Mary Reid

I find it is very easy to criticise. Unfortunately criticism has now assumed a negative overtone when to criticise can also be positive. So now we hear or read of a theatrical performance being reviewed to "critical acclaim".

One such performance has been at the Rose of Kingston, where The Winslow Boy has just finished its acclaimed few weeks, before going on tour. It is well worth going to see. In fact after seeing it the first time a few weeks ago I thought it was such a stunning play that I went to see it again just last week. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it ends up in the West End.

It is a surprisingly modern and highly relevant play - especially in today's political climate.

But there is one truth which runs through the play and that is to make any changes you have to be in the game and not out. Yes, there may well be consequences to challenging the authorities and it may be a long journey, but if one is sincere about wanting to make changes and even to force changes, then one has to sign up to the process and one has to be in and not out.

That is why I find it very strange that with just a few days to go now to the elections to the European Parliament, there are those who are campaigning on a platform to being out and not in. If one is to make changes within the European System then the only way to do it is by being in and making the changes from the inside. Changes will not come from the outside.

Standing outside and throwing verbal negative criticism at the European Parliament, or even of attending and not participating, can achieve nothing. The record of UKIP as Members of the European Parliament does not stand up to serious scrutiny. They certainly do not represent the British people there.

And now we have other parties, which are saying that, if they are elected, they will not attend. How on earth can that bring about change? It is certainly a case of one wasted vote!

On Thursday we have a chance to vote for a party that will work on the inside to bring about reform and change - the Liberal Democrats.

For that is the only way in which change will happen.

Ian

About 140 children in the Hook and Chessington area attend Hinchley Wood School, which is over the borough boundary in Surrey.

Edward Davey and I are campaigning for a bus to get them to and from school safely. They have every right to this, just as their parents have every right to send their children to a school in a neighbouring authority.

Up until the end of 2006 Surrey County Council ran a school bus which picked them up, as well as some children in Claygate. Surrey cut the bus because too few Claygate children were using it - and they say they have no responsibility for Kingston pupils.

Technically that is true -  the Mayor for London should be providing a service for them through Transport for London  - but the Surrey service was curtailed at very short notice and without any consultation with TfL.

For the last two years the children have been travelling by car - when their parents would much prefer them to use public trransport. It is quite a way to walk there, and in any case the route is not safe. There is no pavement on the south side of the A309, and no safe crossing over to the north side. Cycling along that busy road is very risky.

The parents who have been campaigning for a bus contacted me last summer, as they were getting nowhere with TfL. I managed to set up a meeting between the parents, TfL and Kingston Council officers, who have also been trying to persuade TfL. The parents provided a map of Chessington and Hook showing exactly where the Hinchley Wood pupils live.

The man from TfL promised to draw up a proposal and take it to the TfL planners. Since then he has simply been uncontactable. He is apparently still working for TfL, still in the same job, but he has not answered a single email or phone call that I have made to him. The parents have had a similar experience.

What on earth are Transport for London and the Mayor up to? Why don't they respond to citizens who have placed a perfectly reasonable request? Why do they cold shoulder an elected representative?

In sheer frustration at this appalling rudeness we have enlisted the aid of Edward Davey and the Liberal Democrat transport spokesperson on the GLA, Caroline Pigeon.

I hope to report progress soon.

It's not often that the news headlines are dominated by positive suggestions for improving democracy in our country. But today Nick Clegg has quite rightly been lauded for his radical proposals.

(Update: The Take Back Power website has now been launched. This lists all Nick Clegg's proposals in full.)

100 days - 14 weeks - to sort out the mess at Westminster. If it means that MPs will have to postpone their summer break, then it will simply demonstrate their commitment to reform, which all are mouthing at present.

So what is Clegg proposing?

