Mary Reid

Laura Webb, from Kingston Vale, was tragically killed by one of the suicide bombers on 7th July 2005.

Her brother, Robert, has written a booklet in her memory called "So, who is Father Christmas?".

He has researched the history of this iconic figure, and I'm very pleased to learrn that he wasn't invented by Coca Cola, as has been rather dubiously claimed.

The booklet costs £3 and the proceeds will go towards building a children's play area at St John the Baptist's Church, Kingston Vale. Visit the church in Robin Hood Lane or email them to get a copy.

Earlier this week I donned a hard hat and followed David Kemp, the Head of Chessington Community College, as he showed me around the new building.  The first new block will be opening in April next year, then work will begin on replacing the current main block.

The old block on the left, soon to be demolished, beside the spectacular entrance to the new main building on the right.

David Kemp admiring the blue-glazed bricks that decorate the outside of the building.

The magnificent atrium which uses the same kind of roofing as the Eden Project - rather like giant bubble wrap. Note the handsome flank wall of the sports hall which will be refurbished but not rebuilt.

Many congratulations to our Member of Parliament, Edward Davey, and his wife Emily on the birth of a healthy baby boy this afternoon!

Everything is fine, and they have named him John Alban Davey.

The 'Save our Back Gardens' campaign is gaining momentum - and some results!

• The online petition is still running and everyone in South of the Borough will also get a paper version of the petition through their door in the next week or two.
• This week we heard that the planning application to demolish two semis and build eight houses in Somerset Ave had been turned down, following objections from a large number of people living nearby.
• I was also very pleased to learn that the Council is undertaking character area studies across the Borough - these will describe the character of each area in terms of building design and landscape, and identify what types of new building would be appropriate for each. These will act as supplementary planning guidance so we will be able to quote them when considering planning applications.

This campaign is all about protecting our back gardens from inappropriate developments. It's not blanket opposition to all new housing, especially when it can be built on existing derelict or infill sites.

In fact, in South of the Borough we have provided many hundreds of new homes in the last twenty years or so, such as those in Mansfield Park (on the site of RAF Chessington), Winey Park (on the site of the MoD buildings, Chessington) and the Chantry Park area running down to the Bonesgate stream. But the fact is that all these developments have been of homes with gardens. And it is the gardens that give the suburbs their distinctive attractiveness.

Hardly anyone in this part of the Borough has a large garden - this isn't Coombe Hill! In fact, most of us live in modest two or three bedroom semis or terraced houses with smallish gardens. But whether we individually have a long thin garden or a short plot, we all collectively benefit from the ribbons of green that lie between our houses.  

If we start replacing two houses with eight houses or a block of flats, and repeat that up and down the roads, then the very features that make this a pleasant place to live will be lost. 

Everyone is welcome to attend the South of the Borough Neighbourhood Committee Meeting tomorrow, 27th November, at 7.30pm at Tolworth Girls School.

The main items on the agenda are below - but the order in which they will be taken will depend on what people want. Anybody who attends the meeting can fill in a  pink slip indicating which items they are interested in and then we try to take them in order of popularity. You can read the full agenda and reports here. 

1. Green Spaces Strategy - this is an update following the special meeting we had last month.

2. Planning Application - Brick Stables, Barwell Court Farm

3. Budget monitoring

4. South of the Borough Policy Statement Review - annual review of what we have achieved and what we want to do.

5. Petition relating to safety issues at the junction of Somerset Ave and Hook Road. Can anything be done to stop drivers circling round the bollard? This is the officers' response.

6. Petition about Flooding and backland development in the Leatherhead Road. This is a response to a petition from residents in Sussex Gardesn who raised some very important issues both about back garden development and particularly the flooding risks in their area.

7. S106 Planning agreement - Chessington South accessibility improvements.

Many local residents objected to a planning application in Somerset Avenue. The development would have replaced two semis, and part of the back garden of the house next door, with eight houses and an access road.

