But all posts are not lost. Sarah Teather (while she is still my MP) will not go un-monitored. All the fun, and more, continues with robdyke.com/noc

You can find out more about the campaign for this legisation at the NCT website. The campaign was launched during Breastfeeding Awareness Week.

Only bad thing about this post is that I have linked to the Daily Mail website.

“There is also the Teather factor - there’s a machinery that the Lib Dems have got for producing leaflets and campaigning, for bringing people in to canvass.”

The Lib Dems did manage to distribute a lot of paper in Mapesbury and Queen’s Park - significantly more than teams Red and Blue.

What will the Teather Factor mean in the light of the new Brent Council? When Ken Livingstone was the MP for Brent East in the 1990’s he was never shy of putting the boot in to the council, Blue or Red. Will Sarah continue with her tactics to date? When she was a lone Lib Dem MP for a constituency with a Labour Council, each opportunity for highlighting problems with the administration and delivery of services was taken. Now Brent Council has no overall control, the Lib Dems do have the most seats on the Council and look likely form the Executive at the Full Council meeting on the 22nd May. I’ll be monitoring for any noticable shift in tone over the coming months.

I blogged the 2005 General Election, now I’m back for more during the four weeks prior to the local elections in May.

Good thing. I’ll be on recess working on community wireless projects for the summer months. I’ll also be visiting WTH05 for meetings with hackers, social engineers and activists.

I’ll be blogging again come the political party conference silly season.

In the meantime, if anybody is interested in coming to a democracy dinner in Brent East then get in touch… I’ll try and have a special guest join us

“Perhaps I can drag the right hon. Gentleman away from the spat with the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman, fun though it is…”

Well, those where her first words of the new parliament…

Sarah returns to the House of Commons and continues her efforts at tackling the housing ‘crisis’ in Brent. Those of you who are regular readers of the BELD website will recall her speech of Oct last year in Westminster Hall on this topic.

Unfortunately the debate was adjourned shortly after Sarah had joined the debate. More on the TWFY.com feed tomorrow!

But some Excel wizard has had the time to create a new ‘can’t win here’ graphic for the website. I never liked the old one… The margin was not large enough.

Having worked as a constituency MP for the last 18 months and increased her majority in the face of a strong Labour campaign, Sarah is to join the Liberal Democrat ‘front bench’ team. She will now be responsible for the Communities and Local Government portfolio of policy.

Lib Dems Press Release. BBC News. FT.com. Guardian.

Otherwise it’s all quiet on the news front. There has not been a news posting to the BELD website since Charles visited Brent East before the election. I guess we are waiting for the State Opening of Parliament and the Queen’s Speech and for the MPs to take their seats for the 2005-09/10 parliamentary term. Whether or not reform to Local Government, devolution and the like, and further inititives to promote cohesion and community are in the policies announced this week, I’m sure we’ll be hearing from Sarah pretty soon.

This graphic was generated from the hit data to this blog between the 3rd and the 9th of May 2005.

Looks like the BELDs need to get their website updated… no mention yet of Sarahs HOLD of Brent East.

From the Lib Dem website election news ticker:

04.12 GAIN - Sarah Teather wins the Brent East seat she won at a by-election (technically a gain measured from 2001) with a swing of 30% and a majority of 2,700

View the full result here

The real alternative has been distilled to four key points:

• end student tuition and top-up fees
• prevent older people having to selltheir homes to pay for long term personal care
• provide 10,000 more police and cut their paperwork
• scrap the unfair council tax

A little something for everyone.

Download PDF or view JPG

More over at Brent East Campaigning

Her message: ‘I believe that people in Brent East deserve a local MP who will stand up to Tony Blair. I am proud to fight this election on my record of local action from fighting for fairer funding for our local schools to welcoming more police for Dudden Hill, Kilburn and Willesden Green.’

Here’s the full letter as a JPG.
See also Brent East Campaigning.

You can read the full interview here. What interested me was Sarah’s answer to this final question: How will you convince Brent voters to give you another term as MP?

“I am going to have to work extremely hard over the next two years because many people voted for me partly on a protest. Some people voted for me because our policies but some people also voted against Tony Blair and I am going to need to persuade those people that there are positive reasons for voting for me. I intend to work extremely hard to pick up local issues and champion individual cases and local campaigns to prove to them that I will be an extremely hard-working MP. But I think the reaction that I’ve had so far, I’m not too complacent, but the warmth and the sense from local people has been that they want to see me have the chance to succeed.”

Are the electorate of Brent pleased with Sarah Teather? Are they going to give her another term as MP? My feeling, from walking around Brent East, is that this area will return Sarah to parliament as their elected representative. The 5:1 ratio of Liberal Democrat posters to Labour posters is a clear indication of the support for Sarah.

I bumped into Sarah last Sunday while she was out and about in the Mora/Temple Road area canvassing for support. We talked about how she and other candidates at the 2003 by-election shattered the 13,000 majority that Labour had won in the 2001 General Election. Sarah’s majority in 2003 was 1,118, on a turnout of 36.2%.

I have two hopes. Firstly, I hope that Sarah is returned to parliament with an increased majority. She works hard on local issues, questioning the council and government about services in Brent East and holding them to account. She has championed individual cases and worked hard to see them through to completion in spite of poor communication and late responses from Labour ministers. She’s even learning Gujarati!

Second, that who ever wins this seat is sent to parliament following a strong turnout from voters. The by-election turnout was low, but by-elections usually are. At the General Election in 2001, turnout was 51.9%. Nationally, turnout is in decline. I would like to see Brent East buck that national trend and return whoever is elected from a 60%-plus turnout.

Well, that’s my colours nailed to the mast.

I want to share the Brent East campaign experience from the point of view of the electorate. And I want to distribute information about the candidates and the parties standing in Brent East to my neighbours in this constituency. So until the 6th of May, when the hangover is gone and the lost sleep caught up on, I’ll put most of my posting efforts into ‘Brent East Campaigning’

I’ve got a few updates to post - mainly scans of recent communication from Sarah.

Had a bit of a reorganise of the links and the news feeds on the site - you now get an RSS feed of news items from Sarah’s website as well as her activity in Parliament.

Read about Sarah launching the Lib Dem poster campaign.

WE OPPOSE: Putting targets first
WE PROPOSE: Putting patients first

WE OPPOSE: Tuition fees & top up fees
WE PROPOSE: Scrapping student fees

WE OPPOSE: Compulsory I.D. Cards
WE PROPOSE: Spending the money on 10,000 more police

WE OPPOSE: Selling your home to pay for care
WE PROPOSE: Free personal care for the elderly

WE OPPOSE: Ignoring climate change
WE PROPOSE: Cleaner transport & cleaner energy

WE OPPOSE: £1.5 billion on the child trust fund
WE PROPOSE: £1.5 billion towards reducing class sizes

WE OPPOSE: Means-testing pensioners
WE PROPOSE: £100 extra per month starting with the over 75s

WE OPPOSE: Hidden tax increases
WE PROPOSE: Only one tax increase - on income above £100,000 per year

WE OPPOSE: Unfair council tax
WE PROPOSE: Local income tax, saving typical households £450 per year

WE OPPOSE: Bush & Blair on Iraq
WE PROPOSE: Never again

Here’s an example.
Letter sent - 14 Oct 2004
Parliamentary question asked to chase up - 4 March 2005
Reply sent - 22 February 2005

Another. Two on the 22nd of Feb, here and here. Another from the 21st Feb.

Extremely late replies, letters not received at each end - poor filing perhaps? The government have a clear need for better ‘customer relationship management’ as these delays are not just a few days out of service level agreement. Yet the MOD claim they met their 15 working day target for answering all correspondence. But then it appears to have gone missing between leaving the desk of Adam Ingram and arriving at the desk of Sarah Teather.

Here is the most recent case from yesterdays Hansard, worth reproducing here in full.

