St George’s ward Liberal Democrats

At a public meeting on 15 March NHS representatives admitted that there’s one person who can stop the Whittington disaster: the Labour Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham. But a recent parliamentary question showed that he hasn’t even discussed it with his officials. So what’s going on? What side are Labour really on?

Meanwhile LibDems continue to press for the Whittington’s future, and for accountable  local control of our Health services, so that this kind of injustice doesn’t happen again.

St George’s Ward council candidate Caspar Woolley condemns the Labour plan: “We need hospitals we can reach, not medical palaces miles away, however advanced. And we demand a say in what happens to them.”

St. George’s Ward councillor Tracy Ismail joined a delegation of Liberal Democrats taking our Save the Whittington petition to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street.

While local Labour politicians wash their hands of any responsibility and cry crocodile tears about the possible closure of the accident and emergency, the facts are:

When Gordon Brown was Chancellor he effectively sold off parts of the NHS to private investors through his PFI schemes to keep debt off the nation’s balance sheet.

Whittington Hospital is facing a bill of £158 million for refurbishment work that cost £32 million to carry out thanks to Gordon Brown’s Private Finance Initiative.

Nationally, the NHS faces £63billion of debt for PFI hospitals worth £11 billion.

North London Central NHS, which is proposing the changes to services at the Whittington, is funded and managed by the Government’s Department for Health.

It is Government ministers who ultimately decide the fate of our local casualty unit.

That’s why the Islington Liberal Democrats took our petition straight to the top. The Government must act now to save the A&E - why won’t Labour Ministers just come out with a guarantee?

We’ve discovered that one of Labour’s Council Candidates in St. George’s Ward is also standing for Parliament - in Tunbridge Wells, in rural Kent.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/seat-profiles/tunbridgewells

I personally can’t see how committed Gary Heather can be to our community if he’d rather be an MP for a little town in Kent. He either wants to be a councillor here or an MP there - he can’t very well be both.

He writes on his campaign website, “I am working hard for the people of Tunbridge Wells. I am regularly out and about in Tunbridge Wells with my Labour Action Team.”

http://garyheather.org/

There are lots of important issues in our part of Islington like saving the Whittington Hospital, working with the police to deal with antisocial behaviour and crime, and improving recycling in our ward - issues that need 100% commitment to fight for.

Is Gary Heather’s heart here, or in Kent? Is our ward just a back-up plan in case his parliamentary ambitions don’t work out?

Islington shouldn’t be anyone’s consolation prize.

Local residents deserve answers from Gary Heather:

- Is he standing in two elections because he expects to lose one of them - and if so, which?

- If elected to both posts, will he claim a second home allowance so he can split his time between rural Kent and Islington?

- Where will he be during the election campaign - Islington or Kent?

Figures uncovered by the Liberal Democrats have revealed that the Whittington Hospital is facing a £158 million bill for refurbishment works worth only £32 million – paying five times over for new facilities. This burden of long-term debt is a key reason behind the proposals to close down accident and emergency facilities at the hospital.

Under the Private Finance Initiative established by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor, a 30-year contract with a private consortium was signed for the refurbishment of facilities at Whittington Hospital. The total capital value of these works is £32 million, but the Whittington NHS Trust will be paying millions of pounds every year until 2036 – when it will have paid five times the actual value.

The PFI scheme was used by Gordon Brown to keep massive NHS debts off the Government’s balance sheet, but means that now the NHS is facing a huge debt crisis and will pay many times over the value of new hospitals and refurbishments. Nationally, the health service faces a £63 billion debt for PFI hospitals worth £11 billion.

Local hospital campaigner Cllr Rhodri Jamieson-Ball commented:

“These figures reveal how disastrous Labour’s stewardship of the NHS has been, thanks mainly to Gordon Brown’s financial incompetence. Gordon Brown’s desperate attempt to keep all this debt out of the official figures means that our local hospital is paying five times what the works are actually worth.

“It’s no wonder vital services at the Whittington are being threatened with the axe. Our hospital – and the entire NHS – has been lumbered with a millstone of unsustainable long-term debt. This Government’s main legacy is a mountain of debt, and we’re all going to be paying off Labour’s credit cards for years.”

Tracy, David, and Caspar with Rhodri Jamieson-Ball and council leader Terry Stacy, protesting the threatened closure:

Islington Liberal Democrats have won their battle to stop local residents’ council tax being put up by Labour for the second year running.

