GE2015: Hampstead & Kilburn constituency result

Uploaded by Dude Swheatie of Kwug with the help of Camden New Journal and the BBC

08/05 05:22  RESULT: Labour's Tulip Siddiq is the new MP for Hampstead and Kilburn

Tulip Siddiq, Labour, 23,977.
Simon Marcus, Conservative, 22,839.
Maajid Nawaz, Lib Dems, 3,039.
Rebecca Johnson, Green, 2,387.
Magnus Nielsen, UKIP, 1,532.
The Eurovisionary Carroll, Independent, 113.
Robin Ellison, The U(niversal) Party, 77.

— http://www.camdennewjournal.com/liveblog (1)

Pie chart by Dude Swheatie and Lotus 123 shows percentage shares of result.

Dude Swheatie's analysis

Tulip Siddiq's polling shows an Labour majority. Nationwide Labour did very poorly by contrast in terms of numbers of seats won. That largely demonstrates that local Labour activists who could be seen going to and from Labour campaign HQ on the Kilburn High Road were successful in trumping the combined impact of opinion polls and fallout from the failings of 'austerity-lite' and local Labour councils in LB Brent and LB Camden.

It also perhaps demonstrates that Tulip Siddiq was much more electable than London SE3 resident Glenda 'What Do You Expect Me to Do About It?' Jackson who only achieved a majority of 42 at the 2010 General Election.

KUWG activists were among Tulip Siddiq's supporters. My own favourite was Rebecca Johnson who proved an excellent candidate, performing well at hustings and reportedly being excellent at engaging with the public on the street. My contacts with Green Party activists in Camden and Brent, though based on limited sampling, showed much greater interest and support for Rebecca's campaign on the Brent side than the Kilburn side. Like those who 'held their noses' to vote Labour' the one Camden Green Party member I spoke to about Rebecca's campaign was concerned that Rebecca's campaign were worried about 'letting the Tories in'.

Rebecca and some Green Party inclusion in initial televised 'leaders' debates' served to increase the Green Party's 'market share' of the vote by 3% from the 2010 General Election. (2)

This should help the Green Party in the 2016 London Assembly Elections that have a number of Assembly Members elected by Proportional Representation. The Green Party currently has two Assembly Members in London, Darren Johnson and Dame Jenny Jones, who will be standing down from the London Assembly at the next elections for the Greater London Authority.

Nationally, the Green Party of England & Wales achieved only the return of the one Green Party MP Caroline Lucas albeit with an enhanced majority.(3) Gifted and experienced public performer commendable Caroline Lucas had a great record in Parliament but also a strong focus of national activists' support.

In order to have a chance of getting one parliamentary seat in a 'first past the post system', the Green Party has targeted resources into a few constituencies. A vast proportional pooling of the Green Party of England & Wales' financial resources are required even to come 2nd in a parliamentary constituency, and with 'first past the post' even that does not 'hit the spot' into having an impact on Parliament this time around.

Note

(1) http://www.camdennewjournal.com/liveblog
(2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies/E14000727
(3)  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32633718

5-party-welfare-debate Tuesday 5 May 2015

Tuesday May 5th Daily Politics debate BBC2 2pm BBC News 8.30pm(1)

Presenters Andrew Neil and Alison Holt 

Participants — in alphabetical order of surname

• Jonathan Bartley Green Party
• Suzanne Evans UKIP 
• Rachel Reeves Labour
• Iain Duncan Smith Conservative 
• Steve Webb LibDems

See also

Election watchdog's Easy-Read 'insult to disabled people'(2)
Election 2015: ‘Jury’ backs Greens, as Tories ignore invite(3)

.... I watched question time last week and the only person that mentioned the worry and concerns of people with disabilities and Carers was Natalie Bennett. It was brief and the subject wasn't continued!.... (Comment Posted Mon 12 April 2015)

Source: http://www.carersuk.org/forum/support-and-advice/carer-and-disability-benefits/daily-politics-show-welfare-debate-may-5th-22708?p=304562 (4)

Vote for Policies online interactive portal (5)

Notes
(1) https://carerwatch.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/daily-politics-welfare-debate-tues-5th-may/
(2) http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/election-watchdogs-easy-read-insult-to-disabled-people/
(3) http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/election-2015-jury-backs-greens-as-tories-ignore-invite/
(4) http://www.carersuk.org/forum/support-and-advice/carer-and-disability-benefits/daily-politics-show-welfare-debate-may-5th-22708?p=304562
(5)  https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

Tulip replies to challenge

The following content was sent by Hampstead & Kilburn Labour Parliamentary candidate Tulip Siddiq to the blogmeister's gmail inbox.

