What is to be done about Brent Council's Tory imposed cuts?

There was a wide ranging and amicable discussion at tonight's Brent Fighback meeting on local government cuts.

The meeting agreed that there should be continued principled opposition to the council implementing government cuts. 

There were different views points on the possible 4% Council Tax rise (2% to protect adult social care and 2% to protect some (but not all) vital services).

One view was that the proposed rise still accommodated cuts through making the poor pay more. Another was that support among some in the Labour Group for a rise was a significant shift from last year when Cllr Duffy’s call for a 2% rise was strongly opposed - that shift should be supported. This was qualified by a demand (also in the Scrutiny Budget Panel report) that any rise should be accompanied by changes in Council Tax Benefit to protect the most vulnerable from the increase. 

Information is needed on how much would be raised by the increase (The Scrutiny Budget Panel said £12m by 2018/19) and what that could achieve in terms of protecting services. Also what changes in Council Tax Benefit would be needed to offset the imapct of the Council Tax rise for the most vulnerable?

There was also discussion on the possibility of using some of the council’s reserves to avoid cuts. This was something that Cllr Michael Pavey promised to review at the Scrutiny Committee. In the past the Audit Commission ruled that Brent did not have sufficient reserves and more has been added over the last 2-3 years.

Although the visit of Muhammed Butt and Michael Pavey to government ministers to argue that the cuts to Brent’s budget were unfair was welcome, there needed to be much more mobilisation of the public and joint work with other councils to mount a national campaign against the cuts.

 Cllr Butt reports back on his meeting with ministers

Brent Fightback would be keen to help campaigns of organisations or services which will be hit by the next round of cuts. Although ultimately unsuccessful the Stonebridge Adventure Playground campaign had a big impact in terms of public knowledge of how the community was affected by cuts.

There is a Budget Consultation Meeting at Brent Civic Cente tomorrow (Wednesday) at 7pm where these issues can be raised.

Open Letter: Greens support the Junior Doctors' Strike

WE support the junior doctors’ action because they deserve to be treated decently and because a rested and fairly paid NHS workforce is essential to sustain high clinical standards and patient safety.

The threat of strike first came about because the Government refused to drop their imposition of these contracts. Now ministers are failing to address doctors’ serious concerns surrounding safe working conditions, and aren’t offering proper recognition for those working unsocial hours.

We know that doctors take the Hippocratic Oath extremely seriously. They have, reluctantly, been forced to strike because they are not being heard. They have been telling the Health Secretary that this contract change is not just unfair on them but potentially unsafe for patients too. That’s why many consultants are backing the junior doctors too.

If this unfair contract is imposed, we risk more NHS trained doctors leaving for places like Australia where they feel more valued.

Today’s junior doctors are tomorrow’s leaders of the NHS, yet this Government’s intransigence – and their campaign of misinformation- has left junior doctors at the end of their tether. Sadly doctors aren’t unique in suffering because of this Government actions – our health service as a whole is under attack. Student nurses have had their grants snatched away – and the costly marketisation of our health service is continuing at speed.

The Government must rethink the way they’re treating our NHS. As a start they should negotiate with the doctors in good faith, and put forward the offer of a contract that is fair and works for staff and patients alike. Until then we’ll continue to stand in solidarity with the junior doctors as they fight for what’s right. 

Natalie Bennett, Green Party Leader
Caroline Lucas MP
Baroness Jenny Jones AM
Sian Berry, Green Party Candidate for Mayor of London

Daniel's Den 20th Anniversary invite to 'Share our Story'

Leading Greens, rallying to the Junior Doctors' cause, joined picket lines this morning

Leading Green Party politicians joined Junior Doctors on the picket line at St Thomas’ Hospital in London this morning.

Caroline Lucas MP, Natalie Bennett, Baroness Jenny Jones and Sian Berry, the Party’s Candidate for Mayor of London, joined doctors who are taking industrial action over proposed changes to their contracts.

Caroline Lucas and Natalie Bennett

Ahead of joining the picket Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, said:

We fully support the action being taken by junior doctors today.  These dedicated professionals must be treated with the respect they deserve– and the people who use the NHS have a right to being looked after by a rested and fairly paid workforce.