Last year Labour councillors took advantage of Liberal Democrat councillor Donna Boffa being rushed into hospital to force an inflation-busting council tax rise of 2.5% on local residents already struggling in the recession. This was inner London’s highest council tax rise.

Following a Liberal Democrats petition backed by thousands of Islington residents, Labour councillors have now backed down and agreed to Liberal Democrat plans to freeze the council tax this year.

The council tax freeze will form the centre-piece of the Liberal Democrat council group’s budget proposals for 2010-2011. Other proposals include:

• Freedom Pass - Liberal Democrats are stepping in with £750k to ensure the Freedom Pass can continue in its current form for Islington’s pensioners and disabled - despite the Labour government withdrawing £30million from London’s Freedom Pass funding.

• Potholes - following the recent severe winter weather, Liberal Democrats have identified £1million to spend on patching up potholes in the borough.

• PlusBus - Liberal Democrats will be proposing to save this vital service for many of Islington’s elderly and disabled. Labour’s Ken Livingstone, when he was Mayor of London, wanted to axe this bus route.

• Contact Islington - Liberal Democrats believe this is most residents’ first point of contact with the Council so it is important to ensure a decent level of service. Labour wants to cut it, meaning more time hanging on the phone and emails not being answered just like the dark days of Labour running the Town Hall.

• Area Planning Committees - Labour is proposing to abolish the borough’s four area planning committees. The Liberal Democrat budget amendment will save them. Local councillors should make local decisions.

• Estate cycle sheds - putting more money into the hugely popular secure cycle sheds on estates. This will encourage more people to cycle and reduce carbon emissions.

• Pensioners - continuing the £100 discount for over-65s paying council tax.

• Councillor allowances - Liberal Democrats are proposing a cut of £500 to all councillors’ allowances with another £500 from Exec Member salaries.

Liberal Democrat council leader Terry Stacy said:

“I know that residents will be pleased that Labour has finally caved in to pressure from Liberal Democrats and followed our lead on not putting up the council tax.

“It’s only sad that Labour has taken so long to come to their senses on council tax. But it’s better late than never.

“The Liberal Democrat budget will help all Islington residents - council taxpayers and the most vulnerable in our communities as well as continuing the LibDem commitment to helping the environment.

“We know people are struggling still in the recession. So we have been clear that our top priorities should be not putting up the council tax, getting maximum value-for-money for residents and cutting waste while protecting frontline services.”

Lib Dem Shadow Health Secretary Norman Lamb MP joined St. George’s Ward Lib Dems to support the campaign to keep the Whittington hospital’s 24 hour A&E open. He is the only front bench health spokesman of any political party to back our campaign. Liberal Democrats are united in wanting to put patient care first.

Norman spoke with local campaigners and hospital users about what losing the service would mean to them. He said:

“It’s clear that the campaign to Save the Whittington A&E has the support of local people. I’ve heard today how people value their local A&E, how easy it is to get to the Whittington on public transport and how badly affected people would be if they had to travel to other hospitals which are further away.

“We have to get Accident and Emergency provision right, otherwise it really can be a case of life or death. It is quite wrong that secretive decisions are being taken by unelected bureaucrats who are not answerable to local people. The Government need to realise that cutting patient care instead of bureaucracy could cost lives, and that is a price we are not willing to pay.”

Help our fight to save the Whittington by signing the petition at:
www.savethewhittington.com

Islington’s Liberal Democrat council leaders have launched a new million-pound emergency fund to repair roads - after this winter’s cold weather, ice, and snow caused a severe deterioration in road surfaces across the borough.

Potholes have been caused by the freeze-thaw weathering of road surfaces. Water penetrates the tarmac through small cracks - and when temperatures plummeted to the lowest in Britain for 30 years, this water froze and expanded, causing the road surface to break up.

Lib Dem council leader Terry Stacy said:

“Anyone who travels around London knows how hard this winter’s big freeze has been on our road surfaces, with large potholes appearing almost overnight. The longer we leave this the worse it is going to get, which is why the Liberal Democrats are taking decisive action by committing a million pounds to an emergency fund to fill in these potholes.

“It’s a big sum - but if left, the winter’s damage will deteriorate further. Prompt work will save money in the long run, as well as improving conditions quickly for the benefit of residents - whether they walk, drive, or cycle around Islington.”

