Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
The Lib Dem team for Harringay Ward: Why we’re standing and a bit about ourselves.
The Lib Dem team for Harringay Ward: Why we’re standing and a bit about ourselves.
The next Council elections
On the 3rd May there is an election for all 57 seats on Haringey Council.
The present Council
The present Council is made up of 49 Labour Councillors and 8 Liberal Democrats. There are no Conservative or Green Party members. It is only the Lib Dems who have prevented Haringey from being a one-party state.
Harringay Ward
Harringay Ward consists of the whole of the Ladder plus Denmark Road, the eastern side of Green Lanes from Alfoxton Avenue to St Ann’s road and the turnings off (Alfoxton, St. Margaret’s, Harringay Gardens, Park Road, Colina Mews, Colina Road), as well as the Mountview Court estate. It is a marginal between Labour and the Lib Dems.
Some History
The balance for Harringay Ward was 2 Lib Dems and 1 Labour in 2006 and 2010, and in 2014 three Labour candidates were elected. The Conservatives and the Green Party have never been in contention, even when Matt Cuthbert got their best ever result in 2014, before becoming a Lib Dem himself.
Two of our candidates, Karen Alexander and David Schmitz, have served on the Council before: Karen from 2006 to 2014 and David from 2010 to 2014.
Why we’re standing
There are two main reasons.
Effective opposition
If, as many assume, Labour elects a majority of the Councillors, there really will need to be a larger opposition group to keep an eye on what they’re doing, to expose the mistakes and waste which happen on their watch and to campaign against disastrous excesses like the Haringey Development Vehicle. Remember, elections are often unpredictable, and a matter of less than 100 votes can often decide a race. So a stronger opposition is both desirable and very much achievable.
The personal touch
Faceless bureaucracy needs a human face. We see our main job as giving people someone to turn to should the system fail them. Whether it’s a flood in Wightman Road on Christmas Day, a family with small children that has been evicted, or an enforcement action that shouldn’t happen, someone has to be prepared to drop what they’re doing and call out the highways department, go with the family to the housing office, or get an explanation from someone higher up the chain of command than the call centre.
We’ve done all this in the past, and we want to do it again, but we need to be in office in order to be fully effective in doing this for you.
Why the Council needs a strong Lib Dem group
The BBC has recently observed, “Haringey Labour Party has recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons - de-selections, division, denunciations.”
If Labour form the next administration in the Council, no-one will have any idea as to what that administration would look like, or even how cohesive it would be.
What we know is that there will be plenty of people who, like the outgoing leader Claire Kober, still want to bring in the Haringey Development Vehicle. Remember that for all the chaos caused by this in Labour’s ranks, they still voted unanimously against stopping it only last month, although they had the chance to do so at an Extraordinary Full Council Meeting called by the Opposition Lib Dems. Even more worryingly, they (again unanimously) voted money for it at the recent council budget meeting.
We have long attacked this idea as oppressive because it would throw people out of their homes, and as unwise because it involves gambling £2 billion worth of Council property in a deal with one developer.
There will also be plenty of new people who are quick to talk up grand schemes without any idea as to how they can be implemented or paid for. As one former Labour opponent of ours has said, "Momentum activists at some point are going to come in to contact with reality.”
In the middle of this civil war, who will do the un-glamourous jobs of seeing to it that services are provided, and that the Council’s limited money is used to best effect, rather than squandered on failed fried chicken shops, new logos, and trips to the French Riviera?
And who will address the problems with their children’s services, highlighted yet again
• By a joint inspection by Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission, and the police and probation inspectorates, which found that when children are assessed they are too often either not offered appropriate support or their cases are closed too early. https://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/2004846/inspectors-warn-of-ineffe...
• By the Council’s own website which points out how children in care are failed when it comes to preparation for life outside of care http://www.haringey.gov.uk/social-care-and-health/health/joint-stra...
