It was heart breaking to see Fulham fans enduring defeat at the end of the game after a late goal by Deigo Forlan of Atletico Madrid. What added to their torment was then being stuck at Hamburg airport for several hours as clearly the authorities could not handle night flights. Please see Evening Standard coverage.
As for several hours in the early morning of the 13th of May, no flights took off from Hamburg airport both to London or Madrid even though many where scheduled to take-off, a few hours after the gamed ended. There was clearly no one in change of the airport during the night, as fans asked the airline staff what was the problem and no clear explanations were given. I certainly did not enjoy stepping over Fulham fans to get on my much delayed Airtalia flight. Explanations are needed and l’ll be writing to Michel Platini to ask what UEFA will be doing and find out what had been promised by Hamburg to them concerning travel arrangements and their assessment of it all.
So much for German efficiency. I can tell you this, you won’t be getting many Londoners and folk from Madrid going to Hamburg for a break after this experience with its airport. Which was probably the aim of hosting the Europa League final in the first place. Some Fulham fans will even feel that this was Hamburg getting its own back after Fulham knocked out Hamburg in the semi-finals.
May 13, 2010
The lib-Con coalition is a public school boy political fix, so lets stop pretending its been done for the good of the country.
The Tory swing was only 2 per cent in London on average across all parliamentary seats and is some places much less then that. In Westminster North, it was only a 1/2 per cent swing. This after the Tory PPC, Joanne Cash campaign is reckoned to have spent some £ 400,000, with Karen Buck winning the seat with around about 2,000 majority. Spending £400,000 for a 1/2 per cent swing does not seem much value for money to me, and a similiar story can also be told in Hammersmith where Andy Slaughter won by almost 3, 500 votes.
The higher turn out through out London helped Labour gain control of 17 local authorites and squezzed the Greens in lewisham & Camden; Respect in Tower Hamlets; crush the BNP in Barking & Dagenham and the Liberal Democrats in places like Southwark and Islington.
The next schedule elections in London are the GLA ones, both Mayoral and London Assembly in May 2012, and unless we have a general election called earlier, I can safely say, the Liberal Democrats vote will be squezzed very hard. As my family lawyer said to me, l didn’t vote Liberal Democrat to let the Tories into power.
May 12, 2010
I am old enough to remember the grim feeling I had on the way to school when Paddington in the new seat of Westminster North fell to the Tories in 1979. Arthur Latham narrowly lost to John Wheeler, who joined a Thatcher government which, through its new-right ideology, would spend the next 18 years privatising industries, starving public services and presiding over record unemployment.
Wheeler’s winning margin was almost the same as the number votes cast for the Workers Revlolutionary Party (WRP) – showing how, in very tight elections, small parties can determine the outcome at constituency level and, in this case, unwittingly contribute to huge political change.
Today in Westminster North the contest is between our incumbent Labour MP – the hardworking and dedicated grassroots community champion, Karen Buck, and Tory Joanne Cash, wife of Cameron’s millionaire Eton chum Octavius Black.
But just as it was 1979, I have a deep sense of foreboding about what the Conservatives have planned for the country should they win on 6th May.
The “nasty” party’s presentation skills have definitely improved. But while the language is softer, the substance of what has all the echoes of the Thatcherite era.
George Osborne relishing the prospect of massive cuts to public services. Chris Grayling’s anti-gay bigotry showing just how far we could regress on equality issues. David Cameron’s gaffe on China when he expressed sentiments not dissimilar to those that Thatcher had against the Hong Kong Chinese. And the out of touch “born to rule” attitude of old Etonians like Boris and Cameron is there for all to see.
While they try to hide it by fielding figures such as Eric Pickles and William Hague to the media, the Tory front bench is packed full of privately-educated, amazingly privileged individuals.
Far from being the party of change, Cameron’s Conservatives actually represent a return to the worst Thatcherite excesses of the 1980s. Labour’s national campaign needs to emphasise this: we have been here before.
