Today (Sunday): Hustings for Hackney's GLA members

A ‘question time’ for the candidates standing for the London North East seat on the Greater London Assembly will include these four candidates:

Caroline Allen: Green
Jennette Arnold:Labour
Naomi Newstead:Conservative
Farooq Qureshi:Lib Dem

The even has been organised by Hackney Unites which said:

Turks and Trident and the Olympics

This week, (Thursday 9 Feb 2012) Hackney's new borough commander, Acting Chief Superintendent Rob Jones, commented on the implications for Hackney following the murder of Ali Armagan on 1 February. (Details here from Evening Standard and here from the Hackney Gazette).

'An insult to the people of Hackney' or an injury?

The Local Government Chronicle's chief reporter has provided more terrifying insights into the government's attitude to Hackney as Mayor Pipe does his best to get some straight answers about cuts. (More background here)

It is disturbing stuff. Pipe told the LGC reporter that the government's response to his questions about the cuts were an 'insult to the people of Hackney'. Sadly the end result is more likely to be an injury: evidence that the government will let places like Hackney become dysfunctional casualties of the cuts.

A story about the potential demise of Operation Trident - in the Guardian and the BBC - demonstrates that some of these assaults on life in Hackney may not be directly aimed at the borough. The Hackney Gazette had a source claiming that these reports were 'taken out of context' which is hardly a convincing denial.

And the official 'denial' is nothing of the sort - it had a Hackney Police spokeswoman saying the police were committed to building on the success of Trident, not necessarily with Trident.

Trident could even stay as it is and Hackney still lose out. A slight shift in political priorities at the top could see the task force's efforts concentrated on other boroughs - Hackney and Lambeth have been the main recipients of Trident's efforts.

There is also the question of elected police chiefs and the effect that could have on places like Hackney - watch The Wire to see what goes on behind the scenes in a politicised police force.

What do Operation Trident cuts mean for Hackney?

Hackney is one of the biggest 'clients' of operation trident. The chances are that Trident officers know more about Hackney's worst criminals than Hackney's own detectives.

According to data provided to Blood and Property by Operation Trident under a Freedom of Information Act request, Hackney is its second biggest customer. In 2008-9 Trident had a £28m budget and employed 359 police officers. Over the last four years Hackney has seen 110 cases, 10% of Trident's case load, being investigated.

This debate on youth crime took place in Parliament in September 2010. No Hackney MPs were there (both probably busy with the Labour leadership)

But David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab) asked: "Can the hon. Gentleman confirm whether a decision has been made by Boris—the Mayor of London—to cut the marketing budget of Operation Trident? It is important that we should be able to communicate with the young people of London in order to deflect them from crime, so can the Minister comment on whether that is, in fact, true?"

James Brokenshire: "I am afraid that I cannot give him a direct answer to the specific point that he raises about any decision that the Mayor may or may not have made on Operation Trident. However, I should be happy to make inquiries and, as required, write to him if that would be of assistance to him."

It looks like similar cuts to Operation Trident's PR machine were done before, in 2008: "The cuts in adspend will mean less high profile campaigns such as the Metropolitan Police's Operation Trident campaign, created by Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy, to fight gun crime."

The issue of advertising and challenging the perceptions of the black community and the police were addressed by the Met's armed police CO19 back in May 2010 (on the day of the London Fields Shooting). This highlighted a number of persistent beliefs within the black community about subjects like police corruption.