Conservative councillor Maureen Middleton died of a heart attack last week aged 68. She was, I've been told, born and bred in Hackney and one of the borough's longest serving councillors having been elected in 1998.
Apparently her interests included health, social care and housing - particularly Woodberry Down which was mostly in her ward - and leaseholders' issues.
I never got to speak to her but I've been told she was a right-to-buy leaseholder herself and fought against leaseholders having to pay too much for repairs. As a leaseholder who has been overcharged by Hackney Homes for major works - the bill had to be corrected to the tune of thousands - I know where she was coming from.
With her seat in the New River ward Cllr Middleton represented a large ultra orthodox Jewish population - there was a brief tribute to her today in the Jewish Chronicle with a quote from former Hackney Mayor Joe Lobenstein who said she understood the Stamford Hill Jewish community.
Not surprisingly she was not a great fan of Jules Pipe, Hackney's Labour administration or the Blair/Brown government.
Here's a taste of the old days from N16 magazine circa 2002: When the council proposed taking rubbish collection back in house: "This enraged Tory Councillor Maureen Middleton and she threatened that 2,500 tenants from Woodberry Down estate would chain themselves to the railings of the Town Hall if their Sunday bin collection was stopped. She was denounced by Jules Pipe, the Council Leader, who is seeking voluntary redundancy from that job to run for the post of Mayor with its much better pay and prospects...."
Her belief in right-to-buy, people having to stand on their own feet, and in the ownership of property was classic Conservative territory. Apparently she was also a supporter of motorists' rights and there was standing joke that she didn't like cyclists.
Cllr Middleton's debating methods were seen by some as aggressive - she did not pull any punches - despite this there is a consensus that she was honest to her own beliefs and fought hard for the people she represented.
Labour Councillor Luke Akehurst said: "Despite some sometimes heated exchanges in the chamber I always found Maureen very easy to get on with when we met socially, and I know that she was always motivated as a councillor by wanting to fight for the best outcomes for the residents of her ward. Like all the members of the Tory group she treated me with great kindness during my recent illness. I had only just started to work more closely with her on the Health in Hackney Scrutiny Commission and had been looking forward to working with her. She will be greatly missed, particularly by residents of New River Ward."
Hackney Gazette reports 2 minute silence for Maureen
Council statement
Hackney Citizen reports Lib Dems joining the Maureen Middleton fan club
I asked for comments from here Conservative colleagues but have not yet received replies.
BY ELECTION: This is likely to be held at the beginning of October. Some believe that the most likely Conservative candidate will be Harvey Odze. Any ultra orthodox Jewish candidate is likely to do well - (the high voter turnout for the combined General, Mayoral and Council elections have been blamed for the Conservative failure in New River in the last election) - but there could be a back lash from the ultra orthodox Jewish community which will be hit hard by the coalition government's housing benefit caps.
New River is the worst affected ward with 239 housing benefit claimants currently paying rent that will be above the new caps (It used to be completely Conservative but Maureen Middleton just was the only Conservative councillor left after the last election)
Springfield: 227 affected (Now represented by two Conservative councillors and one Labour)
Cazenove: 210 affected (Now represented by three Lib Dems)
Lordship: 164 affected (Now represented by one Conservative and two Labour)
This means that the majority of the councillors representing these wards come from the parties which have imposed the cuts.
The Labour party will have to choose a candidate but the front runner is Yusuf Kilinc who fought in the May election and only narrowly lost, winning more votes than Harvey Odze.
Showing posts with label luke akehurst. Show all posts
Showing posts with label luke akehurst. Show all posts
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Greens ousted from Hackney by "dog poo"
According to an election report by the man who masterminded Hackney Labour's victory in May, Labour: "Fought and won Clissold Ward from the Greens based more on tackling dog poo on the Milton Gardens Estate than on the national or even borough issues."
The battle with the Green Party for Clissold Ward was just one area where Luke Akehurst's tactics helped Labour to an almost unhealthy victory, taking 50 of the borough's 57 seats (not including the Labour Mayor, Jules Pipe).
It may be common practice in all parties but Akehurst's report reveals a stick-heavy/ carrot-light attitude by the Labour Party leadership toward its councillor candidates. The positives (two annual social events and a no-arguing policy for in-house debates) seem to be outweighed by the negatives (league tables to encourage competitiveness, and threats of deselection and weekly reporting regimes for wards that lag behind on canvassing numbers.)
But are these threats just secondary measures to keep an already compliant selection of candidates in-line? In the piece Luke Akehurst makes it clear that powerful measures were taken to clean up the Hackney Labour Party and whatever techniques he devised to do this in 2000, why wouldn't he deploy them on newer generations of politicians?
