So yesterday, it was all go at the Kings Heath Residents Association funday. With excellent weather and the ubiquitous bouncy castles, the event had good chances of success. The ever so eager Tory, Ivan Sljivic the chef let residents down by not providing a promised barbeque. Several phone calls later produced no result and a number of volunteers had to be press ganged into service. Generally, Kings Heath folk seemed to be well disposed to the keen Conservative up till now (well disposed but weren’t going to vote for him). His broken promise might make a difference to peoples perception of both him and the Conservatives in the area.
Liberal democrat councillors (Borough and County) did not even grace the event with customary swanning in and swanning out. I guess they must have been too busy avoiding meetings that they are paid to attend. With Cllr de Cruz on the heady total of attending seven meeting since being elected and having let down the Brookside residents association by promising to face paint and then cancelling the week before, the Lib Dem record of letting people down just keeps getting longer. Cllr de Cruz is currently averaging £1000 per meeting that she attends. Nice money if you can get it.
The Labour Party was at the Kings Heath Fun Day proving free face painting for children and campaigning against the increases in parking charges in the town. In the community, working with the community, one of the first stalls to set up and one of the last stalls to leave, we had lot of good conversations with people, particularly about the proposals for a new secondary school in the area. People are concerned that the new school should be for the existing communities and not just for new communities on the Dallington Grange development. With Labour being the only party campaigning for the school (both Lib Dems and Tories oppose building on the Dallington Grange site), local people look to us to ensure that their views are taken on board.

Some of the good things in life are still important

While phone canvassing last night and talking to people about the County Council proposals for residents and on the street parking, the strength of feeling coming through really hit me. Some of the people I talked to did not have a car and always used public transport, however they still felt really strongly about what was happening to our town.

With yesterdays headline about some USA citizens trying to sell their votes on ebay, it would be easy to assume that people weren't interested in how things could improve. However, talking to people about the Conservative County Councils consideration of effectively allowing restrictions on visitors permits (no pay, no visit if it's more than 50 per year - not even one a week) the people I spoke to automatically thought about the impact the policy change would have on the most vulnerable in the community. Those needing district nurse or other health professionals attention.

However the Council is legally required to do an equalities impact assessment on the change in policy, and surely would have considered this in advance of publishing the policy change. For the people I spoke to last night the key issue was about fairness. Not about being politically correct. Just about being fair.

I can't speak for the rest of the world but I live in a place where the value of fairness still means something.

Sharing the same virtual space is better than sharing physical space when ...

It seems BNP occupying the same County as us have conveniently short memories when it comes to threatening a variety of Public Citizens in the town. It also seems that my blog attracts their attention. For those who don't know about the regular 7am call myself and other councillors had to endure (yeah ... and the rest), here's the link.

This kind of attention just shows that you're getting under their skin :-)

Just when you thought you were not in the picture ...

It does seem that others see me as a contender.
At least it's a change from the 7am harassment calls from these that use citizenship and democracy as opportunities to abuse individuals and communities and divide local people from working with each other.

Selection at Last

So at last the selection process for the Prospective Parliamentary candidate for Northampton South is up and running. A lot of people have been telling me that it's been a long time coming. After an eternal desert of communication from the Labour Party Regional office, members in Northampton South have been faced with a veritable flurrie of letters about parliamentary and County selections. So if the question is "Anjona are you going for it?" the answer is "Yes!".

I hope to share with you my thoughts and ideas about the needs of the constituency over the next few weeks.

However, another cruical issue that has come to a head are the County selections. With the County selection process going forward it is really important that anyone wanting to stand puts in their forms as soon as possible. I was talking to a member today who was considering putting his name forward (Aziz Rahman). It just struck me that no matter how hard we work as a Labour Party to make processes fair and inclusive, there is still the opportunity to go the extra mile to ensure everyone has a fair crack at the whip. As a Party we can only go forward by rebuilding the movement that is the Labour Movement. This is not about the triangulation of a coalition of people who do not want Tories and Liberals making decisions. It is a coalition of people who genuinely want a fairer town to live in and want to ensure that all of us have the necessities of life and the opportunities to fulfill our dreams.

The Challenges of next summer

Over the weekend, there seemed to be part campaigning, part attending a Searchlight seminar in London. After putting out the best part of 2000 Labour leaflets in Kings Heath with colleagues from Northampton South CLP and a neighbouring one, it was a bit strange going to the Searchlight seminar.

When it comes to anti-fascist campaigning, for quite some time it has seemed to me that there are those people who go to meetings and talk about anti-fascist campaigning and those people that do it. For those people that go and talk about it, it does seem to be significant time and effort in discussing why we are where we are.

For those of us involved in local anti-fascist work, often it feels quite a lonely place to be, with fairly minimal support nationally and people often looking for someone to blame when things go wrong and people wanting to take the credit when things go right.

Next summer with County and Euro-elections with a guaranteed BNP presence in both, a group of us are trying to pull together a meeting on our approach to this. Up to date our activity has been very localised, however the euro-elections present us with a far different challenge. With the last combined UKIP and BNP vote at the last Euros of 26% and the BNP polling in the mid-20ies to 30%, it's a factor that needs to be treated even more seriously than before.

Ashes to ashes ... and ambition

It's been a hectic time with those younger around me going through exam season.

Over the last few days I've heard of the death of Steve Winder. I worked closely with Steve until he left for the Liberal Democrats, but did come into contact with him as a Director of the organisation I work for. Steve worked hard and didn't take a break. Although he had aspirations (to fight for his community, to fight crime in his area, to become a Councillor) sometimes he was far to accepting of poor treatment he received. In a variety of political enviroments he was just far too accepting not having a position as "one of the favoured few". It always confused me when he clearly had the right skills to challenge - consistency and persistence. This seemed to happen which ever political party he found himself in. In the Labour Party, I and others tried to make it as inclusive as possible ... not quite sure who did in the Liberal Democrats.

His close friend Chris Swinn called me to check that I had details of the funeral and then spent the time asking if I was standing for the County elections. I told him that at this stage I wasn't sure. He then talked about the scenario if I stood for the Northampton South parliamentary seat. It seemed like a big jump from being uncertain about standing for the County Council and I told him so. "Well", he said, "you're ambitious ... and you're missed". I did quiz him a little more about what he meant but it was hard to uncover.