• Launched the Swimming Challenge Fund to support free swimming for over 60s and under 16s.
• Banned fox hunting.
• Led the campaign to win the 2012 Olympics for London.
• Free admission to our national museums and galleries.
• Devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, an elected Mayor and Assembly for London and directly-elected mayors for those cities that want them.

Earlier this evening, I was at the Jacksons Lane Community Centre to see a wonderful Bilimankhwe Young Company production of a double bill of plays by David Farr (I should, of course, declare an interest as one of Bilimankhwe’s trustees).

The plays, “The Queen Must Die” and “Ruckus in the Garden”, were performed by young people aged between 12 and 18, all of whom are in Haringey Schools.   Both plays were hilarious and were much enjoyed by the (mainly) late-teen audience.

The first is a farce set at the time of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002.  The action takes place the night before the Jubilee procession in a small town, when a giant papier mache statue of the Queen is to be the centre-piece of the procession.  The statue becomes the focus for 2 groups of teenagers who have their own reasons for wanting it destroyed. The first group belong to the anti-monarchy group the ‘Popular Republican Front’ and want to destroy the statue as a symbolic act of defiance against the ‘establishment’. The second – all girls – have a serious fashion situation they need to resolve in order to hold on to their credibility. All they need to do is go to the house where the statue is being kept and get past the babysitter – Shaun ‘the lips’ Digby, played by Archie Barber.  There are fine performances all round, but notably from Fred Rich as Darren, the (self-appointed) revolutionary leader with a fine line in political rhetoric, from Chanteese Black as Shannon, the leading fashionista who transforms herself into the WAM (Women Against the Monarchy) when she thinks Darren is a real film director, and from Gulsah Akdag as Mad Mike, Darren’s Rosa Luxemburg, an animal rights activist who keeps threatening Shannon with an axe.

The second play revolves round two schools: Riverdale Comprehensive (where the chavs from the sink estate go) and St Nectan’s (not selective, but it is really, where the better-off middle classes send their children).  Both are on an educational trip to the Garden of Cecil Fortescue House. A ruckus is inevitable, as is customary when these two schools meet.  Magic waits amongst the topiary in the form of Cupid, who brings about transformations romantic – and revealing.  The action is an amalgam of a “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Romeo and Juliet”, but with a happy ending for the two sets of star-crossed lovers (excellent performances by Carla Ingram as Tamsen and Enzi Alexander as Kath, who swap bodies, to confuse James Martin as Stanley and Michael Mellor as Hugh), and for the “unexpected” couple, Faisal Bhatti as Rock and Seraphina Taylor as Maisy.  Issues of class, gender roles, violence, and prejudice are all neatly explored.

So, if I’ve whetted your appetite, there’s only one more performance and there aren’t many seats left.

I spoke at a RUSI Conference yesterday on “Delivering Counter-Terrorism”.  My theme was why good governance (and in particular lay oversight) is an essential and important part of ensuring that counter-terrorism is effective and what needs to be done to strengthen public trust in an area vital for our national security.

I started by saying:

“In this country, policing is built on consent – the police are there to provide a service to the public, they should be responsive to the needs of the community and they are – or should be – accountable to the public they serve.  This is as important when we are speaking about counter-terrorism and protective services as it is when we are dealing with neighbourhood policing.

There are very substantial resources devoted to counter-terrorism in this country – perhaps some £2.5 billion per annum.  These sums have grown rapidly since 9/11 and since the London bombings in 2005.  During the last few years, we have seen the creation of a national network of four counter-terrorist units and a number of counter-terrorist intelligence units around the country – all linked and coordinated by the Counter-Terrorist Command (SO15) in London and under the auspices of ACPO(TAM).  It is only right and proper that there should be arrangements in place whereby the public can be satisfied that the monies spent and the resources deployed are being used efficiently and effectively, and that what is done constitutes value for money.

At the same time, it has to be recognised that counter-terrorism is not simply the responsibility of specialist units.  Although terrorism may not seem to be a day-to-day concern in most local communities, the reality is that it should be.  The threat of Al Qaeda inspired terrorism is what the Americans would no doubt call “a real and present danger” for all of us.

