What does a Councillor actually do ? (7) Personal Agendas

Its depressing to contemplate but its now 15 years since, as a fresher, I started volunteering at Durham Prison Visitors centre. In search of some friends and broader horizons and perhaps a sense of privilege that needed to be repaid I wanted to do something in the community. My College had a long standing link with the Visitors Centre and so off I went.

It remains one of my formative experiences. Superficially its because it was the first domino to fall in a long career based in Housing and Social Care. However the real impact was political. The realisation that such a vital service was run by a charity not state funded, that from the experience of some of the Prison Guards it was probably better off that way, the ordinariness of most of the families and the dignity that a cup of tea and a private room could bring to the other wise humiliating experiences some visitor's had queuing in public outside the Prison. It gave me another nudge along the road toward favouring smaller, more local, more distinctive and self governing public services rather than Big State monopolies. However most of all it made me think about what I could and should contribute to a community that I was passing through.

Last week at Area Committee we approved £15k over 3 years for Leeds CALM, the superb student volunteering project run by Leeds Met University Students. It was just after I was elected to the Council 7 years ago that despairing of the waste of regeneration money in the area I put together a package to fund some student volunteering work. This was an enormous success and after the 3 years were up we were able to refund it for another 3. Now we have money for years 7,8 and 9.

Of course the project has grown in self confidence over the years. Bother universities to there credit have put in substantial sums and all of the credit should go to the many student volunteers themselves. What always impresses me through are the characteristics I observed all those years ago. Student self governance, local accountability, small is beautiful and the community cohesion that volunteering engenders. Of all the public money that Councillors get to discuss and direct the Tax payer won't have had a better deal that the £35k it has spent of Volunteering projects over these 9 years.

All politicians have personal agendas but my argument is that this isn't always a bad thing. I hope by some administrative spade work over the years I've played a role in giving some students an opportunity that was so formative for me.

Brian Paddick, Mayor Of London ?

Todays Guardian Unlimited reports that Brian Paddick, Metropolitian Police Commander, is to retire from the force on May 31st this year. I have long been an admirer of Mr Paddick and not just because he has survived perhaps the worst Homophobic press onslaught Britain has seen since Section 28 ( George Michael being the other contender in my view. )

He has proved that he is willing to take calculated risks with Community Policing and reach way beyond traditional boundaries.

Personally I think Ming Campbell was 100% right to send David Cameron packing with his Joint Ticket proposal about Greg Dyke running for Mayor. However rolling the dice with an outside-the- box Lib Dem candidate for the Mayorality is another matter. After all in may ways that's the whole pointof directly elected Mayors.

Step forward Commander Paddick? Well I for one would be on the first GNER train to help canvass if he did.

Local Links

I have added some local links to the Blog to try and show case the best of what Headingley Ward has to offer. It is of course far from exhaustive. I couldn't fail to mention the Iconic Cricket and Rugby Grounds but others may want to check out the under-development Woodhouse Ridge Action Group site, the Hyde Park Picture House site or OAP an excellent community group for over 55's.

Not many electoral wards can claim a Test Status Stadium, a Grade 2 listed Art House Cinema and some Ancient Woodland. I have no idea where this little burst of patriotism came from but there you are!

Notes from the Campaign 4

I spent 4 days over the last weekend in Gipton and Harehills Ward. Perhaps its because I don't have children of my own but I always smile when you see little kids picking up leaflets in open doorways. It happens in every campaign and they are usually excited that a strange man has put something colourful with pictures onto there door mat. If only adults were as excited by election leaflets.

I feel that there should be a slushy sound track in the back ground as I type this but Children are our future and if politics isn't about that then its about nothing. Sorry.

The Highlight was some canvassing in the south of the ward near a Local Mosque. Its reassuring to know that what ever peoples ethnic back ground peoples concerns are universal. Local Services, Local Policing etc It reaffirms my central belief that the only way to re engage voters is to talk honestly about the issues.

Area Committee

I'm often despairing or melancholy about Local Government on this blog. Well tonight saw some genuine Local Democracy in action and some good Governing as well. As the last meeting was inquorate a few weeks ago we had a second session of Area Committee tonight. We spent £75000 on good localist stuff. We have set up a fund for Neighbourhood Design Statements. This means they will be residents led documents rather than the tortuous process of using the planning department. We are taking a tougher approach with the police setting aside about £15000 for Community Safety. We intend to issue them with a list of our priorities rather than just rubber stamping there pet projects. I look forward to the negotiations!

We have supported the Headingley Development Trust with £9300 who are doing excellent work on trying to re localise the local economy. The most exciting thing was I think we now have a real opportunity to get a substantial Cash injection into the HEART project for the former Headingley Primary School.

