Sarah Cope

Reading between the lines

2011-10-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I attended a ‘curriculum meeting’ at my daughter’s school, to find out what she will be doing during her year in Reception. One of the things we learned about was the ‘Phonics’ system of learning to read. This, as the name suggests, is all about concentrating on sounds, and from the way the teachers described it, I thought it was a sensible approach, as well as a fun way for kids to learn.

However, at a conference last week, ‘Reading Stories: Does it Make Sense?’, the approach was questioned. Michael Rosen, the former children’s laureate, pointed out that nowhere in an Ofsted report is reading, or a school’s possession of books, mentioned.

Furthermore, it has to be highlighted that Ruth Miskin, government advisor on education, and the keenest promoter of the phonics system around, is herself the author of a very popular phonics scheme.

I got the impression from the parents’ curriculum meeting, which only a handful of parents attended (it was held during working hours so obviously would’ve been impossible for working parents to attend),that with class sizes of almost 30, there is only so much reading the teachers can do with the kids individually. The teachers invited us parents to come in and sit with the children in the reading corner and help out when we can.

All of this points to the fact that switched-on parents are going to give their kids a head start, and that children from less privileged backgrounds will, from the outset, lag behind. The incredible levels of inequality are brought home by the fact that children from homes with 500 books or more receive, on average, three times as much ‘teaching’ at home. Another telling statistic: children from language-rich backgrounds have heard 32 million more words by the age of five than those from deprived backgrounds.

It is well known that by the age of eighteen months the kids from a nurturing home have leapt ahead of the children from deprived backgrounds, so by the time we get them into school the gap has already opened up, the danger being that it will never close, only widen. I’d like to see parenting classes as standard, rather than the education system trying to bridge the gap almost five years too late, with over-stretched teachers taking on a parenting role. I’d also recommend getting older people into our classrooms to give individual reading assistance. This would give possibly isolated seniors who want to keep their minds active a chance to use their knowledge and help instil the youngest members of society with a life-long love of books and learning.

I’d also like to see the government re-commit to Book Start, the scheme run in conjunction with Booktrust. This is a scheme which gives all babies and toddlers free books, regardless of their background. The coalition government have halved the funding they give to the scheme, though at present it is limping onwards. It would be a tragedy if this scheme fell by the wayside altogether, because, coupled with library closures – which writer Alan Bennett deemed ‘child abuse’, and rightly so – the end of this scheme would mean pre-schoolers from book-free households wouldn't get near a book until they go to school.

Just one of the delightful ways, then, that our present government are condemning more children to a life of underachievement and frustration, whilst also ensuring that social divisions and gaping inequality worsens by the year.

Apple Day 2011: a bumper crop

2011-10-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

Another year, another crop of apples...and that can only mean one thing in Stroud Green: Apple Day! This annual fixture has fast become one of my highlights of the year, and Transition Crouch End should be congratulated - alongside the other groups who organise the event - for putting on a great range of stalls each year.

Chris has won the apple peeling competition for the last two years, and so the pressure was on for a hat trick. This year he managed 1 metre, 89 cm. "Disappointing," he mused, "though still enough for me to remain the champion." Indeed, he was crowned champ once again. Next year we really must get the people from the Guinness Book of Records along...

There was apple pressing (the juice was incredible), apple tasting (an apple called Opal was my favourite by far), plus lots of craft activities for the children.

In short, a glorious afternoon, and a great opportunity to catch up with some of my favourite Stroud Greenites. And many thanks to Haringey Green Party member Pamela Harling, who made me laugh when, standing behind a table of around 100 British apple varieties, she declared, "I don't even LIKE apples!" Oh the irony.

A mine of midwifery misinformation...

2011-10-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

On a day when it has been reported that standards of care in many hospitals are woefully inadequate, I had a midwife appointment at University College Hospital. I have so far thankfully found little to complain about in terms of the standard of care at the hospital, a far cry from my experiences at the Royal Free back in 2007. However, the midwife I saw today was an exception to the rule.

I heard staff talking about how short-staffed they were today due to midwives having called in sick, and saw one midwife trying to deal with a long line of patients. When the time came for me to see the midwife (and by this point it was twenty minutes or so after the scheduled appointment time) she apologised for the delay.

I was feeling both anxious and somewhat unwell, and was interested to see what my blood pressure would be today. Surprise, surprise, it was low (70/44). The following exchange then ensued:

Me: It’s quite low, isn’t it?

Midwife: That’s good.

Me: Well…yes, I know it’s safer that it’s low rather than high-

Midwife: That’s right.

Me: - but actually it’s not all that good feeling faint a lot of the time…

Midwife: You’re very anxious, aren’t you?(Laughs)

Me: Yes, I am. I’ve been seeing the psychiatrist here because of the traumatic time I had last time I gave birth. I am feeling very anxious at the moment...not sleeping...

Midwife: Are you taking anything for it?

Me: No…I haven’t been offered anything.

Midwife: Then you must have a very supportive partner. Did you get post-natal depression last time?

Me: No.

Midwife: Well then. And was your baby alright?

Me: She had some trouble breathing…she had a suspected GBS infection and was taken to the Special Care Baby Unit…

Midwife: No. I mean now. Is she okay now?

Me: Yes, oh yes.

Midwife: So you’re booked for a C-section on 31st October. Is your partner planning to stay?

Me: Stay? When?

Midwife: Overnight.

Me: Can you do that?

Midwife: Yes, in a side room with you and the baby.

Me: But I was told I can’t have a side room because I’m having a Caesarean and they have to keep an eye on me…

Midwife: For the first 24 hours, but after that you can.

Me: Oh! I will book one then.

Midwife: You can’t book them.

Me: There’s a sign out there (pointing to the waiting room) about how to book one, though…

Midwife: How would you book one? Think about it!

Me: So why does it say you can on the sign?

Midwife: Well you can, but only once you’re on the post-natal ward. And if you book you have to pay for it.

Me: I am willing to pay for it!

Midwife: I know you are but you can’t book in advance.

WHAAAAT? You get the picture. You know that feeling you get when you’re talking to someone who doesn't know what they’re on about, and so just bullshit you and change the story with every statement they make? Well, that was one of those situations – not at all reassuring in a clinical setting, especially when you’re already feeling anxious!

After palpating my abdomen and declaring the baby’s head is down, I retorted “Are you sure?” I went on to explain that I was told this last time, but after 48 hours in labour, a scanner was wheeled in and the suspicion I had held for weeks was confirmed: the baby was breeched and suddenly it was all systems go for an emergency c-section. The midwife today was most put-out that I doubted her word and uttered the classic “I have been a midwife for a long time, I do know what I’m talking about!”

In short, I left today’s appointment feeling more insecure about my care and how I’ll be treated once I am admitted on 31st October. Yes, the midwife was under pressure due to the short-staffing, but her adversarial, defensive and patronising manner made the exchange unpleasant for the pair of us.

Oh, and the nonsense about the side room? I telephoned the hospital once I got home, and once I had navigated the dodgy 'phone system (this involved being cut off twice...), I was told that I wouldn’t be allowed one if I’d had a c-section, just as I had been told before. I explained that a midwife told me that wasn’t the case after the first 24 hours, and so I was then allowed to book a room. Who knows who has it right and what will happen? As for partners being allowed to stay overnight, it was the first the woman I spoke to on the ‘phone had heard of it.

One last confused note: the midwife bluntly told me that I was 'lucky' to be granted a c-section as I live ‘out of the area’, and it is now policy to only let women have c-sections at their ‘local’ hospitals (in my case that would be the Whittington). If this is correct (and remember, it came from that mine of midwifery misinformation!) then that’s appalling; so much for patient choice.