Sarah Teather (Brent East, LDem) Hansard source

‘To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he will reply to the letter dated 13 May 2004 from the hon. Member for Brent, East regarding Mr. John Clegg.’

Bill Rammell (Harlow, Lab) Hansard source

‘My right hon. and noble Friend the Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister responsible for our relations with Iraq, replied to the hon. Member’s letter on 11 March. Unfortunately we only received the hon. Member’s letter on 16 February 2005.’

I’m not entirely sure what’s worse… That the Foreign and Commonwealth Office took 10 months to respond to a letter sent to them by a Member of Parliament is really poor. That it tool Sarah 11 months to chase up her letter of 13 May 2004 doesn’t convince me that she was sincere about the subject of her communique. The final demonstration of inadequacy is that the reply has still not been received 10 days after it was sent.

For the Home Office, the measures they wish to take (outlined here by The Scotsman) are part of building community cohesion.

“Multi-cultural communities are often multi- faith communities and this should be fully recognised in policies aimed at promoting diversity. Fostering understanding and respect between different faiths is vital in practically implementing community cohesion strategies.” Home Office website

Sarah thinks that the Home Office appear to have introduced regulations based on a “Judaeo-Christian model of worship without considering the implications for other faiths”

And the Home Office response to all of this? Sadly, not exactly capitulation to logic. They have agreed to conduct another round of consultation with faith groups (good) but insist that: “it is essential that ministers coming from overseas can speak English when they arrive in the UK (bad).

Sarah Teather hasn’t given up hope after hearing that. She maintains that: “Finally the government appears to have recognised the problem. However consultation must be true consultation. Listening in good faith means being prepared to change your mind”.

Let us hope that her optimism is not misplaced. New Kerala

She wrote to me last week after going through some papers and finding my email. Papers? Email? I know, I didn’t quite get it either. I digress. She wrote to me last week to bring an Early Day Motion she had recently signed to my attention.

“I have decided to support a Private Members’ Bill currently going through parliament which says that parliamentary approval should be given through a vote in the House of Commons before a Government decides to send troops into conflict. At present such decisions are made by the Government alone, using the outdated Royal Prerogative. There is a parliamentary motion that I have recently signed regarding this, along with twenty-three of my Liberal Democrat parliamentary colleagues.”

The Liberal Democrats are committed to scrapping tuition fees. To pay for free higher education they will introduce a 50p tax rate on incomes over £100,000.

But is that what we want? To vote text either:
libdem scrapfees yes
libdem scrapfees no
…to 60300.

It’s an issue close to my own heart as I’m current ‘in hock’ with the state for £4k already after one and a half terms of study. So assuming I can afford the 25p text charge (+ my operators charge) I’ll be sending libdem scrapfees yes.

Sarah said she would be campaigning for a renewed mandate from the electorate of Brent East on local issues such as civic neglect, neighbourhood policing, housing problems and post office closures. Her efforts would continue in the House of Commons tackling ID cards, detention without trail and student tuition fees.

Nice idea… printing the banner in blue to try and outwit the Brent East Conservative Voter into picking it up from their doormat and reading it.

The flip side of the flyer featured former Conservative voters who have switched to Liberal Democrat. You can see it here.

What does Sarah feel she has to gain by marketing herself as ‘not conservative, yet supported by conservatives’ in Brent East?

mySociety have launched WriteToThem.com, the successor to the multi-award-winning FaxYourMP.com. WriteToThem lets people write to any of their elected representatives: MPs, MSPs, MEPs, Welsh or London assembly members, and last (but certainly not least) their local councillors.

Thanks to The Register for the link up.

Low output here over the last eight weeks. I’ve been rather busy, spending my time studying for a BA Politics, Economics and Public policy… My studies have had greater importance than my indulgent ramblings here. Besides… she’s your MP too - email me to become a contributor to this blog.

But a few things have happend, not least the promotion of our Sarah to Liberal Democrat spokesman for London. She takes over the role from taking over the role from new LibDem party president Simon Hughes.

Let’s see how much bloggage I manage this term.

Speaking of the impact of the Governments 48-hour first appointment target for GPs on the forward planning of appointments, Sarah said that despite repeated assurances from Brent PCT that there would be no impact, patients were experiencing problems. Patients were not able to book follow-up appointments with the same doctor or schedule a non-urgent appointment at a time of their choosing.

Let us not forget that this government is all about choice.

Sarah also highlighted the problem of availability of suitable property for GPs to setup surgeries. In order to solve the problem of short supply doctors have had to resort to buying residential property and converting it for surgery use. Not exactly alleviating pressure on the short supply of property.

“Prime minister’s questions, and the Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather rose to speak. She is very short and is the youngest of all MPs, but she is also pretty tough. She wanted to know why funding to a college in her constituency had been reduced.”
“It was a particularly good trade college, known, she said to loud and not entirely ironic cheers, as “the Cambridge of plumbing”. What a good idea! The only difference is that graduates of the Cambridge of plumbing probably make more money than alumni from the Cambridge of Cambridge.”

And you know that Sarah is pleased about this acceptance - The BELD website links to Simon’s Sketch.

Let’s have a read of what Sarah said to the PM.

“The College of North West London has a reputation for excellence in construction, is one of the largest providers of skills for life courses in the country and has been called the Cambridge of plumbing. The Government want the further education sector to provide courses in those priority areas on a demand-led basis, but have not provided the money to meet demand in my area. What advice can the Prime Minister give to the principal of my local college? Should she turn away the students that he has asked her to recruit, or risk the financial viability of the institution?”

The PM, while unable to “comment in detail on the funding of the college in the hon. Lady’s constituency” promises to “to get back to her on the precise details of her college.” I trust we’ll see a follow-up on the BELD website.

You can get some more information on this story on the BELD website.

MP: Sarah Teather
Full shares: 268
Additional shares: 1
Increase: 0%
Profit: euro0.00

Total profit this week: euro0.00
New total value: euro1,395.66

She is pictured with staff from the New Deal Communities group announcing further measures to curb anti-social behavior in South Kilburn. Residents of estates in South Kilburn are being urged to report drug-dealing to Crimestoppers and Crime Concern to reduce the high drug crime rate of the area.

There are two letters relating to an award presented by Sarah reported in the October 20th edition of the paper. Now, I can’t seem to find either a link to the original story or a news article on the BELD… …so I’m a bit blind on the detail for this. From what I’ve gathered…

Sarah, invited to attend an awards ceremony as a special guest, presents an award to an ‘offender’ (ex-offender?). She gets some flack for not supporting “lawful people” in the words of Brent Cllrs Duffin & Beswick.

But as Name and Address Supplied points out, it was Dr Roselle Antoine of TCS Tutorial College, Kingsbury, who nominated the ‘offender’ for the award citing ‘tremendous work in the face of extreme difficulties’.

If anyone has a copy of the original story or a link to something, please mail me. Any comments? Post!

The paper has published tables comparing the MPs that serve the constituencies that their paper is published in: - Tony McNulty (Harrow East), Paul Boateng (Brent South), Barry Gardiner (Brent North), Gareth Thomas (Harrow West), Mark Field (Cities of London & Westminster), Karen Buck (Regent’s Park & Kensington North), Clive Soley (Ealing, Acton & Shepherd’s Bush), Glenda Jackson (Hampstead & Highgate), Iain Coleman (Putney), Sarah Teather (Brent East) and Michael Portillo (Kensington & Chelsea).

Their mini-league is interesting - although I’m not quite sure if the ‘compare and contrast’ model works on Members of Parliament. Can I really get a sense of ‘value’ from reviewing expenses against number of questions asked or number of votes attended?

