The Labour Action Team have some hot Election Information for the citizens of Brent - they are ernestly distributing glossy colour A4 ‘Election Information’,erm, leaflets? newsletters? I don’t know what you’d call it. The glossy reminded us it was important for us to vote and we were not to be talked out of it by anyone. What was intersting was the lack of a logo. These materials where not branded Labour - the logos and the slogunogos were missing too.

The glossy is part of a series of an infoglossation campaign that Labour hope will get picked up and read by the voters in Brent. The leafet shows in ernest several of the acheivements of the Labour Council in Brent over the last electoral terms. It devotes a full page to making a contrast with Liberal Democrat and Conservative councils accross London.

Some times it is better not to make a contrast however. In attempting to show that the Liberal Democrats are soft on crime a comparison is made between the shamefully low 26 AntiSocialBehaviourOrders issued in Lib Dem controlled Islington and the not much tougher 33 issued by our Labour Council here in Brent over the same time period.
Team Red highlight the following acheivement areas in this leaflet: recycling, but not green issues in any wider sense; quality of environment as street care along with education results and access to learning resources.

The Labour public information machine knows no bounds and more leaflets are promised over the coming weeks. I’m already looking forward to the next one - it looks like it will be called ‘Your voting guide to the next four years’

This local red top was delivered in late February. It leads with the news of the Liberal Democrats delivering a “hammer blow” to Labour” in Dunfermline by-election.

The national political story was the continued opposition to the ID card legislation by Sarah Teather and the Liberal Democrats. The newsletter also covered the story of the comments made by Labour Cllr Jonathan Davies on the ‘consultation’ over the Queen’s Park Tower plans.

The two other key stories are the rehousing of Willesden Market following a successful campaign by the W&BT that Sarah Teather has supported and another highlughting Sarah’s long standing commitment to local healthcare provission with a story about her support for the  closure threatened Wembley Minor Accident Treatment Service.

receiving this letter was one of the prompts to get me back blogging again - an evening with Charles Clarke. The Home Secretary was to visit Brent East to meet and greet and have a Big Conversation with people about the Respect Agenda, law and order (as someone with some political education I shouldn’t right law and order as I know that the concepts are fused when they should be kept seperate) and crime and policing.

The invitation comes from the Labour Action Team for Mapesbury: Rizwana Ali, Ian Bellia and Mohammed Zakriya 

I’m pleased Charles had the time to make it over to Brent East. That I was invited I wanted to share with others.

also in early march I received the Liberal Democrat Focus On…Mapesbury newsletter. This newsletter was the first opportunity to meet the Lib Dem candidates for the Mapesbury wards. The candidates are Chris Leaman, Sami Hashmi and Hayley Matthews.

The BELDs expect that a Labour council would again increase council taxes significantly after the local elections. The LDs (as we know) propose a ‘fairer system’ of local income taxation.

Local education and student finance also make an appearence in the newsletter. Sarah Teather has been consistantly raising the issue of numbers of school places in the House of Commons. And the Lib Dems have been against tuition fees, as highlighted by Hayley Matthews.

The newsletter also draws our attention to a number of quality of environment / quality of life issues that the BELD have been responding to in the Mapesbury area.