Advice to heed...and advice to ignore!

2011-09-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

It’s incredible how some advice to pregnant women and new mothers changes with the wind whilst some remains constant for decades. I have here a copy of ‘Babylove: A Practical Guide to a Loving Pregnancy and Parenthood’ by Judy Wade and Val Hudson, published in 1977. (I was born in 1978, so I’ll let you guess whose shelf I plucked this from!).

Some of the advice and the observations remain extremely up to date. For example, on breastfeeding in public, Wade and Hudson write:

‘If anyone sees you breast feeding and objects it’s their attitude that’s wrong, not yours. It’s a pity that the sight of a naked breast in some newspapers and magazines is acceptably naughty but a breast feeding mother is obscene. We think the real obscenity is in the minds of the onlooker who turns a beautiful, natural act into something shameful.’ (p.168)

Bravo! How little times have changed, with women still having to justify and defend their right to breastfeed in public.

The book is focused upon the need for a couple (taken here to be a heterosexual couple, of course!) to keep their ‘romance’ (yuck!) alive throughout pregnancy and afterwards. Here Wade and Hudson had me literally weeping with laughter (thanks, Wade and Hudson!). For example, in the section entitled, ‘Tips for a Sexier Pregnancy’ (which comes with line drawings of sexual positions to try during pregnancy, including the curiously-titled ‘Ride-a-Cock-Horse’ – no, really), we also read:

‘Surprise him – by whispering something very private in a very public place. By dropping a pile of cushions on the floor (preferably in front of a glowing fireplace) as an irresistible invitation. Or make his favourite fantasy come true by going to bed wearing just a black velvet ribbon around your throat like Goya’s Maya nude – or just a pair of silky black stockings.’ (p.75).

Phoaarr! A black velvet ribbon, eh? Hot to trot. (Notice there’s no mention of the bloke bothering to fulfil his partner’s ‘favourite fantasy’…). Wade and Hudson even suggest ‘sensual music’ to play during all this ribbon-wearing and cushion-dropping. ‘You could try Donna Summer’s classic arouser Love to Love you Baby’ apparently. (Anyone else getting an image here of Alison Steadman as suburban housewife Beverley in the Mike Leigh film ‘Abigail’s Party’, wearing her black velvet chocker, dancing to aforesaid track? Uncanny!).

But the best advice the book has to offer concerns childbirth itself. Women are advised to make an effort with their appearance, such as by wearing false eyelashes during labour (it helps with the pain if you look sexy). This is in a chapter entitled ‘How to be Hip in Hospital’. In this chapter there is also the staggering advice to befriend the hospital staff in order to ensure better treatment. One way of doing this is to remember that ‘many nurses and doctors come from abroad. In the first stage of labour when contractions are light you could ask a few friendly questions about their homelands…’ (p.120).

I will end with what is, in my opinion, the most incredible paragraph in the whole bizarre book:

‘A nutty beauty we know decided that the most vital part of producing a baby was getting some superb needlework in her vagina when the doctor stitched her episiotomy after birth. Unfortunately it was 3am when her baby arrived and a woman doctor had to be called from a sound sleep to sew her up. Although our friend wasn’t feeling very chatty she switched on all the high-powered charm she could muster. The result was after a long, careful sewing job the doctor looked up and said: “I’m really proud of my work. I have repaired you so beautifully your husband will come back and thank me in a few week’s time.’ (p.120).

Wow. There are SO many things wrong with the above story that it’s difficult to know where to start! I’ll leave it to you to puzzle over instead.

Now excuse me whilst I go buy some false eyelashes and book myself into a charm school, all whilst trying not to strangulate myself with a black velvet ribbon…

Pass the Ear Plugs...

2011-09-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

Now at the ‘unmistakably pregnant’ stage of pregnancy (though a woman did ask me if I had irritable bowel syndrome a couple of weeks ago…), my shape is causing near-constant comment from both acquaintances and strangers alike. As someone who generally likes to go about my everyday business without entering into conversations with strangers about my intimate medical history, this is rather irksome.

I know people are just being friendly (in the main), but the range of comments I have been on the receiving end of in the last couple of weeks has sometimes been both intrusive and upsetting, leaving me to ponder whether a lot of people are somehow disturbed by pregnancy, and therefore have a tendency to make a load of unwise comments.

With this in mind I have come up with a handy list of comments to say – and comments decidedly not to say – to pregnant women. All of the comments below are things that have actually been said to me.

Do Say…

“When’s it due?”

“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“Is it your first?”

“How are you feeling?”

In other words, keep it simple, safe and unoriginal. Yes, I am sick to death of answering these questions on an almost hourly basis from delivery men, taxi drivers, newsagents, fellow travellers on the bus (the list goes on…and on), but these are inoffensive and neutral. You’re on safe ground: stay there.

Don’t Say

“Are you OK? Your face looks a bit swollen.”

“Wow. You’re HUGE. Are you having twins?”

“If you don’t know if you’re having a boy or a girl, how do you know what colour baby clothes to wear? OMG! Nightmare!”

Oh, and if I reveal that I am having a planned caesarean, please DON’T say:

“My sister almost bled to death on the operating table when she had a caesarean.”

“If they deliver the baby before the due date, do you know the baby could die?”

“Why are you having a caesarean? You don’t HAVE to have one, you know. I had two home births. They were amazing!”

One last thing: don’t touch the bump unless we are actually friends. (In fact, this doesn’t happen too much to me, probably because of what I like to term my distinct ‘fuck off vibes’. Good).

A (colourful) update on my 'guerrilla gardening' exploits

2011-09-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

Back in May I blogged about the fact that I'd planted a packet of sunflower seeds in an abandoned flowerbed on the corner of Baker's Lane and Archway Road, just by the North Circular. It's a litter-strewn spot and the flowerbed there was completely empty.

It took me about 5 minutes to plant the seeds, and that was the total sum of my efforts.

A local resident last week emailed me to say that the sunflowers were now blooming and looked ‘wonderful’.

When I went to visit the flowers yesterday (see picture) I couldn’t quite believe how big they have grown. Most of them are yet to bloom and so we haven’t seen the best of them yet.

The sunflowers can be seen by drivers as they enter Haringey from the North Circular, so I'd like to think that they provide a bright and cheery welcome to our borough – and all for 99p!

Some reflections on the unrest

2011-08-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

Rarely has the Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’ occurred to me more frequently than over the last few days. Like many people I have been regularly checking the news to find out the latest on the riots and the looting, which of course started here in Haringey following the shooting of an armed man.

If it hadn’t been for the events that unfolded after the shooting, the focus would now be on the circumstances of the man’s death. Have the Met once again lied to us about a death at their hands, seeing as the earlier reports that they had been shot at have now been proved untrue? Though I believe that if you go about armed with a gun you have to factor in the possibility that you might be shot by the police, it is disturbing to find out once again that the police may have falsified information.

Yesterday however we saw the Met applauded by some people who were helping to clear up the mess left by rioters. Usually suspicious of the police force here in London, partly due to my own experience of them when attending peaceful demos, I have for the last few days felt a sympathy for them. It really is a case of damned if they do and damned if they don’t, with forces being accused of not taking enough tough action against the lawless.

Indeed, David Cameron’s rhetoric (once he’d seen fit to return from Tuscany) is becoming more macho by the day, knowing as he does that ‘the people’ (certainly the ones who might vote for his party) want to see a tough approach and punishment metered out to the guilty parties. Not for him a reasoned analysis of what may have provoked this behaviour.

