenda. Actually, leisure was the *only* item on the agenda.

Blimey.

Anyone would think that there is a local election lurking around the corner…

This specially convened cabinet meeting, the final one of the @LambethLabour administration (we think…) was scheduled for the not very voter friendly time of 5pm. All praise the power of flexible working from home.

And so after a decade of political and corporate dithering, the future of Streatham Hub all came down to one hour of complex political and economic points being condensed into a voter friendly package, and then a big red rubber stamp from our friends at @LambethLabour.

Streatham Hub is happening.

Or is it…?

The deal finally struck by the @lambeth_council cabinet with Tesco earlier this month is a genuine good news story. I had my doubts (rather major doubts) but the boys and girls of @LambethLabour did us good.

Having given the cabinet a particularly rough ride over leisure in recent months, I am positive that Streatham Hub is finally at a stage closer to being built than it has been at any time in the past decade.

But the seeds of doubt remain. Condensed into a fun packed one hour session in Room 8 at Lambeth Town Hall, we heard the Cabinet Member for Employment and Enterprise describing the deal as: “not perfect - you have the right to be sceptical given our track record.” The Cabinet Member for Housing and Regeneration added: “we didn’t get everything we wanted.”

Print that in your party manifesto.

Probably not, but you may read over the coming weeks how Streatham Common has been confirmed as the site for the proposed temporary ice rink. The adjective of ‘proposed’ has to remain along legal guidelines - the Council’s very own legal adviser interjected during the meeting to advise that the Secretary of State would have to be consulted ahead of plonking a 60m x 30m ice pad on a piece of Common land.

Other headline news coming out of the Hub meet was that twelve other sites in Streatham were considered for the temporary provision. Cabinet refused to name these on the public record. Ward boundaries are a sensitive matter, especially so during times of a local election.

But this *should* be a done deal. Yer man @Chukaumunna, the rather nice PPC candidate for Streatham, confirmed to me at the close of business that Mr Tesco had just told him that this is the third deal that the baked bean seller has been asked to consider. Three times lucky, once, twice, three times a South London lady, etc.

“They’re [Tesco] all about money, that outfit. If they don’t go ahead and do it, they know what is going to happen. Our community won’t give them any more planning permission.”

You can see why I rather like Mr C.

And so what of the detail of the blink and you’ll miss it rubber-stamping of the future of leisure in Streatham? Cllr Peck opened up the ‘debate’ (sort of) by declaring this as “the real deal.”

Her cabinet colleague, Cllr Heywood confessed:

“The news was not good in November. The continued closure of Streatham Leisure Centre is impacting upon leisure provision in the whole borough.”

Well said that lady. I am rather warming to the Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities. I feel that the portfolio of leisure has been dumped on her from high above, with little previous thought as to a well-planned leisure policy.

“The refurbishment of the old leisure centre is not viable,” continued Cllr Heywood. “We will guarantee that the temporary facilities on the Common will be dismantled and resorted.”

Ah yes, about those temporary facilities on Streatham Common. This is now the key issue for me, and I suspect for many local politicians putting himself or herself up for re-election on May 6th. The issue is one of credibility. How can you do the #labourdoorstep Saturday afternoon thing, when you are proposing to put a temporary ice rink on a public piece of land?

Make no mistake - this is one of the key battlegrounds as the ballot box looms. @LambethLabour has staked what remains of its reputation on leisure in Streatham. The timing of the Hub agreement could either re-elect Labour, or revert them back to the opposition benches, should the electorate not take too kindly to the temporary leisure arrangements.

Speaking of not taking too kindly to events, yer man from Tesco decided to turn up at the cabinet meeting, having declined the invitation to attend the public meeting last month. I don’t think cabinet had a bag of lard waiting to fill the empty seat, as was the case a few weeks ago.

Andrew Boyle confirmed the specifics of the deal that his company has signed up to:

“A 25m swimming pool, a 13m teaching pool, four football courts, gym space for 100 machines, a 60m x 30m ice rink, 250 new homes, a piazza [urgh] 600 jobs, and oh, a whopping great big supermarket.”

Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Needs must, ‘n all that.

But will the leisure facilities open at the same time as the whopping great big supermarket? A representative from the fine Streatham Ice Skating Action Group, asked cabinet for reassurances that the rink and superstore will both open simultaneously.

