The Maccabees and Goldspot at the ICA

Last night I saw the Maccabees at the ICA. As you can see from the photos, it was the iTunes Festival - they've had a different act at the ICA each night in July, all being recorded for download.

I actually chatted briefly to the guitarist on the left of that photo outside the ICA before... but as I hadn't seen them live before the gig, I didn't recognise him, ooops. I almost asked him if he was going to watch the Maccabees, but at least I managed not to do that. Only realised when people started asking for photos with him as he went inside that he wasn't just a normal punter.

Talking of normal punters, that guy from the Catherine Tate Show was there too. Anyway, the gig was excellent - I saw Suede at the ICA a couple of years ago, which is still the best gig I've ever been to. Because it's such a small venue (just a couple of hundred there last night) it feels really special.

The Maccabees were brilliant and the support were too. They were a band from LA called Goldspot (below) who I didn't know before, but their music sounded great and the performance was too.

Doh

Went to see The Simpsons Movie after work on Friday. Had been looking forward to it for ages and it didn't disappoint.

Well, it did a little. Whereas the South Park film took the normal style and made it into something different for the big screen, The Simpsons was really just a long episode of the tv series. That's not to say it wasn't good, it was great like they always are - just I'd maybe been hoping for something a little more special.

On Saturday spent most of the day delivering our latest Focus newsletter, in my ward. Just one more street left to do, so a satisfying day - even if delivering leaflets isn't the most exciting thing in the world. A mate came to help me though, which always makes the task a lot less dull (as well as quicker).

When my mate Dan was in a block of flats, a resident told him that she was in her 50s and had voted for the first time in her life, in any election, last May when I was re-elected. She said we've worked so hard over the years and got lots done so she was moved to vote for the first time. It's always great to get feedback like that.

Today has been a bit less eventful, bit of casework and also some work for my job. But generally fairly relaxed, before a busy week ahead.

Good news for Man City fans, less so for Spurs

Having just been discharged from jury service for good (I did at least get to see the inside of a courtroom yesterday, even if I was never put on a trial), just seen on BBC News that Man City have signed Martin Petrov from Atletico Madrid.

Another good signing by Sven-Goran Eriksson... will be interesting to see if he can take Man City back where they belong. I hope so, the City fans are great.

A shame for Spurs though, was hoping that we would sign Petrov. Have to wait and see what other signings we might make in the coming weeks.

Cycling and webcasting (in Darlington)

Just a very quick post to mention the blog of Mike Barker, a newly elected Lib Dem councillor in Darlington.

He was interested in the webcasting that Haringey do of our council meetings.

Mike had come across my blog through another Mike, who I was at university with and who is involved with the Darlington Cycling Campaign. You can read about that on this blog.

Drugs and hot air

Sitting at court, waiting (still) to see if I get put on a jury. As this is the second week for me, I'm wondering if I might get sent home for good today if I'm not selected.

Anyway, just been looking at a couple of news stories on BBC Online.

The Energy Saving Trust has released some figures about sales of patio heaters, predicting a doubling of them in people's homes over the next year (so, not even counting the impact of the smoking ban on the numbers in pub beer gardens). Their Chief Executive said: "Why don't people just wear a jumper?". And he's got a good point.

Heating the inside of your home is a reasonable thing to do - but wasting energy heating the open air around you as a matter of course is not. The Energy Saving Trust are calling for retailers to stop selling patio heaters.

I would prefer people to consciously make the decision not to buy them. Of course, there are lots of environmentally damaging activities we do all the time, people have to look at the advantages and diadvantages of patio heaters.

But specifically trying to heat up the atmosphere without thinking about global warming does seem particularly crazy.

If you're into drugs, as an issue, then you can respond now to the government's consultation on a range of drugs related questions.

The BBC article about the consultation quotes a good statistic - for every pound spent on drugs treatment the health service and the criminal justice system saves nearly £10. You do the maths.