Day 1

Accept the findings of the review into MPs expenses

Weeks 1 and 2

New bill to allow for the recall of MPs, so that constituents can petition for a by-election if their MP has cheated on expenses

£50,000 cap on individual donations to political parties

Week 3

Bill on fixed term Parliaments, so that from 2010 we would have a General Election every four years

Week 4

All party talks on reforming the way Parliament works - more scrutiny and more control over the agenda by all MPs.

Week 5

Bill to hold a referendum on electoral reform (as I've argued here)

Weeks 6 and 7

Bill on reform of the House of Lords, replacing it with a fully elected senate.

Week 10

Votes to be held on suspension of MPs who have cheated on expenses

Week 11

Petitions can begin in constituencies to recall MPs

Day 100

Referendum on takes place on electoral reform

Phew!

Clegg writes:

Together, over the next 100 days, we could achieve nothing less than the total reinvention of British politics. These months could become a great moment in British political history, rather than a shabby footnote to a shameful month of scandal. Let us seize, not squander, the opportunity for change.

Snapped this yesterday evening just outside the patio doors.

It was about 5 cm long. It buzzed about quite a bit before it settled down.

This is a message for anyone who has a postal vote for the European Elections and who hasn't yet posted it off. Did you know that your vote won't count if you don't sign the slip attached to the envelope? Or that it won't count if you don't write in your date of birth as well?

In fact, your signature must match the one you used when you applied for a postal vote some time ago.

Now the problem is that some people have more than one signature.  Maybe you normally write an unintelligible squiggle, but use a much more recognisable signature for important documents. You really do need to remember which signature you used on the application.

I've just got back from the first of several sessions of 'Opening of Postal Votes' for the borough. I went in my capacity as a sub-agent for the Liberal Democrat candidates. My job is to observe and check that the electoral processes are carried out correctly.

This year postal votes across the country have been carried out slightly differently, in order to reduce fraud. If you have a postal vote you will know this, of course, but I will explain for others who are still with me.

When you fill in the postal ballot form, you then place it inside an envelope and seal it down. On the outside of the envelope is an identification section which has your name and address printed on it, and spaces for you to write in your date of birth and your signature. You then place this envelope inside a larger one that has an address on it, and then post it.

At the opening session today, all the envelopes that had arrived by today were opened. The identification section was then separated from the envelope that contained the ballot paper.

(This means that there was, quite properly, no way of seeing how an individual voter voted)

The next task was the interesting bit. The identification sections were all passed through a scanner, and in each case the date of birth and signature were matched against those on the application form.  Any that didn't match were then shown on screen and the returning officer and his deputies had to judge whether they did matched or not. Apparently they have been trained in forensic signature analysis.

Everybody makes tiny changes in their signature from day to day, so the process is not designed to eliminate genuine signatures, but to identify forgeries.

But you don't help yourself if you use a totally different handwriting style, or sign with a different surname, or simply leave it out.

So if you do have a postal vote, make sure it counts!

Demands for a fair voting system - proportional representation - for Parliament have been getting louder in the last few days.

More and more commentators and politicians are calling for radical reform, and not simply for new rules on MPs' expenses. They are exploring electoral reform (fair voting), fixed term parliaments, a fully elected House of Lords and a written constitution. Those are the basics of a democratically accountable legislature.

It was only last weekend that the relationship between the expenses scandal and the electoral system was made explicit by a fellow Lib Dem blogger, Mark Thompson. He showed that MPs with safe seats were more likely to submit dodgy expense claims.

Alan Johnson, Health Secretary and a possible future leader of the Labour Party, said this on Monday:

I believe that we need to overhaul the political system and that we should complete unfinished business by discussing again the Jenkins review and consulting the British people on proportional representation, which gives greater power to the electorate.

(The Jenkins report was commissioned by Tony Blair to recommend a fair voting system, as a result of an election promise, but was subsequently shelved)

This was picked up by various press journalists - Polly Toynbee in the Guardian, Kevin Maguire in the Mirror, Janet Street Porter in the Independent on Sunday, amongst many others, and summarised by Brian Wheeler of BBC News.