The concern is that Tesco will build the superstore, and then lose interest in all local matters. Cllr Peck confirmed that the Hub project would be built as one entity.

Ah, but will the temporary leisure facilities ever open…?

The Friends of Streatham Common confirmed that they would formally object to the Common being used to site a temporary ice rink.

“This is a Grade 1 listed nature space. The Common is for public use. Our concern is that the temporary will become the permanent.”

The Friends group called for the temporary rink to be housed on the Hub site itself. Common sense, it would seem.

You can see what is happening here. The complete meltdown of @LambethLabour’s confused leisure policy is dividing locals on the ground. The Friends group rightfully wants to protect the peace on the Common, the skaters and hockey players want continuity of ice.

Meanwhile, @LambethLabour wants to get re-elected, and there’s plenty of political capital to be made out of a prestige new development in the borough.

This is a point not surprisingly made by @LambethLibDems leader, Cllr Lumsden:

“Can we rely upon your promises?”

To demonstrate his point, the good Cllr then produced a rather bizarre artefact, in the form of a Christmas card sent out by @lambeth_council leader @cllrstevereed. It was a weird moment in La La Lambeth Land, as the LibDem leader read out the seasonal greeting stating that the Hub agreement has been signed, and it will be opening in 2010.

Part comical, part rather major political point scoring, Cllr Lumsden milked the moment, remembering that the card was sent out in relation to @cllrstevereed’s election contest to be selected as the PPC candidate for Streatham. With the whole Hub project at stake, and with yer man @chukaumunna sitting in the cabinet room, this was no time for petty party politics.

Cllr Lumsden made a more valid point by asking why Lambeth Life stated that “twelve sites” are under consideration for the temporary facilities, yet Cabinet confirmed that Streatham Common was the only option.

The LibDem leader wrapped up the small amount of time that cabinet allocated for an opposition response, by asking for Tesco to place a bond with @lambeth_council, that will be returned once the Hub is complete.

The bond idea was supported by @streathamaction, as was the call to name the other sites that cabinet has considered. Sounds too sensible, and as with most events regarding the Hub over the past ten years, the bond idea was rejected, as was the suggestion of naming the other sites that were under consideration.

A bit of leeway was granted by @jkazantzis, the Cabinet Member for Employment and Enterprise:

“Placing the temporary gym in the Rookery car park is not ideal. Stockport Road Playing Fields would be better suited. The residents would welcome these new facilities.”

Seems like the good @jkazantzis’ cabinet colleagues don’t share the same view as the SW16 locals.

@cllrmarkbennett, the Cabinet Member for Community Safety, and the Cllr for the Streatham South ward, thanked the various stakeholders for their patience during the whole project:

“Residents have huge concerns over the use of the Common. We share these concerns. We have looked at them objectively, but the Common is the only viable site. To ignore this would be to the detriment of Streatham.”

The sentiments were genuine, but as @RahoulBhansali, the Conservative PPC for Streatham would later remark to me - “it sounds like some local Councillors are speaking with a loaded gun raised to their head.”

A council officer then confirmed the criteria that was set out by cabinet in selecting a temporary site:

“Suitability [vague] structure, ownership, time, traffic and re-instatement of land. The Common wins on all of these.”

Cllr Peck concluded the debate with some Nu Labour twaddle of:

“Confidence, community and delivery.”

I would argue that after four years of the Nu Labour project in Lambeth, community is perhaps the only one of these buzz phrases that the ruling administration is able to boast of.

It then came to decision time, and whaddya know - cabinet rubber-stamped the agreement for Streatham Hub. Once gain, I need to confirm: this is a good news story. Local politicians have worked incredibly hard on this project. Mistakes have been made, but we now hopefully have a way ahead for the Hub.

Having door stepped the Labour Parliamentary Candidate for the Streatham ward, @chukaumunna, as well as his LibDem counterpart, @chris4streatham at the recent hub meet last month, I completely overlooked any aspirations of political objectivity by not finding the Tory to talk to.

This wasn’t deliberate - honest. There was a huge sense of confusion on the night once the main hustings had broken up. I truly wanted to find out what the response from Conservative PPC Rahoul Bhansali would be.

With so much spinning taking place at a local level in the run up to both the general and local elections, it is all the more important to actually go out there and try and carve your own path through all of the political twaddle.