That’s where we come in. We know that Councillors can make a difference, but it isn’t by grandstanding against “the system”, or by getting too close to property developers. It is by patient and probing questioning of council officers and by listening to the people we represent.
We know that the only way to avoid bad decisions is to listen to people BEFORE we make up our minds. Our manifesto is about to be published and we’ll present it here. We believe that our plan will re-assure you that someone is looking after the interests of this wonderful borough.
A bit about ourselves
David, Karen and Matt all live in Harringay ward and are raising families here, so we are here in the ward day in, day out, and we’re always on the lookout for problems that need fixing. If we’re elected no-one will have trouble getting us to help if they find themselves bogged down in the call centre or “customer services”.
Karen Alexander was a Lib Dem Councillor for Harringay Ward from 2006 to 2014. During her terms she served on the Council’s Scrutiny Committee, which brings the Council’s workings into the cold light of day, and calls in questionable decisions – like the sale of the Hornsey Town Hall to a Cayman Islands-based property developer, and the notorious Haringey Development Vehicle – for a second, independent look. Even out of office, she hasn’t let up. She continues to attend meetings of residents’ groups and the police panel, and she works tirelessly on issues of traffic and road safety.
“As far as I am concerned, the 20mph limit on Wightman Rd has [Karen’s] name on it.”
David Schmitz was a Lib Dem Councillor for Harringay Ward from 2010 to 2014 and served on the planning committee. He quickly became known for his effective and tireless work for residents.
“From the moment I first contacted David about the problem, he was on hand with lots of good advice and useful pointers in directions that had never occurred to me. He also kept in close contact at all times.”
“He seems to be everywhere on that side of the borough boundary. Everywhere.
When he’s not working for the community, he practises as a barrister.
Matt Cuthbert is keenly involved in early-years education and the improvement of our local streets. He is an education volunteer at the nature reserve at Railway Fields (by Umfreville Road) and has taught cricket at North Harringay Primary School as well as under 9s cricket at a local club. He has salvaged and maintained many of the planters which brighten up Harringay Passage. The many groups he has contributed to have included the parents’ forum and the Friends of Harringay Passage.
In 2014, he stood for the Council as a candidate for the Green Party here in Harringay Ward, and was rewarded by the voters with the best result outside of the Lib Dems and Labour. After more strongly identifying with the ideals and proposals of the Liberal Democrats, he joined the party, and brings a keen eye to local environmental issues and a welcome take on ways to address them.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I feel precisely the same about the democratic deficit in this and all other local authorities. The first past the post system in no way encourages a diversity that truely represents the political spectrum of the electorate.
The introduction of Cabinet and elected Mayor in local government effectively put the power in the hands of a small number of people. In the case of elected Mayors, one person. My understanding is that the Localism Act only allows unitary, county council and district authorities to return to the committee structure that all local authorities once had.
I worked in local government under both the committee and Cabinet structure. The committee structure is tough because if allows much greater scrutiny of decision making and a more direct line from the chair and membership of the committee and the electorate. It’s good that it’s tough because decision making should be. The Cabinet model allows decision making to take place in a political vacuum, where the only voices heard are of other Cabinet members and senior council officers.
If it is the case that a London local authority can hold a referendum to return to a committee structure, I would be hugely in favour of that in Haringey and given the chance would vote for it too.
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Permalink Reply by Robin2 on
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OleMiss you presumably mean Karen, David, and Gina (Adamou)
Zena was only elected recently, Gina has been a Labour councillor even when the ward was mainly Lib Dem
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Michael, they were voted in because of what they were against (i.e. the HDV) not what they were for
The HDV was a mistake, but all the new candidates have a simplistic notion that anything to do with the private sector is inherently bad.
let's just watch them think they can do everything by stopping contracting out - and watch as we see the reintroduction of inefficient, heavily unionised workforces who can hold the council to ransom by leaving the bins unemptied until they get paid whatever they feel like demanding...