I added my ha'porth on Tuesday.

Today there was a letter in the Observer demanding a referendum on a proportional electoral system, signed by 37 well known names. This launched the campaign for a referendum, by Make Votes Count.

I fully support this campaign which is calling for a referendum on the day of the next general election. There will not be time to get a new system in place before the election, even if Parliament agreed to it, but a referendum would be binding on the next Government.

Now I'm not a huge enthusiast for referenda, mainly because most issues are too complex to be encapsulated in a simple yes/no question. But this one is simple - do you want to vote for Parliament using a proportional representation method? And we are only likely to get it if the voters at large demand it.

The Liberal Democrats have always supported proportional representation - indeed, it is one of our longest held policies. At last people across the political spectrum are beginning to see that it is a necessary step towards rebuilding trust between citizens and their representatives.

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The Rose Theatre was always going to be bigger than the building it occupies. We had always aspired to hold a Youth Festival each summer, which would bring young performers and artists together from across the world.

And it is happening this year!  From 3rd to 12th July this year the first International Youth Arts Festival will host more than 90 acts, events and workshops in and around the centre of Kingston.

The centreprice of the Festival will be a production of the musical Pendragon in the Rose, using young local actors. Dozens of other events are being planned for the Rose, the splendid Performing Arts Centre at Kingston Grammar School, the Arthur Cotterell Theatre at Kingston College, plus a number of other venues around the borough. And there will be free open air events in the Market Place.

Alongside the performances, there is an extensive choice of workshops that any young person and child can join - acting, singing, spoken word, film, manga, masks, carnival, dance, drumming, Capoeira - it's a long list.

You can book any of these events and workshops now. Details on the website.

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Some pretty significant information about Europe has been rather overwhelmed by all the other noise from Westminster this week.

Back in 2002 the European Arrest Warrant was agreed across the EU. This speeds up the time taken to extradite criminals between EU countries. Before then it took, on average, 18 months to extradite a British criminal back to the UK so they could stand trial. In some cases it took up to 5 years. During that time many of them were out of prison, living the high life and free to commit further crimes.

The European Arrest Warrant reduced that time to 43 days.

Now we are talking about some very serious offences here - I've seen a list of twenty criminals who were extradited speedily under the new regulations, and once back in the UK were convicted of rape, murder, child sex and firearm offences. One of them was the failed 21/7 bomber Hussain Osman, who was subsequently sentenced to a minimum of 40 years in jail.

And yet, the Conservatives voted against the European Arrest Warrant.

Yes, you read that correctly. They opposed this vital piece of international co-operation that has greatly improved the safety of citizens across Europe. (Needless to say, the Liberal Democrat MEPs supported it)

Between 2004 and 2008, 335 UK citizens were extradited from European countries under the European Arrest Warrant. They then faced trial here.

All these people were dealt with promptly; without the European Arrest Warrant they would have been free for months, if not years.

I've written before about my concerns that the Conservatives are increasingly isolating themselves in Europe. There is a great difference between the soft views on Europe that they express when speaking to us in the UK, and the hardline position they are actually taking up in the European Parliament. How can any of their MEPs represent British interests if they refuse to work with political groups from other countries? How can they provide any value to UK citizens if they oppose all international co-operation around such sensible policies as the European Arrest Warrant?

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Cricket is the only sport I have ever mentioned on my blog. Unusually for a girls' school, it was the main summer sport at my secondary school in Cardiff. I was hopeless at it, and at all sports in fact, but cricket wasn't as threatening as some, and I found the rules and tactics fascinating.

I still think it is a good sport for girls - non-contact, team based, intelligent, set in pleasant surroundings - and don't understand why it is not more widely played. So it was good to see six female teams in the Mayor's Cricket Cup 2009, hosted as always by Chessington Cricket Club.

I did ask one player how long she had been playing, and she said "Two weeks", but the standard was good overall. In the final Tiffin Girls beat Tolworth Girls.