I'm pleased that the planning application was refused by the Council today. You can see all the details of the application here.

As local councillors we have to be careful not to state our views on planning applications.  That is because we could easily compromise our position if the applications came to the Neighbourhood Committee for decision.

But I can now state that I was very unhappy about this proposal. It is the first of its kind for the Somerset Avenue area and the new development would have damaged its well designed layout and consistent architectural style. It would also have caused considerable access problems on a bend in the road which is already quite tricky to negotiate.

This has been a really challenging decision to make. I had the huge advantage of being able to meet and interview both Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, and if anything that has made it even more difficult to choose between them.

The interviews threw up aspects of each, both in terms of policy and personality, that had not emerged in the public arena. Both are personable and warm, both are intelligent, both are enthusiastic evangelists for liberalism.

James Graham, who also came on both occasions, has contributed an insightful account of the two contenders and their strengths and weaknesses on the Guardian's "Comment is Free" blog. He writes: "Tantalisingly, Huhne seems to have the right answers, but Clegg seems to be asking the right questions."

The one thing I have said all along is that whichever wins we will have placed the party in good hands. But as a team the two of them would be even stronger as they balance out each other's weaknesses. I'm sure that will happen - the slightly heated exchanges between them on TV were natural sparring and shouldn't be interpreted as personal animosity.

I wasn't too bothered about minor differences in policy between the two of them, because policy is decided by members not by the leader. So for me it came down to two things:

Policy v pragmatism: When Chris Huhne was asked about empowering citizens he framed the answer in terms of philosophy and policies; Nick Clegg was far more of a pragmatist and understood that local government and communities can bring about change whatever the national policy. It was about solving problems, and this key difference in approach was evident across a number of social issues.

Presentation: Nick is a fast thinker and expressive speaker, but is too reactive. (Calm down, dear.) Chris ponders and phrases his ideas elegantly, but should learn about Plain English.

At the start of this contest I leaned towards Chris, because he seemed to resonate with the social liberal axis within the party, even though he has a strong appreciation of the core significance of economic policy. As time has moved on I have begun to see that my impression of Nick as the shallower of the two was inaccurate; he too has a real commitment to social reform and liberal principles.

So do we settle for safe, thoughtful Chris Huhne, or risky, inspirational Nick Clegg?

Last time I went for the safe choice. Ming Campbell turned out to be an excellent leader within the party but just didn't make it with the media. Before him Charles Kennedy was the media darling but was pretty disastrous in terms of party organisation.

I do believe that in Nick Clegg we have someone who will be attractive to the media and will appeal to floating voters; on top of that he has the support of most MPs so they clearly feel he will be a good leader of the Parliamentary team.

So Nick has it - but it was a real struggle....

I tend to keep to local things on this blog so rarely write about overseas aid and international development. But Kingston has recognised that we can 'Think globally, act locally' by becoming a Fair Trade borough.

So this piece of research last week by Lynne Featherstone (Lib Dem MP for Hornsey & Wood Green) was a bit of an eye opener. She discovered that £1 billion had secretly been removed from the overseas aid budget for 2007-2008. This is money that goes to the poorest countries in the world.

When she questioned Douglas Alexander about this in the House of Commons he just seemed confused and would not admit it had happened. What is going on?

44 lampposts in Tolworth have been decorated with Christmas lights - quite an undertaking.

Yesterday evening they were switched on by Santa and Mayor viewed by lots of excited children and their parents.

The crowd also enjoyed face painting, balloon modelling and a stilt walker dressed as a Christmas tree.

These two seemed to be having fun.

Did I really hear Gordon Brown saying that the loss of data about 25 million people was due to some junior civil servant not following procedures?  Yes, I did - he said this

"When mistakes happen in enforcing procedures, we have a duty to do everything we can to protect the public."

Did senior management at HM Revenues and Customs really believe that they could keep huge amounts of sensitive data safe from incompetence, laziness and fraud by simply enforcing a few rules? If so, then a major government department is seriously in breach of the Data Protection Act.

