Help me keep Putney's ticket offices open

Conservative-run Transport for London is planning massive reductions in ticket office opening hours at Southfields, East Putney and Putney Bridge stations, and a host of other stations the length and breadth of the tube network.

• East Putney ticket office will be open 40 hours a week less
• Putney Bridge ticket office will be open 48 hours a week less
• Southfields ticket office will be open nearly 51 hours a week less

The cuts will mean that no one using Putney Bridge or East Putney tube stations will be able to purchase a ticket from a ticket office before 7am; nor after 7pm. On Saturdays, the Southfields ticket office will shut up shop at 3.30pm (it is currently staffed until 9pm).

Ticket offices are about more than just having another option for buying a ticket or asking for travel advice. Stations that are staffed are safer stations. Like many of you, I'm a commuter myself: we know how foreboding largely deserted platform stations can feel - especially if you know there are no staff around.

In 2008 Tory Boris Johnson won the Mayoralty of London with a promise to set about "halting the proposed Tube ticket office closures and ensuring there is always a manned ticket office at every station." So there's no wriggle-room for the Conservatives here: this is a flat out breaking of their promise to London.

It comes on top of fare rises of up to a third since 2008 under the Tories; the threat of closure of popular bus routes like the 28 and shocking incompetence that has turned a trading surplus at Transport for London with Labour into a gaping £1.7 billion black hole.

I will be doing all I can to stop these reckless closures. I also want to work with anyone else who wants to do the same. I am sure that the Putney Society, Wandsworth Council, the local MP and others - including my opponents in other political parties, will want to do all we can to persuade the Mayor not to break his election promise and to protect Putney's tube stations from these cuts.

Royal British Legion email

You may recall that last year at Labour Party Conference I signed up to the Royal British Legion's manifesto to support our armed forces, pictured above with Charlotte Tailby of the Legion. Support for our soldiers - both those in service and our veterans - is an issue I'll champion as your MP.

Now, with the election coming soon the Legion have just got in touch to confirm they've registered me as one of their supporters:

The choice on public services

Reprehensible and cowardly

Last week a bill that would have put an end to "vulture" bankers profiteering from the developing world's debt burdens went through the House of Commons.

Vulture funds buy up the debts of poor countries, often at a fraction of their face value, and pursue them through the international courts, in many instances despite agreements by other creditors to give the country debt relief.

The Conservative leadership claimed they backed this bill and wanted it to be passed. But at the last minute, after three hours of Commons debate and the bill having gone through committee for in depth scrutiny, one Tory MP shouted "object" - which under parliamentary procedure effectively stopped the bill passing.



What made this manoeuvre even more despicable was that the MP hoped he could do this anonymously - which with TV cameras in the chamber is almost impossible. So what he did was gather a couple of fellow Conservative MPs around him in a huddle at the back so that it was unclear which one of them had destroyed the bill.

Despite this contemptible ploy to disguise his identity, it has subsequently emerged that it was Christopher Chope, Conservative MP for Christchurch in Dorset.

Chope is a former Putney Conservative councillor - indeed he led Wandsworth council for a couple of years in the 1980s before entering Parliament.

The Conservative leadership has failed to denounce Chope - not only for his views, but for the cowardly and dishonest tactics he used. If Mr Chope genuinely believes that multinational loan sharks should be able to pursue the poorest nations in the world for money they don't have - and which if they do they should be spending on building themselves up - he should have the integrity to stand up in public and argue his case. He clearly lacks that integrity.

I spent eight years on Wandsworth Council across the chamber from Conservatives in the same mould as Christopher Chope. While there are notable exceptions on the Tory benches - both in the town hall and in parliament - there are an awful lot of Christopher Chopes holding high office in the Conservative Party.

Has the Conservative Party really changed?



You can read more about Mr Chope's weaseling behaviour, and about the bill he destroyed in The Independent, or from the Jubilee Debt Campaign here; and read more about the Vulture Funds this bill would have stopped on Wikipedia here.

Patching rather than fixing: typical Tories

I've long since given up highlighting the disgusting state of Putney's potholed roads - made that way not because of the winter weather but simply through years of the Tories starving the highways budget of cash.

Their policy is simple: never resurface a road if they think they can get away with patching it - and never patch a road they think they can get away with neglecting entirely.

