Roger's Rant

2008-06-10T10:13:00.001-07:00

Oh the times, they are a'changin

2008-05-07T00:39:00.001-07:00

tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis

Livingstone is a disgrace!

2008-04-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

I have said it for years - indfeed ever since I fist met the man in 1984: Ken Livingstone cannot be trusted.
Why do voters trust anything this man says?
Today, following a press release from Boris Johnson - Livingstone's Conservcatiove oppoent in the London Mayortal election - the Evening Standard has revealed that Livingstone has deliberately misled the public about potential fare rises.
Last year he apparently stated that rises over the next four years would be in line with inflation.
It has also emerged that just two weeks previously he had made a similar statement at a press conference. However, six days before that press conference Livingstone had already approved a plan by TfL to increase bus fares by 2% above inflation and tube fares by 1% both next year and the year after.
Have a look at the article by visiting:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23480142-details/Mayor+misled+London+over+big+fare+rises/article.do

Commenting on the revelations of Livingstone's secret plan and the fact he lied Boris said: “It is clear this Mayor cannot be trusted. He has become so arrogant and out of touch that he thinks he can deceive Londoners.
“Ken Livingstone has a history of making promises before elections and then changing his position after.
“Londoners deserve better than this. They have the choice between more of the same from Ken Livingstone or a new fresh approach if they vote for change on May 1st.”

Livingstone: the man with a tin of piecrust promises

2008-04-08T03:56:00.001-07:00

Ken Livingstone is refreshingly honest for a politician.
Asking us to judge him on his record after eight years in power, he says: "With me, everyone knows what they're getting. It's on the tin."
And what a tin it is!
It's amazing you can get so much on it.
ASfter all in his period inchange of London he has:
• Failed to prevent a rise in domestic violence as he pledged to do
• Failed to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour on public transport – instead it has gone up
• Failed to protect green parks and open spaces as gardens the size of 22 Hyde Parks have disappeared
• Failed to meet his own recycling targets – London has the worst household recycling rate in the country
• Failed to meet his election promise over housing targets. He is on track to miss his target by 50%.
• Failed to deliver on a 2004 Manifesto promise to bring late night tube trains on Fridays and Saturdays
• Failed to deliver on 2004 Manifesto pledge to increase the number of female bus drivers. The number has actually fallen.
• Failed to keep his promise made in 2003 (8 months before the last Mayoral election) on congestion charging to keep it to £5 per day. He raised it soon after re-election to £8 per day. Furthermore, the Mayor U-turned on his 2004 Manifesto promise to retain the existing congestion charge residents’ discount.
• Failed to deliver on school travel plans. By 2009 he promised every school would have one. Currently only 53% of schools participate.
Furthermore, on transport, after his re-election in 2004, the Mayor:
• Raised single bus journey costs by 20% Raised single tube fares by 50%. In total, this is a 100% increase in fare charges since May 2004 on the tubes and buses.
• Failed a commitment on the environment to expand the London schools environment programme to secondary schools. This expansion has not happened.
• Failed to stand up against controversial figures preaching hate. He invited Muslim Cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to London – a man who supports the death penalty for homosexuals.
• Failed to promote a tolerant and cosmopolitan London by making anti-Semitic remarks more than once – firstly towards the Ruben Brothers and secondly to an Evening Standard journalist. The court case that followed cost the taxpayer £200,000.
• Failed to deliver on a key election pledge of introducing a ‘Culture Card’ in the Capital. This was promised at the last two election campaigns and has not materialised.
• Failed to protect taxpayers’ money – he spent nearly £50m on plans which have been shelved for the West London Crossing and Cross River Trams.
• Failed to protect taxpayers’ money – The Mayor promised to launch a campaign to with major private sector employees to give a second chance to Londoners who have been excluded from the Labour Market. This turned into a scheme called ‘Diversity Works’. It cost £9.8m to the London taxpayer and is currently under investigation by the police as part of the LDA financial mismanagement case.

They seek him here, they seek him there

2008-04-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

Is he in heaven, or is he in hell?
Well I'm sure I know where I would prefer him to be but the fact is that ken's campaign is all but absent without leave.
Where I operate, which is in most parts of London, Ken's profile seems to be so low it's out of sight.
And now, a day after the cheeky ex-technician and his cronies criticised Boris over missing Time Out's hustings (which were pretty weak because their own candidfate decided he couldn't be bothered to continue), word comes through that Ken has pulled out of the Centre for Social Justice Hustings himself and is failing to front the NO2ID Hustings.
It's hardly any wonder that Londoners are asking – Where is Ken?

