Obama, Cameron and HMRC take their hats off to our Dawn

I met a Brent Labour Party member on Saturday who was having to build an extension to house all the communications from candidates for the nomination for Brent Central parliamentary - OK, a bit of an exaggeration, but the contest is predicted to increase recycling rates in the borough significantly.

Several candidates have put up campaign blogs including ex-Brent South MP Dawn Butler. LINK

She is the only candidate to boast testimonials from Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Rev Jesse Jackson, David Cameron, The Metro and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs amongst many others.  It is going to be hard for Tony McNulty to match that!

She states:

Taken as a whole, I believe nobody else matches my combination of: a Brent resident, an experienced MP for the area, my track record of local engagement, community contacts, working with local party members and a tireless campaigner both during and after elections.

Amongst the photos on the blog header (see above) is one for the Brent Fightback banner. It will be interesting to see of she shares Fightback's views on fighting Coalition AND local council cuts.

Hunt dashes hopes for clear Labour support for democratically accountable schools

With the last non-faith secondary school in Brent about to be forced to become an academy and four free schools in the pipeline for the borough, many teachers, trade unionists and parents have been looking to Labour to propose an alternative.

They have been disappointed locally by the Labour Council's failure to support the campaign against forced academy status for the popular Gladstone Park Primary School and its sacking of the governing body at Copland High School.

Nationally there was much impatience with Stephen Twigg's failure to take on the Coalition over education with the same energy and commitment as Andy Burnham had done with health. He failed to adopt a clear position on free schools, academies and privatisation and became known on Twitter as the 'Silent Twigg'.

However any hopes that his post-reshuffle successor would be any better have been shattered by Tristram Hunt's statements on free schools over the weekend. He came out in support of free schools with a few caveats, and failed to address the issues of democratic accountability and supporting the role of local authorities..

After his appearance on the Andrew Marr show my Twitter feed was full of disillusioned comments. Here are a few of them:

alistair smith ‏@alatalite 1h

I read this and despair! Its a free for all! Hunt signals Labour policy shift on free schools

 Amy. ‏@thisisamy_ 1h

Dear Labour, if I wanted Tory style welfare policies, I'd vote Tory.

Jim Clarke ‏@Jorvic_JJC 2h

Where is the evidence based policy?Why aren't we comparing with other countries? Failure of Free Schools in Sweden and Charter schools in US

 Tom Miller ‏@TomMillerUK 2h

So given today's announcements it's a pretty bad day to be on the Labour left. Remind me how the reshuffle was a cull of Blairites?

The Govertaker ‏@Bedtonman 1h

Seen as Labour are determined to be the same as Gove on education I think it is time to leave the Labour party & join the Greens

 Michael Rosen ‏@MichaelRosenYes 2h

How many media interviewers will ask Hunt why he has rejected the democratic model of a 'free school' and adopted a Tory one?

 Michael Rosen ‏@MichaelRosenYes 2h

Tories co-opted and distorted democratic localism in schools and turned it into market localism controlled by Sec of State = totalitarianism

 Martin Maloney ‏@MartinGMaloney 3h

@TeacherROAR @TristramHuntMP I'm 52 a teacher I have only just joined the Labour Party, and now I have to tear up my card, shame on you Hunt

 sue shanks ‏@ShanksSue 3h

Looks like only #Green party believes local authorities should be in charge of schools now.#laboureducationpolicy

 Christine Townsend ‏@IfBChristine 3h

@bevclack @TeacherROAR @TristramHuntMP what experience of state education have u got? were u state educated? ever taught in a state school?

 Rachel Ellis ‏@60isnew18 3h

@IfBChristine @TeacherROAR @bevclack @TristramHuntMP Not good one of his first comments should be to support Free schools. shame on him!

Tom Copley ‏@tomcopley 4h

Very disappointed by Tristram Hunt's "parent-led academy" idea. Local authorities need a stronger role in education, not a weaker one

 Charlie Kiss ‏@charliekiss 6h

Don't expect change from Labour- they're keeping free schools and so continuing with destruction of local democracy http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/13/tristram-hunt-labour-free-schools?CMP=twt_gu …

 Itsmotherswork ‏@itsmotherswork 7h

Naturally if Tristram Hunt knew anything at all about state education he would know that local authorities haven't "run" schools for years.