The Mayor who founded this competition was Cllr Shiraz Mirza, who loves the sport and persuaded the excellent cricket club in his ward to support it.

Both Edward Davey and Susan Kramer, our two MPs, were named by the Telegraph as 'saints', because they do not claim second homes allowances or anything else remotely dodgy.

Comments and the Contact Me form are not working properly at the moment. Until they are fixed, please email me on mary [at] maryreid.org.uk and I'll add comments manually.

Ah! the power of blogging ... from an interesting hypothesis to the Guardian in three days.

A couple of days ago a fellow Lib Dem blogger asked an interesting question: Has our electoral system contributed to the MPs expenses scandal?

Mark showed that there appeared to be a relationship between how safe a Parliamentary seat was and the likelihood that the MP had made inappropriate expenses claims. The larger the majority, the more likely that the MP had submitted a dodgy claim. Of course, he wasn't suggesting that all MPs in safe seats were cheats, or that all those in marginals were clean, but he did show that there was a good relationship.

He analysed the Telegraph data himself, and later updated it with support from another blogger, Andy Hinton.

Today Polly Toynbee picked up the argument and ran with it in the Guardian. Mark's blog had worked its way round Make Votes Count and other reforming groups before reaching her, and she refers to it in her final paragraph.

So how does our electoral system have an impact on the expenses scandal? The First Past the Post method of voting (the way we currently elect MPs) produces safe seats and low turnouts. This is not good for democracy, for two reasons.  On the one hand, large numbers of voters feel disenfranchised; on the other, MPs with large majorities become complacent, and now, it seems, are tempted to behave fraudulantly.

We need a voting system that gives fairer representation at local level, and also produces a more representative House of Commons.

Fair voting systems should ensure that every vote has some impact on the result. There are several systems that can deliver this to a greater or less degree - one is the Party List system that we will use for the European Elections on 4th June.  London will be electing eight Members of the European Parliament. Each of us gets a chance to vote for our preferred party, and then the places are allocated in proportion to the votes cast across London. This Party List system has one big disadvantage, in that the MEPs are not tied to particular constituencies, so they seem rather remote.

Other systems, such as Single Transferable Vote in a multi-seat constituency, work better. In this system you rank the candidates in order of preference, and a rather complex counting system allocates second and later preferences as preferred candidates rise to the top.

Whichever system is used it will be a breath of fresh air in Parliament. Just as no MP will be able to feel entirely 'safe' so it is unlikely that any one party will govern with a huge majority. Instead, parties will have to co-operate to come up with policies that accurately reflect a range of opinions in the country.

We need a referendum on fair voting. It could happen alongside the next General Election. A cross-party campaign for just this is emerging from Make Votes Count, Unlock Democracy, The Electoral Reform Society, and Compass. Liberal Democrats have always campaigned for fair voting systems, and it's good to see the support widening.

Well said, Ed.

Our MP makes the front page of the Surrey Comet with a blistering attack on the MPs who have made outrageous claims for second homes. He says that MPs who have convinced themselves that they are doing nothing wrong have "lost touch with reality". Flipping properties is "verging on the criminal".

He does not claim a penny for a second home, even though, as an outer London MP, he is entitled to.

The paper also carries a full list of his expenses for running his office and for travel. These have been available on his website for some time.

The Comet has not yet published the article on its website, but I will add a link when it does.

The full story is here.

The themes and issues from The Winslow Boy have been playing in my head all morning. I went to see it last night at the Rose - and as the actors took their bows I decided I must come back to see it next week.

Not only was it a terrific production, but I need to catch it from a different perspective. Last night I enjoyed the storytelling and the unfolding family relationships, but I want to revisit the fundamental themes of justice, civil liberties and rights that are embedded in Terence Rattigan's masterpiece.