Realism NOT fear from the next Mayor please!

2008-04-01T03:52:00.000-07:00

If there was a reason to vote for Boris then it's surely his upbeat but realistic message about living in the capital city when compared to the unproductive fear and loathing demonstrated and vocalised by Ken Livingstone and his Labour party colleagues.
For example compare Boris's most recent speech on crime: "We are lucky to live in the greatest city on earth", with a Home Secretary who says she is frightened to walk the streets of Peckham and her colleague Harriet Harman, Member of Parliament for Camberwell and Peckham and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, who actually donned an armoured jacket to protect her from being stabbed while out on her rounds in her own constitency surrounded by no less than four police officers.
http://www.harrietharman.org/news_story.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=145&tx_ttnews[backPid]=1&cHash=71f9a10c1a
Surely this underlines Boris's central message on Ken's lazy arrogance when it comes to dealing with crime in London.
As Boris said: "We have had 27 teenagers murdered by other kids in 2007. We have seen a steady and undisputed rise in robbery, violence against the person and other violent crimes."
And we all know that we are suffering from an epidemic of unreported and uninvestigated crime (I'm still waiting for the cops to interview me about a mugging immediately outside my home, which I captured on CCTV - that the police have never even bothered to see).
But as the Conservative Mayoral candidate points ouit: "Bitter experience has taught us that too often the police do not have the time or the resources to deal with our case."
So what can we do?
"We could continue to shrug our shoulders and say that crime, disorder and incivility are just a part of city life. We could turn a blind eye to the robberies and the muggings, and hope that no one we love will be a victim.
"We could throw up our hands, in the manner of the current Labour Mayor, and say that these problems are beyond our control - caused by television and the glamorising of violence. We could accept defeat. We could declare that we have run out of ideas. Or we could say that enough is enough."
The Mayor of London has a statutory and moral duty to lead the fight-back against crime.
Boris rejects the fatalism and defeatism of the Labour Mayor. "I reject the assumption that we can do nothing," he says in his crime manifesto.
"I believe that by systematically tackling small crimes we can drive out more serious crime.
"I believe that we can change the lives of kids who would otherwise be sucked into a nightmarish culture of violence and criminality.
"As soon as I become Mayor I will take action, and implement the following measures:
"I will:
- Provide strong leadership. By taking responsibility and chairing the Metropolitan Police Authority and using my influence to tear up red tape and needless form-filling, so we can get more police out on the streets.

- Make buses, trains and stations safer. By spending less money on press officers and more money on police officers to increase their presence on buses, trains and station platforms. By introducing 'Payback London', a scheme that will require under 18s who abuse their right to free bus travel to earn it back through community service projects.

- Tackle knife and gun crimes. By demanding they are treated as a high priority by the police, and using every strand of Mayoral power to prevent it through funding community groups, sports schemes and handheld weapon scanners.

- Help the ignored victims of sexual violence. By providing desperately needed long-term funding for new Rape Crisis Centres to help the ignored victims of sexual violence - a horrendous crime that is on the increase.

- Demand a police service accountable to you. By providing local communities with New York-style crime maps which show the true crime levels in every neighbourhood, which can then be used to ensure Borough Commanders are held to account at monthly open public meetings."
Meanwhile Ken tells us that his priority is to make London environmentally friendly. Surely, he must understand, as Boris appears to, that what we Londoners want is to live in a safe city and that this should be the Mayor's priority?

Ken: If it bleeds, it quite rightly leads!