Haringey Council "simply wrong" on foundation status - Secretary of State

As promised, a little more detail around the decision to make Fortismere a foundation school, which will take effect in September. I have already made some points in the comments section of the post I did on Friday, but I will go through some of the other main points that people might have questions on.

I include some quotes from the Secretary of State's response to complaints about the consultation process at the end.

Admissions

A lot of the concern about the move to foundation status was around admissions and a fear that the school would become selective. That is not legally possible, the school will remain comprehensive (as it should do) – and the Secretary of State said that Haringey Council’s assertion that under foundation status Fortismere would not continue to benefit the whole community school was plain wrong.

On admissions, the first two criteria are fixed for all state schools of any kind: SEN statemented students and looked after children. The third is siblings, which is pretty much unchangeable too – I can’t imagine any school wanting to change that and I’d be surprised if an Admissions Forum allowed it. There are then options available for the 4th criterion. Haringey currently uses proximity. This is what the governing body wants to continue to use. The council have not indicated they are likely to try and change to other methods, such as banding (selection according to ability, by band) or a lottery, but those options are open to them.

Any changes would still have to be consulted on and if there are objections the independent School Adjudicator decides, as now – the difference is that the school make the proposals, rather than the council.


Assets

As a foundation school, the governing body will have control over the assets of the school and would be able to use any money realised. The governors have no intention of selling off any land. A fear that the council *would* sell off land (and possibly not even use the money for the benefit of the school) was, however, one of the reasons I voted ‘yes’.

The council have said that Fortismere is less in need of funds as it has the option of selling off land to pay for other improvements on several occasions and it was even mentioned to me during the consultation process by the Labour councillor in charge of Haringey’s schools. There is also a specific example of where Fortismere has lost out because of the council’s control over its assets in the past – in a land swap where the council changed its valuation of one of the pieces of land significantly after the swap was done.


PFI

I’m sure many parents would love it if we could rip up the PFI agreement with Jarvis. Unfortunately that is not something we can change. On future such agreements, however, as a foundation school Fortismere will have a stronger negotiating position.


Accountability

There were people who said “but the governing body can change its membership, so you can’t guarantee that a future set of governors won’t do something else”, which is of course true. But the same is also true for elected councillors and for council officers, so the situation is no different. A third of the governing body will be elected parent governors and I feel that there will be more accountability than there is currently – the ruling party in Haringey is Labour and there are no Labour councillors representing wards anywhere near Fortismere, so most parents and prospective parents have no chance of holding them accountable at elections anyway.


In summary, I do not trust Haringey Council to administer Fortismere properly or fairly. Under foundation status, there is for the first time a statutory requirement for the council to treat Fortismere ‘fairly’. I’m not suggesting that their attitude will change instantly, but it could be easier to get fair treatment - for example, the recent failure to award Fortismere funding for training (despite the school being the key source of teacher training in the borough) could perhaps have been addressed better with the statutory requirement for fairness.


The Secretary of State's opinion

The below excerpts are taken from the response by the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families to complaints about the consultation. They are all copied vebatim - the emphasis in two parts is my own.

It is evident from the name of what appears to be the central group opposed to the change of category – “Keep Fortismere Comprehensive” – that the consultation responses would have contained significant misunderstanding of the impact and consequence of the change of category to foundation.

This situation has also been inflamed by the language deployed by Haringey local authority in its response to the consultation: “Fortismere has achieved excellent results as an inclusive and academically strong school. We want it to remain in the Haringey family of schools so that all parts of our community can benefit from what it has to offer.” The suggestion that foundation schools are not part of the local family of schools and do not benefit all parts of the community is simply wrong. It is also wrong to suggest that a foundation school is not a comprehensive school. Foundation schools remain local authority maintained schools, and must act in accordance with the Schools Admissions Code.

The governing body has clearly sought to hold a full and effective consultation; has acted to extend consultation and to consult further parties when advised to do so; and for the most part has complied with regulations to the letter. In the very small number of areas where the process of changing category could be argued to have fallen short of perfect, there is no reason to conclude that the decision making process has been compromised or that the outcome of the process would have been different.