Thanks for your email. I have now read the blog [piece A challenge to Tulip Siddiq: stand up for claimants, not just the camera!].

A few points - 

When Boris Johnson walked past my office, I asked Boris Johnson what he was going to do about the No 13 Bus which he is planning to scrap. He refused to answer. It's a very important bus for elderly residents in this constituency and therefore, I felt the need to raise it. The CNJ reported that I asked that question in their coverage. 

Secondly, did you invite me to the protest on 7th April? Apologies if I missed it but I can't see an email about it. I would have attended if I had known about it. 

Thirdly, please can you let me know the name of the person who dropped into my office? I can look into their case. 

Lastly, there are plenty of Labour posters and garden stakes up in Brent. There's also a big poster in the window of the Good Ship on Kilburn High Road. And of course, that's the Brent side of Kilburn High Road. 

I'm happy to help constituents but of course, my power is somewhat limited as a candidate. If I am elected on 7th May, I will be in a stronger position to help people in the constituency.

Best wishes  

--

Tulip Siddiq

Parliamentary Candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn
The Labour Party

Email contacts are signed up for an e-newsletter, with the usual unsubscribe/reply features.

Whoever you choose, don't forget to vote on Thursday 7th May.

An Harlesden to Kilburn hustings report

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug(1)

Report on Harlesden to Kilburn Transition Town hustings

I felt it refreshing to act as 'fly on the wall' observer at an Hampstead & Kilburn constituency hustings outside my own geographic voting area. Tory and Ukip candidates did not turn up but I believe sent apologies to Queens Park for Harlesden to Kilburn Transition Town hustings on Thursday 16 April that was arranged very differently from whole panel conventional hustings. I thought it was perhaps a missed opportunity for those candidates who did not turn up and the audience alike;(2) but I know from a friend who is a parliamentary cnadidate in another constituency that 'the candidate trail' can be tiring and candidates can get ill.

Having three candidates instead of five made the event more streamlind and less gruelling for the audience than it might have been with five and the event had quite a high audience turnout despite the clash with the televised 'Leaders Debate' that excluded Conservative and Lib Dem party leaders.(3) Labour, Lib Dem and Green candidates had mini-meetings in a hall with rotating personalised audiences around them yet also a small time slot for whole hall addressing.

The mini-audiences lasting about 10 minutes consisted of candidate on seat on podium surrounded by semi-circle of about 20 packed audience seats plus standing audience members with a predominantly white and [probably] 6th Form audience from a school that had a hand in the organising and logistics facilitating in one of the most leafy areas of Hampstead & Kilburn constituency west of the Finchley Road or even the Kilburn High Road.

The min-sessions — incorporating candidate inputs from omnibus session that was about themselves and why they're standing for Hampstead & Kilburn constituency

Candidates chaired or facilitated their own mini-sessions.

Lib Dem candidate Maajid Nazaz (medium sized male) stood on podium looking down on his  audiences.

 Maajid Nawaz

• Outlined his history as prisoner of conscience in Egypt leading through his release and political assylum to his working with youth in Brent with mental health problems.
• Said that like most young people in the area he was forced to rent and would never be able to buy  when properties are priced at about £2m a house
• answered a few questions, saying that Lib Dems and Nic Clegg its leader had been mistaken in their promises regarding student tuition fees in 2010 when the best Lib Dems could have hoped for was coalition involvment anyway; 
• said that we have coalition government through interworking of polls anyway;
•  delighted in prospect of online voting and votes for 16 year olds; and the options he gave his audiences for voting excluded by omission the option of voting Green Party.

Labour candidate Tulip Siddiq (very small female) sat on podium looking down on audience

Tulip Siddiq

• Delighted in her long-term living in Kilburn and her Kilburn councillor past and human rights charity work while omitting mention of her privileged but tragedy-ridden background.(4)
• Said that a lot of "single mothers have jobs on the side" — or was it that that is a popular misconception; and 
• Responded to my 
• "'For a more sustainable future while youth unemployment, student debt and unpaid internships upon unpaid internships for 16-23' are more the norm than the exception, the Dept for Work & Pensions should focus on modelling compassionate support.' Discuss" question 
• by saying that the main problems are excessive sanctions and zero hours contracts, and Labour would abolish those.