The modern terrorist threat is home-grown as well as international.  Successive Director-Generals of the Security Service have warned that there may well be hundreds of individuals engaged in various ways with terrorist plots.  And – as is well-known – these plots have as an objective the achievement of mass casualties.

There are few areas of the country where there are no potential targets, particularly as those targets might include parts of the critical national infrastructure, iconic sites, places of mass resort – attacks elsewhere in the world  have occurred at night clubs, in markets, at schools – and the UK has its own experience of attacks on the transport system.  In Spain, of course, there was an attack on Madrid’s commuter transport system in the run up to a General Election – a fact we might all want to ponder over the next few weeks, although I should stress that I have not heard any intelligence to support such worries.

Most areas have somewhere that might be a target – and, whilst London may have more than most, as London targets become hardened, then others become more likely.  (This will need to be a particular issue when planning the counter-terrorist response to the London Olympics in 2012.)

Moreover, what is now known or alleged about the location of bomb factories, training grounds and bonding events, often not in the most obvious of places, also demonstrates that effective counter-terrorist work must span the whole country.”

I then went on:

“And carrying the public’s support with counter-terrorist measures is essential.  In fact, I would go further: it is vital that the policing service is a continuum – one service dealing with anti-social behaviour, neighbourhood issues, street crime, burglary, serious and organised criminality and terrorism.  There are synergies between the different aspects of policing work: traffic police who find that those speeding are wanted for other crimes; credit card fraud used to finance people trafficking; the disposal of large quantities of peroxide bottles being spotted by local PCSOs identifying a terrorist plot in the making; and the list could go on and on.

Critically if it is the same police service that has to manage the community consequences of high-profile counter-terrorist operations, then that police service will be mindful of those consequences in the way in which those operations are conducted.

Community engagement also delivers better policing as through that engagement the public can, importantly, give a steer and direction on questions such as what reassures them and what does not, or how to use particular policing tactics in culturally sensitive ways that will command public support.

Building strong relationships with communities is going to be essential for future anti-terrorist work.  Getting it wrong will not only build resentments that will make co-operation with the police more difficult but are also likely to act as another factor influencing a very small minority to listen to the calls of those promoting terrorist violence.”

I then moved on to the issue of trust and the break down of political consensus:

“It used to be the case that the major political parties were careful to move with consensus on matters of national security.  That consensus broke down a few years ago with the debates on the length of time terrorist suspects could be held in police custody before being charged and with some of the rhetoric deployed over control orders and other counter-terrorist powers.

The consequence is that now, when Ministers warn of the dangers, what they say is discounted.  And I do understand that some credibility was inevitably lost over Iraq and the WMD that were never found.  And it is not just about Ministers.  The security service is seen as implicated in the WMD issue and the service, along with the police, is accused of talking up the threat so that more resources will be awarded.

So there is a general issue to be faced: how do those of us who are privy to some of the intelligence picture of the terrorist threat convince the wider public that that threat is real and that the measures being taken are justified and proportionate?  How much can and should be shared?  Is it possible to share enough to convince and at the same time protect the sources on which that intelligence is based (or for that matter convince people that what is being done is sensible but not induce alarm or panic or shut down the UK’s tourist industry)?

Striking the correct balance is even more difficult when we start to look not just at society as a whole but at individual communities and sections of communities whose initial reaction to the authorities of the state will be one of suspicion or hostility.

But this is not something that is new. In the late 1990s the Metropolitan Police through Operation Trident rebuilt its relationship with sections of the black community in London and engaged their support in tackling so-called black-on-black killings.  And all over the country, police authorities have worked with their local police services to consult local communities about the use of stop and search powers, helping to improve practice and reduce community resentment.

To understand the problems that we may face, the police need the co-operation and support of all or virtually all strands of community opinion.  I am not here talking about the recruitment of covert sources – although the environment in which the police are operating will also have an impact here.  I am talking about ensuring that the police understand what is happening within a community, that they are aware of which meeting places are attracting people who may be vulnerable to extremists, and that if there are worries or concerns about particular individuals they are articulated so that the police may monitor them.

None of this can happen without trust and that trust cannot be created overnight.  Moreover, it will require a very high level of trust for an individual to voice suspicions about a friend or family member.  But even the degree of trust necessary for individuals to talk to the police about community sensitivities will require a consistent willingness by the police to address that community’s concerns.  The police cannot be just fair-weather friends; they will need to be there all the time.