Maybe the botched attempt to deselect hard left Labour Councillor Barry Buitekant was a symptom of this Labour group engineering. May be it wasn't. But the question now is whether the Hackney Labour Party is willing to scrutinise its leadership and whether it's members can restrain its leadership if they need to?
The battle with the Green Party for Clissold Ward was just one area where Luke Akehurst's tactics helped Labour to an almost unhealthy victory, taking 50 of the borough's 57 seats (not including the Labour Mayor, Jules Pipe).
It may be common practice in all parties but Akehurst's report reveals a stick-heavy/ carrot-light attitude by the Labour Party leadership toward its councillor candidates. The positives (two annual social events and a no-arguing policy for in-house debates) seem to be outweighed by the negatives (league tables to encourage competitiveness, and threats of deselection and weekly reporting regimes for wards that lag behind on canvassing numbers.)
But are these threats just secondary measures to keep an already compliant selection of candidates in-line? In the piece Luke Akehurst makes it clear that powerful measures were taken to clean up the Hackney Labour Party and whatever techniques he devised to do this in 2000, why wouldn't he deploy them on newer generations of politicians?
Maybe the botched attempt to deselect hard left Labour Councillor Barry Buitekant was a symptom of this Labour group engineering. May be it wasn't. But the question now is whether the Hackney Labour Party is willing to scrutinise its leadership and whether it's members can restrain its leadership if they need to?
Meanwhile, the election result seems to be a mainly white Labour group with most minorities under-represented.
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Is Green really red?
In this interview, Matt Sellwood, prospective MP for Hackney North and candidate for Clissold ward councillor says: "Increasingly, socialists who used to be in both the Labour Party and the far-left grouplets are joining the Greens, which is leading to a reassessment of how we achieve social change, what getting elected means, and how to best use our elected positions to change the world."
Has something changed in the Green Party since Red Pepper published this Greens on trial in 2008? Back then the magazine quoted the Green Party’s national election agent saying: "Many Green Party members wouldn’t like to describe themselves as left. If we positioned ourselves as explicitly left it would be dangerous, with no guarantee of success. We need to keep our reputation on the environment."
According to this 2008 Guardian article there has been a change and there is a reason: "The Greens are now only Green in name and the reason lies in the creation of Green Left in 2006, a leftwing entryist movement that now occupies many of the most powerful positions in the party. Founded by Peter Tatchell, among others, Green Left is an avowedly anti-capitalist movement. Like many people, I revere Peter Tatchell as a national treasure, but I would never vote for him."
So is this "entryism"? And do Hackney voters know what they're actually voting for? Labour Councillor Luke Akehurst, who gets a mention and has left a comment, appears to fear these same "far-left grouplets" entering the Labour Party.
Some interesting comments after this Socialist Resistance piece and in 2008 the Greens seemed to have a problem with a BNP.
Has something changed in the Green Party since Red Pepper published this Greens on trial in 2008? Back then the magazine quoted the Green Party’s national election agent saying: "Many Green Party members wouldn’t like to describe themselves as left. If we positioned ourselves as explicitly left it would be dangerous, with no guarantee of success. We need to keep our reputation on the environment."
According to this 2008 Guardian article there has been a change and there is a reason: "The Greens are now only Green in name and the reason lies in the creation of Green Left in 2006, a leftwing entryist movement that now occupies many of the most powerful positions in the party. Founded by Peter Tatchell, among others, Green Left is an avowedly anti-capitalist movement. Like many people, I revere Peter Tatchell as a national treasure, but I would never vote for him."
So is this "entryism"? And do Hackney voters know what they're actually voting for? Labour Councillor Luke Akehurst, who gets a mention and has left a comment, appears to fear these same "far-left grouplets" entering the Labour Party.
Some interesting comments after this Socialist Resistance piece and in 2008 the Greens seemed to have a problem with a BNP.
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Candidate 5: Socialism is like the "Life of Brian"
Candidate 5 - representing the Socialist Party of Great Britain - seemed like a nice chap and because I didn't know any better, I wasn't unnerved by the deep historical knowledge required to distiguish his party from other socialist entities on offer. I didn't know about the freaky far left.
Candidate 5, formerly a resident of Lambeth who now lives in Camden, told me that the socialist scene was so riven with schisms that it put Monty Python’s Life of Brian in the shade. (“Excuse me. Are you the Judean People’s Front?”)