The Secretary of State also described the summary of the consultation responses provided by the governing body as 'comprehensive'. On that topic, personally I am more than happy for the responses to be published, having been made suitably anonymous.

It's obviously a complex issue and I can't cover every aspect on my blog. There is a wealth of information out there for anyone who wants more details about foundation status - although I wouldn't recommend the Ham & High as a starting point, as their coverage of the debate has been one-sided throughout, at best.

If there are other questions, not covered above or in the comments section of the previous post, then feel free to make comments and I will respond to them when I can. I would also like to thank those people who clearly have a very different view on this subject to mine, but have put their comments on this blog or on emails politely and constructively - there has only been one so far that has not bothered with that courtesy (hope that I'm not tempting fate there!).

Foundation status for Fortismere

Staff and parents have now been given notification about the result of last night's Fortismere governors vote on a move to foundation status for the school.

With a vote of 14 to 3, the governing body approved the move. The statutory consultation period hadn't thrown up any new concerns, but it was reassuring to have received a large number of letters from parents in favour of the move - the 'pro' and 'con' camps ended up roughly balanced.

Later I'll blog in more detail about my reasons for voting in favour, the behaviour of Haringey Council and the standard of reporting in the Ham & High over recent months.

If anyone wishes to comment on this now, they can of course - but if you have substantive comments to make it would probably be more helpful (to me and to you) if you waited until I do the longer piece and comment on that one instead.

It is a truth universally acknowledged...

I loved this story I saw on Yahoo News earlier.

I liked that Penguin's response was:

"Thank you for your recent letter and chapters from your book 'First
Impressions'. It seems like a really original and interesting read".

And, when caught out,

A spokeswoman for Penguin noted that its rejection letter had said only that it "seemed" original and interesting. "It would not have been read," she insisted.

So they weren't stupid, they just lied. That's alright then!

Waiting, working and voting

Another morning waiting around at Wood Green Crown Court for jury service - sent home again and so into work for the afternoon. Will be in work again tomorrow, then have to report back to the court on Monday morning. So might yet be on a jury.

Straight from work to a governors meeting at Fortismere this evening, which as usual was a long one. We were voting on a possible move to foundation status for the school - I'll blog properly about all that in the next day or two, after staff have been informed of the result.

Not related to the result, the governing body did receive a very interesting letter from the Secretary of State. It dealt with some of the misleading claims from both Labour-run Haringey Council and the 'Keep Fortismere Comprehensive' campaign - claims which have been repeated ad nauseum by local newspaper the Ham & High in particular.

Of course, there have been other votes taking place today... am awaiting the Ealing Southall and Sedgefield results with interest.

Horseshoes, war and local democracy

It was Full Council on Monday night, which was strangely more fun than usual - and I don't think it had anything to do with the new "horseshoe" (sort of) seating plan.

We had two good deputations from local residents - one from a supplementary school in Tottenham that the Council is threatening to withdraw funding from, putting their 30+ year existence in doubt, and the other from the organisers of the annual Tottenham Carnival. My colleagues Cllr David Winskill and Cllr John Oakes in particular made important contributions to those discussions and there appeared to be some dissent between members of the Labour front bench.

We also had, for the first time, Opposition Business. This now allows the Lib Dem opposition a chance to debate a vital issue of our choice - until now, the Labour group controlled the agenda completely. Haringey has 30 Labour councillors and 27 Lib Dems (there are no Greens or Conservatives at all).

It's only a 15 minute slot in a two and a half hour meeting, but our leader Cllr Neil Williams made an excellent speech about the balls-up that is Haringey Labour's mad rush to flog off Alexandra Palace.

Later in the meeting, the Labour council leader proposed writing to Gordon Brown to wish him luck (as well as to Tony Blair to thank him for his great work!). I stood up to suggest that if Gordon wants to be better than Tony - and we know that he does - he could start with a couple of simple promises... Not to take us into any illegal wars and to scrap the national ID card scheme. Would be a start, at least.