I know that Junior Doctors have not taken the decision to go on strike lightly but they simply don’t feel like they have any other option than to take this action.”

This strike is happening because the Government is failing to address very serious concerns around safe working conditions, while failing to offer proper recognition for those working unsocial hours. Ministers have treated Junior Doctors with contempt and subjected them to a campaign of misinformation – it’s no wonder they’re at the end of their tether.

This contract change is part of a wider Government assault on our health service. Student nurses have had their grants snatched away – and costly NHS marketisation is continuing. Now healthcare professionals are standing up to the bully boys around the Cabinet table.

Junior Doctors should be offered a contract that’s fair to them and guarantees patients the treatment they deserve. Until they get that recognition the Green Party will stand side by side with Junior Doctors in their campaign.

Sian Berry, the Green Party’s candidate for Mayor of London, said:Natalie Bennett, Jenny Jones,

We all know that junior doctors do not take strike action lightly, so if they feel they have no option because the government isn’t listening to them, we all ought to believe them. We don’t let lorry or bus drivers carry on working when they’re too tired to perform their jobs safely, so it seems senseless that the Department of Health is ignoring doctors’ own concerns in the same regard.

This is a short-sighted move in every respect: doctor fatigue has been found to cause a 15 percent increase in the likelihood of medical errors, and the overstretched National Health Service will end up under even more pressure if we force junior doctors to jeopardise patient safety by working longer hours.

Dputy Leafer Shahrar Ali in the frame

 Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett said:

We know that doctors don't want to strike, but they have been driven to this position by the actions of Jeremy Hunt, who from his own testimony has clearly failed to listen to their concerns, and certainly failed to act on them."

With junior doctors set to go on strike and nurses having already marched on the streets on Saturday against the replacement of training bursaries with loans, the way in which the government has mismanaged, indeed deliberately torn apart, the NHS, is becoming apparent to all.

Campaigners have been highlighting for years the way in which privatisation has been fragmenting and damaging our health service, but it is now becoming evident to all that the government's desire is to hand our public service over to the profit-driven health multinationals, one part of which is cutting the pay and conditions of staff.

Baroness Jenny Jones said:

I am extremely pleased to be able to support junior doctors.

Though no-one – including the doctors themselves – ever wants to see people forced to strike, it is time the government recognised the vital job junior doctors and other health service professionals do for us all. They are part of the front-line working to keep us healthy and helping us face and overcome illness and injury.

The people of the UK recognise the vital work that they do, and that it is a risk to us all – doctors and those they treat – to remove safeguards against them working dangerously long shifts. No-one wants to be treated by exhausted doctors and no-one should have to be.

That’s why I am standing with our junior doctors. Because they – and their patients – deserve to be protected from bad policy which will increase risk to all.

Sian Berry: Cameron's estate policy is all about social cleansing

Responding to news that the government wants to bulldoze so-called sink estates in London, including Broadwater Farm in Tottenham, Green mayoral candidate Sian Berry today condemned this policy of “social cleansing” and pledged to oppose estate demolitions in the capital.

Sian Berry said:

In the great majority of cases, demolition is not the right thing to do. Unless an estate is beyond repair, it’s much better to work with the community to improve housing stock than to demolish it completely.

The Greens’ housing policy for London is based on a presumption against estate demolition, especially where the local community is opposed to it. As Mayor, Sian Berry would use her powers to call in planning applications where councils want to demolish communities:

My guiding principle would be to explore all the options and let the tenants decide. I would put resources and staff into a new Community Homes Unit at City to support community-led housing schemes, especially in estate regeneration. It would help residents all over London develop their own masterplans for the kind of refurbishment and redevelopment they want for the areas they call their homes.

That’s very different to the social cleansing the Prime Minister clearly favours, which is a short-sighted as well as an ugly way to run a city. Whenever estates are demolished, they are replaced with a much smaller number of homes affordable to people on average salaries. That either forces people further away from where they work, putting more strain on the transport system, or out of the city altogether. We will eventually find that central London is a depopulated island of ‘investments’ that can’t actually function at all.

Dee Searle, former Green candidate for Tottenham and currently running for a seat at City Hall, added:

It's depressing that David Cameron persists in repeating tired, inaccurate stereotypes about Broadwater Farm.

