Hundreds Sign Petition Against Wanstead Flats Plan

The Save Wanstead Flats campaign steering group met last night to finalise arrangements for next week's public meeting and now has a provisional figure for the number of signatures collected so far in opposition to the Metropolitan police's plan to set up on the Flats in 2012.

Including the petition collection sheets that arrived this morning, there are 1324 people signed up so far in opposition to the plans, with a further 403 online. More completed petitions are expected at the beginning of next week and there are street stalls planned on Monday. It's not too late to collect more in support of the campaign - a copy of the petition can be downloaded from the campaign website.

Last night I also discovered that the Cardboard Copper will no longer be necessary - the police will definitely be attending the public meeting on 6 October. An e-mail from Chief Supt Alaric Bothron was sent on to me today and it seems he wasn't amused by my suggestion! The meeting yesterday also set out the format for next Wednesday, which will be ably chaired by former chair of Newham UNISON Michael Gavan. The debate has been divided into five broad themes to make sure that everything is covered and these are:

• The way the site for a potential Olympic policing base was chosen
• The future protection of the Flats if Epping Forest Act 1878 is amended and the implications of any precedent the police plans set
• The impact on local access in Forest Gate, Wanstead and Leyton
• The impact on local use of the Flats during 2012
• Alternative sites and what plans are in place if local objections are successful

The request to take over the front row by the young people from Newham Woodcraft Folk, who asked some really smart questions when I met them a couple of days ago, has been agreed and I hope that one of their number decides to ask a question.

Now we have to hope that as many people as possible turn up. The leaflet promoting the event is available here if you can help spread the word.

LAZY FRIDAY - The Dangers Of Staying Silent

Today's Friday lunchtime distraction is is actually an advert for some crappy brand of cider - but it's funny, nevertheless. Next time you up get up in the middle of the night and are trying not to wake your partner, remember to take care...

A ¾ Year Review Of 2010

It's now nine months into the year and I thought I'd share some details about you - the readership of this blog. In the first three quarters of 2010, there have been 38,052 unique visitors here, with 4,595 returning more than once (see above).

This does seem to back up the point I suggested in July, that most randomly drop by "for the same reasons that I read the sites listed in the 'Blogs of Note' column on the right of this page - because they are occasionally curious about an individual post". That turned out to be particularly true of one angry rant about the sainted Stephen Fry that was surprisingly popular. The smaller number of regulars, meanwhile, would seem to be either friends and comrades, those interested in discussions about policing in Britain or people who enjoy speculating about events in the borough of Newham (the most popular search query was "Wanstead Flats").

Blogging was a little slow at the start of the year and wasn't helped by the fact that throughout March, I was recovering from a very nasty traffic accident and had more important things on my mind. It picked up again with the mid-year decision of the CPS to do nothing for the family of Ian Tomlinson. But whatever the reason for visiting, thanks to everyone who has given feedback, although that often seems to happen over a coffee or a beer. Do feel free to comment on-line too.

Wanstead Flats - Cardboard Copper Stands Ready To Serve

One week from today, residents from Newham, Waltham Forest and Redbridge will gather at Durning Hall Community Centre for a public question-and-answer session with representatives of the City of London Corporation and the Metropolitan Police, discussing plans for a proposed Olympic operations base on Wanstead Flats in 2012.

I know that the Corporation's extremely charming Director of Open Spaces Sue Ireland will be coming with Paul Thomson, the Superintendent of Epping Forest, to speak from the platform. We are very grateful to them both. I also know, after talking to them this evening, that a group of 9-13 year-old young people from Newham Woodcraft Folk will be settling into the front row and plan to ask some questions. I know too that Michael Gavan, the former Newham Unison chair, has graciously agreed to keep order.

But as yet, I have no idea whether the police are coming. They have indicated that they plan to, but who their spokesperson will be on the day remains a mystery. Perhaps I'll find out more when the steering group of the Save Wanstead Flats campaign meets tomorrow evening to finalise arrangements for next Wednesday.

However, it would such a shame to leave an empty chair at the top table if the police fail to show. So, just in case, I've clubbed together with some friends to order a cardboard cut-out policeman (above right). He's reportedly six feet and one inch tall, obviously not that good at answering questions and at thirty quid, rather on the expensive side (you can purchase one yourself here). But, provided he arrives on time, I'd of course be very happy to make Cardboard Copper available to the campaign if needed.

Let's hope that won't be necessary. There are still far too many unanswered questions that only the police can answer and clearly, consultation with local people is far too important to be left to a stiff, inanimate object.

Residents Public Meeting
WEDNESDAY 6th OCTOBER
7pm at Durning Hall Community Centre
Earlham Grove
London E7 9AB

You can download a flyer for meeting here.

Ed Miliband's 'Anti-War' Credentials - Where's The Evidence?

Much has been made of new Labour leader Ed Miliband's conference speech over the last 24 hours, especially the passage in which he said that Tony Blair had been wrong to take Britain into war in Iraq because it "was not a last resort, because we did not build sufficient alliances and because we undermined the United Nations". That's his position now, but is it a late conversion, an expedient response to the deep hostility to the war amongst Party members, or has he always been 'anti-war'?