Now we’re seeing vigilantes on the streets in some parts of the country, supposedly ‘protecting’ their communities but actually just getting wrapped up in the same mob mentality and thirst for violence as the rioters themselves.

I am not for a moment going to suggest that the rioters and looters have any sort of ideology behind their actions. Most of them are angry people who feel they have been handed a shitty deal in life, and see this as a perfect opportunity to vent their spleen, and maybe get some free trainers at the same time. Has it got anything to do with the police shooting, the cuts, a mandate-less Government of millionaires who are driving more into poverty? Not on the surface of things; not in any thought-out or easily articulated way.

What perhaps saddened me the most was the comments of some girls who had taken part in the looting. They said that they were showing the rich that they could do this, and striking out against those who had businesses. But in attacking local businesses they are of course lessening the amount of local jobs, damaging the local economy and punishing – and possibly ruining - what may already be struggling shop owners. Clearly though, when you’re caught up in the excitement of vandalising and looting, you’re not going to be sitting back and thinking about the pros and cons, the long-term consequences of your actions either for your local area and your own future.

Indeed, just ask Boris Johnson and David Cameron, who, in the Bullingdon Club back in their Oxford days, went on vandalising sprees, sometimes peppering it with a bit of arson. Doesn’t seem to have damaged their prospects, when you come to think of it…

I’m not sure what the answers are, nor can I fully explain the reasons behind the violence we’ve been seeing. I was struck to see the events last night at Salford Shopping precinct, a spot I know well since I lived in the area during my first two years of university (1996-1998). Back then, the Langworthy estate where I lived was known locally as ‘Beirut’. Packs of kids, some as young as 5, would rampage through the streets. Wherever we students went we would have abuse hurled at us, mostly driven by envy – and who could blame them? The time around bonfire night was particularly frightening, as fireworks (which seemed to be in endless supply, even to the youngest kids) would be thrown and used as weapons (I remember one going off right next to my then girlfriend’s face).

Other students we knew had lit fireworks lobbed into their living room, whilst others had to face a terrifying evening of aggravated burglary. Old people lived in fear and abandoned terraces were often set ablaze. Anyone who co-operated with – or was rumoured to have co-operated with – the police would have their houses daubed with graffiti, declaring them a ‘grass’. I also recall homophobic and racist graffiti on particular houses too. What I don’t recall is much of a police presence, strangely. Indeed, at one car boot sale I remember seeing boxed trainers with labels on them boasting ‘stolen last night’ and ‘nicked yesterday’. Here were people who had either nothing to lose or who knew the police would not act.

In short, it seems incredible that it has taken so long for violence like this to break out in Salford, or in other equally deprived, poorly-educated places. It will be a miracle if this is the end of the violence. If it got us to look at our incredibly unequal, consumerism-crazy society and really change things from the bottom up we could say something good had come of this. However, what we are more likely to see is reactionary responses, more social divisions, more hatred, and more of a mandate for the police to use an increasingly heavy hand. I am already worried about the impact this outbreak will have on the right to peacefully protest in the future, a right we will have to defend to the death.

Greens hold packed meeting on Pinkham Way as campaigners vow to fight on

2011-07-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

Although the proposal to build an MBT waste plant the size of two football pitches at Pinkham Way have been ‘put on ice’ for 9 months, over one hundred local residents and campaigners turned up for a packed meeting on the subject. Speakers at the meeting, which was organised by Haringey, Enfield and Barnet Green Parties, were Darren Johnson, Green Party London Assembly Member, Quentin Given, Co-ordinator of Tottenham and Wood Green Friends of the Earth and Colin Parish, founder of the Pinkham Way Alliance.

Quentin Given spoke first, stating that “the reason we’re all here tonight is because we produce too much waste.” He went on to talk about the need for goods to be wrapped in less packaging so that there was less to either recycle or send to landfill in the first place. Friends of the Earth believe that London should be dealing with its own waste and that we should be moving away from incineration.

Colin Parish began by explaining how his involvement in the Pinkham Way Alliance has changed his outlook on environmental issues, particularly the issue of waste. “I’m not a green,” he stated. “I’ve never been overly concerned about recycling but now I’ve come to realise that I need to mend my ways. I’m greener and greener by the day because I realise we need to address this.”

Addressing the accusation that the campaign is nimbyist, Mr. Parish commented, “It’s not that we don’t want it in our backyard; it’s so big we will be in its backyard.” He commented on the ‘dirty dishcloth’ smell that permeated from other MBTs around the country that were already in operation. Flies and litter are often big problems too, leading him to comment that the nearby McDonalds would have to ask customers, if the MBT does go ahead, “do you want flies with that?”

The Pinkham Way Alliance have welcomed the 9 month “stay of execution” and believe that it is essential that the North London Waste Plan (NLWP) is agreed before a decision is made on the proposed Pinkham Way development. On the issue of the NLWP, Mr Parish commented “It’s full of holes. The way in which they have used their own criteria [in relation to Pinkham Way] is incredibly bogus.”

Darren Johnson, Green Party London Assembly Member, was the final speaker. He began by stating that “we will need new types of waste plants to deal with our waste, but I do object to this plan as it is completely the wrong plant in the wrong place.”

Highlighting the fact that the last Mayor of London had planned to have lots of small waste and recycling plants across the capital, but that Boris Johnson, in his new London Plan, changed this to fewer, larger plants, Mr Johnson commented, “I wouldn’t object to MBT if we’re talking about a very small amount of waste in each borough. We are going to have to have waste plants in London, but they need to be in the right location, the right technology and the right size. They need to serve the local community rather than being imposed upon it.”

Mr. Johnson urged campaigners to make the issue of the Pinkham Way plans and, more widely, the issue of London’s waste, into a key Mayoral election issue.

The audience made many contributions, and it became clear that the site where the MBT is planned to be built is a much-loved local wood. People remembered playing there as children and it was noted that it has only been fenced off for the last 18 months, since being bought by the North London Waste Authority for £12 million.

Several audience members talked about the necessity to increase recycling and to improve recycling methods. This would mean less non-recyclable waste to process and less need for huge MBTs or landfill. The issue of businesses being charged for recycling was raised, and the problems this causes in terms of making small businesses less willing to recycle their waste.

Colin Parish was asked at what point would residents be able to be confident the battle had been won? Mr. Parish answered, “We will have succeeded in this campaign when my grandchildren are playing in Pinkham Wood.” He explained that his son is currently 13, so he feels that there’s a very long battle ahead.

London's first Sex Worker Film Festival

2011-06-15T06:28:00.000-07:00

"Hard to believe it's the first, isn't it? We've been having sex for years." (The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence).

London’s first Sex Worker Film Festival took place last Sunday at the Rio Cinema in Dalston. The audience were a strange mix of male and female sex workers (some in wigs and masks to avoid identification), activist, allies and the incurably curious.

The event was held as a fundraiser for the Sex Worker Open University which will take place in September. Before the short films were shown, the audience were treated to such delights as a man dressed as a nun (one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence) fellating a dildo before ‘educating’ the audience on how best to put a condom on using only one’s mouth. Personally, I felt his technique lacked finesse and concluded the boy needed more practise.

The first film in the programme was ’69 Things I Love About Sex Work’ (Canada, 2006). This was a clever film to open with as it was the only piece that was sexually explicit. Over footage of various sex workers with their clients, a list of 69 quite light-hearted reasons why sex work is enjoyable were printed. They ranged from ‘toys’ to ‘referrals’, from ‘room service’ to ‘bi-curious wives’ (this last one raised a laugh). At this point I feared that the festival might simply be a collective ‘cheerleading for sex work’ event, and one which didn’t grapple with any difficult issues. Thankfully I was to be proved wrong.

