Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Please can we hear from ST ANNS ward candidates.
Someone needs to convince me to vote for them.
Tags for Forum Posts: 2014 elections
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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The sound of pins dropping Liza.
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Permalink Reply by Alison on
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Hello,
My name is Alison Prager, I am a Liberal Democrat candidate for St Ann’s. I have lived in Haringey for over twenty years and spent 10 of the 14 years working for the Probation Service in Haringey working with offenders setting up community projects in the borough. During this time I worked closely with the police, community groups and local charities whilst putting offenders to work in their own communities in Haringey.
In the last couple of years I became a full-time carer for my mother who has Alzheimer’s and have become familiar with NHS services and the ins and outs of the social care system for older people which I know to be a huge challenge to keep alive, let alone extend.
I would like the voters of St Ann’s to vote for me as a Liberal Democrat as I would really like the opportunity to champion the people of the area, which I would see as my first role as councillor. I am looking forward to carrying out individual case work for residents as well as being active in the council to help make it more efficient to save money on the high council tax we pay and more effective to serve the people rather than the council.
I think Cllr. David Schmitz has laid out the stall for the Liberal Democrats very well in his statement for us and I do not want to repeat what he said, I am speaking personally.
I see the Liberal Democrats as the only credible alternative to Labour. With the best will in the world being in power in Haringey, or anywhere, for so long is an unhealthy state of affairs and I believe the people in Haringey are suffering the results. I found the Labour voting scandal in St. Ann’s quite sad. It does matter and they shouldn't be allowed to get away it.
All the Liberal Democrat councillors and candidates I have met seem to me to be sincere and want to do the best for the people in their ward and the borough. I have been personally very impressed with the Harringay councillors and the third candidate Asha, and their hard work and dedication to getting things done. I have also met the people in the Haringey Liberal Democrat office working behind the scenes and it is much more inclusive and open than I imagined and that is why I am happy to be a Liberal Democrat candidate and would be more than happy to be elected and do my best for the people of St. Ann’s.
PS
I have been a member of the party since 2000 but have only been active in the past couple of years as I can fit it in with looking after my mum.
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Alison, if the electors of St Ann's have a morsel of morality among them, they should either abstain en masse or vote for your Lib Dem slate - unless they can conjure up some ethically nominated Labour candidates before Thursday. Alas! the electors of St Ann's have been mightily silent, sunk perhaps in a slough of despond, or content to batten upon the sewage that has been visited upon them as penalty for their pathetic apathy.
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Worth noting that in the last council elections the Lib Dems were second to Labour.
Given:
(1) Our Labour candidates were selected by a dodgy process;
(2) One have them is reported to have said that he wants to push much more traffic through the Gardens & Hermitage Road. I'm not aware of anything on public record from any of the 3 Labour candidates in the ward that would give us any reassurance on this issue.
It seems pretty clear what party needs to be voted for to maximise the chance of the Labour St Anne's candidates not getting in....
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Permalink Reply by Jay Owens on
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Any thoughts/recommendations on ranking the Lib Dem candidates? I'm considering voting for 1-2 Lib Dems, but which ones?
The fact Alison's bothered to comment here ranks highly in her favour, of course...
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Permalink Reply by HarringayBirder on
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Can anyone summarise the "St Ann's Labour voting scandal" referred to above to enlighten an ignorant local voter?
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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In the St Ann's ward, three Labour councillors are always returned. There is a meeting to decide who the candidates (and therefore the councillors) will be. There are rules about who can be at this meeting because you're effectively electing the councillors. In St Ann's the rules were broken, I'm currently legally prevented from saying who by. Five people who should not have been in the selection meeting voted. This was more than enough to swing the vote and deselect the sitting councillors. All three of the current Labour candidates knew what was going on. They have not participated in any discussions on here because they don't want to be called out.
Labour say that it is an internal Labour Party issue but as I've said, the Labour candidates are always returned as councillors in St Ann's so it's not. If you care about your vote in St Ann's, join the Labour Party and attend the next selection meeting in 2017.
If you care about honesty and integrity in your councillors then don't vote Labour in St Ann's.
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There's a hole in St Anns Ward, dear Liza, dear Liza;
There's a hole in St Anns Ward, dear Liza, a HOLE!
With what shall we fill it, dear Kober, dear Kober?
With what shall we fill it, dear Kober, with WHAT?
[Oh God, I'm bored already and have lost the will to live. Please feel free to carry on.]
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Permalink Reply by Justin Hinchcliffe on
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Permalink Reply by Lydia R on
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Then fix it, dear voters, dear voters, dear voters,
Then fix it, dear voters, dear voters -- FIX IT.