I offer an open platform for *any* political party that is putting forward candidates in Lambeth to meet up and offer their solutions as to how to put the borough back to where it should be, as a thriving, sharing and responsible place to live.

A bit of door stepping in the corridors of power in SW2, and Rahoul and his team of Tory local council candidates very kindly agreed to a brief @audioboo.

It all got slightly confused towards the end - a combination of one of the Conservative local council candidates not knowing that cabinet had just agreed to bulldoze the existing site with one fell swoop of the wrecking ball, plus some rather lovely steel drum music drifting in from the Lambeth Black Achievement Awards.

But I think we got there in the end.

Phew.

Many thanks again to Rahoul for his time. I greatly enjoyed his company, and it was worthwhile in being able to speak directly with a candidate that I might have otherwise overlooked.

Rahoul’s (friendly) rival in Streatham is of course @chukaumunna. Yer man is fast becoming a highly visible face in the borough, listening to concerns, and offering solutions. Here is his take on the cabinet decision to confirm the Tesco deal.

And so with cabinet having agreed the Hub deal, @audioboo’s recorded with various PPC and even time for a bit of political gossip with some rather good local sources, that was yer lot.

At least I thought it was.

I cycled back down Brixton Road in the South London rain, and then thought: hang on - they’ve not mentioned swimming.

Cripes.

I was following the debate in great detail, tweeting and even smiling at the cabinet from my vantage point of the front row. It was only on the journey home when I tried to piece together the wider picture that I realised something was missing.

I’m happy to stand corrected, but my notes make no mention of swimming. The temporary rink on the Common took up most of the time; the ‘dry facilities’ that will be dumped on the Rookery were also very much on the radar.

The location for the temporary swimming pool wasn’t even a thought in the town planner’s sketchbook. Swimming is certainly seen as a Cinderella service within Lambeth.

Streatham has a proud history of hockey, but you need somewhere to house all those “free swimming sessions for every resident,” as promised in the @LambethLabour election manifesto.

[Point of order: I asked a cabinet member for an off the record clarification to explain this astonishing election pledge. I shall report back when I receive an on the record response.]

And so in conclusion, it’s still all about location, location, location for the Hub. Hopefully the main project will take care of itself. In the interim, I’m none the wise where the temporary rink, gym and pool (?) are going to be housed.

Meanwhile, May 6th draws ever closer…

A few more observations have headed my way before the @lambeth_council special cabinet meeting on Monday to ratify the proposals for Streatham Hub.

I remain positive about the plan. Ten years of political and corporate dithering was always going to lead to a painful process for the leisure users in SW16.

Hopefully now, both politicians and baked bean sellers have seen sense. A pool and rink should be back in place in Streatham by 2012, and as the pay off, Tesco gets to do colonise a corner of South London.

The art of compromise is unfortunately the way of the modern world. Here’s hoping that there will be more giving than taking when it comes to the temporary leisure facilities during the interim.

And so anyway - those points of interest that have landed in my inbox from an unnamed political source:

(i) As I understand it, the 50% increase in Tesco shop space is by creating a mezzanine floor within the proposed Tesco store building.

Urgh.

Any talk of a mezzanine should lead to the culprit being forced to listen to the Massive Attack album of the same name. It’s as crap as the concept of a mezzanine is. It’s all about the local people, isn’t it? A 50% site increase being used for a mezzanine could be used for, oh, a genuine local public square.

Hang on…

(ii) Public Town Square – this is a bit of a joke as there is hardly any room in the agreed plan for any public space – it’s more more of a ‘virtual’ public space adjacent to the church which is staying, certainly nothing anything near the size of the Windrush Square.

Streatham High Road isn’t the most inviting stretch in South London. The area is crying out for a central meeting point, not some mezzanine.

(iii) Several Lib Dem Councillors [think I've just blown my source] plus Chris Nicholson attended an impromptu meeting of the ice hockey users on Saturday. They were understandably extremely nervous that the ice rink would be demolished before the new combined ice rink / pool / leisure centre will be built. They remember Richmond ice rink from the 1980’s. It was demolished on the basis that the developers said they would build a new one. It never happened.