What was measured?
• Number of times spoken in Parliament
• Number of questions asked - although the ministers of the group (Boateng, Thomas & McNulty) do not ask questions.
• Percentage of votes in Parliament attended
• Expenses claimed 2003-04
• Responsiveness of MP to communications sent via FaxYourMP.com
• How safe are their seats based on their majority

(I’ll get a spready knocked up with the data and post a link here as soon as possible)

I wonder where they got all that data from…? Did the papers’ hack calculate the ranking of our local MPs in the list of all 567 MPs using the impenetrable Hansard or did they use TheyWorkForYou? I hope (I’ll even bet) it was the latter. Perhaps the paper might see fit to print a URL for the source so that its readers can continue to monitor the performance of their MP for themselves. The article does claim that “As details of MPs expenses are unveiled we ask the question you want answered…How hard does your MP work?” - But the question remains unanswered. Want to know how hard your MP works?

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. TheyWorkForYou.com - use it. It’s a great source of data on your MP. It’s not important how many times your MP has spoken in Parliament - what’s important is were they speaking about an issue that you give a shit about?

As far as I am concerned, while this data is useful in assessing the cost of one MP, it is difficult to use it to assess the value of MPs in comparison to each other.

Cross-posted to both the proxy Mp blogs I write.

I was sure I was going to have something to say on this topic after I saw the manner which the placater of the commuting masses ‘Metro’ covered the story: “UK pay is dwarfed by MP’s expenses” (Frontpage, Fri 22 Oct). Here we have an example of the media creating a frenzy. This story is not being reported with clarity - depravity would be more apt. The cartoon in the Indy of a fat cat attempting to get through the doors of No. 10 was sufficiently telling of the jealous vitriol that was to be used in the coverage.

In summary, things cost money and out of pocket expenses are met by an employer. Ok, Ok, I’ve got to admit that the numbers can appear a little excessive - but if long-distance travel is required to attend Parliament and staffed offices are to be maintained, then what do we realistically expect the numbers to look like?

One element of the expenses disclosure by the Government should however be held up to this level scrutiny. The ‘additional costs allowance’ that was designed to cover the costs of being away from home in London for MPs from the farthest constituencies appears to open to abuse.

Alan and Ann Keen, Labour MPs for the adjacent London constituencies of Feltham & Heston and Brentford & Isleworth respectively, claimed £35,388 towards the costs of maintaining a second residence in Covent Garden. You’d have thought that there ‘additional costs’ would have amounted to two annual London Transport travel cards given their proximity to Westminster.

The Independent, having managed to curtail its righteous indignation, provided this insight into our own incumbent member. Having illustrated that Barry Gardiner, MP for Brent North, claimed the maximum allowance of £20,333, it goes on to show that “In the neighbouring constituency of Brent East, the Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather does not claim the allowance because the journey to Westminster takes only half an hour.”

Go Sarah!

But the ‘additional costs allowance’ is troublesome to me. The inner London weighting allowance of £3,441 for Nurses, not to mention other public sector employees, are far short of the £20,333 that MPs see fit to reward themselves. The need for subsidised key-worker housing, such as Erin Court that Sarah recently opened, is testament to poor financial reward given to those *key-workers*.

You can find out about the Members’ Allowances for both houses via a link on the Parliament website

Sarah was prompt in her response. I wrote using her direct @parliament.uk email on the 13th and received a written reply on the 15th. Sarah must be working on improving her responsiveness - she’s currently responding to 48% of FaxYourMP communications within 14 days.

The advice Sarah gives on stopping unsolicited communications is sound. For reducing telephone and fax spam, Sarah recommends registering with the Telephone and Fax Preference service. By lodging your numbers with the TPS/FPS it becomes illegal for an organisation to send unsolicited communications to them. If a company ignores this preference, they could incur a fine. Although Sarah has “doubts about how effective the TPS and FPS are in enforcing the rules”, she feels that registering with them is the “best first step”. So I’ve registered my telephone numbers with them and I’ll be letting Sarah know if the ammount of SPAM is reduced.

With regards to unsolicited communications received electronically, Sarah gives details of the European Union Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications that was introduced with effect from 11 December 2003. There is further information on the directive at the website of the Information Commissioner’s Office. The only drawback that Sarah sees is that there are “rogue companies operating from outisde the jurisdiction” of the E.U. (which, for me, means those 419 ‘advance fee’ scams from Nigeria and those ‘All the Meds you need’ mails from the last bastion of the free world, the USA) that are able to bulk mail without fear of retribution.

And where do the LibDem’s stand on the privacy and protection of citizens personal information? Sarah states that the Lib Dem’s would not look to relax any legislation on the control of access to personal data. She writes of Lib Dem “concerns over the Government’s plans to create national databases of the information help about its citizens.” While Sarah sees that there could be advantages in common data standards and methods of data exchange between different government department systems, she has concerns about the potential for misuse or even “abuse” of personal information. She goes on to explain:

“We believe that Government must take the approach that it has in effect a contractual relationship with citizens to hold data on their behalf. This means that it should only hold data where this can be justified in the public interest. Government has no business holding personal data for any reason other than carrying out its functions in serving the public. It should explain why it is holding data and consider whether there is broad public agreement to that data being held. It should seek the consent of the citizen for the collection of that data and explain the purposes for which it will be used. And it should publish explicit rules for the exchange of data between various arms of the Government showing why such exchanges are necessary.”

Perhaps a written ‘contract’ would ensure the destruction of documents prior to disposal to prevent identity theft - it would stop things like this happening.

In today’s Guardian Sarah is interviewed by Matt Barnard where she talks about the highlights of the last 12 months.

Top thing you probably didn’t know about Sarah that you’ll discover from the interview - she’s learning Gujarati.

You can follow the question thread here.

Sarah wanted to know how many residential and commercial address have registered for the Address Preference Service - But because the Post Office is no longer a state concern, the address preference service is not managed by the government but by Royal Mail Group. However, the Secretary Of State is able to ask the Chief Executive of Royal Mail Group to reply directly to Sarah to answer this question. What power! I bet if I wrote to the Chief Executive asking for that information it wouldn’t be too forthcoming!

Sarah also asked if the Government would be introducing something similar to the Address Preference Service for email.

Stephen Timms replied “The Government introduced the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations in December 2003, which cover, among other things, the regulation of unsolicited commercial e-mails. The Government have no plans to introduce an e-mail preference service.”

“The Government have not ruled out extending the “opt-in” right to corporate subscribers. However, as the regulations have only been in force for seven months, it is too early to assess how the new provisions are working in practice, and what areas, if any, might need to be reviewed.”

Even if the Government did introduce legislation to combat SPAM, I don’t have much hope for its effectiveness. The ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) is the body that has responsibility to ensure that those registered on the Fax Preference Service and the Telephone Preference Service are not contacted by unsolicited communication. It is this body that issues enforcement notices and would pass a file to the CPS for prosecution.

Stephen Timms clarified the legislation in a written answer to Sarah: ” A company or individual that contravenes an enforcement notice commits a criminal offence and, upon successful prosecution, could be subject to a fine of up to £5,000 in a magistrates court.”

However, Sarah was asking the Secretary of State for the numbers of successful prosecutions since 1999. The response? “As the ICO has no evidence that the companies and individuals against whom notices have been issued warrant prosecution, to date no fines have been imposed in respect of contravention of these rules.”

Sounds like the ICO is a paper tiger.

I wonder if the Lib Dems are going to come out with a SPAM policy? Or maybe this little bit of research was carried out to discover how effective current legislation / administration is in order to workout the cost saving of abolishing it.

“The Conference Feelgood Factor”

It is conference season. To those uninterested in politics the annual tradition of political gatherings with their set piece speeches and media razzmatazz in some seaside town must seem a little odd. For political parties, however, they are one of the highlights - or low points - of the year, depending on how things are going!
…
For me, this Lib Dem annual conference had another special feel. It was exactly a year since I had been elected. My last conference was lost in a haze of media interviews following the by-election. There had been a mood of euphoria this time last year. But this year, what struck me was how upbeat and confident the party remains, especially in contrast to the rather sour mood of the Labour conference. It has been a tremendous year for us as a Party and there is a new optimism amongst activists -my colleague Parmjit Singh Gill won in the Leicester South by-election and we came from third to push Labour to the wire in both the Hartlepool and Birmingham Hodge Hill by-elections.
…
In huge swathes of the country like here in Brent East, it is the Conservatives who are firmly established as the third party. The third party are now on their third leader in three years. In areas such as Liverpool, Newcastle, Cardiff and Brent it is a Conservative vote that is a wasted vote.
…
Your can read more about our proposals for the General Election in our pre-manifesto launched at conference. The document contains key proposals such as raising the state pension by £25 per week for pensioners over 75, putting 10,000 more police on to our streets and scrapping the Council Tax. These commitments to the British people our based on our principles Freedom, Fairness and Trust. You can get a copy of the pre-manifesto by downloading it here.