Onto the second film, ‘Hands Off! (UK, 2011), and already we were into more complex territory. This film deals with the ‘nil policy’ introduced by Hackney Council, allowing no ‘sex encounter’ establishments in the borough, meaning striptease clubs like the long-established Browns were faced with closure. The film includes interviews with strippers at the aforesaid club, as well as the two women who run it. They were keen to stress that this is work they enjoy, and that they feel safe and protected whilst working.

The most interesting contribution though was from Reverend Paul Turp of the Shoreditch Church, who approves of the clubs as they are well-regulated and largely well-run. His comment that “the people who say they want no sex establishments, they’re good moral people, but it’s not going to work” struck me as both enlightened and a good summing up of the argument for decriminalising sex work generally.

Another film, however, problematised the issue of decriminalisation. ‘Ni Coupables, Ni Victimes’ (Not Guilty, Not Victims (Europe, 2006)). Filmed at the European Conference on Sex Work, Human Rights, Labour and Migration in Brussels in 2005, it was composed of interviews with sex workers (male, female, transgender) from around the world. (One of them, a French transgender sex worker, also proudly announced that she is an elected French Green Party representative, which of course impressed me!). It was particularly interesting to hear what the legal situation is in each country, and whether or not it worked.

In Denmark, for example, sex workers are supposed to register and pay tax, which gives them legitimacy but also, inevitably, no privacy. This means that people often do not register themselves. In this country, and others where sex work is regulated, workers often resent the tight laws and constant health testing that is required in order to work legally, and so often choose to work outside the law. So laws which are put in place in order to protect sex workers are, by some at least, neatly circumnavigated, rendering them useless.

Clearly, there is no one system which is perfect, and which would make sex work completely safe nor, because of societal conditioning around sex and morality, uncontroversial work. However, I remain convinced that the Green Party approach of decriminalisation, despite its problems (another one of which might be that the most vulnerable women, i.e. those selling sex on the streets, often to finance drug habits, wouldn’t be deemed ‘suitable’ for working in clean, well-regulated brothels) is the best – or perhaps the ‘least worst’ - solution to an issue that isn’t ever going to go away.

‘Sex Worker Open University’ (UK, 2009) was filmed at the first event of its kind in London, where over two hundred sex workers and allies from the UK and abroad took part in workshops, discussions and actions. An interesting point was made in this film about trafficked workers, and the fact that the textiles and agricultural industry make a lot of use of such labour, but it is the sex industry where there is an outcry about the issue. Why is this? Clearly, it’s because sex work is seen as more exploitative – and I agree that there may be a point there – though harvesting spring onions in a blizzard twelve hours a day on a slave wage/no wage doesn’t sound like a picnic either. And of course we’re all culpable in this as most of us shop at supermarkets and enjoy price reductions that this sort of labour makes possible.

I found it refreshing when, in a discussion which took place at the event between sex workers, one woman asserted that they had to be honest that some clients were “misogynist murderers” but there was a pressure on workers not to admit this, as it would be used by people who were against decriminalisation. Instead, there is an emphasis on saying how empowering and enjoyable sex work is, when of course, like any job, it isn’t fun 100% of the time. Indeed, much of the time it can be frightening and dangerous, a situation greatly exacerbated by the current legal situation in this country.

There were other films I haven’t discussed here, and the festival also included a panel discussion. The directors of several of the films, the coordinator of the festival (Dr Heidi Hoefinger), plus a sex worker and a stripteases artist attempted to answer some very tough questions from the audience. The first two questions were about trafficking, a subject that really seems to dominate the issue of sex work, and for good reason. The problem was that the panel had very little knowledge of and no experience of trafficking, and so were slightly at a loss when it came to answering these questions in any depth.

What became increasingly clear to me was that sex workers who have gone into the sex industry of their own volition cannot speak for trafficked sex workers/slaves. Similarly, anti-decriminalisation campaigners who purport to speak for trafficked sex workers/slaves cannot also speak for sex workers who are doing this work of their own free will. To categorise both sets of workers as in the same position is both erroneous and harmful, and results in either trafficked workers being dismissed as not existing/being a tiny minority of sex workers, or all sex workers being viewed as victims.

The festival was definitely a stimulating and alternative way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and it was good to see the event was completely sold out. What’s for certain is that for me at least it raised far more questions than it answered, though that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Body 'watchfulness': a pregnant pause

2011-06-06T03:31:00.000-07:00

Pregnancy can be an alarming process. At perhaps no other time does your body change so swiftly and so radically. As women, we are conditioned to be ‘watchful’ of our bodies, forever checking that we haven’t put on weight/sprouted unacceptable hair/our clothes are well-fitting, age-appropriate, flattering and fashionable/our hair and make-up hasn’t utterly disgraced us in some unimaginable way.

With pregnancy, a woman has to accept that there is no way she can control her body in the way she has been used to doing. Hormonal changes alone will mean weight gain and a complete change of shape. This shouldn’t be distressing, but so often is. Plus, there is always another woman who seems to be doing pregnancy ‘better’ than oneself; she will remain immaculate and her neat little bump will be the only outward bodily change visible.

Pregnancy magazines, which are primarily designed to sell STUFF, don’t help the self-conscious expectant mother either. They’re full of ‘sexy maternity underwear’ (is there any time in the lives of women where they are ‘allowed’ to be unsexy?), and also healthy diet tips, ostensibly there to promote healthy ante-natal nutrition, but clearly with a nod to the weight-conscious woman. Articles ‘warning’ women about hidden calories, with tips about healthier snacking, only serve to guilt-trip women who may be reaching for sugary snacks because of low blood pressure or terrible pregnancy sickness. We all know, surely, that an apple is healthier than a donut – we don’t need it ramming down our throats (I don’t mean literally!).

I recall seeing a full-page piece about a post-natal corset (all black satin and red ribbons). The theory was that if you didn’t strap your ribs down after birth, fat would build up behind your rib cage. Hmm, I’d like to see the science behind that…are we talking about fat lungs here?! Yeah, that definitely sounds like something to worry about. Honestly, what garbage!

As an overweight teenager, and then later a self-conscious woman, I too find the prospect of piling on a few stone a difficult one to tolerate. As much as one tells oneself ‘I’m pregnant, this is what happens’, ‘This shouldn’t be a concern right now – having a healthy baby is more important’, it is difficult to shift a lifetime of conditioning, and it would take a stronger mind than mine to be completely free of this nonsense.

One thing I have learnt is this: after having my daughter in 2007 (and at the height of that pregnancy weighing, as I recall, 14 stone 4 lbs – of which my daughter made up 10 lbs 9 oz!), my self-consciousness and weight-obsessiveness diminished (though sadly didn't disappear entirely) a huge amount. Why? Well, I think I was kind of happy to just let my body ‘be’; it had done something pretty amazing, and I wasn’t going to give it such a hard time anymore. This didn’t mean I didn’t diet and go to the gym to lose the baby weight – I did, but I wasn’t going to go down the ‘I hate my body’ route any longer. I simply couldn’t hate something that had produced someone I love so much.

Horse Riding in Haringey

2011-06-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a curious - and brilliant - idea: horse riding in Haringey. Resident Lydia Rivlin has long encouraged horse riding in the borough, providing ponies for kids to ride, at, for example, the Lordship Lane Festival. Lydia believes that all children should have the opportunity to ride, not just those with rich parents.

Her latest idea is an excellent one - I'll let Lydia explain:

'For those of you contemplating long drives out to Enfield to satisfy your kids' ambitions to ride, think how much more carbon and time efficient it would be to have riding right here in this borough. We have cricket pitches, football fields, gymnasia, tennis courts and golf clubs all catering for sports dominated by men and boys. Riding is a sport which appeals very strongly to girls and gives them a chance to shine. It is also an opportunity to give the disabled some good exercise and psychological therapy. Why are the Council not making the most of their parkland resources to help it along?

