Politics are about hope. Or, at least, the best politics are about hope. Politics can represent a way to find freedom from tyranny, or simply highlight a future with a higher disposable income and more security. Entire campaigns can be run on hope and little else (President Obama’s, for example).

Politics should be about inviting the electorate to see your particular vision of tomorrow, and asking them to help you get there.

And that’s why I’m enjoying the Labour Party conference so much. I always felt this would be the main event and I haven’t been disappointed. Admittedly, they haven’t really outlined a vision of how a fourth term Labour government would look. But maybe they have provided hope to their supporters.

It was meant to be a wake. A last gathering of the party faithful to rally them for the coming massacre. But is it, instead, providing a glimmer of hope?

Andrew Marr’s popping of the anti-depressant question may have been the turning point. Instead of questions about the PM’s competence there was a mood swing; such questions are, rightly, inappropriate and instead of leading to further questions of the PM, it resulted in investigation of the rumour’s source and questions about the journalistic merit of the interview.

And while there have been some depressing polls for the government (even seeing them in third place), there have been some far more heartening polls undertaken more recently. YouGov’s daily tracking has already given them a 5% conference bounce. Another poll (and I apologise for the News of The World link) suggests that half the population can still envisage a Labour win.

Given that the electoral system has a significant built in advantage for the Labour party (a Conservative victory would break a number of records) maybe the faithful in Brighton needn’t be so glum.

Brighton has seen a few good performances by Mandelson and Darling, and if Brown can follow it up later today then the election starts getting interesting.

Of course, the next election has never been taken for granted by the Conservatives – either locally or nationally – but it was clear that Labour activists were not enthused. So while in Tooting Labour’s Sadiq Khan is clearly fighting hard to hold what has become a marginal seat, in neighbouring Putney you get the feeling Stuart King’s game plan is for the Tooting nomination in 2014.

The biggest danger any party faces is when its most loyal supporters give up hope. It’s the equivalent of turning off life support. It happened to the Tories in ‘97; activists suddenly found themselves otherwise engaged, supporters just didn’t have the time to vote.

Until now exactly the same was happening to the Labour party, but maybe there’s life in the old dog yet: and where there’s life, there’s hope.

AND AFTER BROWN’S SPEECH… The problem with expressing opinions that are, basically, dependent on a future event, is that if said event let’s you down you are screwed.

Having watched the big speech I just don’t think Brown rose to the pressure. A lot of recycled policies, but no passion or even much of a sense of purpose beyond not letting the Tories in. If I were a Labour activist, I don’t think I’d be describing myself as enthused. What do you think?

Category: Politics Tags: Brighton, conference, Labour, Putney, Sadiq Khan, Stuart King, Tooting.
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St John’s Hill Festival
I’m cheating a bit with this week’s photo, since it’s not mine, but was taken by Emma Jane Clark at last Sunday’s St John’s Hill Festival. I’ve used it without permission but hope she doesn’t mind because I really like it.

And congratulations to everyone involved in putting the festival on. It was a great day and, like all the other festivals, carnivals and street parties being put on in our town centres this year really showed the strength of our businesses despite the recession. It’s also with a sense of shame that I have to admit to finally trying Fish Club. It’s one of those places (note how I resisted the ‘plaice’ pun) that is perhaps just a little too out of my way, but given my background – of coming from the fish and chip capital of the world – it’s criminal I’d not given them a go… and they weren’t found wanting. I had a superb haddock and chips with mushy peas, and for me to say that is saying something!

Roehampton Street Drinkers
I’ve been involved in discussions about these for some time, but these are now becoming public – especially since a public meeting held by the police on the issue last week. There has been a problem with street drinkers in the area for some time, which appears to be worsening. Stuart King, the Labour candidate, has picked up on this and is now calling for the council and police to move them on to another area (although he doesn’t specify exactly where he thinks they should be street-drinking).

The council is looking at a real, long term, solution, that doesn’t involve restricting everyone’s rights to enjoy the green spaces in the area and doesn’t just move the problems of addiction from one area to another. We have been using Equinox as outreach workers, with some success, in the area for some time, helping the drinkers conquer their alcohol addiction and are looking at what sort of enforcement we can take with individuals to ensure those less willing to face their problems.

We’re currently in talks with the police (who would be responsible for the enforcement side) to ensure the resources are there to make sure both elements of the carrot and stick approach work.

Gun crime and violence in Wandsworth
Of course, a lot of my time and attention has been taken up by the recent spate of violent crime in Wednesday, I wrote about this in a post on Wednesday and do not want to repeat myself. However, I do want to repeat the central point I made that Wandsworth has been, and remains, a relatively safe borough in London terms.

