Measles, get your child immunised

One of the first pieces of work I did when I got elected to the London Assembly's Health and Public Services Committee back in 2008 was to look at London's immunisation rates.  The picture was pretty poor.

Not only did we have the lowest levels of any part of the UK but the trend was heading in the wrong direction.  The Evening Standard wrote up the research as "Measles timebomb" and splashed with it on their advertising boards.

I now hear news that there has been a ten-fold increase in measles infections in the first four months of this year, compared to last year, up from 33 to 334 with 206 being in London and the South East.

This sudden increase has sparked renewed call for parents to get their children immunised. Many people were put off by the, completely discredited, Lancet article written by Andrew Wakefield claiming that the MMR jab caused autism. It doesn't. But measles can cause blindness, deafness and in extreme cases is deadly.

Please, please, please get your children immunised if you haven't already done so.

Alcohol-related hospital admissions

The fact that the number of alcohol-related hospital admissions in England has topped one million for the first time, is saddening but not surprising.  The figures released by the NHS Information Centre show that admissions had increased by 12% between 2008-09 and 2009-10.

The reason that I'm not surprised is that the investigation that the London Assembly conducted back in 2009 showed some worrying trends in youth drinking behaviour which are now reflected in the national statistics.

The short and long term costs of this situation is potentially enormous both in health and financial terms.  Our report focused on ways of tackling youth drinking but I believe that we have to address that group to have any change of long term success.

The Ryan Giggs situation should be the last nail in the Super-injunction coffin

The worst kept secret in modern history is now blown!  I'm not that into football (terrible admission for a politician to make), I'm not that into gossiping about C-list celebs and I have absolutely no interest in the combination of the two.

Even with these less than impeccable credentials, I know that Ryan Giggs was the footballer alleged to have taken out a super-injunction preventing information being published about a relationship with Big Brother "star" Imogen Thomas (whoever she is).

The simple truth of the matter is that trying to hide indiscretions using that particular legal device in the internet age is about as useful as getting a court order preventing the tide from coming in.

Early release for rape

Mark Wallace makes a very important point over on his blog about the prison term served by people found guilty of rape.

The conviction rate for rape is also very low and it is understandable that Ken Clarke is looking at ways to improve the situation.  Having spoken to police officers who investigate rape, it is clear that the nature of the crime makes building a successful case difficult.  By the nature of the crime it is often the word of one person against the word of another with no independent witnesses nor scientific evidence to prove or disprove consent.

The irony of the Ken Clarke furore is that it is based on the comments he made about "serious, proper", while his phraseology was crass in the extreme, I am more concerned about the substance of the proposals.

There is already a 1/3 discount on the duration of a sentence if the accused pleads guity, even in rape cases.  What the statistics show is that almost no one accused of rape takes up this option, why would you when the vast, vast bulk of people accused of rape either see the case dropped (often through lack of evidence) or are found not guilty?  I cannot see that this would change at all if the discount on sentance was increased from 1/3 to 1/2.

Reducing the need for women to relive a traumatic ordeal in court is an admirable aim, but these proposals would be ineffective both in that aim and also in increasing conviction rates.

Another London politician calls for Outer London congestion charging

Mike Tuffrey is looking increasing like the Lib Dem's only credable potential candidate for Mayor of London, I like him well enough but disagree with him on a lot of issues.

One issue he and I don't see eye to eye on is his now found passion for localised congestion charging.  What is it with inner London politicians trying to cobble drivers in outer London?  I was bad enough when Livingstone ignored the results on the Western Extension Zone consultation and introduced it anyway, then Jenny Jones called for congestion charging right out to the M25 and now Mike wants suburban charging to.

Mike's position was made clear in this interview with the Guardian's Dave Hill.  I was particularly drawn to this passage:

He says he "can see roles for mini zones around, say Kingston or other town centres," and remarks that if Boris can favour charging utility companies for digging up roads there's no reason why juggernauts can't be asked to pay for driving on them if they're hogging lots of space.

