Apparently, we’ve now had 18,000 new membership applications since the election, and Head Office are falling over themselves trying to find out who the new members are.

No doubt some are disaffected Liberal Democrats who can’t stomach a coalition with the Tories. But given the up-coming leadership election, it wouldn’t surprise me if many were simply ordinary supporters who don’t want to miss one of the few chances we get to change how things are run.

Anyone who signs up by 8th September 2010 will have a say, so if the future of Labour interests you, click the banner below and join us!

I’ve been getting itchy feet since the election. I really enjoyed the campaigning, and I have noticed a big hole in the weekend where the sessions used to be.

I know I’m not alone, because when I turned up to help out in a council by-election in Holborn and St Pancras, there were small groups from Labour Parties all over North London, all suffering similar withdrawal symptoms.

I was very impressed by Sabrina Francis – one of the Labour candidates. She will make a great councillor, and we turned up some case work for her to get her teeth into if elected.

It’s spring, the suns’s out, and the Labour Party are knocking on doors.

What’s not to like?

I have to confess to a grudging admiration for the way David Cameron has put his coalition together. He has been far more generous to the Liberal Democrats than he need have been, and as a result seems to have woven the parties pretty tightly together, at least for now.

Of course the media is desperate to see signs of early splits and divisions, and has latched on to Vince Cable’s grim demeanour since being appointed to the cabinet as evidence of a wobble.

But in reality it’s not easy to find any pictures of  Vince smiling at all, ever.

Like Gordon Brown, he doesn’t seem to have a face that’s well suited to happiness, but unlike Gordon, no one seems to have told him to have a go anyway.

Thank god Nick Clegg went with the Conservatives. If we’d cobbled together some kind of Frankenstein alliance for the sake of clinging on to power, the country would never have forgiven us. That said, there has never been a better illustration of the political maxim “vote Liberal, get Tory’.

In the cold light of day though, the election results are pretty humiliating for all three parties. Humiliating for the Liberals, who despite the seeming adoration of the public and the media, couldn’t halt their slide even further into third place. Humiliating for the Conservatives, who have had to abandon a string of flagship policies and only get to govern by permission. And humiliating for Labour, who have lost a record number of seats, and got tossed out of Number 10 with a boot up our backsides.

Shortly after the results were announced, Ed Balls said ‘the public have spoken, we’re just not quite sure what they said’.  Personally, I think it couldn’t be clearer.

Enormous thanks to the 8,188 people who voted for me yesterday! Despite all the pundits gloomy predictions, we weren’t knocked into third place in Cities of London and Westminster. In fact we bucked the National trend, with only a small swing to the Conservatives.

Also many thanks to all the volunteers who gave so freely of their time to help. The lasting legacy of this campaign for me will be the friendships I have made over the last couple of years, both inside and outside the Party.

Finally, it has been a privilege to meet so many residents in the constituency, and to try to help where I can. Please do continue to get in touch if you have issues which you think I should be getting involved with.

You can contact me at david@davidrowntree.org

Last week Barb Jungr and others held a fundraiser at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to raise money for an upcoming legal battle between the Crown Estate residents in Millbank and the Crown Estate, which is considering selling the underlying leaseholds to another developer. It is an oddly shaped affair when residents need to sue their landlord in order to keep them as their landlord. This is a huge housing issue for Westminster, here is why: the Crown Estate is a fantastic landlord. It has deep pockets and a deeply held culture that its properties should be well maintained, attractive, and they support a progressive structure of social housing that gives priority to Westminster’s teachers, nurses and firefighters, people who otherwise would not be able to able to afford to live near to their jobs.

 

When you sign a lease, even a shorthold, with the Crown Estate there is assurance that your rents will be adjusted fairly and slowly, that your home will be well cared for, and that in all but the most exceptional circumstances your home will remain yours. You can build a life in Westminster secure in the continuity of schools, doctors, friends: your community. That security evaporates if the underlying leaseholds are sold. Even if the leaseholds are sold to another large social landlord with an agreement that there will be no change to the tenancies in place the security for shorthold tenants is gone, and the pressure to make those properties more profitable in the future will eventually overwhelm even the best intended buyer. Westminster needs to keep all of its affordable housing, and the Crown Estate is by far its best custodian.