But I would advise you read it; well, at least give the front page a glance and read the Ten Reason to vote Liberal Democrat. Here the LibDem’s set out their 10 priorities and how they will pay for it; ‘Our Policies Are Fully Costed’.

• Put patients first
• Free personal care when you need it
• No tuition fees, no top-up fees
• More investment in children’s early years
• 10,000 more police on the steets
• £25 more on the pension every week at 75
• Free off-peak local transport
• Axe the Council Tax
• Restoring Trust: Anti-war
• Take the environment seriously

“We Liberal Democrats prize freedom of the individual, underpinned by a safety net for the vulnerable, in our society. We are defenders of the public services, free at the point of use. We are internationalist in outlook - pro UN, pro Commonwealth and pro Europe. Our Liberal background makes us wary of an over-mighty state and dedicated to civil liberties. We are enthusiasts for the green agenda” - Charles Kennedy

Now, that I can understand. But later in his introductory letter, Charles goes on about the LDs”new ‘Tough Liberalism’ agenda”? I don’t know if I’d like to be on the receiving end of some ‘Tough Liberalism’.

You can download it here. And you could always comment on it, or any other Sarah Teather, local Liberal Democrat MP, related topic here.

Polidex is an online trading game based on how good our MPs are.

So I’ve got myself an account. I’ve consulted with the Motley Fool and I’m now a trader. I’m not sure whether or not this counts as insider trading, but I’ve got a hot tip - BUY Sarah Teather shares.

The fridge is gone.

Thank you Brent Council.

Not got a specific answer to the question of WHY do I have to print and return this online request. L was saying to me that ‘it never used to be this obfuscated’ and that a single phone call would have sufficied in the past.

L has a good point. What is the point of Brent People Doing It Online if it more time consuming - both for Brent Council and the resident - to process? Perhaps when given the choice online I should have selected the low-tech option and telephoned in my request.

Or perhaps I should just have dumped it. That might have got a response from the Council.

Sarah and Brent Council BOTH want to clean-up our borough. Perhaps they could look at the process and proceedures for the collection of bulky waste; from my experience so far they could do with some tweeking.

So, now I await a collection. Let’s see if the interface between the Council and their third-party contractors works. Then my ex-fridge will cease to lurk in my front garden.

Well. I recently disposed the aging 1980s 75/25 Fridge/Ice Box monster that lurked in the corner of my kitchen and took delivery of two purring sleek shinning white replacements. So now I have the need for a ‘Special Collection’ from Brent’s Street Care Team.

So, being the online gentleman about teh interweb, I browsed on over to www.brent.gov.uk. Navigation to the Street Care ‘Bulky Item Collection’ information page was easy - the website is award winning after all!. And what choice! I can telephone in my request OR complete an online form. The latter was completed rapidly.

And then I had to print off the form and send it back to the council. Bugger. Stalled at the final hurdle. And remember folks, Brent People Do It Online ran the poster campaign. Although it would appear that they also do it offline. So, that wonderful, quick and easy FREE communication method has to end up so last century - with a print out stuffed into an envelope and mailed with a second class stamp.

So, while Brent Council are pushing the Big Brent Clean Up and Sarah is asking for Grot Spots reports to clean up “Labours Shame”, my fridge is sitting on my driveway awaiting collection. I’ve submitted a request, and replied to the confirmation email sent by Brent Council with ‘I don’t a printer - what can I do?’ message. let’s see what happens!

(I guess I could always fly-tip it, send a photo to Sarah and time how long it takes to get disposed of….No, that would be illegal.

This story shall be continued…

But alas, no. While 37 independent bloggers received press passes for the US Democrat convention, the Liberal Democrat Press Office reports that they have received no enquiries from bloggers.

The conference office for the UK’s Liberal Democrat party told dotJournalism that press accreditation for bloggers has not been on the agenda, but the party does welcome applications. “It’s probably a bit early in this country, but blogging does offer a great deal of promise,” said a spokesperson. “Anyone wishing to apply would have to convince the press office that their application was worthwhile.” - Journalism Dot Com

VOXPOLITICS discussed blogging the UK election season at the end of August. And James Crabtree proclaimed in the Guardian on the 2nd of Sept that the conference season will be blogged! while announcing the setup of conference bloggers dot com. Although it was planned to be ready in time for the Labour conference next week I’m not convinced. Anyway, was another agrigator needed? We’ve already got the UK Poli Blogs setup.

I had expected to see more on the blog front. I thought that Lib Dem Watch would have been there; or that perhaps blogs by the YLDs would have materialised. If I’ve missed your blog, sorry - but let me know about it!

PoliBlogging is growing. And we’re learning more and more and the applications of this kind of communition each day. Next year we’ll probably have a whole swathe of ‘from the floor’ and ‘party/corporate whore’ blogs.

The final word on this subject to James Crabtree:

“It would be even better if the blogging MPs led the way. If Tom Watson and Clive Soley were to blog from the floor, then surely others would follow suit.”

Anyone blogging from the LD conference attend?

“Ms Teather, the party’s victor in last year’s Brent East byelection, suggested a compromise of “licensed smoking bars” if a public ban on smoking comes into force, while Sir Menzies, fresh from his barnstorming conference speech on foreign policy, suggested introducing a “civil liberties audit” against which all future incursions on citizens’ rights be measured.” - Guardian

The LDs announced yesterday that they would opose David Blunkett’s proposals to ban civil servants from membership of the far-right British National party (BNP). On this issue Sarah said “If it’s a legal party we can’t ban people from being a part of it.”

All four panellists ended up choosing liberty over equality.

Photograph: Martin Argles, Guardian.

Simon Hoggart writes that “Sarah Teather MP, who has clearly learned a lot about her party in a short time, said that if God had been a Lib Dem, the ten commandments would have become the ten suggestions.”

Participating in the Guardian fringe debate at the Lib Dem conference on Mon 20th will be Sarah Teather. “Liberty v equality: which do the Liberal Democrats want?”
Simon Hoggart chairs a panel of Sir Menzies Campbell, Nick Clegg, Sarah Teather MP and Mark Oaten MP.

You can read the Guardian Special Report on the Lib Dem Conference here. It makes better reading than the Lib Dem website for the conference.

Awaiting me on my return from holiday was a soft creamy envelope from the House of Commons. It’s dated 7th September so, if you allow for fax being sent on FRI 27th and the Bank Holiday Monday that followed, I make that a response within 5 working days. Tick in box - Faxyourmp.com informed.

In short, Sarah does not support the campaign to impeach him. She’s not alone in her party either, with only one Lib Dem MP, Jenny Tonge, having publically pledged support - although Jenny has not decided to stand as a candidate for the Lib Dems at the next election.

Sarah feels that the issue is too seminal to be resolved through gesture politics.

“I think that the British people can serve their judgement on the Prime Minister’s policies - and on [Liberal Democrat] alternatives - through the ballot box at the next election.”

Here’s a copy of the letter for you to download.

And…..

Teather Opens Erin Court
Sarah cut the ribbon (I assume; no photo of this) on Erin Court on Friday 3rd. Developed by Sutherland Housing Association, Erin Court provides housing for key workers from Brent specifically education and NHS workers.

You can read more on how Brent Council are enabling education workers to live in the borough here.

