I am delighted with the recent GCSE results from our local schools.  The children in London schools, and the teaching staff who are providing the highest standards of education should be applauded for their hard work.

However, the Conservative Party doesn’t want to celebrate school successes.  In fact, Nick Gibbs MP, the Conservative Party schools spokesmen said: “we have not seen improvements in our education system despite the billions that have been spent”.

Politicians like Nick Gibbs do nothing but talk down our local achievements.  I hope he will come to our schools and see the huge changes that have happened over the last 12 years.  He should then apologise to the children, their parents and the school staff for his remarks.

Since 1997, 70 more teachers and 80 more teaching assistants are working in our schools, exam results are up, school buildings and facilities are much better, and more young people are staying on in education or starting an apprenticeship at 16.

A good MP supports and encourages the schools, teachers and children in their area and that is what I will do if I am elected.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Since being selected as the Labour Party Spokesman for the Cities of London and Westminster, I have spoken to thousands of local people and as we march into 2010 I will continue to knock on doors throughout the constituency.   I promise campaign on issues that are important to local people and hold the Conservative Party accountable for their policy proposals that would damage our communities including their plans to take away Child Tax Credits from hard working families.

I look forward to helping solve any problems that residents in the Cities of London and Westminster may have and urge anyone to contact me if there is something that I may be able to help with.

I wish you the very best for 2010.

I have sent a letter to all of the local papers this week about the Conservatives plan to scrap Child Tax Credits for some of the hardest working families in this constituency.  Incase you havn’t seen the letter yet, here it is:

Dear Editor,

At Tory Conference earlier this year George Osborne outlined the Tories’ plan to get rid of the Child Tax Credit for households on more than £50,000 per year in total. They said that this would raise them £400 million.

However, last week it emerged that George Osbornes’ sums were wrong. Cutting Child Tax Credit for families on more than £50,000 would actually only raise £45 million. To raise £400 million they would need to cut it from families earning as little as £16,000 each – less than average earnings.

As our MP is a Tory, perhaps he could clarify whether this huge mis-calculation is down to George Osborne’s bad judgement, his inexperience or something more sinister.

Yours sincerely,

David Rowntree

Labour Parliamentary Spokesman for Cities of London and Westminster

The Labour Government has recently unveiled a plan for higher education, setting out the important role universities will play in securing the UK’s economic recovery and long term prosperity.

It calls for fairer access, more information about courses and likely future earnings, better teaching quality, and closer links with business.

I believe that students need more information about their courses.  Studying is a big commitment, both in money and time, and the choice of course could have a huge effect on the rest of their lives. Students deserve to know exactly what courses will do for their job prospects and potential earnings.

Business and industry can help students’ future prospects by getting more closely involved so that courses are better suited for the world of work.

Students are not just school leavers.  The UK has nearly six million workers qualified to A level standard, but with no experience of higher education.  To get more people, of all ages, studying we need better courses that are tailored to peoples’ needs.

I want to see more part-time study, vocational foundation degrees, work-based study and more studying at home.  That way we can make sure that our higher education courses suit the modern world we live in, help more people improve their skills and get on in life.

I knock on doors every weekend in different areas of the constituency to speak to local people about issues that are affecting them, and about why I feel that I would be the best person to represent them in Parliament.  It is something that not enough candidates or MP’s do and I enjoy helping with the problems or issues that people raise. 

On Saturday a team of volunteers and I were speaking to people from the Vale Royal Flats in Covent Garden. We were taking the lift to the top floor and the lift suddenly shuddered to a stop and then dropped down, coming to rest jammed between two floors and trapping everyone inside. After ringing the emergency alarm, a local resident forced open the lift doors and helped everyone inside it to safety. 

It was a frightening experience for all of us, but many of the residents I spoke to afterwards said this happened all too frequently. In fact, many people now refuse to use the lifts at all. 

In my opinion the residents in Vale Royal deserve better. The issue raises question marks over the Conservative Westminster Council’s commitment to the safety of their residents.  City West Homes, the 
organisation created to manage council housing, plans to carry out maintenance work on only 64 lifts in Westminster Council estates this year.  This is less than 20% of all the lifts it is responsible for. 

This is not good enough! 

Westminster Council must do better!

The word “historic” is criminally overused in politics these days. Every dreary byelection is described as a “historic victory” for someone. And every petty backbench rebellion is described as a “historic defeat” for somebody else.

But I think what is happening now in parliament can truly be described as historic.