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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
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The view that unions are bad is not welcome here, Robin. Unions are good for society and the workforce, and result in more effective delivery of services. Where better than the public sector to create a caring and committed atmosphere?
I want less of the nasty, greedy and sometimes criminal firms who pursue profit from local authorities at any human cost and are driven by a faceless set of short-termist shareholders encouraging offshore tax avoidance.
I'ts a right-wing idea that the state should shrink - unwelcome here according to every poll. Good luck trying to convince Harringay that your ideology will produce better results when we have next-door Tory 'one-council' Barnet to compare with.
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Billy you're committing the same mistake you accuse me of - asserting opinion as fact. We can agree to disagree but I still maintain that mine is the majority view :)
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"The view that unions are bad is not welcome here, Robin."
so your view is the only one allowed is it? - sounds like you'd have been right at home in 1930s Germany
anyway i said 'heavily unionised' - i agree with trade unions, for the avoidance of doubt, but there needs to be a the right balance of power between represetnation and holding to ransom and
if you bring everything in-house you can't manage perrformance by switching supplier
have you never changed your energy supplier?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Robin2: You posted above that "... all the new candidates have a simplistic notion that anything to do with the private sector is inherently bad."
Who have you read or heard say or write something so ridiculous? Their names please?
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(Political Declaration: I'm a Labour Party Member and a former Labour Councillor. My wife Zena Brabazon is one of the Labour councillors for Harringay ward and has been adopted as a candidate in the May election.)
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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If the private sector applied consistent standards to education and provision for young people like the state sector are supposed to do I'd support you Billy. But they don't. Onside are scallywags with a contact somewhere in the council. It is scandalous what they are trying to get up to.
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Thing is, John McMullan, Robin2 - whoever he is - doesn't seem to grasp the huge opportunity we now have to build on the informal cross-party and no-party contacts and practical alliance which defeated both the HDV and the Tory policy leaders of the outgoing administration. The LibDems have played a vital part in this.
We now have the choice of not relapsing back into childish yah-boo politics which got nowhere except dire turnouts at local elections.
If Robin2 is saying he's actually heard - or read - large numbers of new Labour candidates expressing comprehensive anti-private sector views, that would worry me and I'd genuinely like to know. Because it's not been my own observation. Though following the galloping and often unsuccessful privatisations of the Kober era, that should be properly and calmly considered.
OnSide, by the way, John, is a charity not a commercial company and I don't know any Labour Party candidates who have a principled objection to the voluntary sector. On the contrary.
Can I again stress that there appears to have been a genuine and welcome shift in local politics. Sure, there's an imminent election and candidates are "out on manoeuvres". Understandably they want their own parties to do well. But once the results are in, I very much hope the parties will continue the open dialogues. And build on the cross-party trust which has emerged in opposing right-wing stupidities.
Of course I too want democratic socialist Labour candidates to win in May. But that has never prevented me from expressing respect for local hard working and principled LibDems. Also for the Greens, and people in groups such as Defend Council Housing.
Plus local campaigners not in any party - Helen Steel for example, among many others. Another example: Rev Paul Nicolson, who towers above anyone in the so-called Haringey cabinet. -
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Oh they're a charity. My mistake. Eton School is a charity too #justsaying
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Permalink Reply by matthew cuthbert on
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Please tell us your commitments to Harringay over the next 10 years, TBH Momentum & Progress are your problem not ours, we just want fair effective governance, and positive leadership to encourage & promote our ward, and our council as an equitable place for us all to live, and defend that aim.
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Permalink Reply by Protheroe O'Shea on
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Robin2, are you telling me the veolia staff are not in a union? or the staff of the Royal Mail, or on the private train services, ooh and at British Airways or Virgin or any other private company that hold or do not hold public sector contracts?
inefficient to. veolia are utterly hopeless and don't get me started on the train companies. I suppose as long as the billionaires are happy though...
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