And I’m a big fan of the Pay-As-You-Drive carshare scheme too. More of these please! Anything that works to reduce the level of cars on London’s roads gets my vote!

Liberal Democrats launch their Pension Policy - Dignity and Security in Retirement
Charles Kennedy launched the Lib Dem’s Pension Policy last week. Writing in the Asian Voice, Sarah describes how the policy would “lift 1 million pensioners out of means-tested benefits, which many find complex and intrusive, and which nearly 2 million pensioners do not claim at all despite being entitled to them.”

Additions to the BELD website
Well, I’m not sure when this was added, but I noticed a TWFY sidebar on their homepage showing Sarah’s recent appearences in Parliament. A welcome addition!

Queen’s Park Day
I bumped into Sarah at Queen’s Park Day last Sunday where I was promoting the Queen’s Park Wireless Club.

When you read Sarah’s comments made on the launch of the initiative you’ll notice that she doesn’t use the verb ‘to gob’ once! She uses ‘to spit’! Perhaps it should have been called Operation SpitStopper.

“Being spat at is a horrible thing not only is it totally anti-social it also carries health risks particularly in a place like Brent, which has such a high rate of TB.”

Still, shes right-on with this stopping spitting campaign.

The root of this problem has to live within the person doing the spitting. Next campaign? Morals and Manners classes in schools. Now that would be effective. The need to use CCTV and DNA kits illustrates that we’re just being ‘tough on crime’ rather than ‘tough on the causes of crime’. Unless, of course, part of any punishment received by offenders is for time to be spent at a top Swiss finishing school.

There are some dates for your diary on the BELD website. Sarah Teather holds six advice surgeries a month you can find the times and venues here.

I’m just not going to pass comment on this.

For my, my summer recess has arrived. I return on the 10th of September, just in time for Queen’s Park Open Day on the 12th. I’ll be running a stall. Stop by, find out what this is about.

Sent via FaxYourMP.com

Dear Sarah Teather,

Yesterday afternoon a group of MPs launched a campaign to impeach Tony Blair for “high crimes and misdemeanours” in the run up to the war against Iraq.

As I’m sure you will agree, the prime minister still has a case to answer regarding his role in persuading parliament to support the war in Iraq. Despite two public inquiries related to the intelligence on which the case for war was made, there remain serious unanswered questions involving Mr. Blair’s involvement in making that case, which was based on a false premise: that Iraq’s WMDs posed a threat to Britain. These questions were deliberatly put beyond the remits of both the Hutton and Butler reports.

In the report, Glen Rangwala and Dan Plesch give numerous examples of statements made by the prime minister which, by omission, exaggeration and semantic trickery, they believe painted a misleading picture of the intelligence available to him at the time.

Where do you stand on this issue? Will you be supporting moves taken to impeach Tony Blair? I urge you to vote to try Tony Blair before parliament so that this matter can finally be resolved and the country’s confidence in the government of parliament restored.

Yours,

Rob Dyke

I received a mail this afternoon from Tim at Prater Raines Partners. PRAI are the people who developed FOCI, the web content management system used by Sarah and the Brent Lib Dems.

Hi Tim.

As CMS go, FOCI is pretty good. There are lots of functions: election graphs, opinion polls, online petitions. Although as I’ve not seen the user interface I can’t comment on it’s easy of use as a tool. I guess the testimonials speak for that. Tim tells me that a survey function is being developed for FOCI and will be made available to all FOCI users as part of a continous program of enhancements, bug fixes and updates to the product.

And all for £50 to setup and £15 per month. First year costs? £230

But over at TypePad, something very similar to FOCI is offered. For around £8 a month (depending on the strength of the Pound over the Dollar) you can get a hosted Moveable Type webblog. And with a couple of months free thrown in if you pay for 12 months in advance, using Typepad would be £150 cheaper than FOCI!

Incidently, PRAI are the same company who are hosting Jody Dunn’s weblog - powered by Moveable Type 3.01D.

You can read her blog at http://www.jodydunn.org.uk/

Sarah visited Jody in Hartlepool last week. It was the highlight of Jody’s day.

I hope that Jody will share her blogging experiences with Sarah when they next meet. Maybe that will change Sarah’s perception of blogging.

Hello,

I was hoping that your office could forward me the results of the 2003 Brent
Residents survey. On your website you state that you will be reporting back to
local residents, however I do not find this report on the website.

Many thanks,

Rob

In 2003, Sarah undertook a Residents Survey. The people of Brent were asked 50 questions on key-issues in a door to door survey. You can have a look at the PDF of the survey here.

Take a look at the photograph of Sarah and Cllr Havard Hughes with bulging post bag of responses that accompanies the news post in June 2003.

Now have a look at the news post ‘Sarah Says Thank You’ from the 16th of August 2004. Poor Havard, he doesn’t get name checked this time.

Sarah describes this years response as overwhelming. Last year it was massive. Yet the visual aid is the same. Can’t we get a photo of Sarah buried in survey responses?

Under rules introduced by the Home Office last month, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, South Africans and Americans must prove they have a good grasp of English to become UK citizens. Yet the Home Office has to decide who will judge this.

Meanwhile, applications for naturalisation are being rejected. Sarah wrote to David Blunket highlighting the “bureaucratic nonsense” of the rules after one of her constituents was rejected. The 30 year old Australian born author rejected by the Home Office has two degrees in English. Perhaps that just isn’t enough.

How Sarah engages with her constituents
The BELDs maintain an office on the Willesden High Road. You couldn’t be more central in the Brent East constituency if you tried. The office has an open door policy for people to drop in for information (in multiple languages) and to make appointments to meet Sarah. This is in addition to the surgeries held. Sarah feels that this is the most direct way of engaging with the local people, if not the most cost effective. At the very least, she is LOCAL. High visibility. High availability.

I commented last week on the recent survey exercise being undertaken by Sarah. I was highly critical of the online version of the survey. Discussing this with Sarah, I have understood cost to be a barrier to producing an online version – although I suspect that someone has been over-quoting or under-specifying their services for that to be the case. I have volunteered to give some assistance in setting up a survey function for the BELD website. I mean, come on, it’s only a Perl script at most!

Sarah outlined to me how the offline version of the survey is being carried out. Those of you who have met Sarah on your doorstep recently will already be aware. Sarah believes that by posting and collecting the survey IN PERSON (assuming someone is in), she is demonstrating her direct involvement with and personal commitment to the Brent East constituents.

Posted late to our meeting on the BELD website is a news piece about the recent survey. It thanks those local residents who have responded and highlights a number of ‘grot spots’ that Sarah promises action on.

The ‘Disproportionate Cost’ problem.
I was a little deriding of the statistical information being asked for in the survey. Those of you who have read any of the Parliamentary Questions and Answers from Hansard (although TWFU.com does it better) will have seen the answer ‘Information is not collected centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost’. Discussing this with Sarah I’ve understood that the data BELD are trying to gather plugs gaps in centrally available data and she intends to use it to focus and prioritise her efforts in improving the social circumstances of her constituents. Good! We get the chance to tell it like it is, Sarah then will act.

What Sarah Does versus What Gets Reported
During June I offered a fiver to anyone who spotted Sarah in Brent East. I now have the whereabouts of my MP for that period.

What didn’t get reported during that period was the opening of a new Cardiology Unit at Central Middlesex Hospital by Sarah, along with a Hostel for Brent MIND who’s dual diagnosis work Sarah strongly supports She also opened an Advisory Centre for Age Concern in South Kilburn.

The press releases for these activities were not posted due to staff illness. If Sarah and her team maintained even a small section of their site as a blog (in a similar way to their LD colleague Lynne Featherstone this could have been avoided…for the time taken to write an email. Blogging would allow Sarah to get her message across directly, avoiding the fickle judgement of local news editors or a dependency on a single member of staff.

The Political Weblog Movement. Briefly.
At the beginning of our meeting Sarah made it clear that blogging was not on her list of methods of communicating with her constituents, feeling her office in the centre of the constituency, the open door policy, street walking and surgeries make her easily reached. We did speak about the internet as a tool and how it is employed by Sarah’s team for communication.