Well, this is Tildesley Road, which runs from Putney Heath through the Ashburton Estate. It exemplifies the absurdity of the Tory patching policy: just count the patches they've put down here - all to no avail.

Patching, as I've written before, is a false economy - one instance of patching will obviously not cost as much as properly, professionally resurfacing a road; but the problem with patching is that - outside Wandsworth - it's never intended as a permanent fix: it's just a stop-gap before more serious attention can be given to the road.

The consequence is that patches are shortlived - as you can see with Tildesley Road. They rapidly erode, and they erode quickly the more intensively the road is used. So the council has to return again, and again, and again to make right the erosion as well as fill in new potholes that emerge in the same areas. And that costs you - it doesn't cost the council: you're paying through it via your council tax - far more in the long run than the Tories properly funding and managing their road maintenance programme.

This isn't rocket science - it's basic housekeeping. The Conservatives, for all their talk of being value for money, show with their dereliction of duty to the basic services we should all be able to expect from our council, that they simply have no idea how to manage a budget.

Reward this Tory incompetence at the council elections in May. A vote for any party other than Labour helps the Tories win again. And you'll get more of the same if they win again.

The choice on SureStart

Happy Mothers' Day

New Headteacher for Elliott

I very much welcome the appointment of Mark Phillips as the new head of Elliott, and of the wider plans to provide Elliott with much more support from a range of partners including Roehampton University and Burntwood School.

Elliott has already begun to turn around since the difficult Ofsted report last year and the discontent there was among staff with the school's former leadership. And while it's great that Elliott is now part of the Labour Government's Building Schools for the Future programme, which will provide modernised classrooms and buildings alongside the "modernised" school leadership team, it's still a crying shame that the Conservative council waited for so long to apply for this rennovation funding and then made sure it was in the very last tranche of awards for this set of bids.

One thing is clear from my visit to Elliott's Sixth Form Society last Autumn - Elliott's students are a very impressive bunch and I have no doubt that with the right leadership and, in due course, a modernised school building, once again Elliott will be a beacon school for comprehensive education in Putney.

How safe will our NHS be under the Conservatives?

Last year Conservative MEP Dan Hannan became flavour of the month amongst right wing commentators and Conservatives when he poured scorn on the NHS and dismissed it as a sixty year mistake. His party, which earlier that year had worked so hard to get him re-elected to the European Parliament, distanced themselves from him and assured us that he didn't speak for party policy.

More recently it emerged that a Conservative pressure group called Nurses for Reform had secured an hour-long meeting with Conservative leader David Cameron in the House of Commons. Nurses for Reform have branded the NHS a "Soviet-style calamity" and wish to see much greater commercialisation of our health service. Commercialisation is code on the right for "privatisation".

Now it emerges that there are other groups with strong links to the Conservative Party who also despise the NHS. This week the press has widely reported that leaders of the Young Britons Foundation (YBF) have been espousing similarly unsavoury and extreme views about the NHS (and a lot more).

The YBF chief executive, Donal Blaney, has penned an article entitled "Scrap the NHS, not just targets" in which he askes "Would it not now be better to say that the NHS - in its current incarnation - is finished?"

So what has this got to do with Cameron's "Compassionate Conservatives" you might be asking? Well, all these groups have strong links to the senior echelons of the Conservative Party. Indeed, the YBF's ties to the Conservative frontbench are so close that both Conservative Party chairman, Eric Pickles MP, and the shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox MP, spoke at the annual YBF parliamentary rally at the House of Commons, which was chaired by Blaney.

Blaney, incidentally was sacked from being chair of Conservative Future for being too right-wing: quite a feat as anyone who knows the background of the Young Conservative movement will be able to attest.

But with people like Blaney pulling the strings behind the scenes, if the Conservatives win the next election, how safe do you think our NHS will be?

Target cancer

The price of Putney

Yesterday's Sunday Mirror highlighted how Tory peer Lord Ashcroft used his billions to buy Conservative wins in 19 constituencies - including Putney - at the last general election. You can click on the spread above for a larger version of the article, with Tory Justine Greening and the £14,000 "Cashcroft" channelled to her campaign featured prominently.