The set itself speaks of perspectives and points of views. The Edwardian living room is, literally, given a picture frame, which itself is skewed. Within the frame, the theatrical tricks of false perspective are exaggerated. Characters walk in and out of this frame, inviting comparisons with some of the great civil liberty debates of our time - ID cards, detention without trial, torture. Even the current row over MPs' expenses resonated in this space.

Rattigan takes the fundamental concepts of democracy and plays them out in a middle class family. The five family members and their friends bring different personalities and points of view to the debate, reflecting a range of political and social opinions.

But Rattigan does not use the device of a dysfunctional family; these are warm, believable characters who clearly care for each other. Sometimes differences are suppressed in order to maintain relationships, sometimes they are expressed overtly in frustration. It is a very English take on political and social philosophy.

The play is at the Rose until 30th May, then on tour nationally for a couple of months - so non-Kingston readers have a chance to see it as well. It will be interesting to see what the critics make of it after the press evening tomorrow. 

After the performance I got a chance to meet the actors at a reception. Each one said how much they enjoyed working in our theatre, and that they felt it was a very special space. They mentioned the intimacy and the relationship with the audience.

I had been impressed by Hugh Wyld, who plays the boy of the title. It seems he is taking his A levels alongside this three month production - an amazing feat, and I wish him the best of luck. 

With all that stuff going on - swimming pools, moats and horse manure - you wouldn't know there was an election going on.

In fact, the Conservatives have quietly been doing something that in the long term could be far more damaging to the country than the expenses scandals, serious as they are.

Now when you elect Members of the European Parliament on 4th June, you would hope that they would set off for Brussels determined to get the best deals for the UK.  Surely they should be looking for areas where international co-operation would be of benefit to British citizens?

You expect your MEPs to work with like-minded MEPs from other countries on joint projects. You don't expect your MEPs to spend the whole time carrying out low level sabotage of any attempts by the EU countries to work together. 

But the Conservatives have now made a move that will seriously reduce their influence in the EU, and which makes you wonder why they are putting up any candidates at all.

MEPs form alliances with their equivalent parties in other countries. Until very recently the Conservatives joined forces with other centre right parties to form the European People's Party.

They have now defected to set up, and lead, a new group of Euro-sceptics, called the European Conservatives. It is not at all clear who, if anyone, will join them.

This is to the dismay of other leaders including Angela Merkel. It is clear already that the Conservatives will be shunned by their former allies in Europe and will become increasingly isolated.

So whilst at home Cameron is trying to project a modern, progressive image, over in Europe he is lurching to the right. Who knows, he might even end up in bed with UKIP.

These photos are probably illegal - hasn't the Labour Government forbidden taking photos of police officers doing their job?

It was not good to see this today ...

I was going up to Parliament for a meeting (with half a dozen members of the House of Lords, if you must know). I arrived just before 1pm, and the Tamil protesters had closed the street in front of, and to the side of, the Palace of Westminster by sitting down in the road. They had hemmed in at least one bendy bus, and the roads had been closed off all round the area.

What struck me was that it wasn't just angry young men, but whole families who were taking this action. There were young children, plus elderly folk, all sitting and joining in the chanting. Some were rather upset, but they were behaving peaceably.

I took these photos as I walked back at around 2.30pm. The police were just starting to move their lines, edging the protesters off the street, and driving their vans behind the lines to fill in the roadway. There were several dozen police vans plus ambulances at the ready.

As far as I could see it was being handled carefully, but I may have left before tempers erupted. The BBC has a short video taken at around midday.

Now I am very aware that members of the Tamil community in Kingston are deeply worried about family and friends back in Sri Lanka. Our local MPs and MEPs have all been actively involved in trying to get the Government to take action to end the conflict. Which was exactly what the demostrators were shouting today: "What do we want?" "Ceasefire" "When do we want it?" "Now"

One of the people I bumped into at my meeting was Sarah Ludford, our Lib Dem Member of the European Parliament for London. She took Susan Kramer and some members of the British Tamil community to meet the EU External Relations Commissioner in Strasbourg.

