The MP for where I live is Andy Slaughter – a Labour man who has lived in this constituency all his life and who was a councillor for LB Hammersmith and Fulham before he moved to Westminster. The problem with Andy is that he seems like a lovely bloke who has time for local residents, while at the same time conforming to the slimy stereotype of MPs who will say or do anything to get a vote. It would be rather nice if the MPs who appear to be lovely are just, well, lovely.
Until recently, Andy was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Minister of State in the Foreign Office. He resigned from this post in protest at his government’s backing of the third runway at Heathrow. Very decent of him. One could question why it took him so long when the government has always been in favour, but I never question why the latecomer to my birthday party is late, I am always just pleased that he showed up at all.
One of my main problems with Andy is that in his campaign literature which gets shoved through my door, as well as on his website, he seems immune to the irony of the fact that he criticises Boris and the Tory H&F council for exactly the same things that the Labour national government gets wrong all the time. It’s as if, having seen how awful his party’s government is, he has decided to give up any claims he may have had to speaking about national issues and has decided to become a local councillor again. He attacks LBHF on policing, despite the fact that this is the only area in Britain with 24/7 beat policing, thanks to funding from our council tax. He attacks LBHF on social housing, despite more social housing being sold by Labour councils or disposed of into arms length management organisations in the last 12 years than by every council in the previous 15. He even attacks London Underground (how dare he!) for the way in which the Shepherd’s Bush Central line station refurbishment was undertaken, even though it was Gordon Brown as Chancellor who pushed through the PPP which gave us Metronet, the blithering idiots who undertook that refurb. Finally, he attacks Boris for putting the fares up, when this was caused directly by two main factors: the cost of rescuing Metronet (thanks Mr. Brown) and the drop in ridership caused by the recession and Britain’s woeful ability to cope with it (thanks again).
What is most disgusting about Mr. Slaughter, however, is his impeccable Janus impersonation on the issue of post offices. You see, Andy helped to collect signatures on a petition against his government’s plan to close lots of post offices. I know this is the case, because a) I signed it while he was there and b) it says he did this in his glossy “Annual Report” that is front of me right now. Then, when he went to Parliament, he voted with his government on their bill. He voted in favour of closing post offices.
It seems very silly to lie blatantly to your constituents. Some of us do watch BBC Parliament Andy. Some of us do follow your voting record with interest.
Secret London: the London Grill
1 hour ago
3 comments:
Having never met Andy, I'm not sure of his character, but I do have some issues with a few of your points (not all by any means!).
On the social housing front, I'm not sure (given the context of London) that Labour's sales should impact on this. A lot of these sales were in parts of the north where the homes weren't being used - a lot have been knocked down because people simply don't live in them. One trip to Seaham in County Durham can show you that! In London, the frightening thing is that Boris has drastically reduced the level of social housing that has to be built alongside any new development, meaning that for as long as he's around, there will be very little in the capital having implications beyond his tenure!
With the bobbies on the beat - does this really change crime figures? People like to see policemen and women walking the beat, but they don't have a very large impact on crime.
With the post offices, I have to say I agree that supporting them one moment and voting for closures seems a little bizarre. But I had a look at the vote, and really it's calling for greater efficiency. Part of a campaign to save PO in his area, could well just be to show that these particular POs where efficient. I love Royal Mail and if the Tories had been in power, I doubt we'd still have it. But it does need modernising. At present they pay no VAT and have a profit margin of 1%. If they had to pay VAT (as private organisations have petitioned to the EU for them to do) then they'd be sunk. Labour have continued to give Royal Mail so many opportunities, so a bit of criticism on closures is, I think, just a spot on an otherwise fairly good record.
Don't get me wrong, politicians are politicians and are always out for your vote. Here in Hammersmith, we do have one of the most extreme councils in the country and I can see why Mr. Slaughter bangs on about them so much. But they also seem to feed into his wider interests - he is interested in housing on a national scale, and he just happens to have a very good example of what he doesn't like on his doorstep!
Hi Michael and thanks for your comments. I think that you are right in saying the council is pretty extreme and that they feed into his wider interests - after I wrote this post I found that Andy had actually criticised the government's housing policy, which is refreshing.
Calling on Royal Mail to be more efficient is necessary, but I still think that he voted with the government because he was a feeble member of the salaried vote, rather than because he thought that raising signatures one minute and voting for efficiencies the next was not contradictory.
Your comments about the Tories and Boris, though, were essentially spot on!
I'd agree on Royal Mail I think - but that's party politics and the power of the whips!
Always happy to knock silly old Boris too. I remember when Ken was in , we heard an awful lot from the Mayor's office. Granted he spent a lot of money doing it (!), but it's quite frightening what Boris seems to be very quietly doing.
The twitter @Boriswatch is a God send...
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