Going forward.
Sarah and her team have been working on a Diary Digest mail. I’ll be receiving that and posting it her. I’ll carry on giving coverage, campaigning, commenting, criticising and perhaps occasionally complimenting the work of Sarah Teather here.

Does this work out as a win for Sarah? I carry on doing those things for her – and she gets free publicity! Or does she…? With this blog riding the search results, it’ll soon become the single most authoritative (as for as the web is concerned) site for Sarah Teather. (Rubs hands with glee)

As I said at our meeting, I’m not anti-Sarah Teather nor anti-Liberal Democrat’. But if there is to be no forum for discussion on the BELD website, with involvement from Sarah, then perhaps here is the next best thing.

Sarah, thanks once again for your time. I hope that we can continue to work together for the greater benefit of Brent East. And I thank your staff in advance for their support in this by forwarding me Diary Digests, Press Releases and other items for the blog.

I encourage you to consider registering an account with Blogger and to post comments here. Hey, I’ll give you the ability to post direct to this blog!

This week, she’s calling for action to tackle ticket touts in Kilburn ward.

Surely any action taken would be taken as part of the Safer Neighbourhoods initiative.

Having spoken last week about how the “…police are not allowed to get on with their job because of excessive paperwork”, Sarah now wants to devote police time to persuing the small-fry petty-crook - with all the paper chase that accompanies it.

Tough on crime? Or tough on the causes of crime? It’s not both. You only need to tackle one of them. Choose the right one.

Your comments encouraged!

“Too many politicians think they know what’s best, without taking the time to listen to local people. I hope that Brent residents take the time to fill in the survey so that I can take up their issues both with the local Council as well as taking them up in Parliament.”

There is a PDF of the paper based survey available for download.

Is Sarah’s consultation exercise valuable or worthless? I’m taking apart the questionnaire, question set at a time - you’ll need to take a peek at it to see the actual questions.

Question Set 1 - Public Transport.
Could this data have been gathered by asking TfL to share their existing data? I know a large capturing exercise has been taking place recently - I’ve participated in it.

Question Set 2 - Education
Other than gathering whether or not a household has a member attending a local authority provided education facility, data available from census and enrollment figures, this question set has the purpose of gaging support for the ‘Scrap Tuition Fees‘ campaign. The two - satisfaction with local authority provided education and univeristy tuition fees - are not linked. Why link them here?

Question Set 3 - Health
From what I understand of the performance monitoring within the NHS, the data gathered by this quesiton set is already available. (I’ll google for it later). Again, questions are being used as a method of gaging support for existing LD campaigns - rather than asking for input on what residents actually want campaigns on.

Question Set 4 - Crime
Crime. The issue guaranteed to get the blood pumping in the electorate. Nothing like the fear of crime to keep neo-cons in government. And I’m sure that stats on unreported crime are already available. There is a missed opportunity here. Why not ask residents how they feel (or even if they are aware!) about the Safer Neighbourhoods initiative launched only last week.

Question Set 5 - Roads and Pavements
Assign a rating of either /Poor/Adequate/Good/ for roads and pavements in my local area. And if I am aware of any repairs that need doing I’m to write them in a 3cm X 5cm box. A further missed opportunity! Why not get some feedback on the ‘Grot Spot’ campaign?

Question Set 6 - About You
Some demographic data gathering. And a second space for me to supply my email address (keen on these email addresses arn’t they - but the BELDs don’t quite seem to ‘get’ how to use technology to either advantage. more below).

Have Your Say!
Well, I am glad that there is a least a small ‘free text’ area on this double A4 side questionnaire. It measures 3cm X 5cm. Hope that the ‘issues or problems’ residents would like the BELDs to campaign on (note that it is ‘campaign on’, not ‘take direct action’ to resolve) locally.

Use Of Technology
I’m going to have to get critical now. Think for a moment what a survey is. You get together a whole bunch of questions (lets disregard for a moment that questions are loaded to only ever to support ones own views), you ask the questions of someone, you capture the information, you review it and report on it.

So, what use is it to have the survey as a downloadable PDF? A Brent constituent now has to print off the survey, fill it in and return it to the BELD office. Upon arrival in the BELD office, it’ll be opened (hopefully the envelope will be recycled - and the paper the questionnaire is printed on) and the data will be captured - I hope electronically, but given the data gathering method is paper based I’m not holding out much hope.

Why not have questionnaires as a web forms? Users of the website would be able to complete the questionnaire online and the BELD office could receive the data electronically for a quick CTRL-C / CTRL-V into a spreadsheet.

This last criticism is perhaps only a nit-pick. The link doesn’t go directly to the file to be downloaded. It goes to a page with PDF downloads. The first (and only) ‘Residents Survey’ document visible on the page (and I run at 1024×768 resolution) is from 2003. The document Sarah wants us to print out and return is at the bottom of the page. The Keep It Simple Stupid manta reverberates in my head cavity.

I encourage you to post your feedback on the questionnaire here! Let’s discuss!

Worth mentioning that several of the unique visitors originate from gsi.gov.uk & parliament.uk - From MPs?

A flurry of posts early this morning. I received an email notification of updates to the Brent East LD website. And when I got there discovered that there were several news items posted over the last few days that I’d not picked up. Did someone forget to send the email notifer out? I checked all my inbound mail and I’d not missed anything.

For £20 you can have dinner with Sarah in September. I can’t make it - Holiday! Charles Kennedy MP and Lord Dholakia, President of the Liberal Democrats will be joining Sarah for an anniversary dinner to mark the Liberal Democrats victory in the Brent East by-election. All funds raised will go towards ‘Sarah Teather MP’s General Election Campaign Fund’.

Here’s my suggestion. Why don’t they all bring some wellies, old clothes and some rubber gloves and clean up some ‘grot spots’ before dinner?

You can read it here.

Announcing her actions, Sarah said:

“Derelict phone boxes are an eyesore in Brent. Local residents are sick and tired of seeing them being used as rubbish bins, fly-poster sites and public toilets. I hope that local people show their frustration at these monstrosities by signing my petition.”

Sign the petition!

There are three such eye-sores on my walk to work - I’ll be signing.

First launched for the Stonebridge Estate in April this year, the program aims to provide new teams of uniformed officers working within communities to tackle quality-of-life issues and anti-social behaviour crimes.

Sarah commented that it was community policing that local people wanted. “Not only do they want more police on the streets, they want police officers who they know and trust. I look forward to the day when the ‘Safer Neighbourhoods’ scheme is rolled out across Brent” she said.

You can report them to Sarah.
Or
You can report them direct to Brent Council’s Street Care Team.

For street sweeping, you can visit them online to report poor standards of cleanliness. The Street Care team promise they will be rectified within 24 hours. They will ensure that streets and roads are kept tidy, litter bins are emptied on a regular basis and to remove any dead animal from the highway within one hour of it being reported.

Additionally, Brent offer a Free Graffiti Removal for each property in the Borough. StreetCare will clear off graffiti from your property on the first occasion free of charge. After the first occasion, a charge is payable. However, if the graffiti is abusive, Brent will remove it free of charge. The Council offer an excellent one working day response time for graffiti clean-up.

You can read about Brent Councils Clean Up Campaign in the July / August issue of The Brent Magazine. A PDF of the article is available online for those that recycle glossies that drop through their door.

Still no metrics on performance though. Can anyone confirm the Brent Council 24 hour response time?

Perhaps a challange should be set.

Spot a ‘grot spot’? ( I still can’t beleive I’m typing those letters ) How about report it to Sarah and Brent Council? See which one get’s back to you first!

To make the challange fair I suggest that you email your ‘grot spot’ to both the StreetCare team and Sarahs’ Clean Up Brent email address. Let us know who is quickest to respond to your report.