 
A little background about the Crown Estate. It is not as many people think, the personal property of the Queen. George III converted the bulk of the royal landholdings into a public trust in exchange for an ongoing salary now known as the civil list. The Crown Estate is operated as a business for the benefit of all Britons and all of the operating profits go directly to the Treasury. For example a few weeks ago the Estate sold a large chunk of Westminster’s Harley Street for £34 million pounds, property owned by the Crown Estate since before Henry VIII. But that was a transaction of mostly commercial premises. Paul Clark, Director of Investment and Asset Managementof the Crown Estate, and the instigator of the proposed sale of the Crown Estate residential holdings, has some history when it comes to selling off housing.  As Chief surveyor for the Church Commissioners Mr. Clark facilitated a £70 million sale of church owned housing in Stoke Newington, Pimlico, and Maida Vale to a consortium composed, in part, of Genesis Homes a social housing provider and the Grainger Trust, a publicly traded property developer.  And as could easily be predicted, when property is moved to a commercial developer, people living on shorthold tenancies felt their rents rise sharply, and when leases expire, and rents revert to market rates, affordable homes are lost forever to the community.  

 
The Crown Estate has owned some of its property in Westminster since 1066, it is the heart of the Crown Estate and it owes some special responsibilities to its Westminster residents. I want to thank to everyone who helped out at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern event, and to Frank Dobson MP for Kings Cross and Holborn for their hard work on this issue. Check out www.ourhomesarenotforsale.co.uk/ and please take the time to write a letter or two objecting to the sale.

 

Last weekend I had the privilege of joining Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband at the launch of the Labour Party Green Manifesto. Big promises about combating climate change, energy security, and green job growth can be a little abstract. I wanted to take a little time to let you know some of what Labour’s green programme can mean for you, at home, in Westminster.

 

First, a warmer and more efficient home. Labour’s policy is to, “insulate every loft and cavity wall where practical by 2015.” If you own your property you will be offered subsidies. Rented properties will be required to be properly insulated and social housing will need to meet a new Warm Home Standard. Energy efficiency measures for social tenants will be 100% subsidised, including smart meters, which can help any family use less energy. As anyone who has switched energy providers in the last few years will know, the energy companies do not make it simple to chose between the dozens of tariff options. Labour policy would require energy companies to simplify their tariffs to make it easier for people to chose the cheapest option for their home.

 
Second, if you need to keep a car in London, Labour will provide subsidies of up to £5,000 to switch to an electric vehicle and support a nationwide network of charging stations, 100,000 by the end of the next Parliament. The ideal place to deploy an electric fleet is in a city centre like London where noise and pollution are concentrated. The Cities of London and Westminster is unique in that it is almost entirely within the London Congestion Charge which creates an unintended disincentive for switching to an electric vehicle.  The owner of a vehicle in Tower Hamlets, or Westminster residents just outside the Congestion Charge Zone near Regents Park, if they buy an annual pass, will save £1696 a year by switching to an electric vehicle and avoiding the Congestion Charge. Just these savings alone make it much easier to justify the economics of buying an electric vehicle. I feel that Westminster and City of London residents need additional incentives to move toward switching to electric vehicles.

 

Last, Labour will protect energy subsidies for the elderly and require energy companies to provide discounted tariffs to vulnerable customers. The last few years have taught us that fuel prices are volatile and for people on a fixed or low income fuel poverty is a real threat. I believe no one in Westminster should go cold because they cannot afford a fuel bill.    

