Brent Labour Councillor Jonathan Davies has joined the Liberal Democrats reports the BELD website.

“I have realised that the beliefs I stand for such as the safeguarding of our civil liberties, international justice and a free and fair society are best represented within the Liberal Democrats.”

Also connected to Jonathan’s feelings over the proposed development of a tower block in Queen’s Park ? : “The issue of Queen’s Park Tower is a classic example of Brent Labour in action. Consultation with local communities is kept to a bare minimum with decisions being made by a small cabal of Labour politicians and unelected Brent Council officers.”

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.

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?

The man who claimed that New Labour had ’sexed up’ the dossier on the threat possed to the United Kingdom by Sadam Hussain’s Iraq is being quoted by Yasmin Qureshi on her most recent campaign material.

Andrew Gilligan was writing in Friday 29th Evening Standard. I picked up the most recent flyer - literally, there were some floating around the platform at Kilburn, Jubilee Line - in the early evening on Friday. I must congratulate Team:Yasmin on the quick turnaround of producing materials using this story.

The story in the Lack Of Standards describes the campaign in Brent East as an “ideological purity contest about who can reject Labour party policy most effectively.”

He continues… “Ms Qureshi has enlisted the help of a Labour politician called Tony. Tony Benn, that is, not Tony Blair. The first Tony was the star of a campaign event in Queen’s Park. The second Tony appears only on Lib-Dem leaflets, standing next to George Bush and looking shifty.”

When I spoke with someone who was at the Team:Yasmin ‘meet ‘n’ greet’ in Queen’s Park on Wednesday the soundbite they relayed to me was the same quoted by Andrew: Yasmin promises to be a “thorn in the side” of the government. On the campaign flyer ‘Brent East Labour News’ Yasmin states that she will ensure that the Labour Party carries on its investment in public services in Brent East. She goes as far as so say that only a Labour MP for Brent East is best placed, assuming a Labour Government, to do this. I’m not sure that these two positions can be taken simultanously: being a ‘thorn in the side’ as well as securing ‘even more money from a Labour government’. Will being a gadfly help Yasmin secure the investment she reports to be able of securing?

Will her ‘Queen’s Park Pledge’ come back to haunt her if elected? We can all monitor the official record of correspondance, comment and critism thanks to the people at TheyWorkForYou Dot Com. If she is elected we will all have access to the public record of the business of the Houses of Parliament. In the same way that Yasmin promises to hold the government to account, we shall be able to hold her to account.