"Politicians have been too afraid to talk about how we are going to decongest our roads, how we are going to make it easier for people to drive. The logic of looking at what times of day and by whom this precious resource is used is impeccable. In a sustainable city containing many more people who still want to get around in motor vehicles I can't see any alternative to some sort of rationing or pricing mechanism."

While I'm confident that Boris won't be swayed into hitting suburban drivers with yet more taxes and charges I can't say the same thing about Livingstone.

University of West London

Sometimes a name change is just a name change, sometimes it reflects a change which is genuinley profound.

When injury forced me to leave the regular army I decided that the hotel industry would be a good second career for me and I looked at where I could retrain.  At the time Ealing College of Higher Education was regarded as an industry leader, so I decided to study there.  My degree course was four years long and during that time the institution changed its name, twice.

In my second year it became the Polytechnic of West London and in my final year changed to Thames Valley University to better reflect the geographic area that it covered.  The new university's first Vice Chancellor was a guy called Mike Fitzgerald, who was then the country's youngest vice-chancellor, he wore Armani suits and had a sofa and a jukebox, but no desk, in his office.

Even at the time I felt that he was more in love with the idea of being a Vice Chancellor than in love with the job or the university. In short I believed him to be a bit of a joke. According to the Time Higher Education Magazine (THE) he was also "seriously well connected to New Labour. David Blunkett regularly phoned him and, in 1996, a young Tony Blair dropped in and was impressed by his style (it is said that Blair decided he must have a sofa in his own office after the visit)".

If he had spent as much time focusing on the university as he did cultivating his image the problems it faced over the next few years might not have been so severe.  For most of the last twenty years the university has been dogged by difficult finances, a reputation for poor academic rigour and has languished at or near the bottom of the universities league tables.

I am pleased to say that under the Vice Chancellorship of Peter John and with Cobra beer entrepreneur, Lord Karan Bilimoria, as Chancellor the university experienced a renaissance.  It became an unashamedly businesses focussed institution with strong links to the industries it serves.  Official figures published in the THE in July 2008 reveal that the University has the best graduate employment record in the country, with almost 95% employed within six months of graduating.

On Thursday of  last week I attended the intallation of the University's new Chancellor, Laurence Geller and the unveiling of the new name, The University of West London.

There was a time when I was ashamed to say I studies at Thames Valley University preferring the rather vague statement that "I went to university in West London".  I am not only impressed with the transformation over the last few years, but I also think that the university has created a model which many other institutions will need to follow to attract students as they become "smart procurers" of higher education.  On top of that I will now be able to say, with pride, that I gained my degree from the University of West London.

Forget PR the Lib Dems have invented Inverse Proportional Representation

The Lib Dems have promoted themselves as the party of innovation and reform, I was always sceptical about these claims but must now confess to a change of heart.

We all know that the Lib Dems, as the political wing of the Electoral Reform Society, really wanted Proportional Representation and only accepted AV as a fall back position, or " a miserable little compromise".

What I didn't realise was how bold the Lib Dems really are in their desire to change the electoral system. What they are now pushing for is Inverse Proportional Representation! Genius.

Under Inverse Proportional Representation, also to be known as IPR, a party gets more power and influence as their electoral support falls. The first demonstration of this innovative new system came just after the 2010 General Election, having lost 5 seats in the Commons the Lib Dems found that they had a massive increase in power and influence by entering the coalition government, IPR in action.

We are seeing another example of IPR in action at the moment. Having seen their representation fall dramatically at the recent Welsh, Scottish and local government elections and a corresponding increase Conservative councillors the Lib Dems are demanding an even greater voice in government and a corresponding reduction in Conservative influence. That's how IPR works, the less support your party has in the country as a whole the more power you have in government.

I'm a bit of a traditionalist, the kind of person the Yes to AV lot would call a dinasaur, I like the old system where influence in government goes hand in hand with the number of people that you get elected but I have to admire the boldness of the Lib Dems' new plan.

