Mary Reid

I've been following the US Primaries with some interest. 

Would you like to know whose views you most agree with? You can take an interesting quiz here on GoToQuiz which matches you against the contenders.

This was my match list.

96% Dennis Kucinich
93% Mike Gravel
85% Chris Dodd
84% John Edwards
83% Barack Obama
81% Hillary Clinton
79% Joe Biden
75% Bill Richardson
37% Rudy Giuliani
31% Ron Paul
29% John McCain
16% Mike Huckabee
16% Mitt Romney
14% Tom Tancredo
7% Fred Thompson

Most of these are either out of the running, or no-hopers, so we are really only left with Obama or Clinton for the Democrats and McCain or Romney for the Republicans.

I'm pleased to say that my best match of these four is the person I have been supporting - Barack Obama. But Hillary Clinton is also pretty close, which also backs my position that I'd be more than happy with either of them in the White House.

Later

Someone has just reminded me that the political colours in the US don't match ours. Democrats are closest to Liberal Democrats or New Labour so we'd recognise them better in gold or red, whilst Republicans are closest to Conservatives.

This is a sad day for Liberal Democrats in the Borough, as the news gets around that yesterday Belinda lost her long battle with cancer.

Belinda was the local Lib Dems' secret weapon. Thanks to her work on the campaign, Edward Davey was elected to Parliament in 1997, against all expectation and with a majority of 56. At the next election, in spite of being treated for cancer, Belinda masterminded a campaign to convert that to a majority of over 15,000. In two elections she had turned a safe Tory seat into one of the biggest Lib Dem majorities in the country.

Other constituencies have drawn on her expertise, but what they couldn't capture was her extraordinary drive. Even when ill and undergoing therapy she kept the rest of us breathless - she was busy organising the next publication only a week or so ago - and when she was at full strength she was formidable.

At Christmas, Belinda was upbeat as usual, telling everyone "I'M STILL HERE", after a year of heavy treatment interspersed with lots of travel.

Of course, we'll miss her, and our thoughts are with Rob.

My response was not really adequate - someone had phoned me to tell me that I had been shortlisted for the Women in Public Life Awards 2008. In fact, I was totally astonished.

I'm up there with two others for the Local Government Personality of the Year. Voting on the shortlist is now open, but I can't canvass you, dear reader, unless you are an MP.

The awards are managed by Dods who are heavily involved in Parliamentary communications (such as The House, Westminster's own trade mag) so they are trying to attract Parliamentarians to their good works.

Now I've done my bit with the National Project for Local e-Democracy and with ICELE, but this has a real air of strangeness about it. Why hasn't 'Hello' called me yet?

Friday night was Press Night for Uncle Vanya at the Rose Theatre.  Here are the reviews I've found so far - all very pleasing, although slightly grudging praise from the Evening Standard

Guardian: Kingston's bright new theatre gets off to a sparkling start

Telegraph: A perfect illusion of life itself .

Financial Times: Evening of excellent characterisations

Times (no title, apart from 'Uncle Vanya', but four stars awarded)

Evening Standard: Passion subdued on the wastes

Last night the theatre was sold out for the first Comedy Store night, and I had a good laugh, as they say.  Stand-up works really well in this space, even with over 900 in the audience. 

The Comedy Store will be returning on the last Sunday of every month - but be warned, don't place your cushion near the front of the pit unless you relish ritual humiliation.

I went into Borders today to buy a Scrabble dictionary. After spending ages searching the extensive Dictionary section, I had to ask at the counter.

"Oh, you'll find it under Sports."

Brian Paddick has been creating quite a stir in the London Mayoral elections. 

On the one hand Ken Livingstone is enmeshed in controversy and allegations of corruption, and on the other hand Boris Johnston from Henley isn't managing to pull the wool over people's eyes in the way he would have hoped.

Between them stands Brian, with a strong reputation for integrity and a history of action as Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met Police.

One thing he has highlighted recently is the massive cost of the Metronet scandal. You may remember that the Government gave Metronet the contract to upgrade the Tube system under a controversial PPP (Public Private Partnership) arrangement. Metronet collapsed, taking £1.9 billion of public money with them. So who is paying?

There's more about Brian Paddick here. His website also has a Kingston page, including, to my surprise, a link to this blog!

I was pretty shocked to hear that Maternity Services at Kingston Hospital have been judged to be amongst the worst in the country.

The Healthcare Commission has assessed all 148 NHS trusts in England, and used 25 different measures to arrive at their judgement. Kingston Hospital lies in the bottom set of 31 hospital trusts, which have been designated 'least well performing'.

You can read the report from the Healthcare Commission here and can download the pdf report on Kingston Hospital here.

A further worry is that all the local alternatives - Epsom, St Peter's, St George's -  are also in the bottom group.

My two sons were both born in Kingston Hospital in the old maternity unit. It was grim, having originally been built, I believe, as a workhouse. So the sparkling new unit built in the 1990s was a wonderful development and made Kingston the first choice for women over a wide area.