'As some of you may know, I have been lobbying the council to lease part of Alexandra Park to any company which is prepared to make a go of it as an equestrian centre. The interest from the councillors on the AP Trust has left something to be desired but interest from us ordinary folks has been phenomenal. We are holding a meeting in the Salisbury in Harringay (corner of Green Lanes & St. Ann's Road) on the evening of Wednesday 15th June and would welcome anyone who has ideas for furthering this project or who wants to show some support. All are invited, especially Trust members but also Councillors who have an interest in diversifying Haringey's programmes for fitness, youth welfare and sports for the disabled.'

I completely agree that Ally Pally would be a good place for this facility. Indeed, it has a 'horsey history', housing as it did a race course until 1970. I can also attest to the popularity of horse riding amongst girls; as a decidedly unsporty youth, I nevertheless enjoyed going riding every weekend for years. My daughter (pictured above, enjoying some pony time last summer in Norfolk) is also keen on the sport, and I'd like to be able to encourage her without having to trek out of London or pay a fortune for the privilege.

Here's to a good turnout for the meeting, and to the council daring to 'think outside the box' for a change!

Veolia: dirty dealings in Haringey

2011-05-29T04:39:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday night I attended a packed ‘Friends of Stationers Park’ emergency meeting, which had been called because of the swiftly deteriorating state of the park. Reg, the park warden who had been stationed in a hut at the bottom end of the Green flag park, retired in April, and in that short space of time the litter has mushroomed, much altering the attractiveness of this essential ‘green lung’ of Stroud Green.

Two representatives from Haringey Council were present, one of whom candidly stated that “the standard of the parks we’ve had in the borough over the last few years can’t be maintained.” This is of course because of the budget cuts, which mean that parks will now be under-resourced and much will depend on local people (“Don’t even SAY ‘Big Society’!” warned one attendee) when it comes to ongoing maintenance. There was no lack of enthusiasm for taking control of the park, and local children are to be drafted in to help pick up litter.

There was a curious moment when it was suggested that people doing Community Payback could be made use of to help with the tasks. The consensus was that it ‘wasn’t right’ for Stationers Park, as the park was ‘too small’ (“It would work for Finsbury Park”), and that the school children would see the criminals and this would lead to ‘awkward questions’. Having been pleased to see people doing Community Payback painting the playground on the estate where I live, I was surprised by this attitude.

The most heated discussion of the evening, however, concerned Veolia, the waste company who have recently taken over the Haringey waste contract. This controversial company, who have been targeted by activists due to their dubious involvement in Palestine and the Occupied Territories, have taken up residence in nine parks across the borough.

They have taken over Reg’s old hut in Stationers Park, although, incredibly, they aren’t contracted to pick up the litter in the park! Indeed, they have been ‘dumping’ bags of litter behind the hut, causing an eyesore. (A waste company dumping rubbish – oh the terrible irony!).

But it gets worse. They have erected an ugly-as-sin corrugated metal fence (without, we suspect, planning permission). In so doing, they have damaged the roots of a beautiful silver birch tree.

There have been similar complaints about Veolia’s behaviour in nearby Priory Park.

My own experience of their service so far is that they have failed to collect the rubbish from the estate in a timely manner, leading to rubbish overflowing from the bins (see above picture) and blowing all over the estate. As one of my neighbours commented to me last week (as we stood conversing next to a pile of dog poo and a used surgical dressing), “This place gets worse and worse.” Indeed, we have rats running around behind the bin chamber and in the back gardens now, which is no surprise.

Daily calls to Veolia, Haringey Council and Homes for Haringey (how nice it would be just to have to make ONE phone call!) have resulted in our Estate Manager admitting that Veolia are causing huge problems all over the borough.

It is worth bearing in mind that Veolia are one of the three waste companies bidding to run the misguided MBT plant in Pinkham Way. Surely Haringey Council will look at their record so far and turn down their bid? We can only hope for once that common sense prevails.

"This is pure environmental vandalism" says Stroud Green resident.

2011-05-23T12:15:00.001-07:00

Stan Knapik of Stroud Green contacted me a couple of weeks ago. He'd seen that Haringey Green Party had previously campaigned against the felling and pollarding practices of Haringey Council after the borough felled 1229 street trees between 2004 and 2007. Inderwick Road resident Mr Knapik had photographed the blossom tree just days before it was felled (see above), and was appalled to see it missing when he returned home on Tuesday.

“There was nothing wrong with this tree,” commented Mr Knapik. “On the contrary, it was beautiful and really contributed to the attractiveness of this street. Nobody was consulted, and now we’re told that the trees on nearby Granville Road are set to be heavily pollarded.”

Despite the fact that I have challenged the council about these issues repeatedly, we are still seeing the borough’s street trees decimated. Trees are felled for the most spurious of reasons, and replacement trees are often planted in different locations and end up vandalised or ailing due to inadequate aftercare. Spring is exactly the wrong time to be pollarding the trees – one reason alone is the issue of nesting birds.

Mr Knapik concluded, “I’m seeing street trees all over the borough being felled, despite the fact that they have been happy growing where they are for, in some cases, over one hundred years. The local Green Party have been active about this issue and take it seriously, but when will Haringey Council change their ways? This is pure environmental vandalism.”

UPDATE 26/05/11: THIS STORY IS FEATURED IN TODAY'S HORNSEY JOURNAL - SEE: http://www.hornseyjournal.co.uk/news/crouch_end_cherry_tree_victim_of_council_vandalism_1_902088

Stroud Green Neighbourhood Day - a success again!

2011-05-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I went along to Stroud Green Neighbourhood Day, which is always a yearly highlight. Residents take to the streets, set up stalls, perform music and generally have a great day.

This year was another great success, with the action taking place around the library. When I arrived with my cake (of course), I was told to get cutting. I have honestly never seen a cake disappear so quickly; two minutes (possibly less) and it was gone. Wow. Those Stroud Greenites love a bit of home made carrot and banana cake, that much is certain.

It's a lovely event and I'm glad the residents make the effort to hold it each year. It reinforces community spirit, bringing people out of their homes and onto the street to meet their neighbours. I wish more areas did the same; it takes a bit of teamwork and effort, but the benefits are manifold.

Next year I'm hoping to help organise, along with the Friends of Stationers Park, a 'Big Lunch' for the residents in the streets surrounding the park. A street party minus the royal wedding - that can't be a bad thing!

A spot of guerrilla gardening!

2011-05-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

It's a great feeling when you manage to get something done that you've been meaning to get around to for a while, isn't it? For a long time I've been meaning to go and sort out a rather neglected flower bed (pictured above) which is located on the corner of Archway Road and Bakers Lane in Highgate. It's a particularly unlovely spot with traffic roaring past, and litter strewn about the place.

On the way to pick my daughter up from nursery today I planted some giant sunflower seeds in the flower bed, and we'll see whether they're a success or not. I was surprised at how weed-free the soil was, and the reason for that became clear very quickly. No sooner had I started planting the seeds than a man came along and told me that he had weeded the bed that very morning (he lives just next to the spot on Archway Road). He was delighted that I was planting the seeds - I just hope they grow!

If they thrive, people coming into the borough from Barnet or coming off the North Circular will be greeted by a flower bed of nodding giant sunflowers. I'll be sure to post a picture here if all goes well!

An Unsure Footing (bring your own glue).