When the referendum on changing fully to IPR for Westminster elections I will be at the forefront of the No2IPR campaign. Please join me.

Lib Dem ministerial posturing over RMT

I wonder if the current posturing from Vince Cable (again) and Ed Davey have more to do with bolstering the support for the Lib Dems amongst left wing voters than helping Londoners.

The next set piece election in the diary is London's Mayor and Assembly elections this time next year.  The results from the AV and local elections last week show that it is the Lib Dems rather than the Conservatives who are being punished by the voters, it is entirely possible that the Lib Dems might slip further from their already low base in London.

Some of the more left wing Lib Dems in government want to make this strike about Boris by demanding he meets with the RMT, this displays an appalling lack of knowledge about leadership, management and history.

The strike has been called because of a disagreement between the RMT and their employer London Underground Ltd (LUL).  It would hugely undermine the credability and future negotiating position of the LUL management if Boris were to intervene directly, which is exactly why Bob Crow is demanding the meeting and exactly why Livingstone never did it either.  There are experienced nogotiators in both the Union and the management team at LUL and they are the ones best placed to reach an agreement.  History shows us that when politicians intervene directly in union disputes they rarely end well.

Either Vince Cable and Ed Davey haven't thought about this at all, which would display a huge level of naivety about industrial relations (not a good trait for the Business Secretary and the Minister for Employment Relations) or they have thought about it and are doing this for political reasons.

In either case a huge question mark must hang over their continued role in government.

Help me out with a super-injunction please

Maybe I'm being a bit thick!  But I really don't understand how a super-injunction can possible work in the day of mass-user digital publishing.

Here's my query.  Let's say I've seen person X doing something very naughty, but not illegal, on a number of occasions.  I decide that I'm going to blog about X's behaviour because that person has been very critical of other people doing the same thing and I believe that X is being hypocritical.  I go home and blog about X being very naughty, unknowing that X has a super-injunction preventing people discussing his/her naughty behaviour.

If what I had written was a lie and damaging to X, I would be looking at the wrong end of a libel suite, and rightly so.  But if X wasn't being naughty they wouldn't need a super-injunction.  If what I've written is true, and I can prove it to be true, I can use the first and most powerful defence against a libel action which is to prove justification.

If I have never been served with the super-injunction covering X's behaviour how can I know that there is a ban on their actions being written about?  Surely I can't be held in contempt if I was unaware that the injunction even exists.  If the court issues the super-injunction to everyone who could potentially publish the story it would need to go to everyone with a blog, twitter account, facebook page etc. etc. etc. rather defeating the object of the super-injunction.

Maybe I'm missing something really obvious and if I am please let me know.

The election results could be part of the Lib Dems' maturing process

The Lib Dems have had a very bad set of results as Nick Clegg has conceded this morning, the lazy and simplistic analysis is that this poor result is "because of the coalition".

There have already been calls for Nick Clegg to demand a "better deal" from David Cameron or to increase the price of Lib Dem support but I cannot see what justification there could be for this.  Numerically the Lib Dems are very much the junior partner in this coalition yet they have got 75% of their manifesto acted upon compared with only 60% of the Conservative one, they are already getting more out of this coalition that their numbers warrant.

Unless the Lib Dems form a government on their own some day they will have to accept that coalition and the compromises and concessions that it brings will be their only vehicle for delivery.  Demanding more because of falling support is simply perverse.

I believe that the real reason that the Lib Dems did so badly and that Nick Clegg is being attacked so viciously from within his own party is that the Liberal Democrats aren't really a political party at all they are more of a loose confederation of regional campaigning groups.

All political parties represent a range of views and some are broader churches than others but the tone and messages that come out of the Lib Dems in Scotland, Northern industrial cities, London, Wales and South West England are all fundamentally different.  The Lib Dems have defined themselves more by what they are not rather than what they are, their campaign focus has always been on either ultra local issues or grand international ones, they have avoided defining themselves properly as a national party.

