Apart from the ones you’d expect there will also be a Monster Raving Loony. But the name that caught my eye was that of Mr. Ed Rosenthal.

He has been listed as the UKIP candidate. What’s interesting about that? Unless I’m mistaken he was, 12 years ago, a Lib Dem councillor in Tolworth East ward (now about 2/3 of Alexandra Ward). And he was very much a Lib Dem’s Lib Dem with a fine line in guitar playing and recycling tea bags and as keen on all things European as any! Since then he seems to have undergone a Damascene conversion, though I believe he still has the guitar and, I hope, still recycles his teabags!

I was very sad to hear last night, however, that there has been some fluttering in the UKIP dovecot and Mr. R is not to stand for Parliament after all – on a UKIP ticket, anyway.

Much discussed was the consultation questionnaire the Council had put out to selected roads. It hadn’t been warmly received and, on reading it, I could see why. One was presented with a series of ‘yes/no’ questions to which it was almost impossible for a rational person to answer ‘no’.

I could almost hear, as I read, the conversation this would have provoked between James Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby:-

Hacker: I’m not very happy with this questionnaire, Humphrey.

Appleby: Oh really Minister. Why ever not?

H: Reading the answers I’m no wiser as to what people think of the scheme!

A: (smiling) Really Minister? Thank you, I’ll pass on your compliments to the Circumlocution Department. They will be pleased!

H: (indignant) It wasn’t meant as a compliment! Consultations are supposed to tell the Administration what people think………aren’t they?

A: Why ever should we want to know that?

H: So we can respond to their wishes and give them something they’d like!

A: (shocked) Really Minister – there are times…….(smiling again) We already know what they want better than they do. Consultation is about getting them to agree that they want what we know they want – or ought to want. It’s not about finding out their views, it’s about persuading them to either agree with us or keep quiet.

H: But that’s really all just a confidence trick on the public…….isn’t it?

A: (exasperated) Yes Minister!

It would be greatly appreciated all round if there could be an agreed code of conduct on these operations. The attraction is the width of the roads and the proximity of the Test Centre in Douglas Road.

However 20 miles from her garden a group of ‘travellers’ have bought a field, laid drains and built houses, all without planning permission – and no-one is doing anything to move them. It appears there’s guidance from the Association of Chief Police Officers that to remove them and their dwellings from the land would infringe their ‘human rights’.

If this story is true then we are a long way down the road to abandoning the Rule of Law  and the principle that all are equal before it favour of privilege (literally, ‘private law’) for minorities. which will bring the Law itself and those who enforce it into well merited contempt.

Similarly Newsnight reports that some people broke into a school in Notts. on Monday intent upon staging a ‘protest’ to disrupt the working of a nearby coal-fired power station. They were arrested but are complaining about being treated as if they were terrorists, when they wanted to ‘draw attention to the carbon emissions from the power station’. None of them have been charged, it seems. What about breaking and entering, for starters?

Again there seems to be a growing willingness to let the end (especially something greenish) justify the means used to ‘protest’ about it. This must stop!

Every leaf counts award for cantainer gardening

Last night I was asked to present the awards at School Lane Estate’s gardening tournament for 2008. The residents set out to show what could be done in an estate of maisonettes and sheltered flats to make the environment more colourful and greener. There isn’t much amenity space for tenants and leaseholders but people used containers of various kinds if they didn’t have a little plot of their own. Everyone was encouraged to enter into one of the many categories. It was a real pleasure to be part of the enterprise, if only as the man who gave the awards. I do hope the idea catches on and becomes an annual event.

My City Too Manifesto
London’s teenagers’ manifesto for better spaces in the Capital

View young Londoner’s manifesto for better places in the Capital at: http://www.mycitytoo.org.uk/manifesto.html

In light of the mayoral elections this Thursday, please take a minute to look at the recent My City Too Manifesto for better spaces and places in London.

Young people are our future. But without the chance to influence opinion, they are excluded from debates and decisions about the future of their city. They use the spaces of our city in different ways to adults.

The My City Too manifesto is drawn from a 2 year-long-campaign with the My City Too ambassadors from across London. They have debated and developed their ideas through surveys and polls, building exploration workshops, collaborations with architects and developers and have developed creative resources to express their ideas. More importantly, the campaign findings are intended to aid future development in ensuring that young people are part of the solution rather than being perceived as the problem.

The campaign analyses capital-wide problems and finds solutions that can be applied to London generally. It is about delivering solutions that can influence local, regional and national policy.

The campaign is led by Open House, the architecture education charity – renowned for its groundbreaking work in architecture education. This is the first campaign of its kind. Never before has a pan-London initiative been undertaken to explore what young people want from their built environment, what their ideas are for the future of their city and how they can inspire change.

This manifesto will be actively pursued to ensure that these ideas are embedded into London’s policy for the built environment.

Help us to give London’s young people a voice. Pledge your support for the manifesto by emailing: mycitytoo@openhouse.org.uk

Regards

Victoria Thornton
Founding Director, Open House

297 Euston Road
London NW1 3AQ

www.openhouse.org.uk

• Scrap the Western Extension Zone

• Introduce in its place a 24/7 £10 greater London congestion zone for non-Londoners. Commercial vehicles and London registered vehicles will be exempt. Aimed at encouraging visitors and commuters to use public transport.

It was noticeable that, when Howard Jones drew attention to this proposal in the Budget debate last Wednesday there was embarrassed silence from the Lib Dem members. And no wonder! People coming in to Kingston to shop from Esher, Claygate, Long Ditton or the far end of Lovelace Road or Ditton Road in my ward or Balaclava Road or Portsmouth Road in St. Marks ward would be faced with a £10 charge every time they come to shop in Surbiton or Kingston – the biggest retail centre in London outside the West End – and they’d have to pay an extra tenner on top of the seat price and the parking charge to visit the beloved Rose theatre. That should strangle Kingston’s economy sure enough.

Only someone profoundly ignorant of the nature of the boundary areas of Greater London (where one building in Greater London is often next door – literally – to one in Surrey) could possibly have come up with such a harebrained scheme – and he wants to be Mayor!