Murphy's Law states that "If anything can go wrong it will go wrong". And that should be the first and most important guiding principle of any data security system. Or put another way, "If something can be done then someone will do it"

The second principle is to design out errors and (more difficult) the unauthorised access to and handling of data.  A system as sensitive as this should have had layer upon layer of technical safeguards built into it. These would have made it impossible for someone to copy such a vast amount of unencrypted data onto CDs and ultra-safe data channels should have been developed for transferring the data from one centre to another.

This catastrophe was not due to unenforced procedures, as Brown tells us, but to a major systemic design flaw. And that cannot be put right by rewriting some procedures, but only through a very extensive analysis and rebuild of the system.

My jaw dropped when I heard the news on the radio. It seems that someone in HM Revenues and Customs was asked to send the details of every family in the UK who receive child benefit, that is, anyone with children under the age of 16, to the National Audit Office.  The data included name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details.

And how did they do it? - by copying all that data onto two CDs, popping them both into the same jiffy bag and sending it by courier, without recording or registering it.  It did not arrive.

If possible, the story gets worse. The data was sent on 18th October but senior management were only told it was missing on 10th November, and the news has only become public today.

That means that the banking details of 7.5 million families - think about it!- plus the personal details of every child in the country, have been out there somewhere for a full month.

And this is the Government that thinks we will trust it with ID cards?

A couple of weeks ago, along with some of the Lib Dem Bloggers of the Year, I interviewed Chris Huhne (And is there Huhne still for tea) over tea and a box of doughnuts kindly provided by Millennium Elephant's Daddy Richard. 

Today Nick Clegg admitted that he was more nervous about meeting party bloggers than the world's press (or something like that) and even brought us tea and coffee himself. But no favouritism here, and he was duly treated to doughnuts as well.

I've chosen this photo of Nick because it captures his characteristic hand gestures. This is a man of high energy, who speaks fast and thinks on his feet. His commitment to Liberalism is unquestionable, not least because of his palpable enthusiasm for its core principles.

But he wants to shift politics away from the conventional issues that the other two parties fight over, and to lead Liberal Democrats in campaigns on those things that matter to the people of this country.

When challenged to name two policies that would, in his words, take the party 'out of its comfort zone', he first mentioned housing. When he came back to this later he cited the main priorities of the public as security/terrorism, and immigration.

He believes that the Parliamentary party has become unduly preoccupied with Westminster politics; instead MPs should be using their resources to campaign locally, and to co-ordinate local with national campaigns.

As with Chris I asked him about how he would develop a distinctively Liberal Democratic approach to participation in local government. He responded by pointing to the good practice already found in Lib Dem controlled authorities, all of which help to humanise bureaucracy. Transparency in decision making and devolution to areas (aka Neighbourhoods) are the driving principles here.

Many other questions were asked:

Does he support education vouchers? - no, because he supports the Liberal Democrat policy of giving pupil premiums to schools who attract the poorest children, rather than indiscriminate parental entitlement.

Would he abolish the monarchy? - it's 'not the top job', and has evolved into a benign position, so there is no merit in attacking it.

Given our liberalism, what would he like to ban? - adverts during children's TV programmes.

What about cannabis? - we should not point at any one drug; instead all drug classifications should be reviewed, based on scientific evidence about the harm they do, and this should include legal drugs (alcohol and nicotine) as well as illegal drugs.

How do we support diversity within the party? - we must be a party of contemporary Britain; he is proposing an Academy which will support and train aspiring Lib Dem politicians from all sections of the community.

Nick reserved his greatest passion for foreign affairs. He believes that Liberal Democrats truly have something fresh to say, and we must be an internationalist party. In contrast, "Cameron and Brown are extraordinarily parochial politicians." Atlanticism has let us down and the UK has become a "vassal state of the Pentagon". Labour has very quietly signed up to the Son of Star Wars, to which Putin has responded by placing ballistic weapons in Kaliningrad, surrounded by EU states.

