European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations

2012 is the European Year for Active Ageing and Soldarity between Generations, though unless you read something like the Society pages of the Guardian I’d be surprised if you were aware of the fact, as ‘Europe’ is such a toxic word for so much of the British media at least. But the concept behind this year is a good one: raising awareness of the contribution that older people make to society. It seeks to  encourage policymakers and relevant stakeholders to help create better oportunities for active ageing and interaction and understanding between the generations. Active Ageing basically means growing old while remaining healthy and well-occupied; the era in which people automatically retired at 60 or 65 is over — thanks partly to European laws. If people want to work longer, they can. And as the population gets ever more elderly, it is important that there are active 60 and 70-year-olds. The second half of the European Year’s focus is strengthening solidarity between generations; too often young people in a community don’t interact with older folk and vice versa, unlike in previous epochs. But that generation gap does not have to persist. Indeed, organisations such as Magic Me, in my home borough of Tower Hamlets, have for years been running projects that bring together schoolchildren and local residents of 60+, to get them to express themselves artistically. Last night Europe House, the European Commission and Parliament’s representation in London, hosted the opening night of an exhibition of some of the recent work done by Magic Me, which I previewed on the Commission’s culture website:  http://www.europe.org.uk/2012/10/23/magic-me/ . Magic Me’s Director, Susan Langford, and the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali, spoke about the impact this has in Tower Hamlets and it was heartening to see how well the schoolchildren and elderly who were present related to each other.

Why I Want to Be an MEP

Today ballot papers started arriving at the homes of Liberal Democrat members in London so they can choose the order of the list of candidates for the European elections in 2014. There are nine candidates for eight places (a tenth, Elaine Bagshawe, has withdrawn). The Liberal Democrats are a democratic party, so everyone who has been a member for longer than a year gets the chance to take part by single transferable vote (STV). In 2004 and 2009 I was Number 2 on the list, and as such just missed actually getting elected to the European Parliament by a whisker, so no-one can be surprised that I’m going for Number 1 this time. Being an MEP is something I have always wanted, more than any other form of political office, though I did serve as a borough councillor for a while. I used to cover the European Parliament and other European institutions when I was based in Brussels, originally with Reuters but later freelance. In the early days it was something of a talking shop, whose members were appointed by their national parliaments and had almost no power. But in 1979 there were direct elections for the first time, giving the institution more democratic legitimacy. In Britain these were on a first-past-the post system in large constituencies, in London’s case usually comprising three boroughs (I fought London South East, which was made up of Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich). But in 1999, the Labour government rightly bowed to pressure from our continental partners to adopt a fairer, more proportional system.

I have often attended events at the parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg (yes, of course I am in favour of the abolition of the wasteful shuttle between the two!) and for many years I have been an elected member of the governing Council of the ELDR — the European Liberal Democrat and Reformist party, which groups like-minded parties from across Europe, including a number of states not currently members of the EU. In fact, this time next week I’ll be in Dublin at the 2012 Congress of ELDR. This moves round Europe, partly to give a boost to the host party; the last ELDR event I attended was in Yerevan, Armenia, in May. The Parliament itself now has much stronger powers than it did in the past, with many major decisions now being subject to ‘co-decision’ between the Parliament and the Council of Ministers (which is made up of Ministers from the governments of the 27 member states). MEPs usually sit on a couple of major committees; my choice ideally would be in EU external policy/foreign affairs and overseas development, but of course London concerns would figure large among my priorities, including the use of European structural funds to help create jobs and foster regenration in deprived areas of the capital, including my own home borough, Tower Hamlets. Because of my professional background, obviously culture, media and related issues are also of great interest. In fact, I write regularly for the culture website of the European Commission’s London representation. And I agree with EU founding father John Monnet that one thing maybe the European project should have stressed earlier and more strongly at the beginning is the crucial value of culture, identity and diversity.

London’s 2nd City

From my front room window I can see Canary Wharf, which is how most of us East Enders refer (incorrectly) to Canada Tower on the Isle of Dogs, constructed to be the symbol of London’s second City or financial centre, but with a nod to the Elizabeth Tower of the Houses of Parliament (equally incorrectly generally known as Big Ben). Canary Wharf is actually the central ensemble of the audacious development in the old Docklands. This is now the subject of a short but insightful volume by Bow writer and journalist Kevin d’Arcy, London’s 2nd City*. In brief, snappy chapters Kevin introduces many of the main characters in the drama of the Canary Wharf area’s conception and birth, from Michael Heseltine and the megarich Reichmann brothers to the Liberal duo Eric Flounders and Brian Williams, who gave local leadership and vision in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Even as someone who has been around the wholetime, I learnt a lot from this book, including the reason (or at least, a reason) why the shoppping arcades at Canary Wharf are underground: the developers cut their teeth in Toronto, Canada, where such tunneled emporia are a haven in bitter mid-winter. The whole enterprise had its ups and downs and all these are charted, but in a way that steers clear of libelling anybody. It’s an attractive little book, written very much in journalistic not academic style, though alas, as so often with self-published works, there are some glaring errors; the Coalition Government was elected in 2010, not 2009, and there could not possibly have been 3.5 million homes destroyed in London during the War, as none would have been left. Such gripes aside, a worthwhile read.