I've been aware for some time that things were not as good as they could be. Now this is purely anecdotal on my part, but it seems that they have cut back the number of staff in the unit over the years, whilst increasing the number of deliveries. At the same time they have found it difficult to recruit permanent midwives and have relied too often on agency staff, who, however professional they may be, cannot provide continuity of care.

When  Kingston Hospital held a consultation meeting at the Hook Centre last month they told us that they intended to expand maternity services substantially, effectively wiping out some of the neighbouring services. They needed to recruit many more midwives to do this.

This report must cause us all to stop and ask whether it is wise to increase a service that is, apparently, already failing to deliver (sorry - couldn't resist the pun).

When I was on holiday in Jamaica last year I visited some of the schools in their Kingston which are linked to schools in our Kingston - this was a project of mine supported by the British Council in Jamaica and Kingston Council over here.

I was struck by how the teachers were having to struggle with extremely limited resources, and they particularly regretted the shortage of reading books.

When I got home I emailed my publisher to find out what they published for the Caribbean market, and I also contacted their agent in Jamaica, George Davis. As it happened George was coming over to London for a book fair, so we met up, together with the International Sales Manager from Heinemann.

It seems that Heinemann have developed a brilliant marketing scheme which gets books to schools that can't afford them and allows them to continue to publish books specifically for the Caribbean.

They encourage local major businesses to sponsor books for schools - from which the businesses gain considerable good publicity. It has not been unknown for them to be publicly thanked by the relevant Prime Minister for their generosity to the schools (in lieu, of course, of a properly funded education system, which, to be fair, is not easy to achieve in a developing economy).

So it's wins all round for schools, publisher and sponsors.

Under the Ginn imprint, Heinemann had produced a series of reading books for grades 1 to 5, all on the theme of cricket, which is hugely popular in Jamaica. It's neatly called 'Get Caught Reading'.

So I put this idea to my contacts in Jamaica - and this is where is gets even more complicated. The US International Development arm is supporting a project called Expanding Educational Horizons (EEH), which is aimed at improving education in Jamaica. Apparently 14% of women and 26% of men are illiterate, and boys' underachievement in schools is a major worry.  EEH is working with 70 primary schools in the most deprived areas, and with half a dozen projects that work with young people at risk. They set about finding a sponsor for the books.

Another chance link, through the British High Commission, revealed that the German Embassy had some funding which would be suitable for this project.

So as a direct result of my initial enquiry, 1500 new books have now been placed through EEH in some of the most disadvantaged schools, mainly in Kingston Jamaica. These include all the schools over there that are linked with our schools.

And here is a photo taken last week at the Ministry of Education with some samples of the books.

From left: Dr Jean Beaumont (Expanding Educational Horizons), George Davis (publisher's representative), me, Dr Rebecca Tortello (Ministry of Education)

You know, I've always said that a key function as councillors is to network people together - but I had never imagined that I would be linking schools in the two Kingstons with an international publisher and with British, German and American projects in Jamaica.

I'm going to submit the 'Save our Back Gardens' petition to Council next week. So if you haven't signed it yet you can do so here.

The wording is:

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 pleased to say that this has attracted cross-party support.

As you go through Wimbledon Station the announcement tells you to "Alight here for connections to Kings Cross". This refers to the Thameslink service, managed by First Capital Connect, that runs on a north/south route through London.

Today (well, it was today when I started writing this) I needed to get to Kings Cross for a meeting, so I went to First Capital Connect to check the times from Wimbledon to Kings Cross. To my surprise, it sent me via Vauxhall and the Victoria line rather than on Thameslink! I tried the, usually very helpful, Transport for London Journey Planner and it did the same, with pretty graphics of the route as a bonus.

After much googling I did take a look at Wikipedia, where the map showed me that the Kings Cross Thameslink station was closed before Christmas so it can be upgraded. But Thameslink now stops at St Pancras International; not that First Capital Connect wanted to tell me this...

Back to First Capital Connect. Please when does the train run from Wimbledon to St Pancras? It gave me a list which now included the Thameslink trains.

The annoying thing about all this is that Kings Cross and St Pancras are literally next door to each other, and indeed share a Tube station called Kings Cross St Pancras.

Any chance that they could change that announcement at Wimbledon? Or even do something intelligent like giving the route from Wimbledon to Kings Cross via Thameslink and St Pancras International, followed by a 2 minute walk?

The new café, Full of Beans, is now open in the Hook Centre.  This is a very welcome addition to the Centre itself, and to Hook Parade.

Ian and I dropped in for lunch there yesterday - they offer sandwiches and paninis made on the spot from a big choice of fillings, plus jackets, soup, homemade cakes and a wide range of drinks. They will also sell takeaway food and provide a catering service for functions at the Hook Centre or nearby.

Marsha, the manager, may think she now owes me a cup of tea for this plug - but I'm so pleased that we have a proper café in the area at last.  Chessington North Parade has the very popular Rhona's café, but it's good to have one in Hook as well.

Anyone who has travelled down the A243 Hook Road this week will have noticed the work going on near the White Hart. I'm afraid it has caused some traffic queues, although that has eased off now that regular drivers have realised what is happening and found other routes.