Talking of war and Tony Blair, reminds me of something from a speech Stephen Gilbert gave recently: with regard to Tony's new job, it seems extraordinary that in the blinking of an eye he's made the transition from middle east warmaker to middle east peacemaker... I'm sure we all wish him the best of luck in that role though.

As always, the webcasts of Full Council and many other council meetings can be viewed here.

Ex-Tory councillor now backing UKIP

Just seen that William MacDougall, formerly a Tory councillor in Highgate and the Tory candidate for Tottenham at the last general election, has now joined UKIP.

Maybe one factor in his defection was his apparent lack of success as a Tory here in Haringey. In 2002 the Lib Dems, led by my colleague and now Leader of the Opposition Cllr Neil Williams, won all three seats in Mr MacDougall's old "conservative stronghold" of Highgate and then retained them in last year's election. And in the general election, he finished third, behind Lib Dem candidate Wayne Hoban.

The only news coverage I remember Mr MacDougall getting during the Tottenham election campaign was about pigeons. Sadly can't find any of the news stories online, but the press release that started the campaign is still here.

Anyway, he seems to be urging voters in Sedgefield to back UKIP in the by-election this Thursday. Haven't heard much about the campaigns up there, but what I have heard from Lib Dems involved has been very positive. Hearing a lot more about the Ealing Southall by-election, looking like we are going to get a very good result there...

Boris for Mayor

I'm sitting in a waiting room at the start of my jury service. All just waiting so far, I see why one of my friends called it dreary service.

Was just thinking about mayoral candidates for London next year. See, told you it was boring here.

I am just hoping that the Tories *do* have Boris Johnson as their candidate. It will be hilarious to see Mayor Ken ripping him to shreds on any sort of policy debate.

Boris is all well and good on Have I Got News For You. But the thought of him being London Mayor terrifies me - until I remember that he has no chance of beating Livingstone anyway. Boris is, I'm sure, very intelligent. And certainly amusing.

The fact that he is in the Conservative Shadow Cabinet, so if David Cameron were to fluke a general election win Boris would be in a position of power and responsibility... well, that's surely enough to stop anyone voting Conservative, surely?

Anyway, back to London. Hopefully we will soon be selecting a top rate Lib Dem candidate to take Ken on...

Rise against rain

Rise festival in Finsbury Park today. Got very, very wet. But all good fun.

The sun was still shining when the Holloways (top photo) played around 1pm, and they were great live as they always are. They only had a fairly short set, but still packed in loads of excellent tracks. And as they were one of the first bands up, it was still fairly quiet - so managed to get a decent position right near the front.

There wasn't a lot of dancing going on, but a couple of groups going mad down at the front countered the fact that most people were still lying on the grass enjoying the sun.

After they finished off, with Generator, I managed to get a space right at the very front in the middle, ready for Saint Etienne. On the down side, that did mean I had to stand through Ken Livingstone's speech (and a few others) which came in the break before Sarah, Pete and Bob took the stage. To be fair, Ken was brief and most of the speakers through the day did strike a good balance between getting the anti-racism message across and not turning people off with too much politics.

Just before Saint Etienne (middle photo) did start, it started to tip it down and was really stormy on and off for the rest of the afternoon. The bottom photo of me with a friend Megan during one of the rain breaks doesn't really get across just how wet we were. Very wet.

Saint Etienne were awesome, of course. A decent length set, around 45 minutes and a great range of tunes from across their career so far, including Nothing Can Stop Us Now.

Finished off with He's On The Phone, which got the crowd going the most, as you might expect. But I think they won over some new fans today - definitely some of my mates who were standing further back (and said I was featuring prominently on the big screen during their set, oh dear) and didn't know them that much before really enjoyed it too.

I was exhausted and very happy by the time Saint Etienne finished, but watched Jamelia too and she was actually really good. All in all, a great event, all for a good reason.