Some comment

Get a blog Sarah

On Thursday it was announced that Sarah was urging her constituants to adviser her of “grot spots” in the locality. She promises “real action to tackle these problems”.

If Sarah was a blogger, she may have discovered the The Willesden Herald blog (delivering all the news that’s unfit to print). Over recent weeks, they have had photos of fly-tipping blocking roads around the area.

Sarah comments that “…often people just can’t tell what council taxpayers money is being spent on.” Well, perhaps that is true. Some people are ignorant to the obvious.

I can’t quite see the point - other than the political one - for asking people to send in their grot spots. What is Sarah going to do with these reports? Use them as a stick to beat the Labour council?

- ’sort these grot spots out’
- ‘but your refocusing our efforts for short term gains’
- ’sort out these grot spots!’

Efforts are being made by the Brough council to tidy-up the area. I heard the person responsible for waste management at Borough level talk about the improvements and the performance of the council in this area at a recent Mapesbury Residents Association meeting. I also met with various people from the Council Streetcare team you talked about their initiatives in removing graffiti, managing domestic and trade waste, increasing participation in recycling and street cleaning. All are working hard tackling these issues.

Is this effective? Adding another person the the loop? Why direct “grot spots” to Sarah for her to collect (and perhaps hold until a meeting point, thus adding delay to any action) and pass on for the council to resolve? According to a recent advertising campaign, “Brent People Do It Online” - access local governement services that is - Why not work in partnership with the council to enable either an email or picture text message to report a “grot spot” direct?

Or perhaps that e-government is too much for both the council and our MP.

This campaign has been going on for a while. On the 8th of September 2003, before Sarah had been elected, she challenged the candidates of the other parties to back a clean-up program for Brent. Sarah said, “Labour politicians should be ashamed of their neglect of our area. Local people deserve much better for their Council Tax money. We need urgent action to clean up Brent.”

A few days later, Sarah made the environment a key part of her manifesto for election in her “Green Pledge”.

While campaigning later that same month Sarah said,

“Clean, safe streets and decent local services should not be too much for local residents to ask for. If elected, I will work hard with local people, community groups and the Council to build a better Brent for everyone.”

In October, after being elected, Sarah was continuing the clean up campaign, saying

“Unfortunately…years of Labour neglect have left a catalogue of fly-tips, abandoned cars and broken pavements. A Liberal Democrat controlled council would make street-cleaning a much higher priority and take positive action to clean up Brent. Liberal Democrats in Parliament have called for Councils to have powers to remove abandoned cars more swiftly. I shall be joining my colleagues in calling for these powers to be granted in Parliament, to help make Brent a cleaner place to live.”

In November Sarah was appalled by the state of Neasden Shopping Centre and kept street care on the regeneration agenda of the Council.

In February of this year Sarah gave us a report on her first 6 months in office, tell us she had been continuing her campaign to clean up Brent she has reported hundreds of cases of Labour Council neglect in our area. My questions would be to whom and to what effect?

So…how about giving us some performance data Sarah for this campaign to clean-up Brent. 10 months since your campaign pledge - and what have you acheived? It would appear to me that given the need to continue the campaign that very little has been acheived in root-cause reduction and in incident response.

Although, I am glad to see that she’s been tackling the most visual reminder of capitalist greed. Grrrr - Privatisation and deregulation messed up our streets.

So, it’s been over a month since Sarah or the Brent East Lib Dem’s updated their site. Is that because there is nothing to announce? And if so, just what has my MP been up to and where?

We know where she was on the evening of the 8th….

On the 10th of July I know that Sarah was in Birmingham visiting Nicola Davies, the Lib Dem candidate in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election. While in Birmingham, Sarah had “that Brent East feeling” - I hope that means that she was homesick and desperate to return to her “constituency of great vibrancy and diversity”.

And again, on the 13th, Sarah is in Birmingham. Well, according to The Scotsman anyway.

She’s not been seen in my local rag - but then again, I can’t see the wood (local news) for the trees (estate agents and mobile phone suppliers ads) in those publications.

So, my question of the moment is: where is my MP?

£5 paid to first email to sarah_teather AT robdyke DOT com (i think you all know how to work teh interweb) with a confirmed sighting of Sarah in Brent East! (photo evidence required - camera phone anyone?)

Looking through TWFU.com I can see that she’s asked a few questions of other MPs; questioning NHS employment figures, spending on education and playground safety in Brent & Brent East. She’s also been asking questions regarding Israel and Palestine. Glad to know she’s still working for Brent, even if she’s not here much.

Great!

So, who is up for an award?

Wholly worthy of highlighting is non-other than Tim Ireland aka Bloggerheads, nominated for a Community and Information Award. Those in the know will recognise Tim as the source of inspiration for this and many many many many many other weblogs for/on behalf of MPs.

“While Tim Ireland is my son, I feel that anyone who has been responsible for(a) forcing a Prime Minister to open an e-mail site WHERE HE CAN BE CONTACTED and(b) advocating and setting up the first politician’s weblog site (Tom Watson’s site) is worthy of any award. As well, the number of his ideas which have been pirated or plagiarised by journalists, (mostly without due credit being paid) are numerous.I am proud that he his intellect has been recognised, but disgusted about the level of intellectual honesty in journalism. I am very proud of my son’s accomplishments in these areas and so I wish to add my nomination. Don Ireland”

A number of our elected representatives have also been nominated for awards, including Tom Watson MP.

“”I got into weblogs,” says Watson, “because, like most MPs, I had one of those dreadful, static websites. I’d get on a platform, say the party line and put up a big photograph of myself with my phone number that said ‘talk to me’. Nobody did. Nobody ever does. Because it’s very, very boring.” He finds the weblog liberating; he says it allows his writing to be both “light and serious”. He now has more than 500 visitors a day, including lobby journalists, reporters from his constituency, and local people seeking help on local issues.” - from N.S.

As far as I’m aware, the awards are given out tonight. Announcements to follow!

I would have blogged this live, but since the untimely demise of my iBook and the now elongated repair time from Apple I had to make notes old-school style with lead and tree fibre. I’ve tried to capture Sarah’s point of view on the subjects raised and capture a few quotes. Here goes…

Audience question: Do you think it was the correct decision to allow Yusuf Al-Qaradawi into the country?

Sarah supports a ‘moderate course’ of tolerance. At this point in time, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi has not broken any of the laws of this land and, as such, he will be tolerated in this country until such time as he breaks the laws of this land. She did not want to see the UK go down the same route as America who profile air passengers and pre-screen entry using a variety of data sources that passengers “can’t review, let alone dispute”. More on EU/USA data sharing…

Audience question: Does the panel believe that the proposed restrictions on smacking will turn many good and loving parents into criminals?

Sarah is opposed to the smacking of children and feels that this area is somewhere that the state should ‘extend the same protections of adults to children’. For Sarah, legislation in this area should be all or nothing. Ban smacking, protect children. She said that not smacking was about setting the right example to our children as it ‘teaches them not to lash out’ in situations of fustration andangere.

For me, a smacking ban is pointless as it is not possible to police. However, if the end goal is some sort of social engineering project for a peaceful andharmoniouss society, then I’m all for the goal, just not this method.

Audience question: Both Blair and Howard are promising choice in education in the next election, but who is offering the most choice?

Education, Education, Education.
Given the age range of the audience, education was bound to be a hot topic for the show. On the question of ‘Choice’ in education, I have to agree with Jimmy Carr; ‘You don’t need a policy on choice, just better schools’.

It was funny to hear David Lamy and Boris Johnson split hairs of the definition of the words ‘choice’ and ’selection’ - two words that really shouldn’t be attached to the delivery of public services. We, the people, don’t choose or select to have poor education or health services in our local area. And while the capitalist mantra of competition driving up standards works within a competitive free market, it is not the way to deliver public services.

In answering the question, Sarah observed that neither Labour nor Conservative offer ‘meaningful choices’ as what people want are good local schools. Sarah recently called an ajournment debate in Westminster Hall on the subject of fairer funding for Brent schools.