2011-05-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

I had often heard that there are huge waiting lists for podiatry and foot health appointments in Haringey. People waiting for their treatment were reportedly hugely inconvenienced – as well as experiencing unnecessary pain – by being made to wait so long.

I wear orthotics in my shoes because of my bad back, Achilles tendon problems and the fact that one leg is a bit longer than the other (to quote one plain-speaking expert, I am ‘far from mechanically perfect’).

I’ve always had the orthotics made up on the NHS, formerly at St Ann’s Hospital and then, when the service moved, at Lordship Lane Polyclinic (which is a mere THREE bus rides from my flat, four year old in tow…). I’ve never waited that long for an appointment in the past, and wondered how true it was that the waiting lists were incredibly long.

However, having broken an orthotic at the end of last year, I asked for a referral in December, and then I waited. And waited (my back pain become worse as a result). I chased up my appointment several times and eventually found out I’d be seen in early April. The morning of the appointment, a call came through that the member of staff whom I was to see was ill, and I’d have to wait for another month.

At my delayed appointment, I was told that the woman was the only person dealing with orthotics for the whole borough as the other member of staff, who I had previously seen, left their role and their post was closed. The woman told me she couldn’t make my orthotics that day as the appointment was just ten minutes long, and that I’d have to come back in a few weeks for a full assessment.

That appointment took place today. Mentioning to the woman that I am pregnant and suffering from additional pain due to Symphis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD), I was hurriedly told “you can’t wear orthotics when pregnant!” (news to me) and that “I should ask if people are pregnant – I always forget!”

It was agreed that I would have some temporary, softer contraptions made up – but get this – THEY HAD RUN OUT OF GLUE! – and so they would have to post them to me. It was either that or they make them up with double sided tape! (No, really, I am not making this up – if only!).

Now, I knew I had to take my broken orthotics and some shorts along to the assessment, but I didn’t know I had to take my own glue. If it had said so on the letter I’d have popped into Rymans on the arduous journey to the clinic!
Seriously though, what a mess. I’m lucky: although ‘far from mechanically perfect’ I can get about okay, albeit with varying levels of discomfort. Others aren’t so lucky and will be seriously incapacitated by this unbelievably shoddy service. Now that the local PCT has been dissolved, I am not even sure who is ‘at the wheel ‘of the local health service. Clearly whoever it is is fast asleep. And it is alarming that after just one year of this government, the NHS has already noticeably worsened.

UPDATE 23/05/2011: STILL NOT RECEIVED MY ORTHOTICS. CALLED THE LORDSHIP LANE CLINIC AND WAS TOLD "WE'RE STILL WAITING FOR THE GLUE." I GIVE UP!

Keep 'em ignorant...

2011-05-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

You have to give Nadine Dorries MP points for trying. What a shame she’s a deluded pro-lifer who is putting her efforts into restricting girls’ and women’s freedoms and reproductive choices.

This is the MP, you will recall, who tried to get the abortion limit brought down from 24 weeks, and preached about ‘counselling’ (i.e. pro-life bullying) being the best option. This is the woman who believes it is no big deal to go through an unwanted pregnancy, because there’s the option of putting the baby up for adoption at the end. Writing as a 13 weeks pregnant woman, now on my ninth week of puking and fainting, I can tell you that pregnancy is no picnic. Indeed, over the last two months I have repeatedly thought, with abject horror, of how traumatising it must be to go through this experience against one’s will. It is hard enough when you really want the baby, believe me.

Now the delightful Tory MP is celebrating because she’s just got a 10 minute rule bill through the House of Commons which is all about teaching 13 to 16 year old girls abstinence. Notice it’s about teaching the girls not to have sex, not the boys. This reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my husband’s relatives a few weeks ago. A woman in her seventies, she had told her granddaughter at the age of 13 “to remain a virgin for as long as possible.” I asked if she was going to be giving the same advice to her now 13 year old grandson? “No!” she exclaimed. “He’s a boy!” I’ll let you imagine my retort!.

Dorries is concerned that girls are being taught about sex too young, and this is making them want to do it, instantly. My four year old daughter already knows the very basic facts about how babies are made (“a seed bashes into an egg”, to quote her directly!), and I think an on-going dialogue about sex and relationships is the way forward, with the degree of detail depending on the age and maturity of the child and the questions they ask.

I don’t think that knowing about sex means that you feel the need to go off and try out for real what you’ve learnt. I always felt that I was one of the most informed of my school friends when it came to sex, thanks to the fact that I read ‘Just Seventeen’ every week (I always turned to the problem pages first!). However, when 14 year old girls in my class, with little clue about sex, were already sexually active, I was in no hurry to join their ranks. Doing it for the sake of doing it held zero appeal, partly due, I expect, to the fact that I was clued-up and so not going to be easily led or misinformed. Knowledge is most definitely power.

What also annoys me deeply about Dorries’ latest mission to protect the virtue of the nation’s girls is how heterosexual the whole thing is. She talks of ‘girls making boys wait’. I wonder if sex education is still as heterosexual-centric as it was in the early nineties, when the fifteen year old me was given extremely short shrift by a visiting sex education woman when I asked – rather daringly, I reckon -about safe lesbian sex. (I ended up getting my information from a programme on Channel 4 – thanks, Channel 4!).

Here’s an idea for Dorries’ next mission: she should bring in a ten minute rule bill suggesting that school kids should be taught about gay sex, because you can’t get pregnant from that, and all of this malarkey is about lowering the abortion rate (I think that’s what she’s aiming for, though frankly, who knows?!). Somehow though I am not sure Dorries will go for my suggestion…!

Pop goes the Primary School

2011-04-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

A few weeks down the line from when the primary school places allocation was announced here in London, and I am hearing terrible stories about the children who failed to get into their preferred schools. In some cases, here in Haringey, children have been given places outside of the borough, which most probably means children being driven to school, which isn’t great news in terms of air quality, the environmental impact or the health of the child.

One Stroud Green couple found that, despite living just two streets away from their preferred school, their twins have been given their fifth and sixth choices. They are of course appealing, which in itself is a very stressful process, in order to at least get both children into the same school.

Some boroughs have already announced plans to build ‘flat-pack’ classrooms (neighbouring Barnet plans 16, for example), whilst Haringey is apparently in talks with a ‘business mogul’ (it says here), who is thinking of setting up a so-called ‘free school’.

I am not sure what the answer is (though I don’t think it’s free schools, and there are only so many extra classrooms a school can build), but the problem is set to get worse. The number of pupils in state primary schools is projected to increase about 14% from 3.96 million last year to 4.5 million by 2018. Statistics from the Department for Education show that the rise is steepest in London. Between 2009 and 2014, the capital's population aged between five and 10 will rise by about 16%. In the rest of the country, it will grow by about 12%.

I am reminded of a quotation from Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’: ‘ we are too many.’ Yes, I know it’s rich for me to say that when I’m currently concentrating on my own ‘population expansion project’ (though I absolutely guarantee I’m stopping at two!) but I can’t help but think that London, where the problem of school place shortages (not to mention housing shortages!) is at its worst, is simply ‘full up’. To an extent the capital is a victim of its own success. I’m certainly not suggesting any solutions, but instead highlighting a problem that we ignore at our peril.

Easter fun in Stationers Park

2011-04-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't an advert for Cream Eggs (I'm more a Mini Eggs fan myself), but it's me helping to run the annual Easter Egg hunt at Stationers Park, Stroud Green, earlier today.

I had the onerous task of hiding the patterned mdf eggs around the park. Too easy to spot and nobody's challenged; too tricky and I devastate the youngsters. I'm told I pitched it perfectly, though the one hidden in the fork of the willow tree outfoxed many.