Visiting hours in Abergavenny

Back now from my daytrip to Wales.

Missed the chance to go with Haringey colleagues to help campaign in Ealing Southall today and also missed an event at Coldfall School in my ward which I had planned to go to. But saw my Grandma in hospital - and she was looking much better than she had been earlier in the week.

Got the train right into Abergavenny. I've only been there a couple of times (as my Grandma actually lives in Abertillery) and unfortunately always for the occasion of visiting Nevill Hall Hospital. But I always think that the town centre is pretty and all in all I really like the place. Add to that this view from the hospital ward window and you know you're in a nice spot.

Grandma seemed to be almost enjoying her stay today, now that she's getting back to normal (hopefully) and even told me this afternoon that Nevill Hall was like a "five-star hotel", nothing but praise for the cleanliness, the food and of course the staff. So thanks to everyone there for looking after her.

Had I been staying overnight in Abergavenny, maybe I could have gone for this place near the hospital to remind me of home...

People power: Starbucks 0, Forbidden City 1

I'm on a train at the moment, on my way to Wales to visit my Grandma in hospital. On a happier note, I will be back in time to see Saint Etienne performing at Rise in Finsbury Park tomorrow.

Just seen on BBC News that Starbucks has been forced out of the Forbidden City, under pressure for "trampling on Chinese culture". Apparently the shop had been there for six or seven years, and a couple of years ago had even removed the name from the front. (I didn't notice it being there when I was there a couple of years ago... but, then again, I don't drink coffee, so wasn't looking).

So, someone *can* put a halt to Starbucks' creep (or march) to world domination. Well, I guess it's probably more just a temporary blip.

But will it give some hope to those who hate Starbucks here, are we going to see some concerted campaigns arguing they are trampling on our culture? It could be a useful practice run before tackling Tescos, I suppose.

Alternatively, let market forces, i.e. local consumers, decide...

Anyway, talking of China, I'm going to get back to my book on Mao now (which I still haven't finished), once I've got some work out of the way.

Camden Lib Dems still taking seats from Labour

Great news this morning - Lib Dem Matt Saunders won the Haverstock by-election in Camden yesterday. That's a second gain from Labour in the two by-elections since May 2006 when the Lib Dems became the largest group in Camden, sweeping Labour from power.

The result:

Conservative 213
Green 299
Labour 1000
Matt Sanders, Liberal Democrat 1160

This is particularly good news for me - as I was so busy with work and other stuff that I didn't go over to help the campaign at all (even missing Good Mornings at an election for the first time in years), so I would have felt very guilty if Labour had managed to cling on. Phew.

Iraq: what now?

Going to war in Iraq was, in my opinion, a mistake - and such an obvious mistake that it seems unbelievable we blundered in.

So the thought of drawing the debacle to a conclusion does appeal and there is immediate happiness at the vote in America. But, like any policy of setting a withdrawal timetable, could it be the wrong way to deal with a problem "we" created?

Turning back time and starting again (or not) would be great. But as we can't do that, is just getting out of there the best option? Maybe it is, I'm no military strategist. It does potentially seem just to be an easy option and an attempt to accept (rightly) that we were wrong in the first place.

Either way, it's people with a much better knowledge than me that now need to make the decision - but it shouldn't be made on the basis of trying to correct old wrongs, it needs to be made on the basis of what is best for the Iraqi people and our troops *now*, in the circumstances we find ourselves.

Is this really news?

Clearly not. But BBC News 24 not very subtly used it to promote their TV programme *all day* today, much of it as their 'top news story'.

And I know I'm just helping them out by giving them another plug, but, really. Did someone say dumbing down?

9 things I realised in the time I could have been blogging

Right, I'm going to make an effort to get back to regular blogging. Just so very, very busy.

