Play, trains and people
July 31, 2004
(From Highbury & Islington Gazette)
Summer holidays are here and many parents face a nightmare. Not everyone can go away on lengthy holidays or stay at home with their children for the entire six-week break.
Older children roaming the streets get very bored, and get into trouble or cause trouble for everyone else.
This is not a new issue and over decades, excellent summer holiday play schemes have developed and given many children a superb summer experience; games, trips out of London, adventures and learning all rolled into one great time.
Yet Islington seems to have trouble in accepting that there is a responsibility to ensure this service is provided, either directly by the Council or by voluntary organisations.
The problem began with cuts in youth spending by the Council, and continued with cuts to voluntary organisations with the obvious result: August is here and many kids are without anything to do and desperate parents having to make lots of informal arrangements.
Last month it was reported that Arachne, the Cypriot Women’s Group, which used to run a 45-place scheme was unable to do so because it lost basic funding support from the Council. The Newington Green Playscheme was cut at half term but re-opened for the summer but is so expensive (£100 per week) that many parents simply cannot afford it.
All round the borough, the story is the same, with voluntary schemes turning children away as they are full, and the few Council schemes so expensive that they are half empty.
This is all the result of last years £100,000 cut in funding. London Metropolitan University published a report that Islington Children’s Fund indicated had lost the Borough 500 places.
The solution to this issue is obvious; the Council should recognise it has a responsibility to ensure that there are adequate and affordable play schemes all over the borough.
But holiday time is not enough; after school play facilities are crucial for children in both an educational and social sense, as are youth facilities for older ones.
Islington was once seen as a beacon in this regard, but it is now lagging well behind the rest of the country. It really is high time that the Council saw play facilities, after school clubs and youth work, as integral to a society where we all want safe facilities for our children, and something for young people that occupies them that is interesting, fulfilling and affordable.
At the end of the Parliamentary session the Government made a whole series of announcements on spending and future plans.
The one that caught my eye the most was transport. London depends on public transport for its very success as a city and whilst usage is growing and the very welcome improvements in buses, coupled with lower traffic levels in the centre have brought lots of new passengers on to the red ‘cars’.
However, better use of the existing rail tracks and new tube and surface level links are important. Crossrail has been talked about and planned for years, but is finally likely to go ahead with legislation coming this autumn to agree the route. When completed, there will be a new deep line right under London from West to East with a station at Farringdon.
However, at the moment I am more concerned about a less dramatic but very functional development, the East London Line. The announcement of £300 millions in new money for London infrastructure should enable this to go ahead, ultimately linking Clapham Junction with Islington via the existing East London line, a re-opened line through Hackney to Dalston where it will join the North London Line, and an interchange to the Victoria Line at Highbury and Islington.
Under the new plans, Transport for London and the Mayor will be given new powers over fare structures and surface railways in London which is very welcome. Ken Livingstone was quick off the mark to announce the East London Line, but in two stages, with the first terminating at Dalston and only a later stage linking Clapham with Highbury. I have written to Ken to ask him to think ahead a little, and make the link to Highbury now, and link the route to Finsbury Park, where even better interchanges with main line and tube services are possible. Second phases can easily be delayed, or not done at all.
On a positive note, London has changed direction in the past decade. In the first years after I was first elected to Parliament in 1983, I was busy campaigning to keep railway lines open, and prevent the widening of the Archway Road and the construction of the East London Assessment study route of a major road through Islington. Happily, those days are behind us but with little spending other services can be dramatically improved and stations modernised. I am pushing hard for refurbishment of Finsbury Park Station, and for better services on the Barking branch of the North London Line with a new station at Tufnell Park to link with the Northern Line. I am also pushing for through services beyond Gospel Oak as part of an outer circle rail route.
Good transport is the key to so much in our society, and the wider pavements and safer routes make all our lives better. Newington Green, for example, is being transformed by improvements to pavements and park, and whilst it is fashionable to knock road humps, we should all remember that speeding vehicles on residential roads cost lives.
An icon is born: Marwan Barghouti
July 28, 2004
Like many Palestinian activists, Marwan Barghouti has constantly been harassed and jailed by Israeli authorities; and like many he has suffered assassination attempts.