Green Party candidate Rebecca Johnson (medium height) started with her chair on the podium but progressed to being seated off the podium, maybe even being sat on her haunces, looking up at her audience rather than down

Rebecca Johnson

• Told the audience that she had lived in Kilburn in the past and been one of the Greenham Common women of the 1980s whose campaign managed successfully to remove American Cruise missiles from our shores and thus she had an heritage of 'Talking Truth to Power'. Returning to London for waged work after full-time study, she had moved to Hackney but still delighted in her Kilburn past and really wanted to serve the people of Hampstead & Kilburn constituency. 
• Spent perhaps too long at first in her answer and voice projection to one question at one end of the semi-circle of chairs before getting more 'into the groove' of the 'speed dating' format of the event
• Celebrated the interplay between the Green Party of England & Wales' stance of supporting a 'Yes' vote in the Scottish independence referrendum, the politicisation of young people both sides of the England-Scotlan border, and the upsurge of Green Party membership that had resulted.
• Extolled Caroline Lucas' heritage as one pioneering Green Party MP building on common cause with members of other political parties in joint campaigns for the environment and human rights including rights of the most vulnerable in UK society.
• Answered the usual 'wasted vote in a 1st past the post' electoral system question by affirming that if people exercise too much compromise in voting for what they believe in, they will never get it.

There was more to this event than reported here, both in terms of the content up to my early departure and what I missed entirely. Returning home five overgound stations away on a cold evening for which I was under-dressed, I reflected on my observation that perhaps the greatest obstacle to Rebecca Johnson's electoral promotion by the Green Party via door-to-door leaflets is that 'first past the post' polling has led the Green Party of England & Wales to 'target to win' prioritising as a means of allocating its much more limited resources, and I believe that such events help further the electoral promotion of Green Party candidates. Bring them on!(5)

For a fuller list of candidates standing for Hampstead & Kilburn constituency and how to contact them, see Candidates (PPCs) for Hampstead & Kilburn.(6)

See also

https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

http://www.votematch.org/

Questions for Readers

1. Apart from matters of 'personal branding style' and 'pedagogy', what impact might Rebecca Johnson's coming off the podium have had on accessibility at an event where there were other dialogues going on concurrently?
2. Might that 'unelevated seating position' have been rooted in her Greenham Common activist past?

Notes

(1) While the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group is non-party political, the author 'declares an interest' in that he has been a Green Party member since autumn 2005 and a Green Party voter even longer, after having been a Labour Party member 1980-84, Ecology Party member 1984-86, and Lib Dem member 1996-98.
(2)  It had earlier been revealed by member Arotina to the KUWG meeting that afternoon that after attending hustings that included Ukip candidates she had been struck by how their panacea for "how we're going to pay for all their bright ideas" had been, "Once we leave the EU, we will have far more money to spare as a country." Yet her eventual research into how much the UK hands over to the EU and how much it gets back, that the UK gets far more from the EU than it spends on the EU.
(3)  You can view the Leaders Debate on BBC iPlayer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05r87pr/bbc-election-debate-2015
(4) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tulip-siddiq-the-north-london-labour-candidate-trying-to-improve-the-woeful-diversity-of-westminster-10157378.html
(5) Kilburn Unemployed site search for hustings
http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=hustings
(6) https://yournextmp.com/constituency/65576/hampstead-and-kilburn

Fiscal responsibility and social security

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Labour leader Ed Miliband has pledged his party to 'fiscal responsibility', 'accounting for every penny' with the launch of Labour's Manifesto for the UK General Election 2015.(1) I accuse his party's penny-pinching of complicity in

• the demise of real-terms value of social security payments(2) and 
• earnings disregards for people on unemployment benefits(3)

during its 1997 to 2010 time in office when I was a disabled jobseeker. That includes the times when I was in full-time study (on Mandatory Award that was even less than unemployment benefit/JSA levels [1994-1997], and JSA dependent part-time work at £7.81/hr as a social care worker with minimal in-service training [2005-2006]. (Zero growth budget increases under Labour central and local government for charities such as the one I worked for in 2005-2006 stemmed, I was told, from under-investment by central government in local authority budgets.) More in-service training might have permitted me to extend the range of my 'service delivery' to the array of 'adults with learning difficulties' that that charity was contracted to support; but my eventual experience was of walking six miles to to and from service users' houses for work each day contracted session even while I was getting less than Jsa levels. Through that I developed cystitis in my legs through a low-budget, high stress life-style realised that as an adult with a learning difficulty myself, constantly cost-cutting government policies ensured that I would never be considered 'hard working' enough to get the support I required.