Edward Davey led a debate on Sri Lanka in the Commons on 29th April.

These people are desperate. It's about time that the Labour Government used whatever muscle it has to halt this disaster.

A new term has entered our vocabulary over the weekend.

Flipping: the practice of switching the designation of 'second home' from one property to another in order to maximise second home allowances.

It's one thing to share a cleaner with your brother (and I think Brown was unfairly criticised for this) and quite another to abuse the system in this way. Hazel Blears flipped between three properties in a single year. Margaret Moran claimed for a property 100 miles away from her constituency and nowhere near London. (Did the electors of Luton know that she lived in Southampton?)

These and others have been using the defence beloved by tax avoiders: 'It was all within the rules'. Someone should explain to them that because something is legal it does not mean that it is right. And who wrote the rules in the first place anyway?

So far only senior Labour and Conservative MPs have been outed. If eventually it emerges that a Liberal Democrat MP has been misusing the second home allowance they will get no sympathy from me.

I do know that not one of the London Liberal Democrat MPs claims a second homes allowance, even though those in Outer London constituencies are entitled to do so. They quite rightly reckon that they should commute into London on a daily basis like many of their constituents.

Now an arrangement does have to be made to provide accommodation in London for MPs who live outside commuting distance. For some MPs, especially Ministers, that might work the other way round, with a family home in London and another base in the constituency.

A while ago I suggested that the second home allowance should be pegged at the level of the rental for a modest two bedroom flat in Surbiton. No John Lewis list, no cleaning, no mortgage interest, no renovations, no gardening. Just rent. 

This allowance could be awarded at a flat rate to all MPs whose constituencies lie outside a 90 minute commuting zone. If they don't have a home in the constituency then they don't qualify.

Simple, really.

The recycling rate in the borough has gone up from 25% to 47% under the new collection scheme.

When the new scheme was introduced last Autumn it was greeted with scepticism by some, and downright opposition by the Conservatives.

But it has worked. There were teething problems, of course, and the Council always expected there to be a settling in period.

It's interesting that people now get very cross if a mistake is made and their recycling isn't collected in any one week. Last summer they would have had to wait two weeks. It just shows that most people want to recycle as much as possible and expect the Council to help them to do it.

There is one thing that I'm absolutely convinced about: if the Council still collected landfill waste every week (which is what the Tories wanted) then the recycling rate would not have been as high. With weekly landfill collections there would have been less incentive for people to recycle and the green message would not have been so clear.

There has been quite a lot of local interest in the planning application for the Old Coach House in Elm Road, Hook. The request was to turn it into a doctor's or dentist's surgery. 

With existing GPs and dentists at either end of Elm Road, this had generated some controversy. At the same time NHS Kingston has still not awarded the contract for a new walk-in clinic in the Chessington/Hook area. Neighbours were asking whether this was to be the site?

If so, the planning application would not have met the NHS requirements of 12 hour cover, 7 days a week, for a walk-in clinic.

Yesterday I learned that the current planning application had been withdrawn.

The mystery deepens...

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the launch of the Eco-op, and I appealed for photos as I had left my camera behind. 

Thanks to Bart Ricketts, the Project Co-ordinator, who supplied these:

 Here is Susan Kramer MP in the cycle repair workshop.

And fellow MP, Edward Davey looks around the Furniture Project, accompanied by (on left) Bart Ricketts himself.

I have just got home after Annual Council, the occasion when we install the new Mayor.

This year we welcomed Cllr Ian McDonald into the role. He had some preparation for the task when he served as Deputy Mayor some years ago, but he is going to find himself much busier this time round.

I have known Ian for many years. In fact, we were both teachers in local secondary schools at one point - he has since developed a second career in specialist data communications, most of which I don't pretend to understand.