The speaker of the House of Commons has been forced out of office under a cloud for the first time in more than 300 years. The mid-term polls for the government and the prime minister have recently dipped to the lowest ever recorded for a party in power. And MPs have been humiliated over their abuse of the expenses system.

These are historic events, but I think they also hand those of us who are interested in political reform a historic opportunity.

In the past MPs have been understandably wary of voting for changes that could cost them their jobs. But right now parliament is on the back foot, and MPs are desperate to make concessions to get back in our good books.

Opportunities like this don’t come along very often. That’s why I believe we have to act now to fix our flawed electoral system. And flawed it is.

Take third parties. In 1983 Margaret Thatcher won her second Conservative victory on the back of the Falklands war. Labour did pretty badly with only 28% of the popular vote, but still won more than 200 seats. However, the SDP-Liberal Alliance polled only 2% less but won 190 fewer seats.

Our system also discriminates against the Tories. Because of differences in turnout in safe seats there’s a built-in bias of almost 10% against the Conservative party right now. In 2001 a Labour lead of 9% gave it a majority of 165. But in 1992 a similar lead by the Tories gave them a majority of just 21.

Now I’m a Labour parliamentary candidate – so I certainly don’t want to see a Tory victory. But it would be far worse to see them cheated out of one.

In any case, Labour has plenty of experience being screwed over by the electoral system. For example in 1951 we won the popular vote by a quarter of a million votes, but because of flaws in the system the Conservatives went on to form a government with a majority of five.

Every party has been cheated by the system – and so has the electorate. That’s why I want to see a referendum on the electoral system, and I want to see it at the next general election.

The government is making encouraging noises, but to stand any chance of this happening this promise has to feature in November’s Queen’s Speech. The government has a 5 November deadline to fix a broken system.

Keeping momentum going to hit that deadline is what the Vote for a Change campaign is all about.

Many of the MPs who have been caught claiming phoney expenses in recent weeks have tried to excuse their behaviour by saying it was ‘within the rules’.Others have tried to make amends by paying the money back.The truth is that this is not good enough, not least because the MPs themselves made the rules.

It is no excuse for a public servant to say that immoral behaviour is within the rules. We expect them to know right from wrong, not what they can get away with. We expect our MPs to act with integrity.

Gordon Brown’s reforms will mean that the rules MPs have made to govern how they are paid will soon be out of date.

But integrity will never be out of date.

I want things done differently.

• MPs have chosen not to reveal the full details of their expenses, but have ‘blacked out’ crucial information.  We need full disclosure.
• MPs have been allowed to make their own rules for far too long. The pay and expenses system must be governed by an independent body, and linked to salaries in the private sector.
• There should be no such thing as a ‘safe seat’. Every MP must risk losing their seat at every election. We need a fairer voting system which makes it harder for MPs to ‘get away with it’.

I am calling for root and branch reform of the political system. If you agree, please get in touch.

This is how local MP Mark Field’s expenses have been published. Vital information has been ‘blacked out’. I am calling for full disclosure when MPs spend taxpayer’s money.

No comments

Moral rights

In a letter to The Times this week, I and a group of other musicians called for the right to stop our music being used to finance the BNP. The letter called for a ‘moral right’ to allow performers and writers to prevent such abuse.

Of course there are already various moral rights protected by UK copyright law. In fact Chapter 4 of the 1988 Copyright Act is titled Moral Rights, so you might be forgiven for thinking that musicians were already able to do this, but unfortunately not. I can prosecute if someone says they wrote my songs, or indeed if some says that I wrote theirs. Other than that I can only stop ‘derogatory’ treatment of my work, which means changing it in a way that distorts or mutilates it, or is prejudicial to my ‘honour or reputation’. Given that I’m both a drummer and a political activist, I probably have too little of either to be worth protecting.

Copyright control

On the face of it then, this seems like a prime candidate for legislative reform, but as ever there are problems. The main one is the drastic shift in music industry economics it would entail. If I could object on moral grounds to the BNP using my work, then why not to other organisations? I might convert to some obscure religion, and object to sale of Blur CD’s in any shop run by those who don’t share my views. I might stop sales in HMV or iTunes over some real or imagined sharp business practice, or impose all kinds of conditions on the sale or use of my work. In other words, I would be able to do all the things the copyright owners currently can. At a stroke of the legislator’s pen, the copyrights would have effectively returned to the creators, and the record industry would find itself neutered.