We should respond to recent shifts in international power, with the realignment of Pacific and Asian countries and the emergence of new countries like Brazil. And we should recognise that the transition of Eastern European countries to liberal democracies has been an understated achievement of the European community.

I'm still undecided - and given the access I've had to both candidates, that just shows how difficult the decision is going to be for the whole party. The flip side is that either candidate will make an excellent leader, provided each draws fully on the talents of the other. I will spend a couple more days pondering before making up my mind.

So, here are the bloggers, and links to their blogs....

From left, Linda Jack, me, Richard Flowers with Millenium Elephant, Nick Clegg MP, Alex Wilcock, James Graham, Paul Walter.

Linda Jack has been blogging intensively in support of Nick Clegg, so it will be interesting to read her take on today's conversations.  Later  And here they are: Pride, Shame, Nick Clegg and the Bloggers' Breakfast and I will say this only ..... 3 MILLION TIMES .... I don't support School Vouchers

The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant, has not yet spoken (through Richard Flowers) but I always appreciate his insouciant way of exposing the truth. Later  And here he goes: Day 2514: The Leadership Interview... Nick Clegg meets Millennium (and some other people)

Alex Wilcock, on Love and Liberty, wrote an excellent analysis of the leadership contest last night.

James Graham has already posted on Quaequam Blog! and has since updated it to give a very comprehensive account of the interview: (come to think of it, actually, a bit) EXCLUSIVE: Nick Clegg talks to Quaequam Blog! (finished at last)

Paul Walter has kicked off his Liberal Burblings on Nick Clegg with Nick Clegg up close. More to come... Later  And here it is: Nick Clegg - potentially a great leader of our party (interesting reading from a Chris Huhne supporter)

On Tuesday we're holding a special South of the Borough Neighbourhood Meeting to talk rubbish. The contract for the recycling and refuse collection is up for renewal next year so the Council has been asking views on what it should include. Everyone is welcome to attend and join in the discussion.

The meeting will be on 20th November at 7.30pm at Tolworth Girls' School.

Back in January Ken Livingstone introduced a new way of pricing train fares in London. Fares used to be calculated on the distance between stations; now it is based on which zones the start and finish stations are in.

Now that may sound much simpler, but it is fair only if the zones boundaries are consistent. 

Kingston, Surbiton and the two Chessington Stations are in Zone 6. All the London termini are in Zone 1. But 23 of the stations in the cheaper Zone 5 are further away from their London terminus than Kingston and Surbiton are from Waterloo.

Tickets from Kingston, Surbiton and Chessington to Waterloo went up by 35% in January. Edward Davey and Susan Kramer have been campaigning against zonal pricing for some time.

But by doing some very detailed research (including some Freedom of Information requests) they have now uncovered an even greater threat. From 2010 season tickets will also be priced zonally. This will mean an increase of £400 for an annual season ticket from all four stations.

You can read all about this, including the legal challange that Edward and Susan are mounting, over on Edward Davey's website.

While you are there do sign the petition.

For completeness: Norbiton, Berrylands and Tolworth are in Zone 5, New Malden and Malden Manor are in Zone 4. You can download a zone map from TfL's site.

A frosty evening and children from Castle Hill are singing carols around the tree in North Parade. The Mayor has already arrived and duly switched on the lights. Even Debra the Zebra is joining in the event.

Earlier the Mayor had switched on the Christmas lights that greet drivers as they come into the Borough at Malden Rushett . And the lights are also now twinkling in Hook Parade as well.

The fourth display of Christmas lights in the Neighbourhood - in Tolworth Broadway - are going to be switched on, with more fun and ceremony, next Wednesday (21st) at 5.30pm. Do come and join the celebrations near Our Lady Immaculate Church.

Thanks to all the traders who have contributed to the costs of these seasonal delights.