£9.99 from Rajah Books, 40 Bruce Road, London E3 3HL

Stairway to Heaven

The Bethnal Green tube station disaster of 3 March 1943, in which 173 people were crushed to death as they rushed down the stairs into the air-raid shelter that was housed below, was largely hushed up at the time, so as not to give propaganda material to the Germans. And even when I moved to Tower Hamlets in 1985, no-one talked about it. It was as if there was a collective reluctance to face up to the fact that there had been such catastrophic loss of human life for no reason other than human error; someone tripped on the stairs and the rest piled up on top of them. Some people did escape; indeed, one gentleman, Alf Morris, who was a young lad at the time, shared testimony today at a remembrance service at St John’s on Bethnal Green, recounting how a woman air-raid warden pulled him out by his hair. This weekend saw the 69th anniversary of the tragedy, which might not seem a particularly important date that would bring out people in their hundreds, despite bitter cold and heavy rain. But this year is special, as the long-mooted memorial to the dead — Stairway to Heaven — has now been started, on a site right by the fateful tube station entrance, just opposite the church. Enough funds have been raised by the Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust to finance Phase 1, which includes the base and the plynth, on which all 173 names of the dead will be inscribed, from 14-year-old Betty Aarons to 13-month old John Yewman. When more money comes in, the Trust will be able to give the green light to the inverted staircase that will form the upper part of the monument, as seen in the artist’s impression. It was good to see a number of Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats at the service this afternoon, including Bethnal Green North Councillor Stephanie Eaton and City and London East GLA candidate Richard Macmillan (see photo). Representatives of other political parties were there too, of course, as well as the ceremonial mayor (Speaker) of Tower Hamlets, Councillor Mizanur Rahman Chaudhury. And although the service was predominantly Christocentric, Leon Silver, President of the East London Central Synagogue, gave one of the addresses.

Link: www.stairwaytoheavenmemorialtrust.org

London Riots

As I write this, the Prime Minister David Cameron is chairing the civil contingencies committee, COBRA, summoned to discuss what to do about the three days of rioting in London (and some elsewhere) that have shocked the nation. Though unrest began in Tottenham, following a police shooting, yesterday it spread across much of the city in copycat outbursts, with some agitators reportedly egging people on via their Blackberries. Croydon, of all places, was the worst hit. A furniture store was set alight there and the blaze soon spread to surrounding buildings. The tramlink was seriously damaged and some cars and buses torched, as has happened in several other places. Here in Tower Hamlets, where I live, violence was limited to the western Whitechapel/Bethnal Green end, with many Asian youths reportedly repelling the rioters. Similarly, in parts of Hackney, Turkish and Kurdish shopowners and their families fiercely defended their properties and livelihoods. The police were clearly overstretched, leading to calls from some quarters for the army to be sent in. Let us hope it does not have to come to that. The Government, stupidly, failed to field anyone on BBC2′s ‘Newsnght’, thus allowing Labour’s Mayoral hopeful Ken Livingstone free rein to blame it for the turmoil (though his performance was so opportunistic that he might have lost, rather than won, support for himself). UKIP leader Nigel Farage stoked the embers by declaring that the riots were the outcome of multiculturalism, thereby playing into the hads of the EDL and other racist groups. Actually, the events of the past few days have given some credence to David Cameron’s mantra about ‘Broken Britain’, though whether his Big Society concept can mend it is another matter. Confronted with the damage and the thuggery, I suspect that most of the public will be in the mood for a crackdown, including heavy penalties for looters and arsonists. It will be the political Right that ultimately benefits from all this, not the Left, as some Leftists hope.

 

A Sunny Sunday for Fairer Votes

I spent much of yesterday out in the sun campaigning for a Yes vote in the 5 May referendum, first leafleting in Brick Lane in my home borough of Tower Hamlets and later in Paul Burstow’s constituency of Sutton and Cheam. With no local elections taking place in London next month — unlike almost the whole of the rest of the country — actually getting people to turn out to vote is going to be a challenge, which makes it all the more important to sign people up for postal votes in London. The turnout of postal voters is considerably higher than the average, especially in a referendum like this. But it is dismaying that there has been such little coverage of the referendum in the national media so far, as this is one of the most significant potential constitutional changes for a generation. The ‘No’ campaign has been coming up with some pretty spurious arguments, including the insulting claim that AV is too complicated for voters in England to understand. The truth is that it is as simple as 1, 2, 3… and it should help end the phenomonenon of complacent MPs and parliamentary seats for life.

