Mary Reid

I haven't written anything about the disaster in Burma - what can I possibly say that isn't trite?

But the report in The Observer today was headlined Burma exports rice as cyclone victims starve.

Yes, this takes callousness and obscene power to even greater depths. Burma is exporting rice to Bangladesh from one port, whilst millions are on the edge of starvation in one of the main rice growing areas within Burma, where crops have been destroyed. Rice exports are controlled entirely by the military regime.

Skilled relief workers must sit in hotels in Thailand waiting for visas, and only a handful of planes carrying emergency supplies are allowed in, with little evidence that the supplies are reaching the survivors.

Meanwhile, in a bizarre effort to fool the rest of the world that the generals have everything under control, they have gone ahead with the planned referendum on a change in the constitution that would give even greater powers to the military.

In God's name, what can we do?

Well, we've certainly seen variety in the productions at the Rose! - from a naked Romeo, through the exuberance of The Ragged Child to a sparkling Peter Hall production of Uncle Vanya.

This Saturday there's a spectacular aerial dance show from the amazing Ockham's Razor. I remember catching a glimpse of them on TV some time ago and thinking that I must try to see them live - and here they are in Kingston!

Next week, it's another shift, this time into high comedy with Come on Jeeves, based on those wonderfully camp stories by P G Wodehouse.

Incidently, it's worth going into the theatre to book seats in person. As well as avoiding booking fees, at the moment they are giving away 20% vouchers for Frère Jacques (the French restaurant by Kingston Bridge) with the tickets.

Annual Council is the occasion when a new Mayor is installed, and yesterday we welcomed Cllr David Berry to the office.

The new Mayor is a Liberal Democrat councillor in Alexandra Ward. As we heard, David was involved in computers before some of of the councillors (but sadly not me) were born!

David will be supported by Cllr Rohan Yoganathan as Deputy Mayor, clearly hoping to establish a family dynasty to rival the Reids!

This is a sad day for those of us who value small shopping parades, centred around a post office, and their place within local communities.

The Post Office has announced that, in spite of energetic and informed opposition by all parties, it will close all six post offices in the borough that were under threat.

In fact, 155 post offices will close across London. Only seven of those on the original list were reprieved.

A few weeks ago we had a debate in Council on the threatened closures. I mentioned:

Cllr Steve Mama claimed that he had a hotline to the Government and that we could expect some concessions.

Hmm ... didn't work, then.

(In case you don't know, Steve Mama is the only Labour councillor on Kingston Council.)

Thanks to NewsBiscuit and Iain Dale

Any Questions last night was broadcast live from the Rose Theatre in Kingston.

I was delighted to see Sir Peter Hall on the team, alongside some political stars - Harriet Harman, Vince Cable and Caroline Spelman.

(If you're wondering whether the panellists are hidden in the dark - they're not. This was a sneaky shot taken as the audience arrived)

Three questions referred to Shakespeare, presumably in deference to Peter, but he is quite capable of making pithy comments on any topic thrown at him, as he clearly demonstrated.

The first 20 minutes was given over to a discussion on how the prospects of Gordon Brown and the Labour Party had been damaged by the local elections. This was before the results had been announced from London.

You can hear the repeat of the show today on Radio 4 at 1.10pm followed by Any Answers, or you'll be able to listen again for some time afterwards.

With support for Liberal Democrats running at 25% across the rest of the country, London stands out as an anomaly with only 11% for the party list.  It seems that the heavy media interest in the Boris v Ken confrontation actually got in the way of good democracy.

Labour introduced the idea of having elected mayors, partly to bring some excitement back into politics, and it has certainly had that effect.

But higher turnouts are not the only measure of a healthy democracy. What is also necessary is a real understanding of the options, so that people make informed choices.

During the run-up to these elections I came across many electors who believed that they had to vote for Ken to keep Boris out, or vice versa. They didn't know about the second preference vote - at least not until I told them. 

Even more worryingly, with the news focussing interminably on the mayoral contest, they didn't know they had a constituency Assembly member. They didn't know about the party lists and how these affected the eventual balance on the Assembly.

The London Elects booklet was a welcome addition to the literature, and it was clear if lengthy. Sadly it was delivered far too late in the campaign to have much impact.

The political parties did their best to explain the various voting systems in London. When I say 'political parties' round here, that means only the Lib Dems and Conservatives. Believe it or not, Ken Livingstone and Labour didn't deliver a single election leaflet in Chessington.

Nevertheless the media dominated the buzz around the London Elections. It was in their interest to simplify the story to a classic confrontation between two strong characters. After all, simple fights and rows sell newspapers, complex issues don't.

I'm not attempting to make excuses - this is about learning lessons. But my fear is that the machinery of democracy is now so dominated and skewed by the media that democracy itself is the loser.

Update

Since I wrote this I've received the analysis of the London Elections from Make Votes Count. This is a link to the pdf.

Can anyone explain to me why the Royal victim of blackmail, and his employee, were given anonymity by the courts? Blackmail trials are fairly rare, so is this normal practice? Or were they given special protection because of the Royal links?

I'm all for protecting victims, but I sincerely hope this was not special treatment.

Of course, anyone interested has been able to google and find out the names for ages. And any viewer of 'Have I Got News for You' would have noticed the juxtaposition of questions at around the time when the story broke.

Well - after all the gloomy predictions, Liberal Democrats achieved 25% of the vote across the country, beating Labour into third place. This is almost exactly the same as four years ago, when anger over Iraq sent many voters in our direction. Having found the Lib Dems they seem to like us and have stayed with us.

To sum up, as I write Lib Dems have achieved an overall increase of 19 councillors, have hung onto Hull (after a defection lost us control temporarily) and Liverpool (though a defection to us was the decider), and have gained St Albans and Burnley. Sadly we lost control of Pendle.

I'm particularly pleased with a snippet of news from Wales. Merthyr Tydfil, elected six Liberal Democrats, I think for the first time ever. And one of those is Kevin O'Connor - no, not the councillor here in Chessington South, but his son (and brother of Cllr Rachel Reid). Congratulations Kevin! 

It just shows how damaged Labour is that it lost control in Merthyr so resoundingly. This is the town that elected Keir Hardie as the first ever Labour MP in 1900. Instead it is now represented by a complete mixture of parties, who now have to negotiate some kind of coalition.