As ever divisions if there were any were geographical and personality based rather than Party Political. You wouldn't really have been able to tell who was Lib Dem, Labour or Independent which at this level is how it should be. Its not just the cash but the fact we discussed lots of strategic issues and made progress on Burley Road green space and the Moor as well!

It may only last for an evening but for the moment I feel good about politics. Just for once....

Royal Park Community Consortium Public Meeting

The RPCC is a relatively new Campaigning group set up to keep the former Royal Park Primary School building in Public Ownership (state ownership doesn't bother me personally, community owndership is another matter) and maximise the amount of Community use of the building (which certainly does bother me)

This came at the end of what was a long day as I had already had a meeting with Friends of the Earth to discuss Incineration and the Chair of a Local Community group to discuss planning and licensing issues. (born of delusions of grandeur probably as my influence on any of these topics is minimal...)

The RPCC meeting represented the dilemma I always feel between my role as a local political activist and as an Elected Representative. Now I know that some people there will be reading this but I must confess that the "activist" part of me what to take the thing by the scruff of the neck. Royal Park Primary School is such a strategic site that the area really needs a thorough, robust and public airing of the issues. I can't do justice to these in this post but I will blog about it soon.

The Politician in me was a little despairing. Everyone commented on the markedly lower attendance at this meeting than the last one (which I wasn't at) and if it was like this one then I'm not surprised. Public meetings have a crucial role in Grass Roots campaigns but they have to be used wisely to avoid public fatigue. Sitting through two hours of public wrangling is a big commitment in most peoples lives and you have to use that resource wisely. You can't expect people to turn out every month for what was in effect a meandering committee meeting with every attendee as a member.

I didn't vote on any of the resolution passed as I decided to stay neutral but did offer practical advice on there planned Delegation to a full Council meeting, the Pros and Cons of a Listing application for the Primary School Building and the tendering process now under way.

I'm immensely sympathetic to what RPCC are trying to achieve and am really pleased that they have formed to put some omphh behind the issue. But running an enormous ex School Building like Royal Park as a Community enterprise needs capital, revenue and strong governance structures. As the debate about the buildings future moves into the finishing straights we need to focus on maximising benefit and minimising harm from the development not re fighting the battles of the past.

Leeds International Olaf Palme Peace Lecture

Nobody who knows me would believe me if I didn't tell the sordid truth about this. The most exciting thing about Tuesdays Lecture was getting to shake the hand of and meet Captain Jean Luc Picard, indisputably the greatest Captain the Enterprise has ever had....

I'm really very sorry. Setting aside my Sci Fi obsession this was a moving and passionate lecture by Patrick Stewart, a prominent Amnesty International activist on the subject "Why Promote Human Rights ?". Its an Annual Lecture organised by Leeds City Council to commemorate the life and work of Olaf Palme the assassinated Swedish Prime Minister.

The Banqueting Suite at the Civic Hall is a difficult venue to fill but it was packed out and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Patrick Stewart could read the telephone directory for an hour and still make it sound like Macbeth but it was the content that really stirred me. His lecture didn't really answer his own question. Rather he talked about his own history with Amnesty and the Patrick Stewart Scholarships he has funded via Amnesty US which promote student work on the subject of Human Rights. It was a high risk rhetorical strategy but the bulk of the lecture was just reading out student testimonials about what they had learned and done while on the trips that he had funded. The range of work done on promoting Human dignity across the globe answered the Lecture titles question on its own with out making an argument. The Phrase "ripple effect" is hardly original but hearing how each of these small scholarships had impacted on individual communities who were empowered as a result was the best way for him to describe the work.

Perhaps you have to be a Shakespearean actor and Professional Yorkshire man to pull the trick off but he did.

I was also delighted to bump into Michael McGowan former Leeds Labour Councillor and Leeds MEP. I know him a bit from when he represented the old University ward which neighboured mine. I knew when I saw him instinctively that it would have been him who set the lecture series up. And in conversation later on so it turned out to be. Getting introduced to Captain... sorry Patrick later on was the cherry on the icing on the cake.

Congratulations to the Leeds City Council peace group for a wonderful event. To be off message for a moment one of my disappointments about the current Joint Administration is the lack of a sense of the "salon".

What about a Leeds International Environmental Lecture series set up to promote sustainability?

Of course there is always an argument about spending public money on such things but in a city like Leeds Corporate sponsorship wouldn't be hard to find.

What does a Councillor actually do? (6) small changes over a long time

A little over two years ago I was trying to console my friend Jon who lived on Hyde Park Road about his car wing mirror having been kicked off. Again. There was something very "Hyde Park" about the rate at which his car was being done over every few weeks. The answer he insisted was a CCTV scheme including a Camera at the Junction of Royal Park Road and Hyde Park Road. I disagreed but decided to think things through.