Audience question: Has the government ever considered that the university fees aren’t the problem, the 50% target is?

Well, I don’t know what happened to Sarah on this one. I had expected her to come out firing on this one, after all she’s paying off a student loan herself! The issue of top-up fees is an area that Sarah has campaigned about recently and voted against in parliament.

Audience question: As 16 year-olds are able to smoke, get married, have sex etc, is it right that the voting age is still 18?

Having described votes at 16 as a “Question of Fairness”, this was a subject Sarah was keen to discuss. She sees the extension of suffrage as a way to encourage the habit of voting to combat disenfranchisement among the population. She said that encouraging representation of young people in Parliament would bring about a “better standard of democracy”. As she wrote in the local Times/Chronicle series, “young people are interested in politics, it is often politicians and political parties who they are disinterested in.”

And I’ve not been offered tickets for the audience! Downer!

Dear Mr Dyke,

Thank you very much for your e-mail about the two debates that Sarah took part in the week before last.

You mentioned that you had looked on Hansard and Theyworkforyou.com for the debates but couldn’t find them. Both debates took place on Tuesday 22nd June in Westminster Hall, which is separate from the main chamber of the House of Commons. Speeches made in Westminster Hall are still recorded in Hansard but are in a different section, which might account for why you could not locate them in the online Hansard. Theyworkforyou.com does not yet have links to either Westminster Hall debates or House of Lords debates, and so Sarah’s speeches were unfortunately not recorded on their website. Coincidentally and as an aside, I was in touch with the site’s author last week and he has told me that he is trying to get the links established.

I am attaching a link by which you can access the relevant section of the online Hansard for Sarah’s debates. The first debate is the Muslim Communities one, and the second, Education in Brent (which Sarah had called), is further down: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/cm040622/hallindx/40622-x.htm

I hope that this is helpful.

Kind Regards,

Dominic Curran

So, updated with correct, relevent and contextual information, here is the Brent & Brent East Liberal Democrats ‘Content In Brief’ for 2nd July 2004.

* Fighting Discrimination against Muslims
by Sarah Teather
in Hansard, speech by Sarah Teather MP in Houses of Parliament on 22nd June 2004
- http://www.brentlibdems.org.uk/article.php?id=16
- Hansard Parlimentary Record

* Teather Calls for Fairer Funding for Brent Schools
by Sarah Teather MP
in Hansard, speech by Sarah Teather in the Houses of Parliment on 22nd June 2004
- http://www.brentlibdems.org.uk/article.php?id=15
- Hansard Parlimentary Record

I represent a constituency with a large Muslim population. In preparing for the debate I trawled through some statements made by the Home Secretary, the Minister and the Prime Minister. Their words were reassuring and I have no doubt about the genuineness of the Minister’s sentiments and of statements such as these:

The Al-Khoei foundation in my constituency, with its academic, diplomatic and educational work, is the embodiment of Islamic values, tolerance and inclusiveness; the political campaigning of the Muslim Association of Britain, the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee is the expression of Islam’s passionate fight for social justice and fairness; the supportive work of the An-Nisa society in Brent shows Islam’s emphasis on compassion and mercy; and organisations such as Alif-Aleph bring British Muslims and Jews together to demonstrate Islam’s meaning of peace. Perhaps the injustice in this country is not only that suffered by Muslims but the fact that society is unable to benefit from what individuals and communities have to offer.

Today’s content in brief from the Brent & Brent East Liberal Democrats web site:
—————————————————————————-
Articles posted to the site today:
* Fighting Discrimination against Muslims
by Sarah Teather
in Hansard, speech by Sarah Teather MP in Houses of Parliament
- http://www.brentlibdems.org.uk/article.php?id=16
* Teather Calls for Fairer Funding for Brent Schools
by Sarah Teather MP
in Hansard, speech by Sarah Teather in the House of Commons
- http://www.brentlibdems.org.uk/article.php?id=15
—————————————————————————-

While speeches made by Sarah in the House are important, does posting a copy of the Hansard transcript of her address (along with the same photo that accompanied her maiden speech but with a different strap line) actually qualify as news?

A picture is worth a thousand words. This is Sarah “speaking up for the people of Brent” in November 2003. Compare the picture on that ‘news’ article, with the one for Sarah “speaking in a debnate about discrimination against Muslims in Britain”(and yes, that is their spelling).

Enough about the crappy reuse of stock photos…On to the more meaty bits…

As I’m blogging on and around the subject of what my local MP get’s up to while she works for me, it is important that I read these ‘news’ postings and the articles that are posted to the Lib Dem’s website. As the articles posted are both of speeches made in Parliment, after reading them I decided to read them in context.

But I can’t find them anywhere in Hansard…

Searching for ‘who’s speaking?’ surname=teather between 30/06/04 and 3/07/04 yields no results…Using the easier search tool at TWFY.com doesn’t show any activity from Sarah since the 28/06/04…

So what’s going on? Time to Fax [My] MP for some answers!

“Schools Question Time Challenge is a UK-wide scheme, supported by BT in association with the Institute for Citizenship and by the BBC, to help pupils develop their citizenship and communication skills by producing local School Question Time events.”

Along with the head of the National Union of Students, the panel will include Sarah Teather! So, I’m trying to get in the audience so I can ask a question about weblogs for MPs - let’s find out what Sarah thinks about this and other blogs. It should be a good show. Sarah is anti top-up fee’s and promotes the extension of suffrage to 16-18 year olds - all good stuff for encouraging and supporting young people.

The show aims to have an audience of 14-25 year olds - I encourage all of you in that age group to come along! Sign up here.

TWFY.com also have a great glossary

“Bloggerheads is creating mayhem. Sarah Teather is my MP. She isn’t but you know what I mean”

Bloggerheads a.k.a. Tim Ireland began the ‘blog for your MP’ crusade with his blog for Tim Yeo. I found out about Bloggerheads and TheyWorkForYou through a long chain of email lists, conventions, links and sites, that all started as a dinner meeting email follow-up from the loverly DH.

Is Bloggerheads “creating mayhem”? Or are he encouraging involvement from a turned-off nation by nurturing the dying embers of democracy into a fire of activism and engagement with politics.

I know why I’m doing this blog.

I want politicians to know that it’s true. I’m the one they’re accountable to while in office. I don’t even have to have voted for them or agree with them or their parties political point of view; our political compass will continue to point in the same direction after all.

I’m an advocate of democracy. I’m an advocate of participation. I’m an advocate of accountability. So I’m going to carry on watching, reporting, commenting, web-logging. Not ‘on behalf of’ but FOR. I’m not against Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrats or the British political system. I will be sure that my voice is heard.

I hear you say often that you’re not turned on to politics. Well, let me bring to bear the lessons of history. If you’re not turned on to politics, the lesson of history is that politics will turn on you. - Ralph Nader

I’m turned on to politics.

She also voted for votes for 16-year-olds, inline with her view that they should have sufferage extended to them.

Her views on post office closures are confirmed by her voting record and by her questioning of other MP’s.

Sarah thinks that the Council Tax is an unfair tax introduced by the Conservatives and made worse under Labour. Sarah wants to see the Council Tax scrapped and replaced with a fairer alternative based on a persons ability to pay.

Sarah wants the Government to scrap Tuition fees and abandon its plans for top-up fees. Sarah belives that university fees are an ‘unfair tax’ on students.

Sarah wants to clean up Brent. She has reported hundreds of cases of Labour neglect in our area to the council.

Sarah wants to save Brent’s Post Offices. Sarah is appalled that the Labour Government wants to close seven of our local Post Offices in Brent, as part of their scheme to close 3,000 across the country.

Well, thanks for all the sound bites Sarah. Any chance of you writting something for yourself? In the first person?

More from LibDemWatch and Recess Monkey

Read these articles by Tim Ireland for further information.
Why Politicians Need Weblogs

How To Run a Weblog on Behalf of Your MP