Our two local MPs appeared on the Channel 4 Political slot last night, to launch their campaign about train fares.

Here it is ....

I'm very sorry to lose Eurostar from Waterloo. It was so convenient - I could be walking through those gates within 30 to 40 minutes of leaving home. And it is a much more comfortable and convenient way of getting to the centre of Paris or Brussels than traipsing out to the airport, hanging around for so long in Departures, sitting in a cramped seat and then travelling from the airport into town.

Still the good news is that, following a campaign by Edward Davey MP, those Eurostar platforms are going to be used to serve the surburban lines, and not converted into a shopping mall as was originally proposed.

There were times in the last nine years when I never thought I would be able to write this: tickets are now on sale for the first season in Kingston's new theatre.

Photo by Chris Pearsall

The Rose Theatre's first production will be Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya', directed by Peter Hall and starring one of my favourite actors, Neil Pearson.

A further seven plays have been announced, including a school holiday treat: 'George's Marvellous Medicine'. Two Shakespeare plays are in the line-up - Northern Broadsides production of 'Romeo and Juliet' and an Asian take on 'The Tempest'.

The Comedy Store will be taking over the theatre one Sunday each month, plus the Pasedena Roof Orchestra, Kit and the Widow, and Rabbi Lionel Blue.

And that's not all - you'll just have to go to the Rose's new look website to see everything. You can also book tickets online, or find the box office details.

After yesterday's annoyance about the  Informer's reporting of the library review, I am pleased to say that it did represent another issue accurately.

I've written already about the campaign to save Springboard, the local supported workshop for people with mental health problems : We must not lose Springboard and Springboard update.  Our MP Edward Davey is working with councillors and some voluntary organisations to try to find a solution that will guarantee its future.

The news is that the Cranfield Trust has agreed to provide a consultant who will draw up a business plan and financial model. This may persuade the Primary Care Trust that it is worth continuing to invest in Springboard, or alternatively it may make a viable case for the creation of a separate social enterprise. Either way, its chances of survival are greatly improved.

The Kingston Informer's front page story this week was just plain wrong. It claimed that three smaller libraries in the Borough - Tudor Drive, Old Malden and Tolworth - are to be axed. This is thoroughly irresponsible reporting.

It was based on a report to Executive last Tuesday on the review of Libraries.  You can read the report here. I was on the working party that drew up this report. Our brief was to look at how the Borough's libraries could be developed to meet the needs of the 21st century.

We drew up four possible models, only one of which (Model A) would have left the borough with only the main libraries in Kingston, Surbiton, New Malden and Hook. And, to quote:

"Model A makes no provision for those areas not served by the catchment of the major libraries (particularly Tolworth, North Kingston and Old Malden). Therefore the preferred alternative model would be Model B, Model C or Model D."

The other three models investigated different ways in which the services of the three smaller libraries could be continued. The options included retaining them as they are or placing one or more in multi-service locations such as schools (where there could be new funding available).

The report did recommend expanding the Online Library Service, by making more high value resources available online. For example, the Library Service already has a licence for the full online Oxford English Dictionary. These resources should be accessible for free in any library, but available 24/7 from outside for a fee.

We also suggested some imaginative ways of improving the main libraries at Kingston and Surbiton, all of which gets lost in the bluster around the mythical 'Council axe'.

The Rose of Kingston will open its doors, at last, in January and I'm going to be writing much more about its programme in a few days' time.

But now I thought it worth pointing out that there are some fantastic job opportunities at the theatre - from bars manager to chief electrician. You'll find them all on the Rose website.

Photo by Chris Pearsall

"Empowering people is a philosophy, not just an electioneering technique". So said Chris Huhne to me yesterday over a cup of tea.

I've always been drawn to those gossipy interviews of media stars, in which the interviewer tells us more about themselves than about their subject.