2008-03-28T06:24:00.000-07:00

Market research suggests that stories of crime and violence increase the ratings for news. This isn’t the fault of the news organizations, broadcasters, reporters and the like. This is surely the responsibility of the people entrusted to protect us.
When they don’t people find the results interesting, indeed necessary. So for Ken Livingstone, the man who appears to have no answers to make London safer, to say "if it bleeds, it leads" the news shows not just gross insensitivity to the families of two teenagers stabbed to death in the UK capital, but complete contempt for his duty as Mayor.
It is hardly surprising therefore that Livingstone’s 15-point crime manifesto launch was overshadowed as Boris Johnson demanded that he stop using the "crass" phrase to attack the capital's TV stations for reporting murders. Among Livingstone’s crime policies are: an 1,000 extra police officers next year to boost counter-terrorism work and local Safer Neighbourhood Team; extra cash for specialist police teams investigating rape in every borough; 11 new Safer Transport Teams focusing on stopping crime and anti-social behaviour on buses, more resources for targeted police operations against gangs and £79 million to fund facilities and activities for young people.
However, just hours after 17-year-old Devoe Roach was stabbed in the chest in Stamford Hill, Mr Livingstone appeared on BBC London to accuse the media of sensationalising killings in the capital, repeating a phrase he used to the Home Affairs select committee this month.
After his live televised interview at 6.20 last night, it emerged another teenager, 14-year-old Amro Elbadawi, was knifed in the throat in Maida Vale.
Some 27 young Londoners were murdered last year, but the Mayor insists the murder rate is falling and accuses the media of failing to report the drops. Boris has quite rightly accused Mr Livingstone of "crass insensitivity" to the families of those involved.
In his own statement on crime Boris says: “ Londoners are told that crime is going down. They are reassured that there are more police on the streets, and that more money is being spent on security. Yet most Londoners don't feel any safer because every day the headlines tell a different story.
“If we look up from the newspaper we feel no safer; on the top decks of buses, on station platforms and street corners a culture of incivility and adolescent anarchy has been allowed to spread, unchallenged.
“It is the Mayor's first duty to ensure the safety and security of all Londoners and his second to reassure them that they truly are safe, to offer an antidote to the apprehension that darkens every late-night bus ride or walk home.
“This is not an area in which we should throw our hands up in defeat, blaming violent video games or a decline in moral values. I want everyone in this city to have the optimism and confidence that goes with increased safety and will use all the powers at my disposal to achieve it:
• We have to work with the police and communities to prevent young Londoners becoming victims of gang violence. I will give support to the wonderful work of local community projects that get young people off the streets and give them purpose and a realisation of their value as members of society. I will provide £2.6 million to fund hand-held scanners or new knife archways at transport hubs to hinder the mobility of those who carry knives and guns.
• The police do a brave and difficult job, but they are burdened by bureaucracy. Too much time and money is spent on form-filling, when it could be used to employ more police on the beat. I will lobby for an end to the stop and account form - this would mean that police could spend an extra 160,048 hours on the beat - the equivalent of adding 78 new officers to the force.
• We must stand up for our brave, hard-working police men and women to ensure they get a fair deal from government.
• I will provide local neighbourhoods with New York-style crime maps, to enable residents to hold local police to account.
• More people are travelling by bus that at anytime since the 1960s, but they are increasingly intimidated by antisocial behaviour. I will double the strength of Safer Transport Teams, by releasing funding for approximately 440 extra PCSOs to patrol the buses and trial live CCTV. I will give revenue inspectors more powers to tackle fare evasion.
• Those who abuse their free transport privileges will be able to earn back their free Oyster by doing community service as part of my Payback London scheme.
• I will provide funding for 3 new Rape Crisis Centres to help the forgotten victims of sexual violence.”

Vote for a man with wine box problems and a filthy tongue?

2008-03-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

It's so sad for democracy.
Ken Livingstone no longer seems to care for public opinion.
But then he probably never did.
Do you want to hear that the man tasked with running your city gets pissed on a fairly regular basis when he's supposed to be at work?
Take this extract from an interview with the Mayor: "I occasionally have gone there [the Irish Embassy in London] and overdone it on St Patrick's night. They [the Irish diplomats]once came to the Labour Party conference and everyone gets very drunk, and I was doing a speech afterwards and I went up on the platform and fell asleep, and my little pager went and it was my adviser saying, 'Wake up!' "
Maybe he was trying to impress his interviewer, Radiohead's Thom Yorke, about his street cred, but definitely he wasn't thinking about London's more responsible voters when he divulged this nugget through the Observer magazine (23/03/08).
If that wasn't enough evidence of a fairly cavalier attitude to the booze, he also appraised us of the problem he has with his wine boxes.
Obviously having so many of them he is embarrassed by the plethora and needs to dispose of them in an environmentally sustainable way, he told Thom: "I tried cutting them all up but now the council has introduced a collection scheme." You'd have thought he might have suggested such a far-sighted option - but then noone in government has ever seen their way to letting him rip on London's recycling - not after the mess he made of the GLC.
Do you want to hear your Mayor using the language of a costermonger to describe the ppeople he is supposed to try to to work with?
IN another chunk of his interview in the Observer he describes an opinion of one of his Labour politician colleagues, a cabinet minister, as "complete bollocks".
He goes on to refer to the Energy from Waste initiative as "a load of bollocks" too.
And in one of the most obviously unsupported by evidence outbursts Linvingstone says he considers that civil servants in the government's energy department are pro-nuclear because they "know there'll be a job for them on the board of British Nuclear Fuels when they retire. They know Greenpeace isn't going to pay them £40,000 for doing two days a week on the bloody board and so they're covering their arse for their future, basically, and advising the bloody ministers accordingly".
Thank you Ken. You make it so much easier to cast a vote for Mayor against another person's name.