Last week the new extension to the Hyde Park CCTV scheme went live. Two state of the art fixed camera's at the location above and at the junction of Queen Road and Royal Park Road. A third smaller and more portable Digital camera will cover the area by the Hyde Park Picture House.

What happened in the intervening two years to turn that conversation into a reality?

Claiming personal credit would be absurd on all sorts of levels. I didn't invent CCTV, have the idea for this scheme, pay the taxes that paid for it much less play any technical role in the installation. I partially lost the argument about where one of the Cameras should be. As it happens this weeks installation was significantly behind schedule in case you think I'm crowing.

So why then do I definitively say that it wouldn't have happened at this time with me? Politics is a despised profession and nobody does anything to improve the lot of there fellow man. Really? Well actually this small CCTV scheme is just one of tens of Thousands of local examples where local activism can prod your local Bureaucracy into action. Its an exhausting process at times but I drew up a short list of sites, gathered local political support, had the scheme drawn up and costed, identified a funding stream, pushed it through committee, argued over the siting and then kept pressing away as it was delayed again and again.

If I had never been a Councillor then perhaps some one Else would have had the same idea or gone for a different scheme. If not then the public money would have been spent on something else quite possibly worth while. My point is this. Politicians can make a difference to your area and very often do. Its not fashionable but politics can be a kind of service and the only way to make the process better is get involved your self. One the main reasons I set this blog up was to make people think about the possibility of Standing for there local Council. Looking back I have probably put most people off!

But the next any body whinges to them selves that the "Council" is useless just think about this. What local problem have you discussed with a friend in a Kitchen and will anything ever change if you don't have a go your self?

Notes from the Campaign 3

Writing on the BNP is the Scylla and Charybdis of political debate. The dilemma is fresh in my mind because, for the first time, they are going to contest all 33 Leeds wards In May's election. Although as this blogs only referral to the Standards Board for England was made by my Colleague Cllr Chris Beverley (BNP, Morley South ) it presents more local challenges.

The choice is this. If you "blog up" the BNP threat as Margaret Hodge discovered you can get blamed for giving them the publicity and credibility they crave. ( Although Ms Hodges prediction about Barking and Dagenham was correct...)

Its for this reason that until last May I always bought the "Oxygen of publicity" argument. Talking up the fascist threat added sparkle to the dull topic of Local Elections but ultimately gave the BNP far more publicity than there tiny number of Councillors deserved. In most local contexts this is almost certainly the best bet still.

However in Last Mays election in Leeds the BNP elected a Councillor for the first time and secured over 11% of the city wide vote despite contesting only 22 of the 33 seats. At what point does the strategy of ignoring them begin to be counter productive in its self? The less than straight answer is that I don't know but we can't be that far off having to answer it one way or another.

However for the time being let me make one small point at the beginning of the Campaign. I was referred to the Standards Board for England for describing Cllr Chris Beverly as a " Neo Nazi ". Its clear that lots of people now think that a BNP vote is perfectly legitimate "protest" against the establishment.

That's fine in a Democracy but people in Headingley and the rest of Leeds need to know that underneath the half hearted re brand they remain a nasty, racist Neo Nazi party that wants to rip the fabric of our society apart. When casting protest votes there way people should be careful what they wish for.

The Parish Church

I broke out of my liturgical comfort zone on Thursday evening and attended the Maundy service at All Hallows, Hyde Park. ( check out the excellent website at http://www.allhallows.org.uk/ )

This is technically my Parish Church and I always wonder why I never go. It has a long and proud tradition of radical /liberal Theology and social action. The current Vicar , Ray Gaston is a significant local figure and All Hallows played a big role in the inter faith response to the "Bomb Factory" discovery in 2005. They also deserve considerable credit for there work On Lesbian and Gay equality. Although it moved out of Headingley Ward after the 2004 boundary changes I always regret not engaging with the Community Project more. The Cafe operates two days a week and the lottery funded Church extension plays a big local role.

The service would confirm every Daily Mail stereotype about the direction of the Church of England. It had African Drums, a reference to God our Mother and Father and Communion with Pita bread.

I thought it was rather beautiful.

In a political Culture that "doesn't do God" I think there is a danger we forget about faith Communities valuable role in bringing people together. This isn't the fashionable view of religion but in an atomised society I think it a reasonable one. How many other organisations meet on a Thursday evening to discuss mutual love, assistance and community? The answer of course is many and many of those decidedly Humanist in tone. I'm not claiming a superiority for faith merely challenging a fashionable view that all Faith Communities are fundamentalist and bigoted.

My friends Jane and Mike kindly invited me to supper after the service which ended a long day well.