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.

“the lib dems stand up for us” ? well it is a Brent Lib Dem flyer… this flyer arrived in either late Feb or early March - the trail started early for the BELD team.

The update lacks focus - there are a lot of different things crammed ontoa doublesided sheet of A4. Quality of life/local environment make the agenda again - also mentioned is that the lib dems want to focus council tax receipts on public services, sports facilities and public toliets - with disabled access? a wooful lack of disabled access public toilets in Brent and London as a whole! - rather than the wasting of money on “glossy publications” such as the Brent Magazine and the Ward Working leaflets. I’ve got a Ward Working for Mapesbury to post as well… as waste of money? well, it gives Onyx the recycling contractor something to collect. i wonder what percentage of Brents waste - as a whole - the council is responsible for the creation of? anyway……

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.

Brent Lib Dems have been redistributing the comments made by Labour Cllr for Queen’s Park Jonathan Davies on the governance and effectiveness of Brents’ Labour Council.

I’m glad to see that Cllr Davies has the ability to speak his own mind and to make judgements based on his observations. His views on the consultation around the proposed development consisting of a tower block in Queen’s Park will chime with many in the local area.

The BELD let themselves down by reprinting the Tony & George snap again - I thought we’d stopped all that after winning a by-election and a general election seat with it. This is a LOCAL ellection after all!

ever wanted to know who your queen’s park labour action team are? me too. I picked up this flyer in queen’s park ward in early march. The snap shows Cllrs Neil Nerva, Helga Gladbaum and Reg Freeson campaigning for safer stations and more police in
queen’s park.

I wonder if their campaigning will be rewarded in on May 4th? Do people feel their stations are unsafe? Does queen’s park need more police? Are these the issues people put at the top of their agenda of local action points?