This discussion thread snippet about the SPGB - on Dave Osler’s blog - might provide an idea of the kind of intricacies a voter faces:
Stephen Marks: “It is said that the highest vote ever recorded for the SPGB was 500 in a by-election. The candidate was promptly expelled for opportunism, on the grounds that there could not possibly have been 500 voters in the constituency who had fully understood the theoretical Marxist case for socialism as expounded by the SPGB - so the candidate must have been guilty of reformist vote-cadging.”
The response from Dr Paul: “I've heard that story retailed by Stephen Marks, but in the version I was told (by the late Walter Kendall, one of Britain's handful of Kautskians) it referred to the Socialist Labour Party, a group that followed the ideas of Daniel De Leon.”
If it’s a joke its well researched! Karl Kautsky and Daniel De Leon are not figments of anyone's imaginations.
Having read the SPGB's reasonably recent comments on whose votes they want - easiest to read on Dave Osler's blog again - I know I don't understand it, but I like the idea that a person voting has to be totally dedicated to what their voting for or their vote is not wanted.
All the other parties just want my vote and don't seem to care if I understand what my vote means to me. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my vote so the SPGB tell me its worthless. At least until I get educated. And this sounds true. My vote is worthless to me if I don't understand it. It doesn't empower me, just the people I give it to.
No doubt Candidate 5 would have been as expert at hair-splitting as his comrades but we chatted about other things. He was happier than most of the others to discuss local economies and how the man, or woman, on the street can find out about them. He said a great deal of good information was available on council websites, at least for those with the will to look hard enough.
He provided a couple of examples: “I remember people complaining about how unfair it was that ‘they’ had dumped so many Vietnamese in their area. So I looked up Hampstead and saw that there had been a huge jump in diversity between 1991 and 2001, a 10 per cent increase in migrants and so (unexpected places) have seen big demographic changes too.”
He said: “There are things like a ward-by-ward breakdown of life expectancy. In one Camden ward, Somers Town, the life expectancy is 69 years, in Hampstead it is 79 so you have a 10 year life expectancy gap in the same borough. That is the sort of thing that tells you what a borough is like. Other key indicators that I think you can find fairly easily for Hackney is free school meal entitlement.”
Other issues we discussed were:
Education gap: that statistics for London borough’s show a huge gap between people with degrees or qualifications in general and those who have none. He said that residents should be aware that a significant chunk of the education was imported – professionals moving into areas – and that if these statistics changed it said very little about home grown education.
On Employment: Before discussing the idea that the problem with capitalism was that it required a pool of unemployment, he gave his view on why Hackney residents should not take any comfort from improved employment figures in deprived areas. Particularly when whole economies were shifting into reverse.
He said: “Areas like Hackney are like Teeside where, over the last decade, employment has improved but only when the economy as whole economy grows. When the tide changes, these are the areas that will see the biggest reverses in the shortest space of time. I go back to Teeside now and even the pound shops are shut or having half-price sales.”
He says you can’t have capitalism without unemployment. It needs a pool of unemployment and in areas like Hackney this means grinding poverty for some people and a situation from which it is hard to escape. For single mothers it is almost impossible to escape.
He didn't like the idea of hereditary council housing and sub-letting. It is a problem which he says is endemic (I wasn't sure what this meant).
In terms of the near future for Hackney, as it deals with the knock on effects of the financial crisis, he said: “The effects of massive unemployment – so far we’ve been spared – last time we had Tottenham riots and Brixton riots.” He described this as a form of “collective bargaining by rioting".
Another issue he talked about briefly, which seems to be a concern for some within the mainstream Labour Party in Hackney and London, is an onslaught by militants or Trotskyists/ites if discontent within Labour grows: swap Liverpool for Hackney. Former Hackney Labour whip Luke Akehurst was happy when one of their leaders died. More recently he wrote "Those who cannot learn from History are doomed to repeat it" for both Labourlist and on his own blog, both of which sparked some comment.
Writing in March 2009, Akehurst said: "Insurgency from the left has afflicted Labour during every major period in opposition - the 1930s, the 1950s and the 1980s. In every case it has been necessary to wage a long and bitter internal struggle to smash the left and purge entryists who are not democratic socialists in order to make the party electable again."
Candidate 5 said that the way that these takeovers generally start and gain power is by having the discipline to have a few militants at important but “boring meetings” that no one else can be bothered to attend - and then move toward the final aim of a socialist revolution.
It probably wouldn’t take much for me to find out who Candidate 5 is, but I haven't. You can read his blog on the event here: Spgb.blogspot.com
Candidate 5, formerly a resident of Lambeth who now lives in Camden, told me that the socialist scene was so riven with schisms that it put Monty Python’s Life of Brian in the shade. (“Excuse me. Are you the Judean People’s Front?”)