Much as I would enjoy doing that, I'd better explain that I had joined some other Lib Dem Bloggers of the Year to interview each of the Leadership candidates. Yesterday we met Chris Huhne, and Nick Clegg is in the diary for a couple of weeks' hence.

I have to say straightaway that Chris is articulate and passionate about his Liberalism. I had never met him before, but he was instantly likable, looking directly in the eye, and showing no sign of fading enthusiasm after, no doubt, answering many similar questions.

Naturally I asked him about participation in local government: New Labour seem to have taken terms like 'citizen empowerment' from us; how then would he encourage local authorities to develop styles of participation that are distinctively Liberal Democrat?

He said he is committed to decentralising, to giving real power to people in their communities. For Labour the language of empowerment tends to mean decentralising management, with the goals still set, and therefore the control still held, at the centre. 

For Liberal Democrats the concepts of empowerment derive from our long-held understanding and practice of community politics. This really does mean devolving policy-making and the ability to try out local solutions, and applies as much to health services as to services that are already run by local government. Councillors can be key players in all this; they are often the first point of contact between people and political systems, and they can encourage people to participate.

We covered many other topics between us.

Would he abolish the monarchy? - no, because we should choose our battles and concentrate on improvements that will really change society.

What is a party leader for? - to create strong teams, with attention paid to economic issues. 

Should our policy be to take less tax? - the reality is that overall taxation stays much the same; what matters is where the accountability lies.

Should we take a more liberal attitude to drugs and allow adults to make their own informed decisions? - no, because drug addiction harms others as well; but we should look for medical rather than criminal solutions to the problem.

Should there be a referendum on the  EU Reform Treaty? - no; but he likes the idea of a People's Veto, which would allow a peition from 2.5% of the electorate to veto any Bill going through Parliament.

Chris spent most of his professional life as a journalist, and it shows. He has some well-thought out strategies for getting Lib Dem stories in the media and creating clearly defined messages. He wants us to be much more ambitious as a party, and reminded us that when people are asked "If you thought Lib Dems could win, would you vote for them?" well over 40% say "yes".

I have still not decided between the two candidates, and will wait until I've met Nick Clegg before committing myself.

From left: Paul Walter, Jonny Wright, Richard Flowers, Chris Huhne MP, Millennium Elephant, Alex Wilcock, me, James Graham

Paul Walter was quite carried away and posted several entries in his Liberal Burblings blog: Chris Huhne: Strategy and the air war, Connecting with Jo Public, Huhne: Empowering local communities, Huhne: Centralised power is the way to a nationwide "BALLS UP", It's the economy stupid - Huhne quotes Clinton, Voters don't want just a pretty boy - they want someone who will deliver , Huhne: We need to be the little boy who points at the Emperor with no clothes, Huhne - the tax debate, Huhne: UK must have referendum on whether to use the new right of countries to leave the EU

Jonny (Hug A Hoodie) will, no doubt, blog later today from his student perspective  - and here it is

Richard Flowers (Daddy Richard) writes about Mr Huhney-Monster on The Very Fluffy Diary of a Millennium Dome, Elephant: Day 2501: The Leadership Interview... Chris Huhne meets Millennium (and some other people)

Alex Wilcock, on Love and Liberty, was last seen blogging about Dr Who, but I'll watch out for his comments on Dr Huhne.

James Graham over on Quaequam Blog! gives us his first thoughts, with more to come it seems: nonEXCLUSIVE: Chris Huhne talks to Quaequam Blog! (part 1)

I'm really grateful that these guys have written in such depth as it allows me to get away with a relatively short summary!

I've just set up a petition on the Council website here.  Do sign it if you agree!

The petition reads:

Suburban back gardens are currently treated as industrial brownfield sites for planning purposes. As a result developers are purchasing houses and back gardens in the Royal Borough and then submitting plans for housing at much higher densities. Decisions by the local Council to refuse planning permission are often overturned by the Planning Inspector in Bristol.

1. We believe that back gardens are important social and ecological green corridors that should be protected from development.