What have I been up to in the last week or so? Well, to avoid boring everyone senseless, I'll just go for a quick list of things I have realised in the last week or so:

1. Audit Committee is not always that interesting (even if it is important)

2. The Tower of London is a great place for a gig and The Good The Bad And The Queen are awesome

3. I still prefer Blur

4. It is popular to say Ming is not a good leader (but I think he is - and I didn't even vote for him)

5. Casework is never ending

6. Ditto 'real' work

7. It was 20 years since Jeremy Bates and Jo Durie won the mixed Wimbledon title (noticed because of the great news that Jamie Murray won the same title, with Jelena Jankovic)

8. If the rumour I heard about Bakko in Muswell Hill closing turned out to be true, I would be distraught to an embarrassing degree

9. Coca-Cola with Orange is disgusting

That is all.

Pre-Queen's Speech speech

Gordon Brown today broke with tradition and announced in advance what legislation will be appearing in the Queen's Speech on November 6th.

The new Prime Minister's priorities are housing, health and education. Where have we heard that before? Now, if he'd said his priorities were unicycling, lapdancing and pancakes, the speech would have been worth listening to.

A colleague also put the question to me: "Do you think the Queen will be really annoyed?". She doesn't get to do much exciting as our head of state (aside from all the taxpayer funded fun, of course), the Queen's Speech is about the only time she gets to feel special. When he saw her at the palace, I bet Gordon didn't tell her he was going to make even that a waste of time.

The future's bright, the future's Lillywhite

Most of you will have been quite happy that there hasn't been much Spurs news on here since the end of the season.

But now there have been three significant signings, thought I would do a quick one.

Darren Bent - a lot of money, but a proven goal scorer (even at Charlton) and hopefully it'll pay off.

Gareth Bale - a lot of money for a rather less proven player, but expecting Gareth to turn into a world class player.

Younes Kaboul - French U21 captain, a player with lots of potential, so really looking forward to seeing what he can do for us.

And, probably most importantly of all, Dimitar Berbatov is still a Spur. Although I will only be 100% happy on that front once the transfer window is shut...

Hopefully any surprises still to come this summer will be good ones!

Nobody remembers who came second - except the person who came first

What a great story from BBC News.

Made me wonder, with that sort of talent for beating the competition, if it was maybe the same person (a Tory) who got no votes in the local elections in Sedgefield this year.

But I checked the names, sadly not the same lady.

NEWSFLASH! Lib Dem candidate selected for St Austell & Newquay

Following the packed selection hustings for St Austell & Newquay on Saturday, the count has just taken place.

I'm really pleased to be able to say that my former Fortis Green ward colleague, Stephen Gilbert, has won the selection contest for his home constituency. He worked very hard to get selected - and will work even harder to make sure we win the seat at the general election, whenever that comes.

St Austell & Newquay, although made up from bits of three different seats which are all currently Lib Dem, has a notional majority as small as three figures (depending on whose calculations you trust most). It is down as the Tories' 13th most winnable seat in the country - so, as Steve said in his hustings, let's make it unlucky 13 for David Cameron!

As I blogged before, I was at the hustings at the weekend. The other two candidates - Dr Judy Evans and Judith Jolly - both performed very well too, so I am sure we will see them going further in the future. It was actually a very inspiring day, the quality of the candidates was so high, the turnout from members was excellent and there was a genuine buzz of enthusiasm which told me Steve will have plenty of help in his campaigning.

I knew, as a Spurs fan, that it was a good omen when I arrived with Steve for the first hustings at this hotel in St Austell...

Bush gives Scooter get-out-of-jail-free card

Just seen the news that George Bush has interfered with the criminal justice system to stop his pal Scooter Libby going to prison.

This is Lewis Libby, involved in leaking the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame, putting lives at risk, and sentenced to 30 months in jail.

He had just been told that he could not remain on bail indefinitely while he exhausted the appeals process, so was due to get locked up. But George Dubya waded in to save him - read the BBC article, the quote essentially says "I wanted to let the legal process take its course, but now they want to put my chum in prison I think now is the time to interfere".

Land of the free indeed!