Category Archives: London

LibLink: Mark Pack – Which London Mayor candidates are saying the right things?

By NewsHound | Sat 21st April 2012 - 12:55 pm

Over on his work blog, Lib Dem Voice’s Mark Pack has been looking at the manifesto mailing for the London Mayor elections:

For all the value of the detail of the booklet, the reality is that most voters only glance briefly through such a publication. The initial, quick impression each candidate gives matters far more than the detail of what they say in third paragraph, fourth sentence. Those sentences only make it into wider prominence if an embarrassing typo makes them into diary column fodder or if policy naivety means a small detail can be turned into a tabloid front page

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Also posted in LibLink | Tagged Mark Pack | Leave a comment

Local liberal heroes: Duwayne Brooks

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th April 2012 - 10:25 am

A while back, I penned a series of posts profiling forgotten liberal heroes (to which a couple of other people also kindly contributed), looking at some of those who achieved great things for liberalism in their time but have been unjustly forgotten – such as Margaret Wintringham, the very first female Liberal MP.

There is also another group of people who I think are often unjustly obscure – those local campaigners who are often at the heart of their local community and local party, delivering liberalism and helping others, but as their stage is a local one they are often unacknowledged …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged chris maines, duwayne brooks, lewisham liberal democrats and local liberal heroes | Leave a comment

The weekend debate: Should Boris Johnson get his way on London’s tax take?

By Carl Quilliam | Sat 14th April 2012 - 8:50 am

Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

Incumbent Mayoral candidate Boris Johnson has developed plans for Londoners to keep more of the tax revenue generated in the city to spend on better public services. Boris said the capital should be getting a greater return from the tax it contributes to the exchequer.

According to the Evening Standard the equivalent of £2,500 for every Londoner goes to other parts of the UK rather than being spent on public services in the capital.

Boris Johnson said that London should no longer be …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged boris johnson and weekend debate | 8 Comments

Did Ken Livingstone break tax rules over Labour donation?

By Mark Pack | Sat 31st March 2012 - 3:25 pm

The Evening Standard has reported:

Ken Livingstone was under fresh pressure over his alleged tax avoidance after he was forced to admit using his private company to make a sizable political donation.

Mr Livingstone had previously claimed to have personally made a donation to the Labour Party of £19,202 in December for “staff costs” during his election campaign.

But he has now confirmed to the electoral commission that the donation came from his private company Silveta Ltd, through which he allegedly avoided at least £50,000 in tax by benefiting from corporation tax at 20 or 21 per cent rather than paying income tax

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Also posted in News | Tagged ken livingstone | 4 Comments

Opinion: We need Homes for London

By Bridget Fox | Mon 26th March 2012 - 10:52 am

London faces a severe housing crisis. This problem will only get worse as our population continues to grow. One million more people are expected to be living in London by 2030.

Everywhere I go, people tell me they are concerned about housing – whether it is the long housing waiting lists, unaffordably high private rents or rogue landlords who rip you off. We have young people unable to make their first steps on the property ladder; or under threat from unscrupulous landlords and too many families living in overcrowded housing. For the average Londoner it will take 13 years …

Tagged housing, london assembly and london mayoral election | 10 Comments

Boost for Brian as Lib Dem London fundraising hits £400k

By Stephen Tall | Mon 19th March 2012 - 7:55 am

The media may be focusing on the Boris v Ken show for London mayor, but Brian Paddick’s Lib Dem campaign is making some noise. His hard-hitting campaign posters focusing on crime — an issue the former police commander in the Metropolitan police knows first-hand how to tackle — abound in London.

And one of the reasons Brian is able to achieve this exposure is the success of the London Lib Dem fundraising effort. I understand that the total raised has, or is about to, pass the £400,000 …

Also posted in News | Tagged brian paddick, Caroline Pidgeon, fundraising and london lib dems | 6 Comments

Brian Paddick: It is vital that we maximise our vote for the London Assembly

By Mark Pack | Sat 10th March 2012 - 11:43 am

The fantastic Sage conference hall was the venue for Brian Paddick’s speech to the Liberal Democrat spring conference.

Or rather, his co-speech. Because for the purposes of the London 2012 campaign, Brian Paddick is no more. Instead he has been merged into Brian-Paddick-Caroline-Pidgeon.