2. We support the Council's policy of opposing backland developments.

3. We will resist offers from developers to buy our homes and gardens.

I'm rather pleased that in October this blog received over 9000 visits for the first time. That's actual visits, not pages visited, and it doesn't include search engine robots.  But I would never claim that it represents 9000 different people since I do know that some of you come back regularly.

I don't get a lot of comments on this blog, so sometimes I feel that no-one is out there. But then I bump into people around the borough who tell me they read it, and that encourages me to continue blogging.

The webstats tell other stories as well. Rather frighteningly, last month 3421 of you searched Google for an image of me (or my namesakes). October 25th was the day with most readers, and interestingly this was a personal entry about some friends, and nothing much to do with being a local councillor!

The most popular single entry is consistently the one  I wrote two years ago about completing a Super Sudoku! And the most popular month in the archive is October 2006 - I was doing lots of interesting things as Mayor that month.

The search phrase that brings most visitors to this site is, not surpringly, 'kingston' (which may explain the popularity of  October last year), followed by 'david jacobs' (who can also be seen on his knees in that month).

Well, not every borough has a theme park which winds down its operations during the winter months.

And not every borough attracts up to half a million shoppers a week in the run-up to Christmas.

Each year Chessington World of Adventures offers its large visitor car park to drivers bound for Kingston for Christmas shopping and the January Sales. 

Parking is free and the adult bus fare to central Kingston is £1.50. The service starts again tomorrow.

I think this is the first year, though, that people can buy a season ticket for £25.

That may represent an awful lot of shopping for some people - but it's intended to give a real alternative to commuters who are employed in Kingston and who dread the pre-Christmas drive to work.

Seen like that, £25 for two months' worth of travel is something of a bargain. (Phone Kingston First on 020 8547 1221 to order a season ticket)

The park-and-ride scheme was a brainchild of the Council many years ago, and it is now firmly supported by London Buses and Kingston Town Centre Management as well as the World of Adventures.

It has also attracted sponsorship from the major retailers - Bentall Centre, Eden Walk Shopping, Rotunda Kingston, Bentalls, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer. Of course it helps them increase sales, but it's also good for the environment.

Many of Banksy's wall paintings have appeared in his home town of Bristol as well as in East London.  

Are they art or vandalism? They certainly are amusing and high quality works, and some (but by no means all) are painted with the permission of the building's owners.

This one appeared unexpectedly on the wall of a listed building near the Civic Offices, and a Conservative councillor demanded its removal.

Mark Wright, a Liberal Democrat councillor (below), set up an online petition to save it and got over 3000 signatures.

So the naked man, caught in compromising circumstances, still hangs uncomfortably from the trompe-l'oeil window.

I learnt about this fascinating use of a new technology to support an ancient medium at a conference yesterday in Bristol. 

Bristol was a leading participant in the National Project for Local e-Democracy and, with Kingston, developed the e-petitions pilot. You'll see great similarities between their system and Kingston's.

There is now sufficient interest in online petitions for Bristol to run a whole conference, sponsored by ICELE (the successor to the National Project), largely devoted to it. 

Tom Steinberg was the keynote speaker as the inspiration for all those excellent projects run by MySociety, including, of course, the No 10 petitions site.

I gave an overview of e-petitions in local government, with some of the history and gave this quote from the Local Government White Paper "Strong and Propserous Communities".

Petitions are one of the most popular forms of civic engagement. Many local authorities have developed ways of dealing with petitions systematically, so petitioners know that their voice has been listened to and taken into account.

For example, the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames introduced e-petitioning to run alongside its paper petitioning process and provides an on-line mechanism for raising and signing petitions, posting information, debating issues raised, and monitoring progress of the petition through the council.

It has proven to be an effective tool for increasing citizen involvement in, and the transparency of, council decision-making. All local authorities should consider how they deal with petitions systematically as part of their wider policy for engaging with communities.