His sentence of five life terms by an Israeli Court means he now becomes an iconic figure for ordinary Palestinians, and his unshakable belief that he will be freed is shared by many. The Palestinian papers have likened his situation to that facing Mandela after the Rivonia Treason Trial in 1964. Indeed the similarities go well beyond the trial and prosecution of Marwan.
Apartheid in South Africa derived from a racist belief and was essentially endorsed by the National Party victory in the 1948 elections. Forty-two years later Mandela walked out of jail as an old man, but not too old to become President of South Africa.
Like Mandela before him, Marwan Barghouti addressed the judges at the end of the trial and questioned the legitimacy of the Court and its jurisdiction. At the conclusion of his trial in 2003 he told the court that the Intifada was the inevitable result of military occupation, settlements, and the failure of the Oslo process. He declared he was “proud of the Intifada”, and that “the Palestinian people cannot be brought to yield with force”.
It is indeed clear that the whole basis of this arrest and trial was unsound. Marwan was abducted by soldiers from the house in which he was staying in Ramallah, although under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention it is illegal for Israel to transfer any citizen of the Occupied Territories, particularly one with parliamentary immunity, to the jurisdiction of the Occupier (Israel Proper). He was then interrogated by the General Security Services in Jerusalem and Petach Tikva, over a long period of time, during which he underwent numerous forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, interrogation to the point of exhaustion, and so on. For weeks he was denied access to legal counsel and all contact with his family. Throughout his imprisonment, his wife Fadwa has campaigned tirelessly for his release, speaking at public and parliamentary meetings across Europe.
The essence of the indictment against him was membership and activity in Fatah - dubbed a ” terrorist organisation” by the Israelis - although the State of Israel has been negotiating and signing agreements with it for years. Despite assassination attempts and four and a half years of imprisonment, Barghouti struggled to maintain a dialogue with Israeli politicians, fostering relations with key figures in the Israeli peace camp, even with the Israeli right. He only gave up on the Oslo peace process when it became patently obvious that peace was not on the agenda for the Israelis - only further annexation. Nevertheless it was he who negotiated the unilateral truce of June 2003, whilst in prison. Another bombing and air strike ended that small window of hope.
At the end of his appeal last month, Marwan again challenged the jurisdiction of the Courts, saying “the Israeli Courts are a partner to the Israeli occupation. The judges are just like pilots who fly planes and drop bombs”.
Despite efforts by the judge to silence him, he defended the whole role of the Intifada, which he is accused of masterminding, by saying: “The continuation of the Intifada is the only path to independence. This occupation is the ugliest colonial occupation that humanity has known and they had better start preparing for its funeral.”
From the point of view of the die-hards in Israel who see only occupation and control as the way forward, it is easy to see why Barghouti has been chosen for this special treatment. He represents everything they fear. Articulate, secular and popular. He also represents an independence of thought and while he was leader of Fatah he strongly criticised the Authority and opposed all forms of corruption. His popularity is the real reason he has been singled out for special treatment, and this draconian sentence.
In this country opinion has changed as more and more people see the injustice and brutality of the occupation. Like all colonial occupations it will have to end, and like all colonial occupations it tries to silence the brightest and most articulate.
No doubt some of the apparatchiks surrounding Ariel Sharon are feeling very pleased with themselves for having got Barghouti behind bars. As the campaign unfolds, the lies, chicanery and deceit will become more apparent and the illegitimate nature of the legal process will be exposed.
As the Apartheid regime found out, bars and prison walls do not destroy ideas or hopes, and cannot contain a whole people. The campaign for Marwan’s release is a central part of the work of the PSC and must become a worldwide demand.
To sign the petition for Marwan Barghouti’s release go to www.petitiononline.com/MB001/petition.html
For more information on the campaign see www.freebarghouti.org
July plots
July 21, 2004
July is always a strange month in politics; the weather becomes more stable and warm; the rising temperature coincides with bad tempers; and a wish amongst many at Westminster simply to be somewhere else.
Parliament is often, quite rightly, called remote and out of touch and this month it has proved it like no other.
Having been forced into appointing Lord Butler to head an inquiry into the Intelligence that led to the Iraq War, the Prime Minister must have been relieved. A new form of collectivism emerged; apparently all decisions were “collective” and therefore all mistakes were “collective” and so we must all take “collective” responsibility for the decision.