What’s to stop Tesco bulldozing the current ice rink, then finding that unexpected changes in the retail market prevented them from proceeding with building the new ice rink etc. The previous planning application and development agreement guaranteed that the existing ice rink would stay open until the new one was built. That guarantee has now gone. Also, there is the example of Leeds and Tesco for broken Tesco promises.

I guess we just have to take Tesco and Labour led @lambeth_council at their word on this one.

Yep, I’m thinking the same…

(iv) Building a temporary ice rink on Streatham Common? The temporary ice rink in Cardiff cost £3 million, was supposed to be there for only three years and is still there four years later. The Streatham Ice Rink will have to be on the same scale as Bristol, if it is to allow Olympic style hockey tournaments to take place. What about the likely opposition from Streatham residents about building a structure of this size on the Common?

Exactly.

See an earlier comment on m’blog, posted by a resident of Streatham Common. As mentioned in my original response to the Hub decision, I still believe that the issue is all about location, location, location.

Location of the temporary rink, location of the temporary pool and location of the temporary gym. These are the issues that I want cabinet to reassure me over on Monday evening.

(v) Lambeth have just rolled over and surrendered to Tesco. The Tesco press release says the scheme will be delivered “two years earlier” under this new plan. Really? What it actually means is that the Tesco store will be open two years early as they won’t have to wait till the new combined ice rink / pool and leisure centre is built, before they can knock down the existing ice rink and build their new store on ice rink the site.

Agreed. Tesco is the ultimate winner; the leisure users in Lambeth are a secondary concern. But at least that concern hasn’t been silenced, mainly due to a very passionate, and caring local constituent.

(vi) On the same theme of Lambeth rolling over, they are allowing 50% extra spelling space for the Tesco store. Many of those at Saturday’s meeting were terrified at what this could mean in terms of planning delays, as any new plan will have to go through the GLA Planners and the Mayor, the Government Office for London (GOL) and probably the Secretary of State. Mayor Livingstone held up the last planning application by eighteen months. With the issue of so much extra retail, will all these bodies be happy to give the planning process a smooth passage?

Ah, Events dear boy (or girl,) events. One of which is a local election on May 6th, where the good people of Streatham will ultimately be given a chance to let their feelings on the whole handling of the Hub be known.

I still firmly believe that the Hub announcement earlier this month was wonderful news for South London. But it’s far from the end of the story. Cabinet has a lot of explaining to do on Monday 29th. The tricky 5pm start time is still a problem for me. Seems like my source will be able to put forward all of the fine points above.

Somewhere in the middle I suspect (hope) is the truth.

Now read on…

And so after what has been something of a Bash A Local Councillor / Local Media sort of seven days around these parts, I see no reason not to continue. Especially so when you can kill two birds with one stone.

I really would like to get back to blogging about the nicer things in life (top tip: the Happiness Project is an inspiration) but right now, there’s plenty of pessimism around the Rotten Borough.

And so having completely missed the £700 per hour freelancer rate story by not attending cabinet, @streathamnews also managed to miss the headline news from the @streathamaction Hub meet on Wednesday evening.

I thought the whole point of the modern interweb was that deadlines are irrelevant? You find news, you publish, you move on. Why then do we have a story time stamped 2:29pm on Thursday 11th February that gives the impression that @streathamnews didn’t send a journo along to the major public meeting in their patch?

Um… maybe because it didn’t send a journo along to the major public meeting in their patch? It was a particularly cold night, after all.

So having picked up the story in my RSS feed and finding out that @streathamnews MISSED the basics of (i) the March board meeting by Tesco to make a decision on the Hub, (ii) the bonkers option being investigated by @lambeth_council of opening a temporary gym on Streatham Common and (iii) the minor matter of Nu Labour pin up boy and Parliamentary candidate for Streatham, @ChukaUmunna’s admission that he “doesn’t trust Tesco,” what exactly did I see in my feed?

Is it an advert? Is it a story? Or is it just another lazy hack example of not even being bothered to source a proper picture?

Eyes right in the image above for the Lambeth to Freeze Council Tax headline. Fair enough. Tell It Like It Is, etc. But what’s with the rather familiar image, not to mention the @lambeth_council corporate logo attached to the top?

A click through to the story confirms that this is genuine hard news copy. Cripes. I’ve already giving @strethamnews something of a kicking over the actual C & P of the copy, direct from Lambeth Labour’s official site. I’ve also entered into dialogue with a rather confused commenter, who seems to think that the original story was written by @streathamnews, and then picked up by Lambeth Labour.