 

I know it sounds simplistic to say, but we have all become used to just plugging things into a socket and turning them on. The facts are climate change and energy security require that over the next few decades Britain and the rest of Europe need to rebuild the entire energy infrastructure behind those sockets and do it with out ever turning them off. We are the fortunate ones in Britain, compared to our European neighbours we are extraordinarily blessed with renewable energy sources, especially wind and tidal. David Cameron has called wind turbines ‘bird blenders’, so it is no surprise that Tory councils across the country have been far less willing to approve new wind farms than Labour equivalents. We need Labour’s proven leadership on energy policy.

 

I spoke at a hustings meeting at the beautiful St Mary-le-Bow Church at lunchtime.  All the candidates had 2 minutes to make an opening statement at the start of the event, and this is what I said:

After 13 years of Labour government it is sometimes hard to remember life under the Tories. But you can get a flavour of what life might be like in the future by looking at their voting record while in opposition.

First, they voted against the action Labour took to support businesses through the recession. They voted

• Against the reduction in VAT to stimulate demand
• Against the Business Payment Support Service allowing over 160,000 struggling businesses to delay tax payments
• Against the Enterprise Guarantee Scheme which has helped almost 9,000 businesses access finance
• Against the car scrappage scheme which has helped the sale of 400,000 vehicles
• Against the Strategic Investment Fund worth £1 billion to develop the UK’s industrial strength

The Tories voted against key measures on crime, like tougher sentences for murder, sexual, and violent offences, including voting

• Against measures to control our borders, including tougher penalties for those who smuggle people in, and measures to streamline the immigration appeals system
• Against the banning of handguns
• Against five-year minimum sentences for carrying an illegal firearm
• Against allowing new trials for murder if new evidence emerges
• Against tougher measures to fight terrorism

They opposed measures to help employees, by voting

• Against the right to request flexible working for workers with children
• Against the minimum wage
• Against introducing paternity leave and against increasing maternity leave

They fought Labour’s attempts to reform and modernise Parliament, by voting

• Against the House of Lords Bill which removed the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords
• Against the recent Electoral Reform Bill passed by the Government to allow a referendum on the Alternative Vote system.

Most shamefully, they tried to block measures to promote equality, democracy, and a sustainable future by voting

• Against legislation to stop discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation
• Against legislation to stop discrimination against older people
• Against measures to help families and pensioners through the recession, including the 2009 £60 bonus, and the trebling of cold-weather payments for the elderly
• Against devolution in Scotland and Wales
• Against the Planning Bill, which is paving the way for investment in low-carbon energy
• In Tory councils around the country, against wind power
• Against the ban on hunting with dogs

So if their record in opposition is anything to go by, a new Tory government would wreck businesses, promote crime, exploit workers, protect privilege, promote discrimination, fight democracy and torture animals.

Come to think of it, that’s pretty much how I remember the last one.

On Sunday I spoke at a young Labour activists event at the incredible Westminster Academy in Karen Buck’s Westminster North constituency. At the event Ed Miliband launched our party’s Green Manifesto and Gordon Brown set out his key messages for the final 10 days of the campaign.

There were speeches from politicians old and new. Familiar faces included Ed Miliband, Douglas Alexander, Sadiq Khan, and Yvette Cooper; PPC’s Chuka Umunna and Emily Benn spoke about what inspired them to get involved; first-time voter Needa Ardehali explained why she’s supporting Labour; and broadcaster and performer Amy Lamé hosted the Q&A.

Finally Gordon Brown spoke, I think striking the right note of optimism about our vision for Britain’s future and also giving a stark warning about the Tory threat.

We need to do a lot more events like these; they show just how untrue it is that young people aren’t interested in politics.

I was recently joined on the campaign trail by Nick Duxbury from Inside Housing magazine. Nick came along as my team and I canvassed the Tachbrook Estate in Pimlico. It was a really enjoyable afternoon and we were able to speak to a lot of residents and listen to their concerns.
 
Inside Housing is a social housing magazine and is a really good read. I recommend it to you!
 
Below is a link to the article Nick has since written up about the day:
 
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/story.aspx?storycode=6509519