As some of you will know, I live in Church Street Ward, City of Westminster. Residents in my area have been asking the council to install street CCTV cameras to help in stopping street crime in our area, to no avail however. Recently, we have seen a massive increase in the amount of drug dealing and usage in our local area which is a blight on our area – we live in an area with families with children, who should not be exposed to this element of society.

What is amazing is this drug dealing is taking place in the shadow of Paddington Green Police Station (it is literally 100 yds away) and no one is interested in taking action – not the police or the council.

Yesterday at 03:41 my car was broken into and the window broken on one of the doors – all that the lovelies got where a pair of (cheap) sunglasses and a handsfree cable for my phone. OK, insurance covered it, but the issue is that we should not be having to live with this level of crime. My car has not been the only one broken into – every night there is a car in the area with windows smashed in and there is no interest from the council in dealing with this.

There has been representations made to the local council office who where not interested in installing CCTV. The police, when called about 8 weeks ago to an attempted break in to my car, which I witnessed, have yet to attend (even though I was told it was an immediate response).

As council tax payers and law abiding citizens, we deserve a level of service which is not forthcoming from City Hall. Instead, the City of Westminster is hell bent of mounting a campaign against motor cycle riders, against the Addison Lee cigarette bins and enforcement of unenforceable parking tickets issued where the yellow lines are not ‘legal’.

I call upon the Church Street Councillors to do something instead of sitting around appearing to be uninterested in your community.

According to the lead article in today’s London Evening Standard, we are facing weekend tube chaos until 2012 right up until 21 July, 2012. This will mean that Londoners have not had a full weekend tube service for 46 months. In fact, the only time London Underground has been able to run a full weekend service in recent years has been 29/30 December, 2007 and prior to that, the previous date was 30/31 December,2006.

So who is to blame? TfL is appointing the blame at the failure of Metronet and Tubelines who between them where responsible to £10 billion worth of upgrades to the network – this failed. Both Labour and Conservative have shouldered the blame for the failures – at a local and central government level. Ken Livingstone fought against the privatisation of the maintenance and this was imposed bu the Labour Government. So is Labour to blame for this?

No, we need to look back further at the Thatcher period of government, during which time the subsidies to London Transport (as it was) where slashed year upon year. This resulted in little if no maintenance to the infrastructure of the network leaving us with a legacy of out dated signalling systems, tracks which where in need of replacement and rolling stock that was in dire need of modernisation, to name but a few of the issues.

In this time of austerity, should we expect an increase in the funding from central government?

In my view, yes, if they are committed to maintaining their supposed ‘green’ credentials.

Should the current mayor be doing more?

Yes – he needs to take immediate control of the entire infrastructure and management chain, and fight tooth and nail for the funding which is required to provide 21st century London with a 21st century network. We used to have an underground that was a world leader, now it is seemingly a world follower-up.

Interestingly, whilst the network is in what is viewed by some as chaos, LUL has found £60M to soend on legal advice!

Worth noting is, that in the same edition of the Standard, on page 28, is an article about the new fashion of ‘pop up’ restaurants.

The link to the Underground? LUL bosses have  told the owners of one of these new restaurants to change the name of their restaurant or else! Apparently the Underground Restaurant is devaluing the brand of London Underground. So, the £60M has now been added to with LUL bosses taking more legal advice.

Wake up – the devaluation has occurred through the poor management and stewardship of your organisation, not from a fashionable restaurant. The public have lost confidence in the Mayor of London and LUL/TfL’s management of the network. Focus on what is needed – a network which works. Not some of the time and while it is understandable that there will be things that happen from time to time, beyond your control which means you cannot operate a 100% service, but lets aim high shall we?

Londoners NEED, no Londoners DEMAND a weekend underground service.

We pay one of the highest costs per journey in Europe but for what? A replacement bus service? 20 minute delays? Trains being full beyond bursting point (noteworthy that sheep or cattle would not be permitted to travel in such cramped conditions – even though they are generally on a one way journey to become next the forthcoming weekend Sunday roast)? Enough is enough.

The next Mayor of London will be elected on their transport policy – nothing else.

Good news – not only will this blog stay online (after considerable thought) but with a desire to refocus and do something new, I have a new site which will be available in a couple of days time

blog.londonliberal.org.uk

Not too much point in clicking on it yet, as the domain is in process of server propagation and will not be available generally until Friday.

So what will this new site be all about?

In no aprticular order or preference:

• LibDem activities in London
• Reports about our GLA AM’s and what they are up to
• Guest contibutors and articles from AM’s, MP’s and councillors
• London campaign issues
• and more things which are all plastered on post-it notes on my wall at the moment

If you are a London LibDem and want to be a contributor, have thoughts on what should be featured (a campaign you are interested in etc) or have any comments in general, please post a reply or contact me on Twitter @ChrisLibDemNW1 and lets talk about it!

I look forward to hearing from you all soon.

Thanks

chris

I have just been on LBC 97.3 talking to Iain Dale re this – in my opinion, yes he should have as he was not entitled to the expenses.

As one of Iain’s bloggers on his election night show, I was commentating on David’s resignation from a social media point of view. It has been interesting to note the number of Labour Twitterers who are condeming his expenses claims (although they have short memories re their own MP’s expenses claims) and conversely, the number of Tory twitterers who are supporting David and expressing their sorrow in his decision to resign.

Would the position be different if Labour and LibDem where in a coalition? Probably they would be singing a different song, but this is politics and they are making what little gains they can.

David Laws did the right thing in referring his expenses to the Parliamentary Standards Commisioner as from 2006, the regulations governing second homes expenses changed and he was no longer entitled to claim this particular expense.

The ‘outing’ of David was unfortunate. Should this have happened? No. His sexuality has nothing to do with his ability to perform as an MP and I feel that private life is just that – private.

It would appear that he will probably be back in the cabinet in the near future though. I think he has retained the confidence of his peers (within the coalition that is – not sure about the Labour MP’s- they are too busy trying to find a new leader, god help us!)

As for any MP’s who end up in the same position as David Laws – look, listen and learn. There is NO room for expenses scandals in this government and any other MP’s should follow his example and stand down from their cabinet/shadow cabinet positions.

Iain Dale has revealed an ‘exclusive’ on his blog tonight (although a fair few of us had wind of this a day or so ago) in that Sir Menzies Campbell is mounting a campaign to secure the position of Speaker of the House.

Ming has let it be known that he is willing to be included as a possible alternative to Bercow in an email due to be sent out to all MPs tomorrow morning by Labour MP Kate Hoey and Conservative MP Nadine Dorries.

Will he win? There is certainly a lack of support in the current Speaker, although will the House have the courage to firstly rebel against him (life for any member who does and the bid is unsuccessful would be difficult when the speaker was returned to office) and secondly, does the House want a LibDem as the Speaker?

I certainly would like to see a LibDem as the Speaker of the House, if for nothing more than to redress the balance and provide an opportunity for us to exercise some control over the day to day business of the House.

I for one will be watching the outcome with interest.