DWP staffing cuts also screwed up the delivery of the JSA top-up to my part-time earnings of £7.81/hr.(4)

There is an obsession among the well-to-do and the middle classes through the failure of not only politicians such as Iain Duncan Smith to take up the challenge of attempting to live on £53/wk,(5) and the failure of politicians to internalise the challenge of 'accounting for every penny' in the delivery of public spending that they would get from say six months on JSA levels as their income parameters. And how about voters taking up that challenge?

A question for parliamentary candidates in the 2015 UK General Election:

Isn't it high time that the policies of parties standing for political office were led more by people with actual experience of poverty through being disabled people and carers themselves, than by bankers such as David Freud and Rachel Reeves, American private health insurance company Unum that has been advising successive UK Governments on 'welfare reform' since 1994, and Common Agricultural Policy beneficiary and land-owner Iain Duncan Smith?(6) (7) (8) (9)

Personal Note

The author 'declares an interest' in that he is a member of another political party. He is critical of that party's own practice of having everything for its own General Election manifestos costed while there has been no proper audit of the economics of poverty line living. Eg, unpaid family carers save the NHS more than the total NHS budget, and yet the conventional UK government response to that fact can be summarised by denial — through the introduction of Unum-inspired 'disability denial factory' techniques — of the disability or health condition of the person cared for.(10) (11)

As with specific reference to "inadequate funds" for the fullest inclusion/equality of American blacks/'negroes' in Revd Dr Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, disabled people who are poor have been cheated out of equal rights.(12)

Reference Notes

(1) http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/12/ed-miliband-manchester-manifesto-labour-party-fiscal-responsibility
(2) Yahoo search: jsa levels real-terms site: http://www.taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk
(3) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2006/06/23/why-people-work-informally-while-claiming-benefits-special-report/
(4)  http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2006/11/16/jobcentre-plus-poor-service-continues/
(5) https://www.change.org/p/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-week
(6) David Freud reference http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/1577313/Welfare-is-a-mess-says-adviser-David-Freud.html
(7) Rachel Reeves reference http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/1577313/Welfare-is-a-mess-says-adviser-David-Freud.html
 (8) Unum reference http://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatosbusinessunum.html
(9) Iain Duncan Smith as Common Agricultural Policy beneficiary http://www.monbiot.com/2013/07/01/robber-barons/
(10) Carers save the country .... http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/may/12/carers-save-uk-119bn-a-year
(11) Unum and 'disability denial factory' techniques http://dpac.uk.net/tag/work-capability-assessment-wca/
(12) http://quotesnack.com/martin-luther-king/we-refuse-to-believe-that-there-are-insufficient-funds-in-the-great-vaults-of-opportunity-of-this-nation-martin-luther-king-jr/

A challenge to Tulip Siddiq — stand up for claimants, not just the camera!

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Tulip gatecrashes the Tory party. Photo: Camden New Journal

The Camden New Journal reports re the photo-opportunity vying of Tory Hampstead & Kilburn (H&K) parliamentary hopeful Simon Marcus accompanied by London Tory Mayor Boris Johnson, and Labour hopeful for the same parliamentary seat Tulip Siddiq near her constituency office in Kilburn High Road:

"As the Tory 'Blues' marched closer to this nerve centre, the Labour' Reds' radar bleeped and a defence system kicked in. Tulipistas were sent to cut the Mayor down, drawing their line in the pavement halfway down the road, outside the Classy Chicks clothes shop." (CNJ April 9, 2015)

Electioneering politicians seem to think it their democratic duty to stand up and be photographed in places of prominence. What about helping people who have been highjacked by the unfairness of the way that public servants seem to follow orders to "cut the welfare bill" etc? Is it dangerous for politicians to support benefit claimants? Do politicians fear the censure of a mistaken public opinion that has colluded with Benefit sanctions [as] Britain's secret penal system?

Some of our members had recently dropped into Tulip's office in getting from A to B and told her office of the situation of one of the people we support having had her benefits stopped for allegedly making herself 'unavailable for work' while the part-time course she's on is only 5 hours per week but cost her £4,000 to get onto. Down the road a bit from the Labour offices, Kilburn Jobcentre said that the person would have to give up her course in order to get her Jobseekers Allowance back. (While Parliament is dissolved, jobcentre customers have no MP, yet when Glenda Jackson was their MP many felt unrepresented all the same.)