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Permalink Reply by Simon Hester on
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I have lived here since 1992 and have been involved in many local campaigns and issues. My children have gone to Chestnuts Primary and Park View. I was a governor of my daughter’s nursery and then her primary school. I work for the Health and Safety Executive as an inspector of construction sites and an accident investigator. I am an elected branch rep for the Prospect union.
I am a candidate in St Ann's ward for TUSC, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. I am standing alongside Andrew Reid, born and brought up on the Suffolk Road estate and a long-standing community activist and advice worker.
Labour’s candidate for St Ann’s ward, Ali Ozbek, has called for the removal of the bollards into the Gardens area off Green Lanes. This would be a backward step – increasing traffic congestion, environmental pollution and transport hazards – we need more traffic calming measures across the whole area, not fewer. Mr Ozbek says that the traffic calming measures are harming businesses on Green Lanes but removing the bollards will not solve the fundamental problems of falling disposable income due to wage freezes, rocketing housing costs and benefit cuts.
But Mr Ozbek’s approach says a lot about the newly imposed Labour candidates in St Ann’s and the policies of the council leadership. Business profits and the government’s austerity programme are being put before people’s needs across a swathe of council policies.
Take education. The pressure on local primaries is increasing but the council’s strategy, outlined in Haringey’s Education Commission report Outstanding for All, is merely to implement Michael Gove’s reactionary education policies. When the parents, staff and National Union of Teachers at Downhills Primary ran a massive campaign to stop the school becoming an academy the council did nothing to support them. One attempt to turn West Green Primary into an academy has been knocked back but the ideologues pushing for the breakup of local education authorities will be back again. The emerging scandal at the Technopark white elephant in Tottenham Hale is symptomatic of Haringey Labour Council – they are actively colluding with the private Harris Academy to hand over the premises for another ‘free school’. We need a council to stand up to Gove and fight for a properly funded democratically controlled comprehensive education framework. Now is the time to finish off Gove’s failing policies, not offer him a lifeline of support (in this regard, the Lib Dems’ attempt to posture as a ‘credible alternative’ is laughable).
Or look at St Ann’s Hospital. There is no argument that the decrepit buildings need complete refurbishment and lots of investment. But the proposal to hand over half the land to private developers must be resisted. The initial planning proposal for the site is imminent. I support the local campaign Haringey Needs St Ann’s Hospital. Physical and mental health provision should be expanded to provide general health services and even an A&E department. If we cannot win this obvious benefit we must insist that any housing is genuinely and 100% affordable for all – not just another bonanza for property developers. The squeeze on St Ann’s mirrors the desperate state of mental health services nationally – now in a state of meltdown. Why is Haringey Council meekly accepting the destruction of the NHS? They should be using their positions to lead a fight against the government.
Housing is another huge local issue. Rocketing prices, rents out of control and threats to council tenants are combining into a perfect storm. The only people who benefit are property developers and rental agencies. Relying on Haringey Labour to solve the housing crisis will be as useful an umbrella full of holes – looks good when not in use, useless when the going gets tough. Haringey Council should use its substantial reserves to start a serious programme of building council houses – it could follow the example of Islington for a start. All new housing developments should be fully and genuinely affordable, not the extortionate prices of the new developments on West Green Road and Lawrence Road where the only people who could afford to move in will have to have incomes in excess of £80K or substantial deposits – way out of the reach of most of us and certainly our children.
On Monday 26 May the polls indicate that we are likely to wake up to a massive vote for UKIP in the Euro elections. The failure of the established parties to put forward a coherent alternative to the policies of never ending austerity has opened the door to a populist far-right racist party, which openly scapegoats migrants. I fear for my neighbours. The Tories, Lib Dems and even Labour are falling over themselves to be tough on migrants, to fend off the attack from UKIP. TUSC is the only party openly defending migrants and, win or lose, I will campaign against the growing threat from the racist right. Isn’t it about time that we had a councillors who had the courage to stand up for what is right?
If you want more of the same you know who to vote for. If you want representatives who will stand up against the logic of austerity, who will fight the cuts with everything at our disposal and defend our community from racist scapegoating then vote for Andrew Reid and myself.
PS - it's true that the Lib Dems came second last time round when Nick Clegg was riding high as the "honest alternative". That didn't last long and the Lib Dems are, quite rightly, languishing in the polls. In the previous council election of 2006 I came second to Labour. There is a large constituency to the left of Labour - we need to assert ourselves.
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