The area has a vibrant, diverse community that successfully challenged Haringey Council's plans to demolish part of the estate earlier this year and runs many valuable local projects. Like many council estates it would benefit from investment. But this should be in consultation with residents.

Lots of activities available at the Yellow Pavilion, Wembley Park

The Yellow Pavilion is providing a useful function in its temporary site. I am assured it will be relocated to another temporary location when building work starts on the theatre and the activities will eventually be housed in a permament community centre on the Alto site.

MORE HERE

Stop the closure of Brent's London Overground Ticket Offices

Ticket offices marked for closure

London Overground is proposing the closure of ticket offices on the Brent section of the line. This follows the closure of London Underground ticket offices last year.

These station serve both the Bakerloo line and London Overground. Harrow and Wealdstone and Wembley Central also serve Southern (East Croydon to Milton Keynes) and some London Midland services (Euston to Milton Keynes). In addition tickets can currently be booked for through onward journeys further North and South including Birmingham and Brighton.

Apart from the issues around safety which Dawn Butler has taken up LINK, remembering the murder at Kensal Green station some years ago, these closure would seriously affect passengers'convenience.
Journeys accessing the rail network are much more complicated to book, involving peak and off-peak fares, changes, choices of routes, and use of various rail cards, reduced rates for children etc.

A booking office clerk confirmed to me today that current ticket machines would not be able to offer all these options. With only a limited number of fares on offer passengers may well lose out being unable to book the cheapest fare for maybe a grandparent and child travelling together. All the permutations are likely to mean frustrating queues at the machines.

This is the announcement on London Travel Watch

London Underground are consulting on proposals to close the ticket offices and carry out improvement works which will include installing new, improved ticket machines at the following London Underground stations, which are covered by the National Rail, Ticketing and Settlement Agreement (Schedule 17):

• Gunnersbury
• Harlesden
• Harrow & Wealdstone
• Kensal Green
• Kenton
• Kew Gardens
• North Wembley
• Queen’s Park
• South Kenton
• Stonebridge Park
• Wembley Central

To comment on these proposals and how you might be affected as a passenger, please write to London TravelWatch, 169 Union Street, London, SE1 0LL or email
enquiries@londontravelwatch.org.uk, with ‘London Underground ticket office changes’ in the subject line. The consultation will close on Wednesday 27 January 2016.

London TravelWatch will review all comments received, and will make a recommendation to the Department for Transport based on these and other information received.
Further information on consulations and closures can be found in the consultations section of the website.
You can also read the letter we received from TfL about the proposed closure of Regulated Stations ticket offices.

Learning from the recent past on how to live sustainably in the 21st century

Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Network, will be attending a special open meeting of “Transition Kensal to Kilburn” on Wednesday January 20th at 7.30pm at Willesden Green Library, as part of an exhibition on sustainable living.

The exhibition “Old Stories for New Times” has hosted a series of events at the Library in Willesden Green. This special open meeting on the 20th January will focus on what we can learn from the recent past to live more sustainably in the future. Transition Kensal to Kilburn will draw on the exciting research for their exhibition, which gathered stories from people who've lived in the area from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Carol Low, Kilburn resident, who organised the exhibition, says, “We now want to hear from community members and from Brent Council about actions that residents would like to be part of to build a sustainable future locally.”

The evening will start with drinks and nibbles from 6.30pm on the 2nd floor in the Education Room, when people will be able to view the exhibition in the Gallery and visit stalls run by Transition Kensal to Kilburn and Transition Willesden. On the night there will also be an opportunity to buy "21 Stories of Transition", the latest book by Rob Hopkins, and have a copy signed by the author himself. The meeting itself will start at 7.30pm until 9.30pm and will be held downstairs in the Performance Space. The aim is to identify new projects on sustainability and deepening community connection.

The exhibition, “Old Stories for New Times”, which ends on 24th January, is dedicated to day-to-day life and community life in Kilburn, Kensal Green, Brondesbury and Mapesbury before cheap oil and consumerism took the world by storm. More details of the exhibition  which was put on in partnership with Brent Museum and Archives are HERE .