From the presidential, X-factor-like national campaign to the local, smaller parties could again have a disproportionate effect on the outcome in Westminster North where it’s sure to be close.
The Greens will take votes from Labour on the left. UKIP similarly from the Tory right. But judging by Labour’s success in a recent local by-election local issues could play in the party’s favour.
We achieved an 11 per cent swing thanks to a campaign emphasising what the party was doing locally. And with council elections on the same day as the general election, local issues could again be decisive.
So while the media and chattering classes talk of coalitions and hung parliaments, locally I’ll be out there reminding Labour supporters of the importance of getting out to vote.
I remember how it felt waking up to Thatcher in 1979 and I’ll be doing everything I can to ensure the cloud that was overhead on my walk to school that day doesn’t show up on my way to City Hall on May 7th.
Published in Tribune on the 30th of April 2010.
April 30, 2010
Last Friday on St George’s day, l found a novel way to celebrate the occasion in Borough market thanks to the hospitality of the Catalonian regional government. For them Sant Jorgi day, as it’s called in Catalonia, is celebrated with the exchange of red roses and books. Its now adopted by UNESCO as World Book and copyright day as many of literature’s greats like Shakespeare passed away on this day in 1616.
I feel it can usefully be added to morris dancing around the May pole here in the UK, particularly in London. It can usefully add to our celebration of cultures around the world, particularly in highlighting the way different parts of the world celebrate St George’s day.
April 29, 2010
It is now almost two years since the British National Party scraped over the 5% hurdle and won a seat on the London Assembly, so this is an appropriate point to examine the BNP’s political record at City Hall.
Over that period the role of the party’s London Assembly member, Richard Barnbrook, has been exactly what you would expect from a representative of the BNP. One of his first contributions to Mayor’s Question Time was to demand a ban on the Notting Hill Carnival. On whatever subject he has intervened at MQT, Barnbrook has invariably reduced the issue to the BNP’s obsession with race and immigration.
By way of variety, at last month’s MQT he treated us to an exposition of his party’s line that human activity is not the primary cause of global warming – despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. But then the BNP spent many years rejecting the equally incontrovertible evidence concerning the Nazi genocide against the Jews. From Holocaust denial they have now moved on to climate change denial.
Eighteen months ago I wrote that Barnbrook’s rambling and incoherent interventions at MQT had reduced him to an object of ridicule, which led to the first of three complaints by Barnbrook against myself to the GLA Standards Committee. They were all rejected, along with another complaint against my colleague John Biggs, who had referred to Barnbrook’s Nazi politics. The decision was reported by Searchlight under the heading “Rambling, incoherent and Nazi to boot”!
A central feature of Nick Griffin’s rebranding of the BNP has been an attempt to publicly dissociate the BNP from its Nazi-sympathising past. This has been seriously undermined by the discovery that veteran far-right activist Tess Culnane is working in Barnbrook’s office. Culnane was forced out of the BNP for several years because of her insistence on speaking at meetings of the British People’s Party, which advertises busts of Hitler on its website at £15 a pop.
As for Barnbrook, it would appear that Griffin has finally lost patience with him, and he may well step down from the Assembly next month, to be replaced by Bob Bailey, currently BNP leader on Barking and Dagenham Council. Unlike Barnbrook, Bailey does possess the ability to string two meaningful sentences together. But he suffers from a severe anger management problem and an inclination to shoot his mouth off – for example in his recent disgusting outburst against Nigerian churches at a council planning committee meeting.
Some people argue that it is a mistake to give publicity to the BNP, but in my opinion the more widely the party’s role on the London Assembly and borough councils is publicised the better. Now we have to make sure that we throw the BNP out of their local government base in Barking and Dagenham on the 6th of May by showing voters what you really get when they attain public office.
Published in Tribune on the 2nd of April, 2010.
April 9, 2010
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