Um, other way round, fella.

But anyway - the picture. It’s beyond parody that a piece of council propaganda that belongs in Lambeth Life can be appropriated as a front page splash on the website of the supposed independent voice of Streatham. Use the picture if you like, but take some filthy wonga off our friends @lambeth_council and call it advertising. It almost makes me feel nostalgic for the good ‘ol SLP’s fistful of dollars stock image.

[point of order: twenty-four hours following the rather major meeting, right outside the offices of the South London Press, and still no mention of the hard news stories regarding the Hub on its sorry excuse for a site.]

The feeling on the floor at the Streatham Hub meeting last night was one of a complete betrayal by @lambeth_council and Tesco. What the users of the closed leisure centre need right now is not a local paper that has simply become the preferred online publishing mouth of the ruling party in Lambeth.

Becoming an online repository for council sourced images doesn’t constitute journalism. Nice picture though.

Prologue - high hopes and plenty of political optimism ahead of a public meeting to try and resolve the Streatham Hub project. Steady the buffers, old boy. I think you know that there is unlikely to be a happy ending here…

And so how do you solve a problem like the Streatham Hub?

We may be screwed for leisure in La La Lambeth Land, but at least we can still have a laugh. The refusal of Tesco to attend a public meeting on Wednesday to explain why a new ice rink and leisure facility still hasn’t been built by the supermarket giant, was met with the time honoured tradition of placing a big bag of lard on the empty seat.

Not just any old big bag of lard either - this was the finest lard procured from the shelves of the newly opened Morrisons in SW16. I think that’s what you call a double political whammy for the absent business partner for Labour led @lambeth_council.

The headline news (pay attention @streathamguardian) is that the multi-national will decide in March if it can be bothered to continue with the whole project. A high-powered board meeting will deliver the judgement on the Little People of Lambeth. I hope they have some decent sarnies to eat during their pow wow.

And then…

The Man from Tesco, he say YES! …we can hold the supermarket to account and make sure it delivers what it promised almost a decade ago.

The Man from Tesco, he say No! …@lambeth_council we’re screwed. Our elected politicians will squirm out of the affair with continued claims of “commercial confidentiality,” before then going to erect a temporary gym at The Rookery on Streatham Common - SERIOUSLY.

You’ve heard of the Lambeth Lego Pool, but now a tent in the great outdoors with a few dumb bells (oh the irony) is actually being considered by @lambeth_council as a serious alternative, irrespective of Tesco continuing with the project.

The meeting was told that it would take “two to three years” to build the hub, and in the meantime, the tent / gym is a temporary option.

And what if Tesco walks away from SW16 after a wasted decade? No guarantees of a Plan B were given. Back to The Rookery it is then. The temporary becomes the future and a generation of lard arses, deprived of leisure in Lambeth, will eat their own weight in microwave chips. But not from Tesco. Obviously.

As the good @CllrMarkBennett tweeted in reflection after the meeting:

“I shall not be shopping @tescostores until they give Streatham what they promised - a new ice rink, pool and leisure centre.”

Cripes. It really was one of those seismic evenings. There was a sense that a turning point has been reached. The good folk of Streatham have long since lost all patience with the supermarket giant, and the issue now seems to have divided Labour in Lambeth.

@CllrMarkBennett wasn’t alone in breaking from the party line being spun so disastrously from the stage by Councillor Rachael Heywood and her cabinet colleague, Councillor Lib Peck. Nu Labour poster boy @ChukaUmunna later told me that he “doesn’t trust Tesco,” and that he “honestly doesn’t know” if @lambeth_council will be able to deliver on the Hub.

Blimey.

Time maybe for a bit of backtracking. With the Tesco owned Streatham Ice Rink being held together by a bit of gaffer tape, and the Leisure Centre next door not looking much better, @lambeth_council did the dirty with Tesco to build a brand new rink and leisure centre. In return, the multi-national gets to set up a rather large corner shop in SW16.

But this was all some seven years ago. By now and the Hub should be complete. Instead we have an ice rink that is unable to stage Redskins’ matches, and a leisure centre that has been shut because it is unsafe.

The public meeting on Tuesday evening called by the fine @streathamaction was supposed to be the opportunity for Tesco to come clean. You get an indication of the company’s commitment to Streatham by its absence on the night.