Kids were rewarded for their toils with a Cream Egg, kindly donated by the local Waitrose. We took monetary donations, which will be put towards the replacement for the playfort, which is due to be demolished starting on 3rd May.

As a Friends of Stationers Park committee member (I was recently co-opted), I have been researching possible funding avenues for the new play equipment. We're still in need of £150,000, and so there's a lot of work to do to make sure we secure the money for a worthy replacement to the much loved but now structurally unsound fort.

I'm not sure we raised a lot of money today, but it was more about giving the families a bit of Easter fun. I think we definitely ticked that box, and the sun even deigned to shine for us, which was nice.

Breastfeeding promotion: leapardskin bras, groping hands...

2011-04-07T13:29:00.000-07:00

I saw some interesting NHS posters promoting breastfeeding today. They were displayed inside University College Hospital, and came in three designs, and so were pinned up as a triptych.

The first one featured a rather nice pair of breasts, one of which was in a rather daring leopardskin brassiere, the other of which was exposed and feeding a baby. ‘Designer Mum. Designer Milk’ read the slogan (see above!).

The second poster featured same nice bosoms (the bra had disappeared by this point), one of which was being mauled by a baby’s hand, the other of which was being groped by a fella’s hand. I can’t quite recall the slogan but the gist was ‘keep your baby AND your man happy’. The small print is that your baby can enjoy your breasts and hey, guess what, so can (and I quote), ‘your man’.

The third poster was the same woman, this time holding the baby with one arm and lifting a small dumbbell with the other. (I should mention that as well as lovely tits the model pictured has the teeniest, most toned stomach in the history of stomachs…i.e. it is not exactly in the shape of most post-natal mothers. Oh, and no stretch marks in sight, of course). Message: breastfeeding helps you get slim.

Now, I’m all for a bit of pro-boobfeeding propaganda. But I was a bit alarmed about the message these posters are putting out. Namely, breastfeeding will make you trendy, sexy and skinny – the holy trinity, no less!

Is it really true? There are loads of benefits to breastfeeding, but they’re more along the lines of long term health benefits to mother and baby. As for breastfeeding making you sexy, I’m not sure I’d welcome having my left bosom fondled whilst breastfeeding with the right. I know I always brag that women are excellent multi-taskers, but come on. The small print went on to reassure women that breastfeeding wouldn’t ‘ruin’ your tits. Perhaps not, though I recall how one female friend laughingly told me that her breasts were like ‘two sad little empty envelopes’ after she’d finished breastfeeding. Also, with all the ‘your man’ messaging, what of single mothers or lesbian couples? Not something the poster designers took into account, clearly!

And what about breastfeeding being a route to weight loss? Hmm…not in my experience! But then, if you’ve just been through the biggest event in your life and you’re struggling to cope with a newborn and establish breastfeeding, should your weight be an issue at the forefront of your mind? Er, no, despite what celebrity culture might tell us, it should not. There’s plenty of time for that malarkey down the line if a woman is concerned about her weight, but I have to tell you that boobfeeding isn’t some sort of guaranteed weight loss miracle!

So I was a little perturbed by the tone of these promotions. I know they were aiming for being controversial and eye catching, but I have an idea which is even more controversial. A poster campaign that exposes the dubious nature of the formula industry, the poor health outcomes for bottle-fed babies compared to breastfed ones.

But that would never happen, because the formula industry would sue. So for now, it’s leopardskin-clad breasts and hairy male hands groping lactating breasts. Um, not much would put me off breastfeeding, but….!

The NHS: a patient's view

2011-03-22T06:40:00.000-07:00

Last week I spent a couple of days and nights in the Whittington hospital. Don’t worry though, this post isn’t going to be about my ailments, but rather the current state of the NHS as I saw it during my thankfully brief stay.

Having been taken to hospital in an ambulance (no flashing lights, it wasn’t that serious), I was kept in Accident and Emergency on a trolley from about 1.30am till 10.30am, due to the fact that a bed couldn’t be found for me in the ward I needed to be on.

I couldn’t fault the staff who dealt with me during this time, though clearly being kept waiting whilst ill and in pain was far from ideal.

When I finally made it to the ward, I felt so grateful to get into my bed, albeit gingerly because of the double canula in my hand. The first thing I noticed though, on lying down, was that there were three big blobs of chewing gum stuck to the underside of the rail that runs around the middle of the wall, and that they were placed right next to my head. Hardly reassuring when we all already worry about ‘hospital superbugs’.

I am not the best of patients, being squeamish to an almost phobic degree, but the staff were reassuring, kind and funny. I saw one nurse repeatedly sit and talk with patients, getting to know them, and taking a real interest in their lives. She would pluck anything from the air and start a conversation about it – in my case, she asked me about my tattoos. She is the sort of person I would probably find a mite irritating in ‘real’ life, but ill in hospital, where even the most confident person feels somewhat child-like and diminished, I found her presence a great reassurance. When she went off shift at the end of the day, she told us what time she would be back the next morning, and I actively looked forward to her reappearance.

Because night time was a different story. Two nurses were in sole charge of the ward, and they made it no secret that they were struggling, complaining non-stop, angrily, that they couldn’t cope with their workload. I can’t blame them for their attitude, but it didn’t feel at all reassuring for us patients.

As the night shift started, an elderly woman from the Congo, who spoke no English, was wheeled from theatre into the bay next to mine. Confused and afraid, naked but for an undone surgical gown, she launched herself out of her bed, despite the fact that she was both attached to a drip and had an epidural in her spine. I remonstrated that she stay where she was, and called for the nurse. The nurse shouted at her and wrestled the woman back into her bed, whilst the woman talked urgently in her native language, of which of course no one understood a word.

She kept saying one word again and again; I forget what it was now, but let’s, for argument’s sake, say it was ‘lette’. “Lette?” said the nurse gruffly. ”Whatever lette means!” She marched off, and I was reminded of the bullying midwives I had endured at the Royal Free Hospital in January 2007, who I still have very real nightmares about today.

The milk of human kindness was again in evidence when I needed help in the night. After going to the toilet, I started to feel very faint. A nurse had her back to me, and was doing some admin. “I feel faint,” I said, bending forwards and placing my drip back on a chair that was handy. The nurse didn’t turn around and simply muttered “in a minute.”

Clearly these two nurses were in a difficult situation, short-staffed and run off their feet. But if you cannot summon up the ability to be kind in a job like nursing, it’s time to leave.

I also wondered if their anti-social hours were badly affecting their behaviour and judgement. Taking my blood pressure and pulse, one of them proceeded to wheel away the machine without undoing the cuff and the clip from my arm and finger respectively, leading me to cry out “I’m still attached!” (I was most alarmed because it was the same arm as the double canula was in, and it was pulling on the vein as a consequence). “I’m sorry, darling!” said the nurse, coming back to rectify her mistake. Sleep deprived, I wondered?

I myself was sleep-deprived after that night, which was marked by the harrowing cries of pain from my fellow patients. One woman was held down as she has a catheter inserted, the nurses repeatedly shouting at her to “relax!” Another woman cried out with severe abdominal pains, her waters having broken after a pregnancy of just 17 weeks. There is no privacy or dignity with only a thin curtain separating you from other people’s traumas and tragedies.

Despite the negative experience of the night shift, I was left with a feeling of intense respect for the medical staff I came into contact with. Who on earth would take on a low paid job with anti-social hours, which involved heavy lifting, emotional upheaval and endless gore? Where you might be torn between twenty needy, demanding patients, have to complete endless, seemingly needless paperwork, and spend a lot of your time cleaning up piss, shit and vomit? How much less worthwhile will this work seem when the NHS is carved up, sold off to the highest bidder, and profit rather than care becomes king?