Livingstone's 1984

2008-03-21T04:16:00.000-07:00

Cast your mind back.
It's 1984.
London has - like the world's great capital cities should have - a working government: the Greater London Council.
But it's viability has been brought into question. Why?
Here's a multiple choice question that will hopefully lead you to an answer.
Please tick two of the queries below that you think may apply.
1) Was the GLC's future brought into question by the fact it was the only body that could arbitrate between the UK capital's Boroughs on policy that might be good for one area but spark difficulties in another?
2) Was it the fact that it was in a position to hold the city's powerful Metropolitan Police to account?
3) Was it because it had become infested with wild ideas more suited to a banana republic and was run by a group of people who were (and still are!) happy to "boast" that they are on "the loony left"?
4) Was it because of one man's failure?
If you ticked the first two, please head down to your local library, if it still exists and has access to a good selection of books, or start digging around on the internet for some eye-opening inspiration.
The underlying facts here were just two of hundreds of many powerful and valid reasons and arguments for saving the GLC, not dismantling it!
No, the answer lies in the latter two linked queries - linked by one thing: the one man - Ken Livingstone.
Livingstone was the real architect of the GLC's demise.
Why?
Because he failed to recognise the reason why there was a need to have a single overarching governing institution for the UK's capital.
Because he failed to put any energy into campaigning to save it.
Because he lacked then and still wants for the integrity, judgment, skill, knowledge and imagination to hold a serious political office.
Let's face it: the only person Ken has really ever been interested in helping is himself.
Please don't give him any more chances to squander the resources of one of the gerat cities and populations in the world.

Back Boris

2008-03-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Take heed, Tesco

2007-07-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

Tesco should take heed.
The idea that companies should be responsible in their pursuit of profit is now a given for most businesses.
It was not always so.
Around 25 years ago, Milton Friedman, the US Nobel Prize-winning economist, expounded the corporate view that profit was all that mattered.
Today, however, many companies routinely publish reports on social responsibility, sustainability, and the environment.
This is not just – or even at all – about altruism.
Profit and principle are bound up as never before.
The language of the fast buck is dying out in top boardrooms. It should be dying out faster, and, it would seem, one company that still needs to listen a little harder as the dinosaurs come crashing down in the forest is Tesco. After all, every little helps, as they say.
Its active investors have already kicked up over big boss Sir Terry Leahy’s recently proposed pay package, but something even closer to home has struck me – it was a hand-scribbled, ever-so-hopeful note on a scarp of paper that has been stuck to the window of a disused shop next to Bermondsey's Jubilee line Tube station in London SE.
It says simply: “Tesco shop – coming soon”.
As it’s taped to the outside of the window, it doesn't appear to have been put there by someone with any access.
As it’s in cheap crayon, it’s not likely to be an official note from Britain’s most successful supermarket chain heralding a ground breaking move into the Bermondsey boondocks.
What it is, is the best example of wishful thinking I’ve seen for a long while.
I’m no particular fan of Tesco (it's long irked me that they can count so much of the shrapnel and folding stuff that comes out of our purses and wallets in their tills), but this tiny plea from a south London local says to me that there are people in localities like this that feel all but shunned by Big Brand and would love to see the teeniest weeniest small gesture – a Tesco Express perhaps – that might just give them access to things they can't get anyhere else on the Jamaica Road or at least a mile or two either side of it.
After all their lives are no less worthy than those of the population of St John’s Wood or the City. So why doesn't Tesco think outside the box and spend some of that enormous profit investing in the less lucrative, but just as hungry markets, like many that can be found all over Britain and not just in the SE postcodes?
It would show that the bosses haven't lost sight of their business's roots (a market stall in lowly Bethnal Green) and that they are really concerned about social responsibility, sustainability, and the environment.
Fingers crossed.