The Conservatives must be mightily disappointed with their performance on Thursday in London.  The assumption had been that the “conspicuous benefits” of having a Tory Mayor in the capital would produce substantial gains for the Conservative cause when it came to voting in the General Election.

And what actually happened?  There were, of course, some major  scalps – for example, Martin Linton in Battersea, Tony McNulty in Harrow East and Andrew Dismore in Hendon.  However, the Conservatives were hugely disappointed not to beat Karen Buck in Westminster North, Andy Slaughter in Hammersmith, and Sadiq Khan in Tooting.

Labour still holds more Parliamentary seats in the Capital than all the other Parties combined – so much for the Tory target of forty or more seats in London.

The counts in the local elections are not yet complete (hardly started in some instances), but we already know that Labour has taken control of the Boroughs of Harrow and Enfield that were previously Tory-controlled.  (I make no comment on the huge Labour victory over the Liberal Democrats in Islington or Labour’s increased majority in Haringey, as in both of these the Tories were totally irrelevant.)

Boris Johnson and his Mayorality delivered worse results for David Cameron than almost any other Region of England.  some people are already speculating about a hidden agenda (“It’s all gone tits up, call for Boris” indeed) ….

Over thirty years ago Blair Peach died following a demonstration at an anti-National Front demonstration in Southall, during the 1979 General Election campaign.  Today the Metropolitan Police published the report of the investigation into his death.  The publication of the report follows a long campaign by Blair Peach’s family and Inquest, which was supported unanimously by the Metropolitan Police Authority last year.

The decision by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to publish the report and its supporting information should have been a very positive display of openness and transparency by the MPS and a demonstration of how much has changed in policing in the last thirty years.

The report itself contains some devastating findings and demonstrates the mindset of the investigation at the time.  For example, the demonstration in which Blair Peach was involved is described as

” an extremely violent, volatile and a ugly situation where there was serious disturbance by what can be classed as a ‘rebellious crowd’.
The legal definition ‘unlawful assembly’ is justified and the
events should be viewed with that kind of atmosphere
prevailing. Without condoning the death I refer to Archibold,
38th Edition, paragraph 2528 “In case of riot or rebellious
assembly the officers endeavouring to disperse the riot are
justified in killing them at common law if the riot cannot
otherwise be suppressed”.”

The investigation report found that: 

“Whilst it can reasonably be concluded that a police officer struck the fatal blow, and that that officer came from carrier U.11, I am sure that it will be agreed that the present situation is far from satisfactory and disturbing.”

It went on:

“The attitude and untruthfulness of some of the officers involved is a contributory factor.

“It is understandable that because of the events of the day officers were confused, or made mistakes, but one would expect better recall of events by trained police officers.

“However, there are cases where the evidence shows that certain officers have clearly not told the truth.”

Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, however, in his statement today only felt able to say:

“As a police officer with over thirty four years service reading and being briefed on the investigation reports leaves me feeling deeply uncomfortable. Thirty one years later we have still been unable to provide the family and friends of Blair Peach with definitive answers regarding the terrible circumstances of his death. That is a matter of deep regret.”

This falls a long way short of acknowledging the responsibility of the Metropolitan Police Service for what happened.

Clearly, “sorry” remains a very difficult word for a Commissioner to utter.

A pity.

I missed this from Pippa Crerar in the Evening Standard a few days ago:

It just shows again that there is a real sense of needle between David Cameron and Mayor Boris Johnson.

Why did the Mayor’s office bother to respond at all?

There are three possible answers:

• the Mayor cannot turn down any opportunity to contradict his Party Leader; or
• the Mayor is not, as I have been predicting, intending to stand again in 2012; or
• both of the above.

I know that one should never generalise from one canvass session.

I also know that my unexpected appearance on the doorstep may have a strange effect on the house-holder concerned.

It is, of course, well-known that my charm, sunny demeanour and general all-round people skills (note the repeated use of irony) will have a strangely persuasive effect on those subjected to its full force.

However, in the space of 90 minutes this evening I came across four people who had previously voted Liberal Democrat but were now undecided …..

Something strange is happening out there.

There are moves afoot to cancel next week’s meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority because “we are in the election period ?[and] this will have an effect on debate.”  It has, of course, been known for some time that there would definitely be London Borough elections on 6th May and it was an increasing certainty that the General Election would be held on the same date, so it is a little disingenuous to suggest that this has suddenly come as a surprise nine days before the scheduled meeting.

It is also nice to know that there is “debate” at Police Authority meetings – something that I had previously missed.

And, of course, it would never do if politics intruded.  Not that it ever has before (can you spot the heavy irony?).