We have a lovely tradition at Annual Council, which began in the year that Cllr Shiraz Mirza became the first Asian mayor of the Royal Borough. Kingston Racial Equality Council presents the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and their Mayoresses/Consorts with flower garlands, and you can see Ian wearing his.

The heady smell of the flowers, combined with the weight and warmth of the robes, and the nervous excitement of the event heighten memories for each Mayor that they can never forget.

One of the things I have learned over the years, not only as a Councillor but also from experience, is that it is far better to work with other people than not. One of the experiences on the Council is from procurement.

When I first started leading on procurement issues for the Council one of the first issues to be addressed was the way in which contractors considered their working with the Council. For many they considered the relationship to be adversarial and negative. The Council issued rectification, default and penalty notices. The result was that contractors got fed up with them and did not carry out the rectification and paid the penalty charge because it was cheaper for them to do it that way rather than provide the service. The result was the inevitable. There was a decline in standards and contractors didn't want to work for Kingston Council, which had such a negative reputation. Compulsory Competitive Tendering didn't work. There had to be a change and that started in 2002.

The change was fundamental, far reaching and based upon one essential principle. Build a relationship of trust. The old contracts were short term and based upon input specification and obviously didn't work. The new contracts were longer - up to fifteen years - and based upon outcomes and partnership. We would do things together in an open, non-adversarial and honest way. We established Partnership Boards and worked at getting it right. In the main we have done so.

What I have learned is that it is better to work together, for together we are stronger and the outcomes are better.

There are those who think that being isolationist is better. They think that Britain should divorce from Europe and the European Union. I disagree. It really is no use whinging about Europe and saying the only answer is to leave. It is not. The answer is to stay as a key player and to work from the inside to make the fundamental changes, where they need to be made. Opting out is not the answer. Opting in and working with others to make the changes needed is.

I have a problem with both UKIP and the BNP. It seems to me there is a fundamental flaw in their policies, for they do not understand the word together. Great Britain needs Europe. Yes there may be disagreements and robust discussions, but the solution is working together at finding the answers not isolationism.

In June, at the European elections, we have a real chance to vote for the together solution. I believe that the Liberal Democrat solution is the right way forward. It is a positive vote for the future knowing that together we are stronger, the outcomes are better and the benefits are considerable.

Ian

The elections to the European Parliament will be held on Thursday 4th June. My voting card has already arrived.

London has 9 Euro seats, but that is reducing to 8 in the elections this year. The election is carried out using the party list system, which means that each party produces a list of eight candidates. You have one vote, for your preferred party. The seats are then allocated in proportion to the numbers of votes cast for each party.

Currently the Lib Dems have one London MEP, Sarah Ludford, but at the last election in 2004 we were very close to getting enough votes for a second MEP.

The real danger this time is that the BNP might get a seat, so it is very important that everyone who cares about international co-operation should vote.

If you are not registered to vote, the deadline for registration is Tuesday 19th May.

If you want a postal vote, and you haven't yet asked for one, the last deadline for applications is also Tuesday 19th May.

The Council website has all the information and forms that you need.

The Surrey Comet has once again spoilt a perfectly good news item with an inaccurate headline.

The story is about Councillor Liz Green, who is taking over as Deputy Leader of the Council, now that Councillor Barry O'Mahony has decided to step down from the role. (Congratulations, Liz!) She talks about primary school places and recycling as her top priorities.

It also mentions that Councillor Ian McDonald will take over as Mayor at Annual Council next week.

Neither of which justified the headline "Schools places crisis high priority for new deputy mayor".

Just to put the record straight ...

The Leader of the Council is Derek Osbourne. He exercises political and administrative control along with his six Executive (aka Cabinet) colleagues. Liz Green will be his Deputy.

The incoming Mayor is Ian McDonald, and the Deputy Mayor will be announced at Annual Council.  We do not have an executive Mayor in Kingston, so the Mayor's tasks are mainly representative. Indeed, when acting as Mayor the post holder maintains political neutrality and has no executive powers.