This discussion thread snippet about the SPGB - on Dave Osler’s blog - might provide an idea of the kind of intricacies a voter faces:
Stephen Marks: “It is said that the highest vote ever recorded for the SPGB was 500 in a by-election. The candidate was promptly expelled for opportunism, on the grounds that there could not possibly have been 500 voters in the constituency who had fully understood the theoretical Marxist case for socialism as expounded by the SPGB - so the candidate must have been guilty of reformist vote-cadging.”
The response from Dr Paul: “I've heard that story retailed by Stephen Marks, but in the version I was told (by the late Walter Kendall, one of Britain's handful of Kautskians) it referred to the Socialist Labour Party, a group that followed the ideas of Daniel De Leon.”
If it’s a joke its well researched! Karl Kautsky and Daniel De Leon are not figments of anyone's imaginations.
Having read the SPGB's reasonably recent comments on whose votes they want - easiest to read on Dave Osler's blog again - I know I don't understand it, but I like the idea that a person voting has to be totally dedicated to what their voting for or their vote is not wanted.
All the other parties just want my vote and don't seem to care if I understand what my vote means to me. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my vote so the SPGB tell me its worthless. At least until I get educated. And this sounds true. My vote is worthless to me if I don't understand it. It doesn't empower me, just the people I give it to.
No doubt Candidate 5 would have been as expert at hair-splitting as his comrades but we chatted about other things. He was happier than most of the others to discuss local economies and how the man, or woman, on the street can find out about them. He said a great deal of good information was available on council websites, at least for those with the will to look hard enough.
He provided a couple of examples: “I remember people complaining about how unfair it was that ‘they’ had dumped so many Vietnamese in their area. So I looked up Hampstead and saw that there had been a huge jump in diversity between 1991 and 2001, a 10 per cent increase in migrants and so (unexpected places) have seen big demographic changes too.”
He said: “There are things like a ward-by-ward breakdown of life expectancy. In one Camden ward, Somers Town, the life expectancy is 69 years, in Hampstead it is 79 so you have a 10 year life expectancy gap in the same borough. That is the sort of thing that tells you what a borough is like. Other key indicators that I think you can find fairly easily for Hackney is free school meal entitlement.”
Other issues we discussed were:
Education gap: that statistics for London borough’s show a huge gap between people with degrees or qualifications in general and those who have none. He said that residents should be aware that a significant chunk of the education was imported – professionals moving into areas – and that if these statistics changed it said very little about home grown education.
On Employment: Before discussing the idea that the problem with capitalism was that it required a pool of unemployment, he gave his view on why Hackney residents should not take any comfort from improved employment figures in deprived areas. Particularly when whole economies were shifting into reverse.
He said: “Areas like Hackney are like Teeside where, over the last decade, employment has improved but only when the economy as whole economy grows. When the tide changes, these are the areas that will see the biggest reverses in the shortest space of time. I go back to Teeside now and even the pound shops are shut or having half-price sales.”
He says you can’t have capitalism without unemployment. It needs a pool of unemployment and in areas like Hackney this means grinding poverty for some people and a situation from which it is hard to escape. For single mothers it is almost impossible to escape.
He didn't like the idea of hereditary council housing and sub-letting. It is a problem which he says is endemic (I wasn't sure what this meant).
In terms of the near future for Hackney, as it deals with the knock on effects of the financial crisis, he said: “The effects of massive unemployment – so far we’ve been spared – last time we had Tottenham riots and Brixton riots.” He described this as a form of “collective bargaining by rioting".
Another issue he talked about briefly, which seems to be a concern for some within the mainstream Labour Party in Hackney and London, is an onslaught by militants or Trotskyists/ites if discontent within Labour grows: swap Liverpool for Hackney. Former Hackney Labour whip Luke Akehurst was happy when one of their leaders died. More recently he wrote "Those who cannot learn from History are doomed to repeat it" for both Labourlist and on his own blog, both of which sparked some comment.
Writing in March 2009, Akehurst said: "Insurgency from the left has afflicted Labour during every major period in opposition - the 1930s, the 1950s and the 1980s. In every case it has been necessary to wage a long and bitter internal struggle to smash the left and purge entryists who are not democratic socialists in order to make the party electable again."
Candidate 5 said that the way that these takeovers generally start and gain power is by having the discipline to have a few militants at important but “boring meetings” that no one else can be bothered to attend - and then move toward the final aim of a socialist revolution.
It probably wouldn’t take much for me to find out who Candidate 5 is, but I haven't. You can read his blog on the event here: Spgb.blogspot.com
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