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by Paul Scully | May 10, 2008 | News |
Boris has certainly hit the ground running in his first week as Mayor. He has made some bold appointments with Ray Lewis becoming Deputy Mayor for Young People. Ray is the inspirational head of Eastside Young Leaders’ Academy with a fantastic track record of providing real change for young people in Hackney.
Patience Wheatcroft, former Business Editor of the Times will lead a 60-day audit of City Hall. She will be helped by Stephen Greenhalgh amongst others. As leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, Stephen has already been incisive in his approach to local government finances, cutting council tax in his borough by 3% each year for the past two years.
Boris has met with Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York to draw comparisons and with Council leaders from across the city further demonstrating his desire to work closely with those people that know their part of London best. If you are going to build transatlantic relations, Bloomberg is the better bet than Hugo Chavez.
His first action was to ban alcohol from the underground and buses. In his campaign, Boris concentrated heavily on making public transport safer. This is an important first step and it is good to see such quick action despite Bob Crow’s typically blinkered approach. I’m sure that if Boris had not done this and assaults on staff went up, the call for strikes would have been deafening.
Finally according to Iain Dale comes my personal favourite. Boris showed the basic common sense that has been sorely lacking for eight years. I’ll leave it to Iain to tell the story:-
“When Boris sat down at his desk on Monday morning he was presented with a huge press cuttings file, which included loads of articles from the Morning Star. ‘Why on earth are you including these?’ he asked one of his staff. ‘Well,’ said the staff member, ‘Mayor Livingstone was keen to support the Morning Star’. ‘In what way?’ asked Boris.It transpired that the GLA Building had a subscription of forty – yes, forty – copies of the Morning Star delivered every day. Boris’s first action as Mayor was to cancel all forty subscriptions to the lefty rag, thereby halving its circulation with one stroke of the mayoral pen. That’s what I call the mark of a real Conservative – annoy the leftists and save the taxpayer £10,000 a year at the same time.”
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by Paul Scully | May 7, 2008 | Carshalton Central, News |
The Post Office have revealed their decision on the future of branches in London. All five that were earmarked for closure in the Borough are to be axed, leaving hundreds of people inconvenienced and having to suffer longer journeys and longer queues.
One is here in Carshalton, opposite the BP garage on Carshalton Road. BP are putting an M&S Simply Food branch on their site. Without postal services, I fear that the shop will find it hard to compete with the might of M&S and BP. Another nail in the coffin of diversity.
Ken Andrew, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Carshalton & Wallington did a terrific job in raising awareness of the threat and collected a petition with well over 3000 signatures on it. Despite best efforts, the decision had pretty well been made with only 7 branches reprieved in London out of 171.
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by Paul Scully | May 7, 2008 | News |
Under rules agreed by the Labour Government earlier this year, Ken Livingstone stands to get a £69,000 payoff after losing the election, at least £30,000 of which will be tax-free. You may think that this is a small price to pay to be free of the man.
Departing Assembly Members will receive around £25,000. There is a weak case to be made for this when someone has lost an election. However, there is no case when someone steps down at the election as a planned retirement such as LibDem members Graham Tope and Sally Hamwee, both members of the House of Lords. They did not stand for election yet qualify for a payout. I didn’t stand for election either, where do I queue up for my handout? If I find out, I’ll let you know.
![Busy Boris]()
by Paul Scully | May 4, 2008 | News |
Two stories that I have read today and
then thrown away (having completed a risk assessment, applied for a waste licence with the commensurate fee and written to the Secretary of State in triplicate):-
From the Sunday Telegraph:
Havant council spent 34p on a letter demanding payment of a 1p tax bill. Guy Shepperd, 36, of Horndean, Hants, was told he could pay by instalments.
From Private Eye:
Citywest Homes, the “arm’s length” company which manages Westminster council’s housing stock, is inviting oldies to get in touch if they need any help with a variety of tasks, including “filling in forms”. To avail themselves of the service all the tenants have to do is, er, fill in a form!
![Busy Boris]()
by Paul Scully | May 3, 2008 | News |
The last few days have been fantastic news for the country with Gordon Brown getting the clearest message possible that he should start packing his bags and finding a publisher for his memoirs. The culmination of the elections was the news that Boris had become Mayor of London sending that other blinkered Labour politician into retirement on a wave of expectation for real change in London.
Boris has a great vision for London, however he knows that he couldn’t and shouldn’t do everything on his own. He has constantly told me and other councillors that we know our areas best and should be trusted. I am happy to have a Mayor to take a strategic view but who will not micromanage every borough to attempt to force through unpopular policies. He has already met his campaign pledge to increase the number of police on the streets, albeit just the one, Brian Paddick.
Outer London residents came out in huge numbers to vote for a change and I am determined to remind Boris at every opportunity that we need his attention in Sutton. Crime, transport and housing problems don’t stop at the end of the Victoria Line. The London Plan for development requires urgent attention to drastically reduce backgarden development. Antisocial Behaviour on our streets, parks and buses needs battling.
Steve O’Connell, new Assembly Member for Sutton & Croydon had a fantastic result too, doubling the Conservative majority to a whopping 42,000. He has worked hard to prove that he wants to work closely with people in our Borough rather than looking at Sutton as a poor relation to the largest Borough in the City. He deserves his success but we will keep him on his toes as a shopping list of Sutton priorities wends its way up to City Hall. The vote count at Olympia yesterday was interminably boring, lasting 14 hours or so. We were considering a wager to see which result came first, the Zimbabwe Presidential election or London. The counters including many Sutton Council officers worked effectively, the Spanish machinery less so. I’ll leave you to work jokes about Spanish Working Practices into the equation.
The full results in Sutton & Croydon can be seen at the London Elects website, a few of the main points follow:-
Mayor
Boris Johnson 48.36%
Ken Livingstone 28.34%
Brian Paddick 11.77%
Constituency vote
Steve O’Connell (C) 43.34%
Shafi Khan (Lab) 19.16%
Abigail Lock (LD) 18.32%
This resulted in an increase in Conservative vote of 6.55% and a decrease in the LibDem vote of 1.80% compared to 2004. Nick Clegg described this as ‘counfounding expectations’ and ‘regaining momentum’. Having seen local LibDem councillors peversely celebrating their loss of the Cheam by-election by holding up the margin of defeat on scraps of paper at the last council meeting the myopia has lost its shock value now. UKIP’s share of the vote decreased by more than 5% and were worringly beaten by the BNP in two of the three ballots. There is no doubt who has the momentum to bring change now, we must continue to work hard to show that the Conservatives can bring positive change. No party matches everyone’s wishlist, but Gordon Brown and the local LibDem machinery will be offering forlorn prayers for a splintered vote to give them a glimmer of hope to return to power at the next election. I’ll be working hard with my Conservative colleagues to offer a vision locally that offers people in Sutton a positive reason to vote Conservative to add to the increasing desire to get rid of the incumbents.
Boris has certainly hit the ground running in his first week as Mayor. He has made some bold appointments with Ray Lewis becoming Deputy Mayor for Young People. Ray is the inspirational head of Eastside Young Leaders’ Academy with a fantastic track record of providing real change for young people in Hackney.