It is one of the lessons from previous London campaigns that the party needs to be far better at turning profile for a Mayor candidate into votes for the London Assembly list, the best prospect for the party to gain new seats.

This then was not Brian Paddick’s speaking slot. It was the Brian-Paddick-Caroline-Pidgeon speaking slot, preceded by the Brian-Paddick-Caroline-Pidgeon …

Also posted in Conference | Tagged boris johnson, brian paddick, Caroline Pidgeon and shas sheehan | 5 Comments

Boris Johnston breaks promise on free Olympics tickets for school children in London

By Mary Reid | Mon 5th March 2012 - 12:17 pm

Last November the Mayor of London announced that 125,000 schoolchildren in London would be given free tickets for the Olympic or Paralympic Games. That would have been enough to provide tickets for one in eight London children aged 10 to 18.

But, as reported in the Evening Standard, Lib Dem London Assembly member, Dee Doocey, has asked the Mayor how many tickets were actually allocated to children. The answer came back: just 95,761 tickets. The remaining 30,000 or so tickets have been given to teachers to accompany them.

That raises at least two questions:

Why did the Mayor overlook the fact that

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Also posted in News | Tagged children and olympics | 5 Comments

You break it, you fix it – Brian Paddick’s new campaign poster

By Mark Pack | Mon 5th March 2012 - 6:55 am

Appearing on 176 poster sites around London from today:

Also posted in News | Tagged brian paddick | 17 Comments

LibLink: Paddick – we are putting forward an innovative, radical Liberal Democrat agenda for Londoners

By Stephen Tall | Sat 3rd March 2012 - 8:25 am

The Lib Dems’ London mayoral candidate Brian Paddick was interviewed in The Guardian yesterday. It’s a revealing and candid piece in which Brian makes his pitch for the post the paper describes “an office whose holder enjoys the largest personal mandate in Europe – bar the French president”. Here are some highlights:

On the Lib Dems’ London campaign

“It’s quite obvious where I’m positioning myself and it’s to the left of the coalition,” he says in an interview with the Guardian. “What we are saying to Londoners is this has got nothing to do with national politics. We are putting forward an

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Also posted in LibLink | Tagged brian paddick and london mayoral election | Leave a comment

Paddick: some Met detectives adopt a “she wants it really” attitude to women alleging rape

By Stephen Tall | Fri 2nd March 2012 - 7:26 pm

The Lib Dems’ London mayoral candidate Brian Paddick is interviewed in today’s Guardian, and has some strong words for his former employers, the Metropolitan police:

Paddick warns that some detectives adopt a “she wants it really” attitude to women alleging rape and sometimes refuse to acknowledge that some types of men, such as licensed cab drivers, can be rapists.

The former deputy assistant commissioner is placing the Met’s mixed performance on dealing with rape at the heart of his campaign as the Liberal Democrat candidate in May’s London mayoral election. Paddick, who told the Leveson inquiry this week that he toned

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Also posted in News | Tagged brian paddick, crime, metropolitan police and rape | 1 Comment

Paddick accuses Met of leaking confidential witness information

By The Voice | Tue 28th February 2012 - 9:50 am

Yesterday former policeman Brian Paddick gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry, including these claims about the Met Police:

Also posted in News | Tagged brian paddick, lord leveson and Phone hacking | 1 Comment

Sometimes a bus is just a bus

By Mark Pack | Sat 25th February 2012 - 10:50 am

When Boris Johnson promised that if elected Mayor of London he would introduce a new Routemaster bus, I don’t think many expected him to interpret that quite as literally as he has.

For by the end of his term in office, there won’t be hoardes of new Routemaster buses on London’s roads. Not even scores or dozens. But there will be a new Routemaster bus. One bus. Just the single bus.

As London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon puts it:

Also posted in News | Tagged boris johnson and Caroline Pidgeon | 25 Comments

Livingstone and Johnson: a record of unsavoury comments

By Mark Pack | Thu 16th February 2012 - 10:25 am

Funny, pointed and relevant: this is one of the best pieces of campaign artwork I’ve seen put out by the party this year.

Also posted in News | Tagged boris johnson, brian paddick and ken livingstone | 25 Comments

London Liberal Democrats – helping those with the smallest pockets get to work

By Caroline Pidgeon | Tue 17th January 2012 - 2:52 pm

Last week Brian Paddick and I launched a fairer fares package ahead of this year’s London Mayoral and Assembly elections.

