Blog
April 18 A sunny day and a chance to meet some Bunhill residents in Whitecross Street. Yesterday was Exmouth Market and Great Percy Street, followed by a debate for Roundhouse Radio on voting systems with Hackney South Labour and Hornsey and Wood Green Lib Dem parliamentary candidates.
April 15 I distributed copies of David Cameron's pledges to pensioners at the Islington Pensioners Forum today - but was reminded that of course most of those present are quite capable of doing the research themselves! Then on to hear from clean air campaigner Simon Birkett at a London Forum event in Clerkenwell. The impact of particulate emissions and nitrogen dioxide from cars on city dwellers' health is alarming, and this is clearly an area where Labour has failed to do enough.
April 14 Conservatives will cut the deficit, not the NHS - thanks to a debate with fellow candidates on Sky News, I had a chance to get that message across.
April 8 The way to save the Whittington is to vote Conservative. That was my message for BBC London.
April 7 I am hoping to bang the drum for the Save the Whittington Campaign on BBC Radio London's Drivetime programme tonight. They will be broadcasting from outside Iceland on Holloway Road.
March 26 Another strike at BA this weekend - and total shutdown possible on our railways after Easter. Why is our Labour MP still taking money from Unite when industrial action is causing so much disruption?
Yesterday I went to the opening of the first phase of new building on the Packington Estate - very impressive work from the Hyde Housing Association which is much appreciated by residents. However, the association's regeneration experts told me about what they are doing to tackle the problems of worklessness in the area, with many children growing up in homes where no-one has worked for years. There are some good ideas from the Conservative team about how to get people the skills and confidence they need to re-enter the workplace - and that could have a real impact here in Islington. I went on from the Packington to an event held by Central London Forward, a group of councils who reminded us just how many jobs there are on our doorstep - if only residents can develop the skills needed to take them up.
March 21 I can't believe our Labour MP is still taking £2,000 a year via her association from Unite - the union whose strike has just ruined thousands of people's holidays and is putting huge numbers of jobs at risk. BA face enormous pressures as it adapts to the rise of the no-frills airlines like Ryanair . It has to change working practices or go under, destroying all its workers' jobs and pension rights. Unite should call off the strike now. But Gordon Brown can't make that happen because Unite provides a quarter of Labour's funding - go to http://www.cash-gordon.com/ to find out more.
March 7 Here's David Cameron highlighting Islington town hall's fat cats in a speech - the number of officials on salaries over £100,000 is up by nearly a third despite the recession.
http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2010/03/Value_for_money_in_your_town_hall.aspx
And there is a nice little dig at "the council which issued itself a parking ticket and refused to pay it!"
February 27 Today's march from Highbury Corner to the Whittington to defend the hospital against the threat from NHS London attracted probably a thousand supporters including a sizeable group of Islington and other North East London Conservatives.
http://www.islingtontribune.com/
Islington North PPC Adrian Berrill-Cox and I were disappointed that the organisers couldn't give us a few minutes to address the rally. But we have been given a firm commitment by Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley that if a Conservative government is elected, the reorganisation will be halted and a proper clinical review of what London needs, driven by input from family doctors via the primary care trusts, carried out instead.
February 22 Did you know that the months of evening and weekend closures planned for the Northern Line are going to be a serious inconvenience for Islington residents and businesses? And it's all because Gordon Brown's failed Public Private Partnership for the Tube prevents the Mayor from getting tough with the contractors involved.
From March for 20 months, there will be 82 weekends when the line, London's busiest, is partly or completely closed for signal upgrades. That's bad news for anyone living here. Also, the last trains will leave central London as early as 10 in the evening on weekdays for 16 months from July, which has to be a problem for Islington's night-time economy of bars and restaurants. At a time when business rates are imposing huge strain on employers, as we heard at the Town Hall recently, trading will suffer and staff may be laid off.
Gordon Brown forced onto London an inflexible and expensive PPP plan for upgrade of the Tube, which allows the foreign-owned contractors to put their profits ahead of passengers' needs.Two thirds of the PPP collapsed when Metronet went bust in 2007. Only Tube Lines, which has taken much longer than planned to upgrade the Jubilee Line, remains. The Mayor has had to call on the Transport Secretary to step in to stop Tube Lines taking so much out of the PPP deal in fees. It is all a terrible mess. And it's Gordon Brown who is to blame for setting up a scheme that will inflict so much inconvenience on this borough and its neighbours.