At last Transport for London is actually building a much needed pedestrian controlled crossing. 

We, the local Lib Dems, have been campaigning for a crossing at this dangerous spot for some time. There is a  bus stop on either side, so people who live on each side - in the Holmwood/Frimley area to the east and the Hartfield/Woodgate area to the west - have for years been taking risks with the traffic to cross over.  Vehicles often reach speeds of well over 30mph on this stretch, so it is not at all safe.

So I will say that I'm sorry that drivers are being held up at present, but I'm anything but sorry that the work is being done.

Further along the road, while I was on holiday a meeting was urgently called to look at the Elm Road junction where the fatal accident occurred last month. Councillors and council officers had a good look at all the problems with Transport for London, and they agreed that improvements are essential. We are now waiting to see TfL's proposals.

This was such an important event for us that we flew home from Jamaica overnight to make sure we did not miss it this evening. At last, at last, the Rose Theatre is a reality.

This was the atmospheric set that greeted us as we stepped into the auditorium. (Yes, I know I'll probably be in trouble for taking photos inside, but it was before the play started, and it was without flash!).

The wide unobstructed stage, with its excellent lighting rig, offers so many theatrical possibilities. Couple this with a near perfect acoustic and the extraordinary way in which nearly a thousand people can each feel so close to the actors, and we have a dramatic space which is unique. 

The first performance in the finished theatre was Peter Hall's production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya with the English Touring Theatre. When the actors entered at the beginning the place erupted with applause and cheers; at the end of the play the actors joined in the clapping, acknowledging what a very special occasion it was.

This won't, of course, be the last time I write about this theatre which has been close to my heart for getting on for ten years. All I will say now is you have to go to see what we're all enthusing about. The website offers online booking or you can call in at the box office any day.

So you arrive at a foreign airport after an overnight flight. You finally get through immigration after a long wait, and then join the scramble for bags on the carousel. Lifting them off is not easy and you're almost asleep, so you look round for the luggage trolleys.

Plenty of trolleys, all chained together and the only way you can liberate one is by inserting a coin in the local currency - which, of course, you do not yet have. You have notes in your wallet, but no coins, and none of the staff is willing to give you any change. Not much of a welcome .....

It happened to me when we arrived in the Canaries a week after the euro was introduced - and none of the people arriving had any of the new coins, of course.

But I'd always been pleased that English airports seem to be more humane and do not require coins to access the luggage trolleys. Until today, when we flew back in to Gatwick from Jamaica after a long journey with little sleep. We had English currency with us but no coins to hand. It made us feel pretty unwanted - so must give an awful message to tourists.

You may have noticed some new signs as you drive across the boundary between Kingston and Surrey, indicating a Low Emission Zone.

For some reason the first ones to appear were placed as you drive OUT of Greater London into Surrey, which did strike me as odd, because the Zone applies to the London boroughs, not Surrey.

The zone comes into force at the beginning of next month and is basically a good idea.

All large vehicles travelling through must now meet the European standard for the emission of particulates. These are particles produced in the exhaust which are a serious health risk.

Anything that reduces air pollution is welcome, and I do hope that the Mayor for London has an effective system for identifying and chasing violators.

All newly built lorries will already meet the standard, but older ones may need to be adapted.

My only concern is that small businesses may be caught unawares, because the publicity on this scheme has not been as good as it could have been. And it will tend to be the smaller companies that will own the older vehicles that need to be adapted or even replaced.

I would be happier if the start date was delayed a little to give small businesses time to comply. But not for too long, as I'm really pleased that at last something is being done to improve the air quality across Greater London.

From time to time I write about my work with the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE).

And the news is that we are sponsoring the new international Making a Difference Online Awards for local edemocracy.

To quote from the blurb about the awards ......

The Awards will recognise politicians and organisations who have 'made a tangible difference' by engaging online.

Awards will be given in three categories:

1. Organisational eParticipation - touching communities
This eminent award will be given to the organisation who can show how, through engaging online, they have made a real difference to the communities they serve, from a change in services, to a change in policy, to the delivery of a new service.

2. ePolitician - making a difference on the ground
This award will be given to the politician who can demonstrate how, by engaging online, they have made a difference to their electorate, and how online engagement has improved local people's lives.

3. Ministerial Award - improving lives locally
In addition to the above two awards, Parmjit Dhanda, Minister for Local eDemocracy at Communites and Local Government, will look at the final short listed group and select the project which is the most outstanding piece of work in England and which he feels deserves to be highly commended. That person or project will receive a special Ministerial Award.

The awards are open to organisations, individuals and politicians worldwide and will judged by a panel of experts from ICELE's International Advisory Group which features organisations including Communities and Local Government, the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the National Association of Secretaries of State.

Entering the awards could not be simpler - a quick online application is available at www.icele.org. Remember the final date for submission is the 23rd January 2008.

So now you know what to do - don't be modest and wait for someone to nominate you or your organisation, just nominate yourself.