It's possible to argue that it wasn't Lord Cashcroft's Belize billions that made Putney Conservative in 2005 - but that's not what the Conservatives think. They clearly believe that cash equals votes, or else flooding the marginal constituencies with overseas contributions wouldn't be the central - almost sole - plank of their election strategy.

Unlike Justine Greening's Putney Conservatives, the only donations I accept are from local residents or people who know me and who want nothing other than a hard-working Labour candidate in return. Because I can't compete with the overseas billionaires and political lobbyists who channel funds to Putney Conservatives - and wouldn't even want to try - if you feel strongly about the Tories buying seats as if they're up for auction to the highest bidder please contribute to my campaign.

You can make a contribution of whatever you can afford via my secure website. I'm the only Putney candidate who can defeat the Tories and their view that elections can be bought, so please show them that while this may be how things get done in Belize, it's not how we do them in Great Britain.

Celebrating Putney

As you'll know if you're a regular visitor to my blog, one of my main criticisms of the local Conservatives is that they take little pride in Putney: as the neglect of our town centre and Putney Bridge, the weak and damaging (lack of) planning policies, the never-ending service cuts and closures, the huge amount of fly-tipping and the woeful state of our roads and pavements exemplify.

It's time for local leadership that celebrates this wonderful area. That's why I've produced ten different sets of Oystercard wallets that exhibit the very best of Putney, Roehampton and Southfields. We have versions for Putney Bridge, St Mary's Church, the Alton Estate, Queen Mary's House, Dover House Road, Southfields tube, East Putney station, the Royal Hospital, Roehampton village and the London Mosque in Gressenhall Road.

If you'd like to show your pride in Putney by carrying one of these Oystercard wallets get in touch and I'll gladly send you one. For free. No catch. 10,000 to give away! Just tell me which version you'd like.

Fundraising WITHOUT a Belize Billionaire

Unlike my Conservative opponent Justine Greening, neither I nor my campaign have ever been the recipient of thousands of pounds in political donations from a non dom billionaire. And I wouldn't want to, either.

Every penny I spend is raised locally - through donations from local Labour Party members and supporters, and through the type of fundraising events that voluntary organisations across the Putney will be familiar with: raffles, quiz nights, social events and - the highlight of the fundraising year - our annual dinner.

On Tuesday evening we again took our annual dinner to the fantastic Telegraph Pub on Putney Heath. The food and service was excellent and the company and conversation even better. Our after dinner speaker was the witty and hugely entertaining political editor of The Mirror, Kevin Maguire. Kevin entertained us with tales from Westminster and - in the most noble of dinner guest speaker traditions, declined the raffle prize when his ticket was pulled from the hat (three times no less!).

It was a welcome (albeit brief) break from the campaign trail and I was particularly pleased to see so many members who have been working so hard on behalf of both me and Putney Labour party. As the recipient of that hard work, effort and endeavour (as well as their financial donations), I can tell you it is a richer reward than all of Ashcroft's billions.

We must now know whether Ashcroft's donations were legal

Yesterday's disclosure that Lord Ashcroft: the Conservative Party's biggest donor - possibly the biggest donor to a political party of all time - isn't a domiciled British taxpayer and doesn't pay the same taxes as you and me, isn't exactly revelatory. After all, the Conservatives wouldn't have gone through four different leaders all refusing to reveal his tax status if it had been above board, would they?

But what this confession does do is pile pressure on the Electoral Commission to complete its investigation into Ashcroft's company: Bearwood Corporate Services, and publish its findings before the general election is called.

I explained the background in a post in January here - simply put, if Bearwood is nothing more than a front for Ashcroft and not a genuine company trading in the UK the donations it has channelled direct from his home in the Caribbean to Tory Party coffers will be illegal contributions. That's over £3 million nationally and over £19,000 that have gone to Putney Conservatives.

As I said at the start, no one who believed Lord Ashcroft's status was beyond reproach would go to the lengths the Conservatives have to avoid acknowledging it. The Electoral Commission must now rule on this, and if they find Justine Greening's Putney party took £19,000 from Ashcroft illegally, that money must be paid back to taxpayers pronto.

Weekend casework

Here are some of the issues I've been working on sorting out this week. There are just two points I want to make about this. The first is that some of these are issues I reported last year - and which I got fixed but are now in a poor way again; and the second is that these are all problems in and around just one medium-sized estate: the Orchard estate in West Hill.

