Trial by media has got stop

It is noticeable how much less passion there is in the media's reporting of the arrest, charging and remand of Vincent Tabak in connection with the murder of Jo Yeates than there was with the arrest of Chris Jefferies.

I would like to think that it is because the media have learned a lesson from the criticism that they received after the reporting of Jefferies' arrest, I hope that it isn't because Tabak isn't as "interesting" a suspect.  I'm not convinced.  In media terms Chris Jefferies was just too good a villain to be treated fairly, he looked a bit odd, he was a loaner, he read poetry!!!!!

The news media stepped over the line in the reporting of the the Jefferies arrest and could have seriously undermined the prosecutions case had he been taken to trail over the murder.  This is part of an increasing trend for the news to be more about the broadcasting of speculation that the reporting of facts, more and more airtime is devoted to talking heads discussing what might happen next or what people might be feeling rather than what is or has actually happened.

The need to fill 24 hour rolling news and a desire not to lose ground to the more gossipy internet are major drivers in this but the traditional news channels need to carve their niche for quality and accuracy rather than try to compete on pace a salaciousness.

SouthEastern Trains

I get into work in one of two ways, either on my bicycle or on the train.  The routes that I use come up through North Kent, through South East London and then into Charing Cross or Cannon Street.  Over the Christmas period the service was nothing short of awful.  I appreciate that the heavy snow made things difficult but a cursory look at the internet will show you a host of people who feel hugely disappointed and let down by the company, a situation not helped by the company only scraping in above their compensation target by running a skeleton service over those snowy days.

The relationship between London Government and the Train Operating Companies (TOCs) is an awkward one. We need to work with them to ensure integration into the TFL system and ensure that things like the roll out of Oyster Cards on the rail system works, however we have no formal control over them and little formal way to hold them to account.

Yesterday at Mayor's Questions the Lib Dems tried to make some political capital from the widespread disappointment felt by may commuters by attacking the Mayor about the TOCs performance, they know full well that the Mayor cannot control the actions of the TOCs any more than they can.  I have written to SouthEastern Trains, both in terms of their general performance and about specific issues on behalf of constituents who have contacted me, but without a formal remit over surface rail provision there isn't very much more that I, as an Assembly Member, can do.

I think that there are two things which should be changed to give London politicians more power to hold the TOCs to account.  The first is to give the Transport Committee of the London Assembly the power to call the TOCs in for questioning, at the moment we can invite them but cannot compel them to attend.  Being able to make them attend will enable us to put them under the same level of scrutiny that TFL currently enjoy.

The second change would be for the Mayor and Assembly to have a significant say in the awarding of the franchises for the suburban commuter routes which mainly serve Londoners.  While having an informal relationship with the TOCs can bring about improvements, the Oysterisation of the surface train stations for example, it is not the same as having some real leverage in the relationship.

Londoners feel let down by the TOCs and my constituents feel particularly angry at SouthEastern, and I'd like to be able to do something about that.

London Lib Dems and Greens in Livingstone's pocket

While we all know that the election in May 2012 will be a two horse race between Boris and Livingstone it is rather sad to see the Lib Dems and the Greens throw the towel in so early.

It has become increasingly clear that both the parties were gravitating towards Labour by all the back room deals that have been done to exclude Conservatives from committee chair positions, to jointly draft politically motivated motions and their refusal to oppose the transport unions' mindless strikes.

A quick look at the conference speaker list for Livingstone's front organisation Progressive London, shows both Lib Dem and Green party Assembly Members on the line up not only with Livingstone himself but with militant union bosses and the organisers of the London demonstrations which became so violent and damaging.

This cosying up to Livingstone has new led to a co-ordinated attack on Boris at this morning's MQT, which was so transparent and amateurish that the whole meeting descended into farce. It became clear that the attack was to take the form of accusing Boris of "misleading Londoners". The phrase was repeated verbatim by each of the left wing Assembly Members in turn as part of their questions to the Mayor.  After the third or fourth outing it was greeted by laughter and derision from both the Conservative members and many people in the gallery. It was particularly amusing because time after time the Mayor showed that the facts and figures behind their questions were wrong.

The real joke, however, is on the Greens and particularly on the Lib Dems. Their desire to score a short term PR win and pump out an anti Boris press release will cost them in the long run. By obediently parroting Livingston'e attack lines they show to the London electorate that they are really an irrelevance and in doing so increase the chances of being squeezed out at the election.

"Shock" drop in GDP was no shock to me

I'm not an economist and I'm not a meteorologist but even I could see that the coldest winter in a century, with some of the worst snow conditions in a generation was going to have a detrimental effect on the UK economy.

There are always peaks and troughs in the growth rate of GDP and no one with any sense was claiming the the economy was safely into a period of sustained growth yet.  Ed Balls is trying to claim that the government has caused this drop in GDP having acquired selective amnesia with regard to the huge public borrowing policy that he championed and which was a major part in driving us into recession over the last few years.

South London Healthcare NHS Trust poor report from the Care Quality Commission

Ward closures and service reductions at Queen Mary's Hospital (QMH) are among the most important issues facing the residents of Bexley and north Bromley.  I have long felt that the loss of these services was triggered by the uncertainty caused by the Labour's "A Picture of Health (APoH)" strategy and compounded by poor forward planning by the multi-hospital trust that was set up.