Boris Johnson has been Mayor of London since 2008. In just four years he has increased the cheapest bus fare from 90p to £1.35 – and he had planned to raise fares even further until the Coalition Government stepped in and helped limit the rise. As well as bus fares, the cost of travelling on the Tube, the Docklands Light Railway, the Croydon Tramlink and the London Overground have all soared under Mr Johnson’s mayoralty.

Of course there …

Also posted in News | Tagged brian paddick, Caroline Pidgeon, london and tfl | 10 Comments

Police compensate teenager banned from photographing Armed Forces Day Parade

By Mark Pack | Mon 12th December 2011 - 7:10 pm

The Press Association reports the latest news on a case taken up by Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member Dee Doocey and others at the time:

Lawyers say a teenager wrongly stopped by police from taking photographs at a public event in a town centre has been compensated.

prevented Jules Mattsson – then 15 – from taking pictures at a military parade in Romford, east London, in June 2010 … Law firm Bindmans, which represented the youngster, said … “Despite the public event taking place in the middle of the town centre, Metropolitan Police officers claimed it was unlawful to photograph

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Also posted in News | Tagged dee doocey, jules mattsson and photography | 7 Comments

Mike Tuffrey AM writes… The question I asked top London Tory: “Is there anything you would not privatise?”

By Mike Tuffrey | Sun 6th November 2011 - 10:10 am

“Is there anything you would not privatise?” That was the question I asked Brian Coleman, the controversial chair of London’s Fire Authority — a public body which sadly is in the grip of an ideologically-driven Conservative administration thanks to shameless gerrymandering by London’s Tory mayor Boris Johnson and unelected political appointees.

My question to him was prompted by the Tories’ current plans to privatise the London fire 999 emergency control room.

Mr Coleman’s answer? It was a bald and brazen “No”: there’s nothing he wouldn’t try to privatise if he could.

It’s true that in the London fire service …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged boris johnson, brian coleman and london fire authority | 6 Comments

What next for London’s airports?

By The Voice | Mon 31st October 2011 - 11:54 am

One of the first acts of the Coalition was to scrap plans for a third runway at Heathrow, whilst Boris Johnson’s plans for a new airport on an artifical island in the Thames Estuary have not been going anywhere much. So what next for the region’s airports?

This is what the BBC had to report:

Tagged boris johnson and heathrow | 3 Comments

Dee Doocey writes… Questions now must be answered over the Met’s record of undercover policing

By Dee Doocey | Wed 26th October 2011 - 3:58 pm

Last week, it was revealed that an undercover Metropolitan police officer, Jim Boyling, had been arrested and tried for a public order offence under his cover name, Jim Sutton. Yet at no time during the trial did he reveal the fact that he was using a false identity. At the time, in 1996, he had been posing as a member of the non-violent, pro-cycling ‘Reclaim the Streets’ campaign.

At the trial, Boyling would have given evidence under oath about who he was and what had happened – while maintaining a false identity. He had allowed himself to be arrested, charged, prosecuted and potentially convicted of a criminal offence. As it turned out, he was found not guilty. But Sutton’s police minders were prepared to allow him to face possible conviction for a criminal offence – an offence committed by a serving undercover police officer, giving evidence on oath with the benefit of privileged legal advice that he shouldn’t have had.

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged independent police complaints commission and jim boyling | 3 Comments

Bromley Council pulls a controversial novelty with a lollipop lady petition

By Mark Pack | Wed 12th October 2011 - 1:50 pm

Tsk, tsk, Bromley Conservatives.

There is a council by-election campaign underway in Shortlands ward, Bromley where the excellent Anuja Prashar is the Liberal Democrat candidate. (So excellent, I’ll forgive her for organising a raffle once that broke all my Lib Dem raffle rules.) She has been campaigning against council plans to axe the lollipop ladies at two local schools and, as part of that, presented a petition signed by 283 residents to the council.

And then things started being done differently…

For the first time, Bromley Council decided to respond personally and directly to all the signatories on a petition, posting out …

Also posted in Local government | Tagged anuja prashar, bromley council, colin smith and conservative party | 2 Comments

Oyster Card survey shows heavy interest in cutting coverage or raising prices

By Mark Pack | Sat 8th October 2011 - 10:25 am

During the week I got an email in my inbox asking me to take part in a survey on behalf of the Passenger Demand Forecasting Council (“a body consisting of Transport for London and other industry bodies”) about the future of the Oyster touch in/touch out travel card used in London.