Instead we had the Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities, Councillor Heywood, and the Cabinet Member for Housing and Regeneration, Councillor Peck, left to squirm explain away on the stage almost a decade of mismanagement.

I’m not the greatest flag waver for the failed Nu Labour privatisation project in the Rotten Borough (you don’t say…) but even I felt pity for the local politicians that have been left to hang out to dry by the corporate beast with all the economic and political muscle.

Ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight, and all that?

This was an angry political floor, with its constituents made up of beefed up hockey players, muscle-toned swimmers and mischievous bloggers that really have nothing better to do on a wet Wednesday evening in South London.

Actually, that’s not true. My agenda concern is the lack of swimming in Lambeth. As a Clap’ham refugee I’ve been forced to dip my toe in the waters of Brixton. So have all the Streatham refugees, being bussed down Brixton Hill for the magical 7-9am only timeslot in SW9 each morning.

Apologies if I railroaded the start of the meeting with my Clap’ham interjections, but the good Councillor Heywood started off on the subject first.

Likewise with Councillor Lib Peck. It was a basic point of order, as she insisted that the Labour administration was in control of the timetable of closure in Clap’ham. Um, not true, my friend. If you had attended the User’s Forum to explain the closure of Clap’ham (actually if anyone from Lambeth Labour had attended the forum,) then you would have found out that the poor, sheepish folk at Greenwich Leisure Limited were told to shut up shop by the Cathedral Group on New Year’s Eve.

But anyway, I sat back, started a bit of @audiobooing and took in the debate.

@streathamaction did a fine job in trying to keep to the agenda of (i) leisure, (ii) ice rink and (iii) library (um, falling down as well.) But the passion and anger from the electorate on the floor made the meeting rather different to cabinet two nights previous (@cllrstevereed: “this is a cabinet meeting and you have no right to speak. Be silenced.”)

Too many political mistakes have been made in Streatham over the years. This has led to uncertainty in the different services provided by @lambeth_council, and consequently a confused agenda of different interest groups on the evening.

Questions were asked concerning what cost is involved to re-open Streatham leisure centre (“no costs have been carried out,”) does an ice rink still feature in the Hub plans (“probably” - major hooter HONK!!!! alert: this is a retraction from the previous cast-iron guarantee) and how can @lambeth_council hold Tesco to account?

There was no answer given to this question, likewise for a very articulate point raised by a young girl who must have been of primary school age:

“You said ten years ago that you would build a new ice rink. If we can’t believe you on that, what can we believe you on?”

Someone give that young girl an @audioboo account now. Fine work, madam.

The point was also made that Tesco is prepared to let the ice rink run down. The suggestion is that it will then be easy to close the old rink, and conveniently forget to build a new one. Even Streatham is experiencing gentrification, and the land is ripe for some poncey new flats.

The meeting then went slightly bonkers. There was some fine fighting talk calling for @lambeth_council to take back control of the project with a Compulsory Purchase Order. A public boycott of Tesco was suggested, which then somehow descended into a Shoplifters of the World Unite moment. Only in the Rotten Borough…

Representation from the Redskins was strong. One player spoke of how the rink is the “laughing stock” in hockey circles throughout the country. It’s a very real danger to both players and spectators.

Having already lost London’s only Elite Ice Hockey League team, the Racers, because of a dangerous rink, it would be shocking to also lose the proud name of the Redskins (point of order: I gave up watching the ‘Skins some years ago, partly to do with work commitments, partly because I really didn’t want to spend my Sunday evenings in a freezing old barn.)

“I’m not proud of the state of the rink,” interjected the good Councillor Heywood, before bumbling her line when heckled about when she last went there. “Um, oh, um, I think about four months ago.”

Which all leaves us back where we started some ten years ago. It’s difficult to judge who has been more culpable over the whole sorry Hub saga, @lambeth_council or Tesco?

Both organisations are intertwined with a total lack of credibility. The utter failure of the leisure policy by @lambeth_council is a direct consequence of Nu Labour being totally dependent on big business. We’ve seen it in Clap’ham with the Cathedral Group calling the shots, and now it seems that Tesco are about to show who really is in control in Streatham.

Ah, but events dear boy, events. Something wicked this way comes, and it’s called a ballot box.