It is only when individuals within that community have sufficient confidence in police officers whom they know will they start to confide their fears and concerns.  And they will only acquire that confidence, once the police officers concerned have demonstrated their willingness to act on other issues that worry the people from that community – and these will often be traditional policing issues about burglary, street crime or anti-social behaviour, as well as matters which are directed specifically at that community.  And that confidence will only acquire sufficient strength for more serious matters to be raised when the police officers concerned have shown that they can act appropriately and effectively and, where necessary, with discretion.

In my time as an elected politician, I attended hundreds of community events.  At many of them, there was a police presence.  However, there was no point in that presence when the demeanour of that officer was such as to indicate that he had drawn the short straw to spend his Saturday afternoon at an event he  or she did not understand with people whom he had only limited, if any, contact.  Much more important was the presence – the sort of presence I am pleased to say was becoming much more common – where the police officer is obviously known to those attending the event and where the conversations you would overhear with the officer were of the nature of: “you remember that matter I mentioned to you two weeks ago, well now this has happened ….”

These days there is now a much better idea than there once was of what brings about so-called radicalisation.  It is a gradual process whereby a tiny proportion of individuals within a community are persuaded to see that the only response to the grievances that they perceive as being practised against their people is through terrorism.

Some of those grievances are international: what is happening now in Iraq, or on the West Bank, or in Kashmir, or in Malaysia, or in Chechnya are all given their place as part of a single narrative; as are issues about the distribution of economic power around the world.

In this country, the role of our government in these issues or its failure to help resolve them becomes a factor.  As does the wider sense of discrimination in jobs and wealth against Muslims (even if this is not something that directly affects the individuals concerned).  And, of course, the measures that have had to be taken to combat terrorism create their own mythology of prejudice and discrimination.

Every inappropriate stop under the Terrorism Act, every time there is a fuss about Control Orders and the debates we had about how long terrorist suspects can be held without charge will all feed – disproportionately – into that sense of grievance.

Now please do not get me wrong, I am not criticising the measures that have been taken to combat terrorism – I am a robust defender of their necessity.  I certainly believe that there is abundant evidence that such measures have to be taken given the number of people who have already progressed along a path of radicalisation to a willingness to commit atrocities.

What I am saying is that we must look at all our policies (including those designed specifically to combat those who have already gone down the path of radicalisation to that willingness to commit atrocities) and make sure that we are doing all we can to choke off the flow of young people being persuaded to follow down that path those who have already taken that journey.

However, we all have a role to play in ensuring that there is a strong and deep engagement with communities about what is being done to combat terrorism.  The more that people understand why particular measures are being taken, the more they recognise that those measures are being used in a fair and proportionate way, and the greater is the sense that the police service is there for them and provides support to all communities, the more willing will be people in those communities to support the police and the less likely will credence be given to those who try to argue that it is all part of the single narrative of victimisation of that community.

It is essential, too that the police can demonstrate that they are not fair-weather friends and that they will actively address the wider issues of concern to those communities.  It is essential, so that when things go wrong – as they will – that there can be a dialogue, a debate, and perhaps an understanding.  And it is essential, so that the police will have the support and perhaps the information that they need to take forward their work.”

• Since 1997 overall crime is down 36%; domestic burglary is down 54%; vehicle related crime is down by 57%; and violent crime is down 41%
• a new flexible points-based system to ensure only those economic migrants who have the skills our economy needs can come to work in the UK
• Police numbers up by 16,000 since 1997, alongside more than 16,000 Police Community Support Officers
• Every community now has its own dedicated neighbourhood police team, easily contactable by the people who live in that community and working with them to agree local priorities and deal with people’s concerns
• Equalised the age of consent and repealed Section 28

• more young people attending university than ever before
• more than doubled the number of apprenticeships starts, with figures for 2008/9 showing 234,000 started an apprenticeship this year compared to 75,000 in 1997
• in 1997 more than half of all schools saw less than 30% of thier pupils fail to get 5 good GCSEs including English and Maths; now only 270 schools fail this benchmark and we are guaranteeing that no school should fail this mark after 2011
• we have increased school funding to support the delivery of higher standards: between 1997/8 and 2009/10, total funding per pupil has more than doubled from £3,030 to £6,350 in real terms – an increase of 110%
• the Northern Ireland Peace Process