As a tactic to get local councillors elected it has served them well, local politics should be about local issues, but their parliamentary candidates have basically re-fought local election campaigns.  Now that the Lib Dems share government they can no longer claim to be all things to all people.

These election results will force the Lib Dems to ask what kind of party they currently are and what they really want to be, the "none of the above" and "broken pavements" tactics won't be enough for a mature national party.

While part of me would be happy to see the Lib Dems disappear up their own backsides I recognise that it would be bad for the government and in the short term bad for the country.  They can now choose either to rip themselves apart over these results or use them as a spring board to grown up politics.

When is supporting a union not supporting a union?

Val Shawcross got rather upset at the London Assembly AGM this morning when she was described as having supported the RMT, perhaps she is sensitive because today we hear about another set of strikes called by the RMT leadership.

Ken Livingstone’s running mate gets very tetchy about this issue, heaven forbid anyone should believe that she is in some way the Union’s mouthpiece here at City Hall, heaven forbid we should think that her thoughts and actions are focused more for the benefit of the RMT than of Londoners.


Val Shawcross with a group of people standing
outside a place of work, protesting about something

Val made her position clear; she had never joined a picket line, and had not supported the RMT she said. I did a little looking up for the definition of a picket and found variations on the following:

“A person or group of people standing outside a place of work or other venue, protesting about something”.

Now maybe I’m not up on the precise semantics associated with the union movement but when I see members of a union that is holding London’s commuters to ransom waving flags and holding placards outside City Hall I would say they fitted that definition pretty well. And when I see Val Shawcross amongst them, holding a placard under those very flags and banners I find it hard to understand what she is complaining about.

I am happy for Val to dance on the head of a pin over the precise definition of what she means by support, I am even happy to give her the benefit of the doubt and call it a “protest” rather than a “picket” but I doubt that many Londoners, who are going to be inconvenienced once again by the RMT, will be quite so generous.

Another AGM and another stitch-up at the London Assembly.

I have just finished the London Assembly AGM where once again a Lib Dem/Labour/Green stitch up has excluded Conservatives from all the key positions. None of us on the Tory side lose any sleep over this, it is what we have come to expect but it is a timely warning as we consider how we plan to vote in tomorrow’s AV referendum.

The Yes to AV campaign spend a lot of their time (and a lot of ERS money) talking about fairness in the electoral system. But what is fairness? Is it fair that the political party which traditionally comes in a distant third at the London Assembly elections gains effective control of the body to which they are elected? I would suggest that it isn’t.

Since the London Assembly was created the Conservatives have been the electorally most successful party, we have always had the largest number of members and the largest share of the vote. One would have thought that under the quasi PR system that we were elected the popular will of London voters would be taken into account. Far from it.

click to enlarge

As these two graphs show not only has control of the assembly not gone with the flow of public opinion but a perverse situation has occurred where Chairmanship of the Assembly has regularly gone to the party that has come third. Through post election, back-room deal-making the Lib Dems have turned their 16% of support into 50% of the Chairmanships.

Clearly the Chairmanship of the Assembly is not the only key position at City Hall, much of the direction and tone of the Assembly’s work is driven by the committee chairs but the situation is even worse when the Chaimanships of the key Assembly committees is analysed. The Transport Committee, Budget Committee and Economic Development committee scrutinise the Mayor’s largest spending areas and have been chaired by either the Lib Dems or Labour for 89% of the time since the Assembly was created.

The message that one can take from this is that it really doesn’t matter who wins, who comes second or who comes a distant third, the Lib Dems are the winners. I don’t really blame the London Lib Dem leadership for what is a poke in the eye to the London electors, they have always tried to negotiate the best position that they can, what I blame is the skewed electoral system which give such disproportionate power to a party with so little electoral support.

If you want to see the reality of the political landscape post a Yes to AV vote look no further than the London Assembly.