This interesting swing towards a community of politics from the most unlikely group of people seems at variance with most of the Butler Report. Critical on un-minuted meetings and “sofa” government, it seems that the rest of the Government at Cabinet level was not informed, and that key caveats placed in reports by MI6 simply disappeared under the editorial pen of the Government press officers.
We also learn from Clare Short and others that they got their information from the newspapers about the build up to war and that the cabinet barely debated it all.
Since then there has been much hindsight activity. The Tories tell us that if they had known then what they know now they would have voted differently but are still supportive of the war. An interesting if complicated position. The Liberal Democrats did vote against the war, but then supported the occupation and the increase in troop numbers, yet when it suits them, still present themselves as being anti war. Meanwhile a number of Labour MPs who were successfully cajoled into the lobbies on March 18th last year are saying they wish they had done differently. So, do many of the rest of us wish they had done differently? It was historically the first ever opportunity MP’s had to vote for or against a war in Britain in eight hundred years of Parliaments, and many flunked it.
Butler is in the great traditions of the British establishment; a very long report beautifully written which exonerates all and blames none. For the record, the only forced resignations of anyone over the war have been Greg Dyke and Gavyn Davies at the BBC top level, and Andrew Gilligan from the Today programme, and Piers Morgan from the most anti war popular newspaper, the Daily Mirror.
Having supported the call for all the inquiries held so far, I would now like another. The House Select Committees on Defence, Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs and Intelligence, have reported, as have Lord Hutton and Lord Butler. All these have not addressed the central plank of the decision making, namely the political relationships with Britain and the USA which brought us to war.
If we cannot have a proper public inquiry into this then in the spirit of New Labour maybe it could be contracted out; I am sure Michael Moore or Greg Palast would do an excellent job of explaining the relationship. Their methods of inquiry are superb.
Meanwhile, all the public relations efforts expended on Iraq are offset by the rising death toll of Iraqi civilians and attacks on service people. The US appointed Government claims to be in control of things; a little hard to explain that they agreed or even ordered the US to attack targets in Faluja one would have thought, or that the continued pipeline explosions are a sign of peace and joy at the US and British presence. At some point troops will leave because their position will be untenable. The chaos and graves left behind will embitter the region for years to come.
As if Iraq was not enough on its own, the two by elections showed the public have not forgiven or forgotten this war. For a Labour Government to emerge after the next General election we have to do something better than Butler. A complete change of direction on foreign policy is needed, by breaking with the US and the Project for a New American century. If the cynics around Blair really believed that after a few months it would all be forgotten, they badly underestimated the peace movement and the power of the media interest.
In an attempt to move away, we had Gordon Brown’s statement on spending and much of it was welcome, except in true New Labour ways it all must be paid for but not by taxing those who could afford more, but by asset selling and job losses. A question to Gordon from me, on the cost of redundancies and job losses by civil servants met with offers of help on re-training. Most of the Civil Service jobs under threat are not bowler hated men in Whitehall from an Ealing comedy, but ordinary men and women in Job Centres and Benefit Agency offices, working hard dealing with the public. Any study anywhere shows the public prefer people over machines.
Next up with July statements was Prescott who managed to keep a straight face whilst telling us that there could be 10,000 new affordable homes per year which is only 90,000 less than were being built twenty five years ago. Welcome as estate improvements are, it seems John has still not got the message that three options of private finance, arms length management or stock transfer are hardly choices. A fourth option, of public ownership and provision of Council properties is still not there.
The hand of New Labour was not missing from the Transport Statement either. Alastair Darling did well to end the Strategic Rail Authority and the absurdly powerful position of Rail Regulator, and to transfer some powers to Wales, Scotland and London. But the real money makers from the public purse, the Train Operating Companies, are set to make yet more millions from a system bought, built and paid for by public investment.
As if to assure everyone that the message of the electorate on the War and New Labour had not got through at all Tony Blair started this week by announcing that all in the 60s was really bad. He obviously was living in a different Sixties from the rest of Britain.
There is huge public support for all the best principles of the Labour Movement; it is up to the Party to play its historic role in asserting them.