• nearly 3,000  Sure start Children’s Centres opened, reaching 2 million children and their families
• over 42,400 more teachers and 123,000 more teaching assistants than in 1997
• there have been approximately 3,700 rebuilt and significantly refurbished schools; including new and improved classrooms, laboratories and kitchens
• a free nursery place for every three and four year old
• doubled the number of registered childcare places to more than 1.5 million – one for every four children under eight years old

• 900,000 pensioners lifted out of poverty
• 500,000 children lifted out of relative poverty and measures already in train will lift a further 500,000 children out of poverty
• free TV licences for over-75s
• the New Deal has helped over 2 million people into work
• over 3 million Child Trust Funds have been started

• The National Minimum Wage – uprated annually – brenefiting at least a million people per year
• The shortest waiting times since NHS records began; whatever your condition, you will not have to wait more than 18 weeks from GP referral to the start of hospital treatment
• Three million more operations carried out each year than in 1997, with more than double the number of heart operations
• Over 44,000 more doctors
• Over 89,000 more nurses

The DCiC*, Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM, has in a moment of emotional transparency told the readers of  the March issue of The Job (the Metropolitan Police in-house magazine for police officers) about his formative influences.  Lauding the Volunteer Police Cadets scheme and the Scouts Association, he says:

“It is exactly these types of organisations that deserve our support.  They build self-respect, character and a sense of duty to others – qualities we need more of in the capital.”

And then comes the self-revelatory bit:

“In fact, I was an enthusiastic young scout and air cadet and look at the direction my own life went in.”

At this very moment the Scouts Association is planning a new poster campaign:

JOIN THE SCOUTS AND YOU COULD GET TO BE LIKE ME

*Dog-Catcher-in-Chief

UPDATE:

The DCiC has been in touch.  He thinks I am being a tad unfair.  I’ve told him to blame the picture on the Evening Standard.  But it turns out that what he is really miffed about is that his self-deprecatory exclamation mark at the end of his comment “… and look at the direction my own life went in” was missed off by The Job.

I always knew that there was an irony bypass somewhere in New Scotland Yard so it was probably edited out.

The question is: will heads roll?

The third question this morning in the House of Lords Question Time managed to cover astrology, alternative medicine, the views of Prince Charles, mumbo jumbo and quackery, provoked an intervention from the Astronomer Royal and from myself on psychotherapists and so-called “Schools” of psychotherapy and other therapies.

The question and the subsequent supplementaries demonstrated concerns from all parts of the House that alternative therapists need to be regulated in order to protect the public from unscrupulous practitioners and highlighted the importance of better understanding of real (as opposed to pseudo) science by the public and young people in particular.

The full exchanges were as follows:

“Alternative Medicine: Astrologers

Question

11.21 am

Asked By Lord Taverne

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, following their proposals to regulate practitioners of alternative medicine, they plan to regulate astrologers.

Baroness Thornton: No, my Lords, the Government have no plans to regulate astrologers.

Lord Taverne: My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the charity Sense About Science. The forms of alternative medicine which the Government propose to regulate have as much scientific basis as astrology. As official regulation is likely to give such practices a spurious scientific reliability and respectability, is it not unfair to leave out astrologers? More seriously, will the Government note that august bodies of proper scientists—the Medical Research Council, the Royal College of Pathologists, the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges and other eminent professional bodies—strongly oppose the proposed regulation? Will the Government ignore the assiduous lobbying for pseudoscience from Clarence House?

Baroness Thornton: My Lords, I am aware that the noble Lord is making a wider and serious point about alternative therapies. At present there is no statutory regulatory system in the United Kingdom to govern the practice of complementary and alternative medicine, with the exception of chiropractitioners and osteopaths who are regulated by statute. We are undertaking a consultation exercise to determine whether and, if so, how to regulate the practitioners of acupuncture, herbal medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. The Science and Technology Committee of this House suggested that we should address that issue. No other complementary therapies, including medical astrology, are within the scope of this consultation and we have no proposals to regulate in any of these other groups.

Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence. I remind the House and the noble Lord who asked the Question that the purpose of regulation is to protect the public, and that is what we try to do. However, in order to help me do my job better, can my noble friend give me a definition of medical astrology?