On Tuesday April 7, 2015 we supported such sanctions fodder at Kilburn Jobcentre and commemorated the 3rd anniversary of the sanctions and eviction-related suicide of a former Kilburn Jobcentre customer from the South Kilburn Estate and were joined by members of one of the other parties contesting the H&K seat. link As we were packing up to leave the jobcentre for Ngell's former address, the police turned up, saying that jobcentre management had called on them because the noise of our megaphone was upsetting their customers and staff.

We would have loved to have been joined by some of Tulip's team if not Tulip herself yet understand that Labour's Work & Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves is an ex-banker who has said that Labour has nothing to offer people who are unemployed. But what does Tulip say?

Meanwhile it seems to me from walking down one of the Kilburn High Road side streets on the Brent side last night that no party's posters were displayed in the windows I saw. But I was not surprised.

It can take a lot of persuading to get a poster displayed in someone's window, and in the first place it can be difficult to persuade people to go out knocking on strangers doors along unfamiliar streets. Yet I have read by email that in at least one constituency the more televised parties have felt so threatened by the record of the MP standing for re-election that they have attempted to get residents to remove the posters for the person standing for re-election and have it replaced by one of their own.
 
I wonder whether those arrogant and apparently fearful persuaders were unpaid volunteers or paid employees of the party concerned?

Paradoxes of welfare reform under capitalism

By Swheatie of the KUWG — writing in a personal capacity*

An alternative to means-testing claimants?

Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC) has broadcast a 'mass call out' for the sacking of Welfare Reform Minister Lord Freud. This follows a statement Lord Freud made at a recent Tory Party conference fringe event, when he told a Tory councillor that some disabled people are "not worth the minimum wage," and that he would "have to go away and think about" how to get away with paying "some disabled people could be paid as little as £2 an hour." (Independent article Lord Freud: Tory Minister apologises after saying disabled people are 'not worth' the minimum wage includes an actual voice recording of Lord Freud saying that.)

David Cameron later apologised for the former investment banker Lord Freud's remarks, saying that they were not a true reflection on the views of the Tory Party. A Yahoo search and my long term memory bring to mind and historical record Philip Davies MP (Tory) using disabled people's potential lower productivity as an argument against the use of minimum wage legislation:

A Tory MP has sparked anger by suggesting that disabled people should work for less than the minimum wage to increase their chances of being taken on by employers [see footnote].

Philip Davies told the Commons: "If an employer is looking at two candidates, one who has got disabilities and one who hasn't, and they have got to pay them both the same rate, I invite you to guess which one the employer is more likely to take on.

"Given that some of those people with a learning disability clearly, by definition, cannot be as productive in their work as somebody who has not got a disability of that nature, then it was inevitable that, given the employer was going to have to pay them both the same, they were going to take on the person who was going to be more productive, less of a risk.

"My view is that for some people the national minimum wage may be more of a hindrance than a help.

"If those people who consider it is being a hindrance to them, and in my view that's some of the most vulnerable people in society, if they feel that for a short period of time, taking a lower rate of pay to help them get on their first rung of the jobs ladder, if they judge that that is a good thing, I don't see why we should be standing in their way."

— Tory MP Philip Davies: "Disabled people could work for less pay."

And I note that under the original 'descriptors' for the 'Work Capability Assessment' through which I won a tribunal for Employment & Support Allowance eligibility in 2009, I scored 15 points — the full threshold amount! — for a descriptor regarding time taken to execute tasks. That factor had been a major bug bear and cause of friction between scapegoatist co-workers and me in my first waged job, as they complained that the amount of time I took to complete tasks was so slow that the section manager assigned tasks to them instead of me, and that I should be forced to take a wage cut to compensate them!

And note also that it was Labour DWP Secretary who signed off the authorisation for the 'harsher test' in 2010 before the General Election of that year to 'simplify' the 'Work Capability Assessment'. (Sheffield Forum: Even harsher new ESA Medical approved.) And so under such legislation, slower disabled workers are not protected against the potential financial abuse that they could be exposed to by being short-changed under quantitative 'piece rate' that epitomises capitalism's orientation toward only valuing people in an instrumental sense — as means of production.

What about an hourly rate that is laid out on the basis of valuing people in terms of their commitment to taking part?

Yet what does Lord Freud's talk of paying disabled people as little as £2 per hour and compensating them through Universal Credit say regarding the matter of juggling 'protecting the vulnerable' with the Tory mania for an 'overall benefit cap'?

So, maybe, yes Lord Freud should be sacked, but who is going to replace him and what will they espouse as the future for disabled people in a capitalist system under which people are only valued in terms of their quantity of output?

* The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group