As I remarked to @Chris4Streatham, the LibDem parliamentary candidate for Streatham in the @audioboo below, ultimately it is the good people of Streatham that may just be able to resolve the Hub farce; vote back in Lambeth Labour, and the cabinet is locked into some form of unexplainable commitment to sticking with big business to try and sort out Streatham.

Vote *elsewhere* and solutions are on offer to actually establish who is in control of Streatham - the democratically elected and accountable political party, or a multi-national big business that probably can’t even locate Lambeth on a map, let alone the mean streets of Streatham.

Yer man @ChukaUmunna was equally good company, and also very kindly agreed to an interview after I door stopped him. With preposterous expectations laid upon Chuka, leisure is clearly an incredibly prickly issue for him, come polling day.

Being aligned to the same political party that has closed the pool in his chosen constituency has led to some distance being put between the Labour parliamentary candidate, and the local party on the ground. Will the voters buy into it? Listen to yer man…

A final footnote - many thanks, as ever, to the server testing patience that is @markrock and @audioboo. The medium really is the message (well, apart from the other minor message of almost a decade of development being lost in SW16, thanks to a reliance and misguided belief in big business.)

The boos below are embedded in no particular order or priority. They are just a flavour of the feeling from the floor on the night.

Another day, another leisure story coming out of the Rotten Borough. Are you getting bored of these yet? Only another three months to go until polling day…

Speaking of which - pity poor old @ChukaUmunna, the Labour parliamentary candidate for St Reatham. Chuka is replacing the Blair arsewipe Keith Hill.

Having trousered an old boys network nice little earner with his new position on the board of Lambeth Living (pimped out Council housing stock,) Keith Hill was hopeful of handing over his healthy majority to the new Chuka on the block. At least that was the plan.

With an overall majority of 7,466 back in the 2005 general election, the current poster boy of Nu Labour should be sitting on a safe local seat. Ah, but events dear boy, events. Or to be more specific, local events.

With May 6th set in stone as the date for the local elections, it looks like yer man Chuka could also be asking the good people of SW16 to fast track him to Westminster on the very same day.

But wait! What’s this? There’s been a spot of local bother with the Labour party in Lambeth. You may have read about it over here, here and here (you get the idea…)

Lambeth Labour has let down the electorate in St Reatham by closing down the leisure centre. It’s all very well asking people to put their faith in the ‘Barack Obama for Britain‘ (stop sniggering) but when Barack Chuka is aligned to the very same party that has shut St Reatham leisure centre, then poor old Chuka could become a cropper.

Yeah yeah, just the usual ramblings of a loose cannon leftie that has lost all faith in the right wing administration in La La Lambeth Land. Same old same.

Um, nope; actually not:

“The current situation regarding leisure provision here is clearly unsatisfactory.”

Cripes. It comes to something when the parliamentary candidate has to apologise for the political apathy of his own local party on the ground. I bet those St Reatham Labour Party whist drive evenings are a laugh a minute.

“The fact is that the Council administration has not invested enough in the pool for a long time, and they should all be big enough to admit as much.”

Blimey. This is the point I tried to put across to Labour Councillor Nigel Haselden during our recent podcast. Although the good Councillor was charming company, he certainly wasn’t “big enough to admit as much.”

In fact he tried to spin out the “success story” of leisure in Lambeth, and was even “alarmed” at my observations that Labour has lost control of leisure in the Rotten Borough to the private sector.

Best ‘ave a word with Barack Chuka…

Having pulled at the heartstrings by spurting out some twaddle about how important St Reatham leisure centre has been to him as a local, Chuka then advises the electorate where to go swimming instead (clue: it’s not in Lambeth but over in the Borough of Bromley. B****y Bromley!)

The timing of the latest press release from Chuka is to coincide with the public meeting called to discuss the failure of the St Reatham Hub project. We can’t even do meetings on time in Lambeth - the original date of 3rd February was put back seven days so that Lambeth Council “will be able to be clearer about its position.”

We’ve waited seven years for the Hub, what’s another seven days between friends? The meeting will now take place on Wednesday 10 February, 7pm at Hideaway. Here’s hoping Lambeth Council leader @cllrstevereed shows up to answer to the “unsatisfactory” claims made by the man who defeated him to land the St Reatham parliamentary candidacy.