The industry has millions to spend lobbying to defend their position, and won’t give an inch. In fact right now they are pushing extremely hard in the other direction, pouring money into EU legislation that restricts artist and consumer rights even further.

Racism in action

However,  I did think it was worth making the point that, just because you see someone’s music on sale by the BNP, it doesn’t mean they are a supporter, but I have met a lot of supporters  in recent campaigning work, and they have a fresh new image.In the past, a Labour candidate knocking on a BNP supporter’s door could usually expect a punch in the mouth, but recently I have been greeted by smiles and handshakes.

This weekend I had a letter from a resident saying he had voted Labour all his life, but would now be voting BNP. There was no return address, but he had included his phone number so I gave him a call, and we had a long talk. He was very personable, but underneath it all he was extremely angry. While I don’t support his racist views or voting intentions in any way, I can understand his anger. Outside the narrow political circles where exchanging bon mots over the dispatch box is still seen as a valuable use of taxpayer’s money, mainstream political parties, including mine, have managed to alienate and sideline virtually the whole country. In my constituency, voters aren’t angry about the expenses scandal, they are just bloody angry, and expenses are simply the last straw. As far as I can tell, the new BNP voters are really at breaking point, and are lashing out, trying to kick the mainstream politicians where it hurts the most.

If Gordon Brown and David Cameron think they can fix this with a few sticking plaster reforms, they need to think again. Nothing short of a constitutional revolution will do.

Politics in this country is broken.

I think people expect all our elected representatives to work together to solve the UK’s problems, but instead we are treated to a daily pantomime of bickering, bluster, and point-scoring. Is it any wonder that respect for our politicians is at an all-time low?

It is time for politics to grow up. The recent row over expenses has highlighted the urgent need for reform. Changes I am calling for including

• A grown-up electoral system, where the size of the parties genuinely reflect the number of votes cast
• A drastic cut in the total number of MPs
• Votes for 16 year olds, so good habits start early, and MPs are forced to listen
• Salaries and benefits set by an independent body, and linked to those in industry

I also think we need root and branch reform of Parliament itself. The traditions from the 19th century no longer work in the 21st. I want to see changes including:

• A modern House of Commons laid out in a way that encourages cooperation and compromise
• Electronic voting, and an end to the ‘lobby’ system
• A curb on the powers of the Speaker, especially to control who takes part in debate

Why has Parliament gone wrong?

Britain has 646 MPs but about 500 of them are in “safe” seats. It would be almost impossible to unseat those MPs in an election and so they are virtually unaccountable to their own voters. There are so many safe seats that the whole of Parliament suffers from a culture of unaccountability. We need accountable politicians because only then can we have governments that are in touch with the people.

The Royal Bank of Scotland, despite receiving a £20bn cash injection, is planning to spend £1bn on bonuses for bank executives. Labour’s spokesman in the Cities of London and Wesminster says no.

David Rowntree is asking Westminster residents to sign the petition at www.giveupthebonus.co.uk to send a message to this state-supported bank that this behaviour is unacceptable. So far, over 18,000 people have signed the petition, many leaving messages of support or indeed words of advice for RBS executives.

David Rowntree said, “Surely this is just common sense? The state owns nearly 70% of this bank, which owes us £20bn in cash. I’m simply suggesting they should pay us back before they start paying themselves.”

Last week also saw former RBS Chief Executive Fred “the shred” Goodwin and current boss Stephen Hester giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee, at which they expressed regret and apologised for the banking crisis.

So far, the Conservative MP for The City, Mark Field, has been silent on the issue, calling into question who he feels he truly represents. The question remains, as the MP for Britain’s financial centre, why will Field not use his position to hold the bankers to account?

A number of MPs of all political parties have supported one of the three EDMs (Early Day Motions) on this subject. EDM 720 says, “That this House is deeply concerned about the payment of bonuses to senior executives by state-supported banks; notes that taxpayers have made £37 billion available to those banks; and calls on the Government to seek ways to limit excessive banking salaries and to end bonuses for senior executives altogether until the taxpayer is repaid in full.”

David Rowntree has written to every MP asking them to back a cap on salaries and bonuses in the state-supported banks, in particular, to sign one of the three Early Day Motions (EDM) in Parliament on the subject. So far, Mark Field, Conservative MP for the Cities of London & Westminster hasn’t signed EDMs 720, 723 or 743.

David said, “During this banking crisis, being the MP for the City is hugely symbolic. Yet Mark Field will not make clear whether he is the people’s parliamentarian or whether he belongs to the bankers.”