St. George’s Ward Lib Dem council candidate Caspar Woolley, who runs a courier business, added:

“As someone responsible for a large team of bike and motorcycle couriers, I’m incredibly conscious of the importance of maintaining a safe road surface. This winter has played havoc with the state of London’s roads and multiplied the number of hazards for our riders. It’s fantastic that the council is leading the way on acting quickly to make this a priority - other boroughs should follow Islington’s example.”

Residents are encouraged to report potholes by calling the council on 0207 527 2000, by email to contact@islington.gov.uk, or online at: http://www.islington.gov.uk/Doit/Onlineforms/reportproblem.asp

I had a letter published in this week’s Tribune, in which I warn of Labour’s hypocrisy on education and schools in Islington. It’s scary that the very same Labour councillors who ran our schools into the ground in the 1990s are trying to get their hands on them again.

Warning from past

THE Tribune’s coverage of the GCSE results focused on a “warning” that too little had been done to improve results (You must do even better with GCSEs, January 15). But who was the “warning” from? I think it was just Labour Party politicians, who have made it their sole purpose to talk Islington’s young people down and be generally negative.

This year’s GCSE results were Islington’s best ever, and a credit to pupils, teachers and schools. Our schools are improving at double the national rate. In fact, only 11 places in the country are improving faster than Islington’s schools.

Islington schools used to be so bad because of the appalling way the same Labour politicians ran them when they controlled the council. When Labour councillor Phil Kelly was in charge of education in the 1990s, this is what the Government schools inspector had to say about Islington: “Overall, these are dismal findings, the worst encountered to date in any inspection.” And “The council as a whole has many problems, including a large budget deficit, from which education is not immune.”

Of the Labour council’s school support services, the inspector said: “If the local authority were able to do some of them a little less inadequately than it does at present, that would be a major advance.”

The fact that it’s taken ten years to get to where we are now is no criticism of Lib Dems or the schools or Cambridge Education, but testament to how appalling our schools were under Labour. Parents went out of their way to send their kids to schools outside the borough. Islington’s schools still need to get even better, but the people I would least trust to do that are the Labour Party politicians who completely wrecked them last time.

CLLR TRACY ISMAIL
Lib Dem, St George’s ward

You can download Islington Labour’s last Ofsted Education report from:
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/la_download/(id)/622/(as)/LA/la_206_1999.pdf

The Labour council candidates in St. George’s ward are always writing to the local papers about reintroducing council skips on street corners for people to dump their rubbish in. It’s also one of their election pledges. But it’s such a bad idea.

The Labour candidates have been making wild claims that fly-tipping has doubled. But both Government statistics and local experience tells us it’s actually gone down.

According to the Environment Agency there has been an increase in large-scale fly-tipping of old tyres and industrial waste by unscrupulous businesses and criminal gangs.

A letter from some local residents to this week’s Tribune points to why council skips are a mad way to deal with this problem.

We don’t tackle this sort of criminal fly-tipping by putting out skips and taking away this waste at the taxpayer’s expense. We catch and prosecute the criminals, as the council has done.

As this letter says, the taxpayer shouldn’t be subsidising criminal activities. And Islington would become a magnet for criminal gangs. Do we want industrial waste from all over London sitting in skips on our street corners? I certainly don’t.

And as my Lib Dem colleague Cllr Greg Foxsmith- Islington’s environment champion- has pointed out, everything in skips has to go to landfill and can’t be recycled because of contamination.

The council currently offers everyone free collection of 25 bulky items every year. Any decent furniture is given to the Homestore charity for reuse, helping low-income families get access to affordable furniture.

Tracy Ismail, the Liberal Democrat councillor for St. George’s ward in Islington, has been shortlisted for a prestigious prize in the Cllr.10 Awards, the first ever national awards to recognise the work of councillors in the UK.

The awards are being presented by the Local Government Information Unit, an independent think-tank that supports local government and councillors from all parties.

The Community Champion prize is for individuals who work to engage people in decisions about the local area, who work hard to represent their community on the council, and who have built a strong relationship with local community groups.

Tracy was particularly praised for her work to get local people involved in Islington council’s licensing and gambling policies, and her campaigning to give local people a bigger say in the licensing decisions that affect the quality of life and character of their streets.

Tracy said:

“It’s a huge honour to even be shortlisted for this prize. When I was elected I promised to be a champion for my local community, and that is its own reward. But it’s nice that there is an acknowledgement of the difference that councillors all over the country can make if they really care about their neighbours and their local area.”