Kilburn Katz - Labour's fresh faced candidate

Mike Katz has circulated the following message to Brent Central Labour Party members in his bid to become the party's candidate for Brent Central. He was deselected from his current ward councillor candidate list earlier this year.

I'm emailing to tell you why I want to be your Labour candidate for Brent Central.When you decide who to support in this selection one question is more important than any other: who can beat the Lib Dems?I know that I can. I won my council ward back from the Lib Dems in 2010, and successfully defended two other Labour seats against an aggressive Lib Dem campaign in 2006.To win in 2015 we need a candidate who will campaign in every ward, take the fight to the Lib Dems and make them account for their party’s awful record in Government.A candidate who is no stranger to Brent, but who is a fresh face for Brent Labour.I’m that candidate.I was born and raised in North West London; I live right next door to the constituency and I’m currently a councillor for Kilburn, one of the most deprived wards in Camden.  Find out more about me hereBrent Central is at the frontline of our struggle to preserve the promise that we would have a better life than our parents, and our children better than us.We need to campaign for jobs, education and housing; and for the unity we gain from diversity.That’s why I want to be your next Labour MP.  I have the experience and determination to win Brent Central back for Labour and to fight for a fairer and better future for our community.I want to hear your views about the issues that matter and the sort of MP you want.  I'll be in touch soon, but please feel free to get in contact by calling me any time on (withheld for privacy reasons) or emailing me at mike@mikekatz.org

No Jubilee or Metropolitan Lines this weekend

GRRRR!

Saturday and Sunday:  No Jubilee service between Waterloo and Stanmore. No Metropolitan service between Aldgate and Harrow-on-the-Hill.

Brent Budget gap points to more cuts unless Councillors say enough is enough

The Brent Executive on Monday will receive the latest 3 year budget forecast which has been revised from that presented in February. The figures assume the Council Tax freeze will continue and a pay inflation of 1% in 2013-14 and 2% thereafter. Allowance is made for restructuring and redundancy costs of £2.6m.

The basic figures:

	2014/15	2015/16	2016/17
	£m	£m	£m
Budget Gap at Council Feb 2013	20.4	17.1	17.3
Reductions in Revenue Support Grant	2.0	13.0	1.0
Business Rate Top-Up	-0.1	-0.4	-0.2
Additional Council Tax Freeze Grants	-1.0	-1.1	2.1
Business Rates - share of growth from baseline	-1.9	-0.7	-0.6
New Homes Bonus	0.5	2.7	-0.1
Collection Fund Surplus	-2.4	2.4
Council Tax Base	-1.3	-0.2	-0.3
Other Grants	-1.1	0.8
Capital Financing	-2.0
Latest Budget Gap	13.1	33.6	19.2

Clearly more cuts are looming and just in case Councillors get any ideas about refusing to set a budget or raiding the reserves, Mick Bowden, Deputy Director of Finance warns in his report:

A local authority must budget so as to give a reasonable degree of certainty as to the maintenance of its services. In particular, local authorities are required by the Local Government Finance Act 1992 to calculate as part of their overall budget what amounts are appropriate for contingencies and reserves. The Council must ensure sufficient flexibility to avoid going into deficit at any point during the financial year. The Chief Financial Officer is required to report on the robustness of the proposed financial reserves.

 Under the Brent Member Code of Conduct members are required when reaching decisions to have regard to relevant advice from the Chief Finance Officer and the Monitoring Officer. If the Council should fail to set a budget at all or fail to set a lawful budget,contrary to the advice of these two officers there may be a breach of the Code by individual members if it can be demonstrated that they have not had proper regard to the advice given.

I would argue that Labour councillors must consider whether committing a  'a breach of the Code' is more of a crime than implementing cuts that will damage services to the most vulnerable.

Cheer up teachers! Watch this

Those pesky Preston people won't give up - get behind them!

All hands on deck to save Sulivan Primary School from academy and free school pirates

Sulivan children deliver the school's response to the consultation

The consultation on the future of Sulivan Primary School, Fulham, closes today. Earlier children from the school delivered their responses to Hammersmith Town Hall.

The Council proposes to close Sulivan and send its pupils to King's Primary which is keen to become an academy. Fulham Boys' Free School would take over the Sulivan site.

There is still time to make a submission. Follow this LINK

Save Our Sulivan Campaign website is HERE