Regular readers will know that I have received criticism from some people who feel that I and the local MPs should have done more to keep the services at QMH open but I feel that the trust's management were not committed to those same ends.  Everything I've seen leads me to believe that they were keen to push ahead with the previous government's plans and had taken decisions in pursuit of those plans.  The whole episode severely dented my confidence in the SLH Trust management.

With the history of the last few years as a backdrop, I was disappointed but unsurprised to read the poor report that the trust got from the Care Quality Commission last week.  The three part report is heavy reading at 188 pages but the opening paragraph of each part's executive summery gives a flavour:

We found that Queen Mary's Hospital Sidcup and Beckenham Beacon were not meeting one or more essential standards. Improvements are needed.

We found that Princess Royal University Hospital was not meeting one or more essential standards. Improvements are needed.

We found that Queen Elizabeth Hospital was not meeting one or more essential standards. Improvements are needed.

It is clear that the commitment of front line staff was not to blame for the poor showing, Colin Hough, Regional Director of CQC for London said "Overall patients we spoke to were happy with the care they received at all three hospitals. However, they also said they didn’t think there were always enough staff on duty and some people told us they felt they had been let down by the hospitals.

“We saw staff who were professional and caring towards their patients and were committed to providing care of the highest quality although some staff told us they did not think they had enough suitable equipment to do their jobs well. Staff also told us they were concerned about changes that maybe taking place in the trust and that this has had an effect on staff morale."

Politicians are often criticised for interfering with the decisions of "health professionals" and I know that Andrew Lansley is keen to decentralise and give clinicians more control, but in the case of QMH I think intervention is warranted.  James Brokenshire has written to Andrew on this very issue and I echo his calls to stop the APoH changes and break the trust back up into separate hospital trusts.

Very bad news for the Conservatives

Andy Coulson has just resigned as the Number 10 Director of Communications and there is no point in pretending that this isn't very bad news for the Government, Conservative party and David Cameron.

After the bad news of Alan Johnson's resignation it will be a huge boost to Labour that the scalp that they have been after for so long has been taken.  More practically it means that the Government has lost someone who was very good at his job and the team around David Cameron will be a little out of balance until he is replaced.

The phone hacking allegations were damaging but I had long felt that they wouldn't be fatal.  It seems I was wrong and what may become known as "Campbell's Law" holds true that when the spin doctor become the story it's time leave.

On both a personal and professional level I'm very sorry to see Andy go.

Lib Dem campaigning

I got some stick from some readers for my post about the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election a few weeks ago, you can read the post here.

Someone looking at the coalition relationship from outside of the political machine might find it hard to understand why so many Conservatives are so uncomfortable with the new relationship.  This post by West Midlands based blogger Prague Tory (yes I know Prague isn't in the West Midlands) may shed some light on why.

Alan Johnson's resignation is the worst of news for Red Ed

Parties always try to make the most of their opponent's difficulties and I would have said that any Shadow Cabinet resignation was damaging to Labour in general and Ed Miliband in particular.  I have no idea if Alan Johnson jumped or was pushed but either way his departure is about as damaging as any could have been.

Ed Balls has every right to feel smug today

Firstly this puts a very big question mark over Red Ed's judgement.  Ed had worked with all of the Shadow Cabinet candidates for many years and should have known enough about their strengths and weaknesses to have made a credible choice.  Everyone could see that Johnson was hopelessly out of his depth as Shadow Chancellor, I suspect that Ed Miliband could see that too.  The opening exchanges between Johnson and Osborne were as one sided as Arsenal vs Northend Thistle and it was clear that Miliband had not put Johnson there because he was the best man for the job but to keep Ed Balls out of the slot.

This leads onto the second element of the slow motion car crash.  Ed Balls was, is and always will be a deficit denier and while his incessantly aggressive attacks on anything and everything that the Conservatives propose keep the Labour grass roots happy they make him and his policies incredible, and not in a good way.  Ed Miliband knew this wanted to keep him away from the Treasury brief.  Johnson's departure means that Miliband has failed and Balls has got one over on him.  I foresee a situation where Miliband will now be unable to move Balls out of the Treasury brief irrespective of how much he disagrees or undermines him.  This is Blair and Brown all over again, except that this time the front man is neither popular or charismatic.

With Yvette Cooper taking over he husband's old Home Affairs brief Miliband's top table are full of people who would be described in a school report as "not team players".

To be generous to Miliband he was dealt a weak hand but he has played his cards very poorly.  In short, he's in big trouble.

The police advice to student protesters

The Met have produced a leaflet to be handed out to people attending student demonstrations which may happen in connection with today's EMA vote in the House of Commons.

I think that this is a positive move as it sets out the expectations and responsibilities of both the police and protesters.

The safest place in London is in Bromley

And the second safest is in Bromley too.

Sergeant Katey Martin, Cllr Richard Scoates and the Darwin Safer Neighbourhood team

I'm very pleased to say that the two wards with the lowest recorded crime in London are Bromley's Darwin (lowest) and Shortlands (second lowest) wards, overall crime in Bromley has fallen by 9.4% between April and December 2010.