My point is this: just consider how many problems there must be throughout Putney, Roehampton and Southfields which your Conservative MP and councillors are just ignoring or can't be bothered to fix.

The Conservatives are right that 2010 needs to be a year of change: in Putney that change is Labour.


The pavements in Linstead Way are dreadful - and they've been dreadful for years under the Tories.





Damaged banisters in Linstead Way which leave these dangerous metal spokes in an area full of young families.


It just wouldn't be Tory Wandsworth without some shocking potholes - these on the slope from Beaumont Road to Linstead Way, past Andrew Reed House





Only last November I finally got the council to fix these railings along the path from Beaumont Road to Royal Orchard Close. They've been vandalised already - mainly because on one side this is a convenient cut-through to Linstead Way. So we either need more substantial railings or a designated, safe path with steps down the slope.


The bollards like those on the other side of this raised crossing by Castlecombe Drive have somehow vanished, leaving two craters in the Beaumont Road pavement.

Bridge debacle

You have to admire Conservative chutzpah, if nothing else.

The Tory London Assembly member for our area has been sending out letters to the press complaining about the closure of so many of London's bridges at the same time: Albert Bridge and Hammersmith Bridge being two of the five in the capital that are closed currently.

That's of local concern to Putney because not only does it mean extra traffic through Putney's already congested main roads, but because it means that much-needed resurfacing work to Putney Bridge cannot begin - and a Conservative cabinet member here has admitted that much on the local community website. That, incidentally, might mean no work for another 18 months - the time Albert Bridge will be closed.

I'm delighted our London Assembly member's belief has been beggered, but he's curiously forgotten that the body in charge of deciding when roadworks to London's bridges takes place, Transport for London, is under the control of the (Conservative) Mayor of London and the London Assembly where we're represented by this same Conservative member who seems to be passing it off as "nothing to do with me guv".

Leadership's about taking responsibility. Show some.

'Self' defeating

I've written before about this Southfields case I've been very heavily involved with, but this week's story in the Wandsworth Guardian underlines how badly I feel the Conservatives treat those residents who need services above and beyond the majority of us experience.

As with so many of these stories, the council's peremptory, dismissive reply is usually the last word. Just re-read it from the story above: "In order to qualify for a disabled badge the applicant must have a degree of disability and find it difficult to walk. Fortunately Mrs Self does not have any such problems."

For heaven's sake! She has angina, heart disease, is partially blind AND suffers from Meniere's Disease, which is an inbalance within the ears that prevents her from walking! The only reason she (purportedly) failed the council's test at the town hall - a test so stressful she had an angina attack in the town hall foyer - was that the occupational therapist failed to test her walking unsupported by her husband.

The problem the council gets itself into is the second part of their quote above. After all, they're categorical in the sentence I quoted: that Mrs Self is not eligible for a blue badge. That being the case, why would a council certain of its case offer a repeat assessment? It's not common practice: in fact its abnormal.

This is a Conservative council that refuses to back down when it gets things wrong and would rather pick on an elderly lady in her eighties than accept that they made a mistake. They've even written to us telling us they will not enter into any further correspondence with us unless it is to accept the re-assessment offer.

But why should the family put their mum through such an ordeal again? I'm not sure I'd want my mother to endure such a stressful experience a second time, even if it is for something that will make her life immeasurably easier if she ever, eventually, were to get it. That's the call Mrs Self's family have made and I respect them for it.

I can't say the same for the Conservative council.

Election 1950 in the Wandsworth Guardian

That very small percentage of you who don't love the blanket media coverage of politics we get during general elections only have a few more weeks of bliss before the Prime Minister is expected to dissolve parliament.

The story above from last week's Wandsworth Guardian is from the 1950 General Election campaign - and without wishing to be accused of precisely the same things the article accuses those candidates of, I very much hope that the 1950 election result will be one we emulate come polling day!

Of course there's a reason why all political candidates say they're going to win - even Labour candidates in the most true-blue constituencies around and Conservatives in rock-solid Labour communities: we need to maximise our vote, and telling them we're going to lose is hardly going to motivate them to take the trip down to the polling station. Some of these candidates even convince themselves that they're actually going to win even though they've done very little to justify their (re) election.