Link: www.yes2av.org.uk

No Rest for London LibDems

Rather like buses, special elections have the unfortunate habit of arriving in pairs. That situation is occuring again in London this month, with the (first ever) Tower Hamlets Mayoral election on 21 October and a Kentish Town, Camden, council by-election one week later. There was an action weekend in Bethnal Green this weekend, with a steady stream of helpers both from within the borough and from afar — including former Richmond Park MP and candidate for Party presidency, Susan Kramer, and her near neighbour, Merlene Emerson, Chair of Chinese Liberal Democrats (both pictured) — to boost the Tower Hamlets campaign. The LibDem mayoral candidate, John Griffiths (‘JohnG4Mayor’) is getting good media coverage, including on ethnic minority TV channels, and tomorrow morning will be welcoming the party’s leader on the London Assembly (GLA), Caroline Pidgeon, to Whitechapel. Meanwhile, Camden LibDems — who have far more than their fair share of council by-elections in recent years (fortunately winning most of them) — are fielding Nick Russell as their candidate in Kentish Town ward, which he represented until this May (having won it in an earlier by-election) and which the local team are fighting hard to retake. So that means London party activists have a busy few weeks ahead, to help the pary grow city-wide.

Link: www.libdems4london.org.uk

Respect Funks It

The Rise and Fall of the Respect Party will make an interesting book one day and one key chapter will doubtless focus on the party’s failure to stand a candidate in the Tower Hamlets Mayoral election, for which polling is on 21 October. It was Respect which organised sufficient signatures from the borough’s electors to ensure that there was a referendum on whether to move to a directly-elected mayoral system in Tower Hamlets. Sure enough, in May — on the same day as the general and local elections — Tower Hamlets voted by a comfortable margin to do so. But Respect fared disastrously in the elections, losing the Bethnal Green & Bow seat to Labour and coming third, while in Poplar & Limehouse (which I fought for the LibDems) George Galloway did so badly he didn’t even turn up for the count. Respect also also lost all but one of its councillors. There had been speculation that George would stand as Respect’s candidate in the Mayoral election, but it has now been announced they won’t fight it at all. Instead, Respect will endorse Labour’s controversial candidate, former Council leader Lutfur Rahman — which says almost as much about him as it does about Respect’s terminal state.

Mike Tuffrey Launches JohnG4Mayor

John Griffiths’s campaign as Liberal Democrat candidate for the Tower Hamlets Mayoralty was launched this afternoon at a restaurant in Oborn Street (Brick Lane), with London Assembly Member Mike Tuffrey as guest speaker. Mike pointed out that Tower Hamlets is the second most deprived borough in London and the third most deprived in the country. Child poverty is the worst in Britain. This is despite the fact that Tower Hamlets is on the edge of the City and houses Canary Wharf. Mike also took the opportunity to flag up his campaign to improve London’s air quality, which is a major cause of asthma and other health problems. John Griffths himself said that one element of his ‘JohnG4Mayor’ campaign will be to pass power down to local communities such as Shoreditch and Wapping, rather than keeping it all in one person’s hands. A key plank of the old Liberal administration’s policies in the borough 20-odd years ago was a substantial degree of devolution to neighbourhoods — something which Labour immediately abolished once it regained control. The new Mayor will oversee a budget in the region of £1.2billion, which means that scrutiny is going to be extremely important whoever wins, especially in a borough notorious for unconventional practices.

(You can follow JohnG4Mayor on twitter)

Dorothy Thornhill in Tower Hamlets

Watford’s Liberal Democrat Mayor, Dorothy Thornhill, was the guest speaker at a Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrat social event this evening at the Pride of Asia restaurant in Stepney Green. On the same day as the general and local elections three months ago, the voters of Tower Hamlets voted ‘yes’ in a referendum about whether to have a directly elected Mayor in the borough. Nationally, the LibDems have been lukewarm at best to the idea of directly-elected mayors and indeed the Tower Hamlets local party was pretty divided on the issue. However, once the electorate had decided that was what it wanted then the party obviously had to move ahead with selecting a candidate and organising a campaign. The timetable is short, as the first Tower Hamlets mayoral election has been scheduled for 21 October. The Conservatives already have their candidate in place, but Labour is having real problems about agreeing who should stand for them. It still remains a mystery as to what Respect may or may not do; it is by no means sure that George Galloway would be in the running. The LibDem selection process is currently underway, and this will culminate in a hustings of local party members on 21 August, out of which a victorious candidate should emerge. Dorothy Thornhill had excellent advice about how to run the local campaign, and indeed the sort of person who might be suitable for the job. As she has been successfully elected three times in Watford (despite campaigning for a ‘no’ vote in their referendum) she had much wisdom to share. The fact that she is such a forceful personality — though not in an overbearing way — has undoubtedly helped her reach a situation in which not only almost three quarters of Watford’s residents know who their Mayor is (which Council leader could claim the same?) but she is to Watford’s local residents simply ‘Mayor Dorothy’ as she goes out and about on her rounds as someone very much in her community.