These reductions have been the result of some excellent, proactive and community oriented policing by the Bromley team and their good relationships with the local council and other local organisations.  I've mentioned the work of the Darwin team before (here, here and here) so it is of little surprise that their efforts have paid off.

If you want to find out about crime levels in your ward you can use the Met's Crime Map.

Driverless tube trains

At the London Government Dinner last week Boris caused a bit of a stir by saying that he would look at introducing driverless tube trains as one of the possible responses to the string strikes and strike threats on the London Underground.  I'm glad that he has put this idea into the public domain, it has been something which the Conservatives on the London Assembly have pushed for him to consider for some time.

The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) has been driverless since it came into service in 1987, being driverless didn't mean that there was no human interaction but rather the DLR staff were able to move about the carriages and assist passengers rather than being isolated in a cab at the front.  The new signaling technology enables the same to be true for many line on the underground.

There is union unwillingness to change practices even though technology has made many of the old ways obsolete, just like the arguments over ticket office staff being in the ticket booths rather than out on the concourse or platforms.  Oystercards have overtaken the use of paper tickets and there is no logic in having a member of London Underground and a ticket machine behind a glass screen when they could both be out in the station where the passengers are.

We used to have lift attendants pushing the buttons for us, people who stood at the bottom of escalators in case of breakdowns and men who walked ahead of cars with red flags, all of these posts have become things of the past.

At some point in the fairly near future, perhaps by the time my two boys use the underground, the idea of having someone sat at the front of the tube train rather than interacting with the passengers will appear just as comic as an old man in a lift pushing the button that you could quite easily push yourself.

Livingstone in the transport unions' pocket

Yesterday London Conservative MPs called upon Ken Livingstone to condemn the threat of strike action on the Royal Wedding day, he refused.  They also called on him to return the £5,000 donation given to his campaign by ASLEF, the union threatening the strike, again he refused.

Until very recently Livingstone's campaign HQ was based at the TSSA Union's HQ.  Val Shawcross, Livingstone's Deputy Mayoral running mate, joined RMT protesters outside City Hall recently and has consistently failed to back motions in the Assembly critisising the transport strikes.

It is clear that Livingstone is so devoid of policies and any real criticism of Boris's tenure as Mayor that he is attempting to undermine Boris via transport unions' industrial action.  What make me really angry is that London's residents and businesses that will be the ones who suffer because of this and if, heaven forbid, Livingstone were to win the unions would want their pound of flesh and Londoners would suffer all over again.

FBU bosses refuse to accept arbitration decision

The management of the London Fire Brigade have accepted all the recommendations of the independent arbitration panel which met to bring the fire dispute to an end.  The leadership of the Fire Brigade Union have attempted to ignore the mediation results and restart negotiations, five years after this whole episode started and against the wishes of their own members who voted 2,670 to 510 to accept the recommendations.

The unwillingness of the FBU's bosses to accept the independent decision means that the Fire Brigade management will now impose the panel's recommendations and change firefighters' contracts unilaterally.  It is unfortunate that after agreeing to independent arbitration the FBU leadership have walked away from the deal that was proposed as it now means that firefighters will be sacked and the re-employed on the new contracts.  This could easily have been avoided if the FBU's leadership had listened to their own members.

Fire extinguisher student sentenced to 2years 8months

Edward Woollard, the 18 year old student who threw a fire extinguisher from the roof of 30 Millbank during the first student riots has been sentenced to 2 years 8 months at Southwark Crown Court today.

It is sad to see a young man, with no history of criminality, set to spend at least a year in a Young Offenders' Institution but what he did was incredibly dangerous and the criminal justice system cannot turn a blind eye to actions which could very nearly have killed someone.

Palin, crosshairs and the Tucson shootings

There has been a bit of an online storm over the part that Sarah Palin's crosshairs map payed, or didn't play, in the shootings in Tucson.  I'm not going to reheat any of that but I am interested in why politics borrows so much of it's language from the military lexicon.

Those who take an interest in politics are probably so used to hearing military terms used that they are deaf to their heritage.  We hear about campaigns, strategy, targeting, war rooms, HQs, election battles, fighting for a seat etc. yet we hardly remember that these words were borne out of conflict.  War fighting isn't the only part of life where there is intense competition yet we don't borrow language from the world of sport.  In politics it is a battle not a match.

With the language of politics being so militaristic is it any wonder that we read people saying that Labour needs to "turn its guns on the Tories" or see crosshairs used as a visual metaphor for a target seat?

I don't believe for a second that seeing Sarah Palin's target map was the cause of Jared Lee Loughner's attack and I believe that few of those who claim that it was believe it either.

Plus ça change

We ended last year with a tube drivers' strike which I described as being "A blatantly political Boxing Day tube strike" and now we hear that ASLEF are to balot their members on industrial action on the wedding day of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Just like the FBU calling a strike on the 5th of November this action would be completely counter-productive and alienate millions of people.  This proposed action has little to do with Bank Holiday pay and much to do with putting Boris under political pressure.