Anyway, I hope this trip down memory lane amuses you.

Signing up to the Cancer Commitment

Recently I signed up to Cancer Research UK's Cancer Commitment, which aims to make UK cancer outcomes among the best in Europe in the next ten years.

Cancer remains the public's number one fear. With a concerted effort from the next Parliament, I am sure we can give hope to the millions of people affected by cancer and their friends and family.

More than one in three people in Putney will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime. My own family - like many - has been touched by cancer. In the last thirty years, the UK's 10-year survival rates have doubled but cancer survival rates still lag behind the best performing countries in Europe such as Sweden, Norway and Finland.

The Cancer Commitment calls on MPs in the next Parliament to take action in five key areas:

· Detecting cancer earlier
· Providing world class treatment
· Preventing more cancers
· Tackling cancer inequalities
· Protecting the UK?s research base

For information on Cancer Research UK?s Commit To Beat Cancer campaign, visit: http://www.committobeatcancer.org/

My plan for Putney

Since December the Conservative-run council has been consulting on what is, effectively, a planning brief for key sites across the borough. Sites include those we've spent a lot of time on these past few years: Tileman House, Putney Place, the Riverside Quarter and Danebury Avenue, for example.

This the closest thing the Conservatives get to putting together a comprehensive plan for Putney - something I've been arguing for since 2003. But it is not a plan in itself. Here are the remaining steps needed to give us that plan.

1. A real plan

First, this document is informative but it is not genuine site-specific planning policy. That's because the planning policy governing these sites isn't new or site-specific: it's the same blanket planning policy that exists now. So pretty much every briefing on each specific site in Putney talks about exactly the same building heights being allowed. That's not site specific - it's general.

2. Cast-iron guarantees

Second, the plan constantly refers to buildings of more than twelve storeys only being given permission in "exceptional circumstances". But what is ?exceptional?? The Tileman House developers are appealing the refusal of their 16-storey block because they believe their building is exceptional. The design for Putney Place, rejected in 2008, could be regarded as exceptional by some. And just one exception could become the rule because of precedent: the planning rule that says that once one building of a particular type or scale has been approved that sets the benchmark for future development.

3. A comprehensive plan

Third, looking at specific sites in isolation isn't a comprehensive plan. Putney High Street, for example, is a poor quality environment that will only be radically improved if we have a planning framework that looks at it in its entirety - not just the three sites that have been identified (which are the Putney Cinema/Jubilee House block; the block on the corner of Putney Bridge Road where the Real Greek is; and the hideous block between Lacy and Felsham Roads where TK-Maxx now is, that I've already published an alternative plan for).

We need consistent design the length of the high street to improve the overall shopping environment; to tackle the pollution that makes Putney's high street the worst in London, to diversify the shops and make sure different use-types are better spread throughout the town centre and to give pedestrians more priority.

4. A clear vision of how Putney should evolve

And finally we need to have the political leadership to debate, not duck the controversial issue of capacity. One of the big problems with the Putney Place development was that East Putney station is already full to capacity. So is Putney Station. Our local schools are expanding because their capacity is being reached. Our major roads are often gridlocked because they are full beyond capacity. The only way Putney can handle an increased population of the scale the Conservatives seem to want will be for massive investment in improved infrastructure: and that's simply not on the cards.

We also cannot duck the fact that while it is Putney's character that makes developers want to build huge amounts of extra homes in the area, were we to succumb to their overdevelopment plans the very character that makes Putney a target for development would be changed significantly - perhaps beyond recognition.

Now that's not an argument for mothballing Putney; for never allowing any development here ever again; to try to freeze our area in time. But there are clearly two entirely incompatible agendas for Putney here: the Conservatives that believe skyscraper development in Putney is not only inevitable but desirable - and my Labour view that Putney's character is not high-rise but human scale and that this is the constraint any future development needs to operate within.

It's a straightforward difference of opinion between the Tory MP and her 18 Tory councillors in Putney, and me. You get to choose which side you stand on at the elections later this year. But be in no doubt: if the Conservatives win, their vision of Putney will be writ large - irreversably -by the time the next elections come around.

You can read my formal submission to the council here.