Baroness Thornton: My Lords, medical astrology is traditionally known as iatromathematics and is an ancient medical system associated with various parts of the body, diseases and drugs and the influence of the sun, moon, planets and the 12 astrological signs. For example—I did the research on this issue myself—the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, and I share the same birth sign, Libra, which apparently rules excretory functions through the kidneys and skin. I could go on about lumbar regions but noble Lords will get the picture. I am happy to say that the underlying basis for medical astrology is considered to be a pseudoscience and superstition as there is no scientific basis for its core beliefs. The Government remain neutral on this issue.

Earl Howe: My Lords, does the Minister share my view that this is an uncharacteristically flippant Question from the noble Lord, Lord Taverne? Does she accept that statutory regulation is not a badge of rank but exists, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, has just said, to safeguard the public? The key regulatory bodies—the Health Professions Council and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency—have both concluded that acupuncture and herbal medicine practitioners should be subject to statutory regulation.

Baroness Thornton: The noble Earl is quite correct and I concur with him that this is a very serious matter. Although we do not specifically promote or endorse the use of complementary or alternative medicine, we have to appreciate that a high proportion of the population actually uses these medicines, and our concern, as my noble friend said, is to protect patients. Responsible complementary practitioners adhere to codes of ethics, know the limits of their competence and make appropriate referral of patients to orthodox practitioners where there is potential risk to their health and well-being. However, the noble Earl is completely correct—we have to look to how best to safeguard patients in respect of those complementary medicines such as acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines that have the potential to cause harm. Therefore we need to take serious action to make sure they are regulated in the correct fashion.

Baroness Tonge: My Lords, I confess to being an Aquarian, and share my birth date with Copernicus and my Auntie Ivy, although I have to say that my Auntie Ivy had much more influence on me than my birth sign. However, on a more serious note, does the Minister agree that the popularity of mumbo-jumbo such as astrology and many forms of alternative medicine is due to the fact that people have very little scientific education at school? Will she say what this Government, in their 10 years in power, have done to further education in science and mathematics?

Baroness Thornton: We have done a great deal for further education in science and mathematics, although that is not exactly what this Question was about. I agree with the noble Baroness that of course people often turn to things like medical astrology because they do not understand the basis of whatever ailment it is they are looking at, and that can be a risky thing to do. However, I simply do not accept this Government have not put a significant amount of investment into mathematics and science in our schools.

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords—

Lord Rees of Ludlow: My Lords—

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My Lords, we have not heard from the Cross Benches yet.

Lord Rees of Ludlow: My Lords, I declare an interest as Astronomer Royal, and therefore as someone who could enhance his income hugely by becoming an astrologer and offering horoscopes. Does the Minister agree that, even though were we in India it might be appropriate to regulate astrology because government ministers there, one is told, are heavily guided by it, in this country to do so might imply that the problem has rather more seriousness that it really deserves?

Baroness Thornton: The noble Lord is completely correct.

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that we should indeed have no truck with pseudoscience? As it happens, I have some sympathy with the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, raised about the teaching of science and mathematics. None the less, there are, as Hamlet observed,

“more things in heaven and earth … than are dreamt of in your philosophy”,

and some very respectable branches of medicine were once alternative in their day. Therefore, it is important that we keep an eye on the things in which people invest confidence, and make sure, as my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley observed, that they do not cause harm.

Baroness Thornton: My noble friend is right. Complementary and alternative medicine therapies have proven to be effective, cost-effective and safe. Decisions about which treatments to commission and fund, for example, are the responsibility of the NHS locally, and indeed primary care trusts often have their own policies about funding complementary medicine such as osteopathy or chiropractic. Indeed, we are funding research into complementary therapies, for example in the care of cancer patients.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I speak to the Minister as a fellow Libran. Is she satisfied with the quality of regulation of therapies such as psychotherapy? Is it still the case that anyone can set themselves up as a college of psychotherapy or any other therapy, and offer diplomas and apparent validation to practitioners whose skills may be negligible?

Baroness Thornton: My noble friend raises an important point, which the House has discussed in the past year. I had a huge postbag about that; I was inundated by suggestions from psychotherapists of all different kinds on this issue. My noble friend is quite right that there is an issue, and the department is looking at it.”