The evidence is pretty thin. When millions of us were marching on that amazing day in February 2003, Millband had not yet entered parliament - he was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, five months into a year-long unpaid sabbatical as Visiting Professor of Government at Harvard. There is no record of speeches or articles from the period expressing any doubts about the Iraq invasion. The only 'proof' of the future Labour leader's views come from the New Statesman's Mehdi Hasan, who in his enthusiasm for Ed Miliband's candidacy falls back in the kind of unsubstantiated hearsay from "a well-connected Labour source" that a respected journalist would normally scorn.

But Miliband's record since becoming an MP in 2005 give some indication of whether, in the name of party loyalty, he would have voted with the former Cabinet members who sat stonily though his conference address yesterday. He voted strongly against attempts to investigate the intelligence failures and handling of the war and against a 2007 motion in support of the principle that parliamentary approval should be required before the future deployment of British troops. As an apparent opponent of the Iraq war, it's far from convincing, is it?

So - does anyone have any evidence that Mister Ed's new-found critique of the Iraq invasion is anything more than tactical?

Campaign Against Discrimination Of Disabled Newham Council Worker

Yesterday morning, I bumped into Newham union activist Elane Heffernan at the Royal London Hospital - by chance, we were both there to see the same orthopaedic surgeon. Elane told me a little about the appalling way that Newham council and NHS Newham has treated her since a workplace accident in 2006, which has led to the need for disability adaptations to continue her work for the Migrant Advice & Advocacy Service.

These adaptations are hardly substantial - they include voice-activated computer software and a telephone headset to be able to work comfortably. However, the council has been extremely unwilling to implement them and instead has isolated Elane from her work colleague in another building where she has had to help patients by working from a coffee table - which is causing more and more pain and stress.

It is quite clear from what Elane told me that instead of fulfilling its positive and proactive duty, under the Disability Discrimination Act and the Equalities Act that comes into force on Friday, to take steps to remove, reduce or prevent the obstacles a disabled worker faces, Newham council and NHS Newham are looking for any way they can to pay her off and drive her out. The reason? Because she is an active trade unionist (and a member of the SWP).

This is not only discrimination and harassment of a disabled employee and an attack on a union activist. It's wilfully unlawful. Elane wants to continue supporting patients from migrant backgrounds and doesn't want to be forced out, no matter the payout her employer cynically offers instead of fulfilling its legal responsibilities. Not for the first time, I'm relieved that I don't work for Newham council - the way they have responded to the considerable physical difficulties and discomfort that Elane has faced for four years is in marked contrast to the support I've had so far from my own (charity) employer. It's also another example of many where the council tries to spend its way out of a problem (with our money) rather than act responsibly.

There is a campaign to support Elane and a petition available from letelanework@yahoo.co.uk. Pressure is important - so please collect signatures from your workplace and contacts.

Paul Mason at the London Anarchist Bookfair

Will Cameron’s cuts lead to working class defeat or to a new anti capitalist movement?

at the London Anarchist Bookfair
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS.

Saturday 23rd October 2010

Debate with BBC journalist Paul Mason, Hillel Ticktin (Critique) and a speaker from Endnotes.

The British state has now decided on an all out attack on the living standards of the entire working class – employed and unemployed, young and old, consumers and service users. The last time a UK Government attacked everyone simultaneously was the Poll Tax which provoked widespread opposition and Thatcher’s downfall. What is it about the present economic crisis that has again persuaded the government to risk such an all out assault? Can they success or will they provoke a new anti capitalist movement?

In the Skeel Lecture Room

Protesting Against The Tory Conference

The must-have item of sartorial elegance for anyone protesting at the Conservative Party Conference, which starts a week today in Birmingham. T-shirts bearing the logo above are available from the West Midlands IWW.

There is allegedly a black bloc - more accurately, the CPC Convergence Direct Action Bloc - that is planning to target conference fringe events on Sunday, although many are inside the 'secure zone'. It's of interest that the several organised by various pro-aviation groups are outside the zone, as is one hosted by perpetual rent-a-quote providers the TaxPayers’ Alliance.

It remains unclear, however, whether the SWP's 'Right To Work' campaign still plans actions near the conference centre after its march was banned by the police in early September.

Kentish Skulls And Bones

I'm down in Kent for the weekend and this morning was at St Leonard's in Hythe, which is unusual for an English church because it has an ossuary (a a bone store, above) lined with 2000 skulls and 8000 thigh bones dating from the medieval period. My Mum and Dad have seen an ossuary before in Évora in Portugal, but I never knew such a macabre display existed in Britain.

This came at the start of a long day, which included lunch in Dungeness, a chance to enjoy its bleak landscape from the top of the Old Lighthouse and see Derek Jarman's cottage (below). Heading back to London tomorrow - more photos on Flickr.

This is a somewhat different view of the Dungeness B nuclear power station, through the green lens of the Old Lighthouse:

LAZY FRIDAY - I Was Beckham's Grandad

Today's Friday lunchtime distraction was sent to me by Rob Konway earlier in the week and outlines his claim that Peter the Painter, the mythical anarchist leader of the famous Siege of Sidney Street of January 1911, was also the grandfather of well-known corporate shill David 'Golden Balls' Beckham. Frankly, the evidence is compelling...