I suspect the real reason is to avoid comment – let alone “debate” – about David Cameron’s strange statement in the first Leaders’ Debate about the number of uniformed police officers working in the Metropolitan Police’s HR Department.  I had tabled a question asking the Commissioner for his comments on this and the Met have already made a statement explaining that the officers concerned are overwhelmingly involved in training other police officers.

Still it would never do to have the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis saying in a public forum a week before polling day that the Leader of the Opposition was talking garbage.

And no-one would want to highlight the fact that either the Leader of the Conservative Party doesn’t trust the Conservative Mayor and Deputy Mayor of London enough to check his facts with them OR that he dislikes them so much that he is prepared to highlight their failure to sort out what he clearly perceived as a problem.  It could, of course, be both: he doesn’t trust them AND he wanted to put the boot in.

It is a sunny Sunday morning and it is an absolute delight to be canvassing on the Campsbourne Estate in Hornsey.  The Estate is the heart of the ward I represented on Haringey Council for twenty-four years and it is gratifying that, even though it is twelve years since I last stood for election here, a number of local residents still remember me fondly.

My canvassing team includes Makbule Gunes, who has been working impressively hard as one of Labour’s local Council candidates, and is greeted warmly by many local residents as we go round.  She will clearly be a superb local representative when she is elected on 6th May.

Even more gratifying are the improvements that have been brought about on the Estate as a result of a Labour Government working with a Labour Council.  Each block we visit has new windows, new entrance doors and better security.

At Wat Tyler House, I remember what that block was like when I first went there as a Council candidate in 1978 – bleak, frighteningly insecure, lifts not working and with a dismembered pigeon in the stairwell – now it is bright and welcoming.

The Labour vote is clearly holding up – and no-one mentions Nick Clegg!

Pictured below is John Healey, the Housing Minister, with Karen Jennings, our excellent Labour Parliamentary candidate, and two of the local Labour Council candidates, Makbule Gunes and Eugene Akwasi-Ayisi, outside Wat Tyler House three weeks ago.

The Leaders’ Debate tonight was fairly predictable.  Of course, Nick Clegg, the one Leader there whom no-one expects to emerge from this General Election as Prime Minister, was able to appear relaxed and do his “plague on both your houses” bit.  And surprise, surprise was seen in the immediate aftermath as “the winner” – doesn’t mean that when people wake up tomorrow they’ll vote for his Party …

David Cameron should have performed better – shallow sound-bite discussions have always been his medium, whereas Gordon Brown prefers substance, detail and analysis.

What was striking, however, was the extent to which Mayor Boris Johnson seems never to be far from David Cameron’s thoughts.  He seems to be obsessed by his tousle-haired would-be rival.

He never mentioned his name, but what example did he give when he wanted to describe mis-management of resources in the police?  Why, it was in the Metropolitan Police, of course.  He asserted that four hundred uniformed officers were deployed on form-filling in the Met’s HR department – the sort of thing a Conservative Government would sort out.

But hang on who has been in charge of policing in London for the last two years?

Remind me.  Isn’t it the tousled-haired one himself?

And isn’t Mayor Boris Johnson a Conservative?

Well, yes, but he’s not a Cameron Conservative, is he?  So it’s OK for “Dave” to put the boot in.

(Presumably, Mayor Johnson’s defence is that he leaves details like that to his Deputy for Policing, the Dog-Catcher-in-Chief, Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM.  And, of course, he in turn has been rather busy arguing for VAT to go up from 17.5% to 120%.  Another election intervention hardly likely to be popular with Team Cameron who are desperately trying to pretend that they are NOT planning a big hike in VAT if they win.)

This is a story of two Old Etonians: one is Mayor of London and was the year above the other at Eton; the other is Leader of the Conservative Party, wants to be Prime Minister, and is nervously watching his back because the first Old Etonian makes no secret of being after his job.

This might be amusing to watch, if the consequences were not to serious.

But now the rivalry is jeopardising London’s future (and as London is the engine of the UK economy is in consequence undermining the national interest).

We have already learned about how luke-warm the response has been to the Mayor of London’s repeated pleas about the depth of the Conservative commitment to Crossrail, the vital London rail link which is the minimum necessary to keep London moving during the next decade.  A recent campaigning event degenerated into farce as Mayor Boris Johnson tried to get Conservative Leader to give an unequivocal commitment to the Crossrail scheme.  David Cameron kept avoiding the question (although this is a fairly common response from him to almost every issue that is raised with him).

Now, however, the Tory’s Shadow London Minister, Justine Greening, has let the cat out of the bag.  In an interview on LBC this morning, she did give a straight answer to the question and it was not good news.