This is not to belittle the seriousness of the events and shouldn’t be taken to mean that they are not being taken seriously. However, if there is any solace to be taken from gang-related crime it is that it tends to remain inter- and intra-gang and, except in rare cases, members of the general public remain unaffected.

Like I say, this is not to say the council or the police do not take it seriously and are not working hard to arrest those responsible and prevent further incidents, but it does mean that headlines like the Wandsworth Guardian’s ‘Carnage on the streets’ are very wide of the mark. There is no more reason to worry about going about your daily business this week than there was last week.

Category: Community Safety, Regeneration, Weekly report Tags: crime, drinking, fear of crime, gun crime, Roehampton, St John's Hill, Stuart King.
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First of all I must congratulate Chloe Smith everyone involved in the Norwich North by-election on their victory. It is no mean achievement to see a 16.5% swing, which would be more than enough, if repeated across the country to see a Conservative government.

The numbers geek in me wondered what this would mean for Wandsworth.

This needs prefacing with lots of caveats. Swing is a very imperfect measure. It is never uniform and local issues and campaigns mean it’s dangerous to draw conclusions from it. The method I’m using (the Butler Swing) only takes account of the top two parties, so it also ignores the impact of a strong campaign from minor parties. However, since Norwich North and all the Wandsworth seats are fairly straightforward Labour/Conservative fights, it’s not entirely unreasonable to put the numbers in and see what happens.

The Butler Swing basically takes the average of the change in vote share for the top two parties. So in Norwich North the Conservative vote share increased by 6.29% and the Labour vote share dropped by 26.70% – an average swing of 16.49% from Labour to Conservative.

In Wandsworth this would mean, very simply, all three seats would be Conservative – a 16.49% swing from the 2005 result would see:

• In Battersea Martin Linton’s 163 majority would easily be overturned, becoming a 13,374 vote majority for Jane Ellison.
• In Putney Justine Greening would see her 1,766 majority increase to a 13,828 majority over Labour’s Stuart King.
• Even in the ’safe’ Labour seat of Tooting, Sadiq Khan would see his 5,381 majority turn into a Conservative majority of 8,328 for Mark Clarke.

Even at half the swing, 8.25% from Labour to the Conservatives, all three seats would return Conservatives (majorities of 6,610, 7,801 and 1,477 in Battersea, Putney and Tooting respectively).

I’ve compared the current situation to 1997, which I saw from the losing side. Twelve years later the Norwich North result is almost a mirror image of the Wirral South by-election in 1997, which saw a 17% swing from the Conservatives to Labour and preceded the landslide Labour victory in the general election when they got a national swing of over 10%.

There’s no doubt that the Labour candidates in all three seats will be looking at the results and making the same comparisons. There’s going to be some fierce campaigning over the next year.

Category: Politics, Wandsworth Tags: Battersea, Jane Ellison, Justine Greening, Mark Clarke, Martin Linton, Norwich North, Putney, Sadiq Khan, Stuart King, swing, Tooting.
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Last night’s Regeneration and Community Safety Overview and Scrutiny Committee was something of a blast from the past, since the Labour Party spent a lot of time presenting a paper prepared by Stuart King.  Stuart was a councillor in Wandsworth from 1998 until 2006 when he lost his seat.  He was also the Labour group leader and served on a lot of the same committees as me before his defeat.

Stuart’s latest hobby has been representing the Labour party in Putney, and as part of this he has, as is his right, been campaigning against our plans to create employment, quality housing and businesses and a pleasant environment in Roehampton.

The Labour group brought one of his misleading surveys to the committee last night.  Despite admitting that the council had conducted extensive consultation in the area and that King’s report could be said to be biased they suggested the council should spend more money to ask people, for the fourth time, what they thought.

In fact, I think it represents a total failure of the Labour group to provide community leadership.  It’s the fourth different position they have taken in four meetings.  First of all they supported regeneration.  Then they weren’t sure.  Then they opposed it.  Now they want to ask people what they should think.

What leaves me most disappointed is Tony Belton’s stance, since it seems his group is now, rather than serving the Wandsworth community, just dancing to Stuart King’s tune.

Roehampton has the borough’s highest unemployment rate.  It has higher than average crime.  It has a disproportionately high take up of non-work related benefits like incapacity and lone parent benefits.  It is badly served by public transport, so people face difficult journeys to work or learn.  Hence the scheme, designed to create employment in a refreshed centre at Danebury Avenue and Roehampton Lane.

It is one of the few times I have really been saddened by Wandsworth politics.  The political groups will always have different solutions to problems, but this is one time when Labour have shown a poverty of ambition and, in doing so, seek to remove the hope of Roehampton and Alton Estate residents.

Category: Regeneration Tags: consultation, crime, Labour, Putney, RCS OSC, Roehampton, Stuart King, Unemployment.
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