The email went a little overboard in emphasising that the survey was just about finding out people’s attitudes and possible future behaviour and that there are no current plans etc etc. To which my obvious response was to wonder why they would be so keen to say this…

And looking through …

Tagged oyster, passenger demand forecasting council and tfl | 4 Comments

Guide dogs allowed on London Underground escalators – Caroline Pidgeon campaign success

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd October 2011 - 8:50 am

Following a campaign by Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon, the legal ban on guide dogs travelling on the escalators on the London Underground is being lifted on Wednesday.

Transport for London and the Government are changing a by-law which originated in the era of wooden escalators which could expand and contract depending on heat and humidity. This meant larger gaps have to be left by default than on modern metal escalators, with resulting fears that guide dogs (now often called assistance dogs) might get their paws stuck …

Tagged boris johnson and Caroline Pidgeon | 2 Comments

The top five London MPs for outside earnings

By Mark Pack | Fri 30th September 2011 - 8:55 am

Via a survey carried out for LondonlovesBusiness.com comes this list of the top five London MPs for annual outside earnings on top of their MP salary of £65,738:

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, MP for Kensington (Con) – upwards of £240,000
Nick Raynsford, MP for Greenwich and Woolwich (Lab) – £60,657
Mark Field, MP for Cities of London and Westminster (Con) – £41,740
Jo Johnson, MP for Orpington (Con) – £12,314
Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Lab) – £10,326

What do you think of these figures: good to see MPs having a range of activities or bad to see MPs spending time earning these sorts of sums?

Also posted in Parliament | Tagged diane abbott, jo johnson, malcolm rifkind, mark field and nick raynsford | 10 Comments

Brian Paddick writes… Policing the riots

By Brian Paddick | Wed 28th September 2011 - 11:50 am

I am on the horns of a dilemma. I served Londoners in the Metropolitan Police for more than 30 years and loyalty to my former colleagues runs deep. As a sergeant, I faced bricks and petrol bombs on the streets of Brixton in 1981. So I know what officers went through during the recent riots. I later became one of a small cadre of advanced trained public order senior officers who took charge of policing protests and big events in London. So I know the strategies and tactics for dealing with riots. Yet I, like most Londoners, was disappointed by …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged bernard hogan-howe, riots and tim goodwin | 8 Comments

The message that won the Mayor selection for Brian Paddick

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th September 2011 - 12:55 pm

Neil Stockley, one of the best Liberal Deomcrat commentators when it comes to messaging and presenting a coherent narrative, has taken a look at the message which propelled Brian Paddick to victory in the London Mayor selection contest:

Liberal Democrat selection campaigns for London mayor are strange beasts, as the party seeks out a mega-campaigner who can rally the troops and pull in more assembly members by his/her coat-tails. This time, the dynamics were mixed up even more by the entry into the race of the former Montgomeryshire MP, Lembit Opik. (Lembit had a defeat narrative in which he compared

…

Tagged brian paddick, lembit opik and neil stockley | 3 Comments

A tale of two holes – and a £39m price tag

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th September 2011 - 7:54 am

In principle, I have no objection to people digging holes in the ground. Even very expensive holes. Potholes? Bad. But lift shafts, underground tunnels and other such excavations? Good. A big hole that loops back on itself and could* end the universe? That’ll do nicely. The combination of a hole, Bernard Cribbins and Lego? Excellent.

If I had to postulate a general theory of holes, I’d say that a hole that is not used is a bad hole. And two holes that are not used are doubly bad.

Which brings me to the question of the £39 million spent …

Tagged boris johnson, Caroline Pidgeon, craig brown, featured, ken livingstone, tfl and transport | 13 Comments

Forget airports, sort the road works – message from London business leaders

By The Voice | Tue 6th September 2011 - 6:55 pm

An opinion poll of 760 London business leaders carried out by ComRes for the new LondonLovesBusiness website found an overwhelming preference for the next Mayor of London to concentrate on sorting out roadworks rather than trying to get a new airport runway built.