Here is the transcript:

> Thursday, April 15th 2010 09.25
>
> Speakers        Nick Ferrari
>                 Justine Greening
>
>
>
> NF:     Let’s go the Conservatives first.  Your stance on Crossrail?
> Justine Greening.
>
> JG:     We’ve always been very supportive of Crossrail.   We recognise how
> important it is for London as well but what we can’t do before the
> election is finished is write a budget when we’re not in government.  And
> so we, we can, we’ve said that we know it’s important, we know that the
> tube infrastructure and investing in, that’s important, but we can’t do a
> line by line budget because we are in such a parlous state with public
> finances.
>
> NF:     So Crossrail will continue but you don’t know how?
>
> JG:     What, all I….
>
> NF:     So it won’t continue?
>
> JG:     We, we can’t, we can’t give a line by line budget on projects
> across government, including Crossrail.  Everything’s up for review but we
> think it’s important.
>
> NF:     I’m sure this is my stupidity.  Will it continue or won’t it
> continue?
>
> JG:     I can’t give a guarantee that it will continue.
>
> NF:     So it might not, it can go the other way?  The Conservatives could
> scrap Crossrail?
>
> JG:     It’s possible but at the end of the day we’ve always said that we
> think it’s important project and, and actually the reason this is
> important is we, we want to be responsible so we can’t pretend that we can
> write an entire budget outside of government. We’ve said we’ll do one
> within 50 days of getting into government if we get elected and we will
> then provide some clarity and certainty.
>

So now we know.

The future of London is not a priority for the Conservatives.

They are even prepared to jeopardise the national economy to perpetuate a playground squabble between two Old Etonians who seem never to have resolved their playground issues  from 20 years ago.

I have just spoken at the Counter Terror Expo, an enormous exhibition and conference at Olympia.  I was standing in for Patrick Mercer who was apparently taken by surprise by the fact that there was going to be a General Election campaign going on when he agreed to speak.

My main theme was that we could envisage that we would be living in a much riskier society over the next twenty-five years.  The UK would be in a world:

“in which there will be greater political extremism and conflict and where radicalisers can flourish with a volatile and disaffected population in whose minds their ideas can take root.  This will be an environment in which international crime will be stronger and the restraints on it from the international community will be weaker.  There will be problems in building an international consensus as to what needs to be done as the current international certainties dissolve into a multi-polar future.

This will be a riskier society as state and city authority break down in many places and where international crime and terrorism can flourish and be nurtured in such lawless areas.

At the same time, society itself will become more vulnerable through its increasing reliance on ICT.”

I recognised the success of the Government’s CONTEST strategy with its four strands: Pursue, Prevent, Protect and Prepare.  I pointed out that:

“This has been accompanied by substantial investment.  By next year, there will be £3.5 billion spent on counter-terrorism.  The number of  police engaged in CONTEST has risen by 70% and the Security Service has doubled in size.

The strategy has been effective.  Since 2001, 200 people have been convicted of terrorist related offences and over a dozen significant plots have been disrupted  In addition, in the last four years, some 250 people have been excluded from the country on national security grounds or on the basis of their activities.”

But went on to point out that in the future more will need to be done:

“to ensure that the CONTEST strategy builds in expecting the unexpected.  We must be ready to look beyond al Qaeda, recognising the developing picture of dissident republicans in Northern Ireland, other political and regional struggles elsewhere in the world (certain in the knowledge that the diaspora from those struggles will be here in London) and new challenges such as those holding extreme ecological views who may have come to believe that mankind is so bad for the future of the planet that that future would be improved if mankind’s population was dramatically reduced.

We must be constantly vigilant about symbolic and iconic sites, economic targets, and all places of mass resort.  We must recognise the risks posed by terrorist groups or individuals seeking to have access to CRBRN weapons or materials and the implications of both our greater cyber-dependence and the opportunities that that provides to an increasingly cyber-aware opposition.

And at the same time we must continue to work with all our communities to build support for and trust in the responses that are being made.”

And as I said:

“Whoever is responsible for taking counter-terrorism forward after 6^th May is going to have their hands full.”

I am just back from an inspirational rally in Hornsey and Wood Green, where a couple of hundred people packed into a school hall (in the centre of the ward I represented on Haringey Council for twenty-four years) to hear former Labour Party Leader, Lord Neil Kinnock, speak alongside the Labour candidate, Karen Jennings, and the excellent new-ish Leader of the Council, Claire Kober.

Neil was in swashbuckling form demolishing Cameron’s Conservatives:  “So, if after a hard day’s work, you come home and you’re not ready to run your local school, it’ll be your bloody fault.”

Karen was quietly authoritative and demonstrating why selecting this former nurse who expects to become a grandmother this week was exactly the right choice to win the seat back from LibDem, Lynne Featherstone.   (Interestingly, Lynne Featherstone has not dug in locally – in the way that other freshly elected LibDem MPs have tended to do elsewhere in the country – she seems to have been so captivated by the chance to strut the national stage that she has rather neglected her local constituents.)