Only 14% support a new Heathrow runway or a new Thames Estuary airport, but 57% want the next Mayor of London to focus on tackling roadworks disruption. Public transport is central to the business leaders’ concerns with improving public transport and transport links the most popular selection as the “single most important thing the mayor could do …

Lembit Opik on the London Mayor selection result

By Mark Pack | Fri 2nd September 2011 - 10:24 pm

Lembit Opik had a piece in today’s Evening Standard ahead of the results declaration in the London Mayor selection. In it he said he expected to lose and went on to say:

Ever since I was first enticed into entering the fray as a potential candidate, I’ve experienced a remarkable degree of antagonism and aggression from certain Lib Dems.

Most of it has occurred in the strange and self-styled environment of the ‘blogosphere’ – a parallel universe where some people who’ve never been elected to public office feel qualified to pronounce on those who have.

When one meets these people for real, their courage

…

Tagged blogging, brian haley, lembit opik and nelson mandela | 23 Comments

Brian Paddick selected as Liberal Democrats’ London Mayoral Candidate for 2012

By Helen Duffett | Fri 2nd September 2011 - 7:27 pm

Jonathan Fryer, Chair of London Region Liberal Democrats emails party members in London with the news:

The count has just been completed in the ballot for the Liberal Democrat London Mayoral candidate for 2012.

The selection contest turned into a really close race, reflecting the excellent choice of candidates London members were presented with.

I would like to congratulate Brian Paddick warmly on his victory, and all of us at Team London look forward to working with him and our GLA candidates over the next eight months to ensure the best possible result in May.

Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrat Mayoral Candidate for 2012

…

Also posted in News | Tagged brian paddick, Caroline Pidgeon and jonathan fryer | 16 Comments

Brian Paddick writes: Building a better future for Londoners

By Brian Paddick | Thu 25th August 2011 - 11:54 am

Since I retired from the police I have not had a car. Since then ‘the world is my Oyster card.’ I rely on trains, tubes and buses to get around London and I’m appalled by what I see.

Vanity projects and electoral gimmicks like the new Routemaster and replacing bendy buses are soaking up millions of pounds of the transport budget. The new Routemaster will cost nine times as much as a conventional bus – never mind the millions spent on development! On the right routes and properly regulated so they don’t end up stuck together, bendies do a perfectly adequate …

Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged bendy buses, london mayoral selection, oyster card and transport | 3 Comments

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Category Archives: London

LibLink: Mark Pack – Which London Mayor candidates are saying the right things?

Local liberal heroes: Duwayne Brooks

The weekend debate: Should Boris Johnson get his way on London’s tax take?

Did Ken Livingstone break tax rules over Labour donation?

Opinion: We need Homes for London

Boost for Brian as Lib Dem London fundraising hits £400k

Brian Paddick: It is vital that we maximise our vote for the London Assembly

Boris Johnston breaks promise on free Olympics tickets for school children in London

You break it, you fix it – Brian Paddick’s new campaign poster

LibLink: Paddick – we are putting forward an innovative, radical Liberal Democrat agenda for Londoners

On the Lib Dems’ London campaign

Paddick: some Met detectives adopt a “she wants it really” attitude to women alleging rape

Paddick accuses Met of leaking confidential witness information

Sometimes a bus is just a bus

Livingstone and Johnson: a record of unsavoury comments

London Liberal Democrats – helping those with the smallest pockets get to work

Police compensate teenager banned from photographing Armed Forces Day Parade

Mike Tuffrey AM writes… The question I asked top London Tory: “Is there anything you would not privatise?”

What next for London’s airports?

Dee Doocey writes… Questions now must be answered over the Met’s record of undercover policing

Bromley Council pulls a controversial novelty with a lollipop lady petition

Oyster Card survey shows heavy interest in cutting coverage or raising prices

Guide dogs allowed on London Underground escalators – Caroline Pidgeon campaign success

The top five London MPs for outside earnings

Brian Paddick writes… Policing the riots

The message that won the Mayor selection for Brian Paddick

A tale of two holes – and a £39m price tag

Forget airports, sort the road works – message from London business leaders

Lembit Opik on the London Mayor selection result

Brian Paddick selected as Liberal Democrats’ London Mayoral Candidate for 2012

Brian Paddick writes: Building a better future for Londoners

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Vince Cable writes: Drill, baby, drill…or not

Lib Dems must do better on Burnham

Britain should be proud, but never afraid of the stranger

Lib Dem Women: Amplifying women’s voices at Conference

Category Archives: London

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