I hope I never have to look back on this hospital visit and think: that’s when we had an NHS. That’s when we didn’t have to worry about how much treatment cost, because we used to believe that the right to good healthcare was intrinsic to a democratic society. When healthcare professionals, rather than being motivated by money simply had an innate desire to help people.

We have a wonderful thing in the NHS. We’ve seen it run down and left to rot many times over the past few decades, with many people who can afford it abandoning ship and going private. I think we have to shout from the rooftops that most of us aren’t willing to do that – we want an NHS that’s fit for purpose that allows those nurses and other medical staff the chance to do the work they need and want to do; to treat people with dignity, as individuals, and nurse them back to better health.

All aboard the sleeper train!

2011-03-09T05:18:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to write about sleeper trains for a while, because having been on them a few times now, and having mentioned them to lots of people, I've been really surprised by how many people just don't know they exist in the UK.

They do exist! Two of them, to be exact. There's the Caledonian Sleeper, which goes to the Scottish Highlands, and there's the Night Riviera, which goes to Cornwall.

Sleeper cabins are either single or double (the latter come with bunk beds). A family can get adjoining cabins, which means you can open the inter-connecting door, thus giving you much more space. They are actually a great way to transport children - ! - because they of course get very excited by the adventure of it all (as do I, to be honest), and yet you can contain them in the cabin, rather than have them run up and down the train, annoying people.

Also, the rhythm of the train will soon send them off to sleep (that's not just my optimistic theory, it genuinely is the case, with my daughter at least). Whether the same can be said for adults is another matter, though the beds are comfortable and there are actual duvets. Yes, duvets on a train. (Note: in the above picture, I am merely pretending to be asleep - drat. Clementine, however, isn't pretending at all!)

As someone with a bad back, I love to lie down (nothing to do with being a lazy so-and-so, oh, no...), and just the thought of sitting all the way to Scotland and back has me reaching for the Tramadol. Another point I hardly need to mention is that the carbon emissions are going to be vastly lower than if you chose to fly. They just need to make taking the sleeper a more economically viable option (though you can get some good-priced tickets) and it would be the obvious choice for most of us.

In short, nothing beats getting on the train in London and, upon waking, pulling up the blind to see snow-topped mountains rolling past. 'Where are we?' is the of course the obligatory first question of the day!

No to AV's spectacular own goal

2011-03-07T14:20:00.000-08:00

In Leeds yesterday I saw a huge 'No to AV' campaign billboard. It featured a newborn baby in possibly a doctor's hands. The slogan read something along the lines of 'She needs a new maternity ward. She doesn't need an Alternative Vote system'.

Whilst I am delighted that the No campaign are doing some important campaigning to improve maternity services in the UK (I am being a little sarcastic here, in case you're wondering), I'm a little confused by what the state of maternity care has to do with AV.

Oh, I get it! If we had a fairer (not fair, but fairer) voting system, MPs would have to actually work hard to keep the support of the majority of their constituents. Rather than sweeping away the long-term problems (such as the crisis in maternity services), they would have to address them, not just with fine words ('maternity matters'!), but with concrete deeds.

So that means a 'Yes' vote in May is the way forward. 'No' Campaign, I think that's what you call an own goal...

Eigg: Big Green Footsteps for us to follow

2011-03-01T02:20:00.000-08:00

I doubt many people have heard of the Isle of Eigg (pronounced 'egg’), which is one of the ‘Small Isles’ situated off the western coast of the Scottish Highlands. It is only five and a half miles long, with 95 inhabitants, and it has a distinctive appearance, making it easy to spot from the ferry, because of ‘An Sgurr’, a great stump of columnar pitchstone lava. I spent just a couple of wet and windswept hours there last week, but it made a deep impression on me for several reasons.

Eigg has a troubled history. A lengthy feud between the McLeod and the McDonald clans led to a massacre of 395 inhabitants in a cave in the 16th Century. Fast forward to more recent times, and the island was sold by one negligent owner to the next. Keith Schellenberg, for example, the Olympic bobsleigher and gelatine heir (now there’s a C.V!), let properties run to rack and ruin during his time as ‘laird’, and drove many people from the island. His vintage Bentley was set on fire for retribution: not happy times.

Indeed, there are still signs of the dilapidation that the succession of ‘negligent landlords’ left in their wake; neglect, it seems, is hard – and costly – to rectify. Stumbling across a house where windows and doors, and even at one side, a floor were missing, but which still contained furniture, books, a cooker and a kettle, I couldn’t help but wonder at the tiny island’s sad, embattled past. (The photo of the staircase, above, is taken inside this eerie abandoned house).

In 1997, though, things started to change for the better. The islanders managed to raise the money to buy the island for themselves, and since then they have started to take, in their own words, ‘big Green footsteps.’

Houses on the island used to get their electricity from diesel generators, but now, with 3 hydroelectric generators (pictured above), 4 wind turbines and photovoltaic cells (also pictured above) on some buildings, Eigg is self-sufficient. Eigg homes only produce a third of the waste of other UK households, and are working at sending less skips of rubbish to the mainland. They plan to produce their own food in the future, meaning they do not have to have food ferried over as much.

No surprise, then, with such a small group of people working towards the same goals, there is a great sense of community here. The community noticeboard, which I perused on my all-too-brief visit, was a truly heart-warming sight. There were colourful notices for a singing group, community meetings, art projects and plenty of socials.

I am keen to go back to Eigg, possibly in the summer, when the community runs courses in sustainability (although the website about these courses is not up to date, and I wonder whether this project has got off the ground). Not content on just creating their own little Green utopia, the islanders also hope that their message and way of life will catch on elsewhere. In a leaflet I picked up there, they write ‘we hope what we have done will inspire you to do something, too. (…). Any community can be a green island.’

I quite agree – and I can’t recommend a trip to this little-known island highly enough!

My 1-2-3-4 picks for the London Assembly List

2011-02-28T06:24:00.000-08:00

I returned from a half-term break in the Scottish Highlands (posts to follow!) to find the ballot papers for the Green Party’s Mayoral and London Assembly selections waiting for my attention. I’d already decided who my London Assembly 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th preferences would be going to, and here is my decision, plus the reasons behind it:

1st preference: Natalie Bennett

Natalie has been a member of the Green Party since January 1st 2006, when she joined as a New Years' Resolution. Whilst most New Years’ Resolutions are forgotten by the second week in January, Natalie couldn’t really have thrown herself into Green Party activism with more gusto. She served as Internal Communications Coordinator on GPEx for four years – that really is beyond the call of duty! – and has founded the group ‘Green Party Women’ within the party, making links with women’s campaigns and NGOs, promoting women within the party and forming excellent new policies.

In short, she never really stops, and with such an incredible drive, coupled with the fact that she is extraordinarily articulate, she would no doubt be the very best Green Party London Assembly member imaginable.

Indeed, Jean Lambert MEP’s comment that ‘Natalie can take the pressure’ really struck a chord with me. She can, and that is of course essential for any high profile, elected Green. So for all of the above reasons, plus many more too numerous to list here, Natalie is my first choice for the London list.

2nd and 3rd preferences: Jenny Jones and Darren Johnson

Jenny and Darren have done fantastic work over the last ten years as our hard-working, articulate and dedicated team on the London Assembly. From campaigning on issues as diverse as the London Living Wage, to improving cycling provision, their work in planning and housing and their efforts to highlight the problems with London’s air quality, we couldn’t have asked for two more eloquent ambassadors. Both fully deserve to be re-elected to carry on their important work.

4th preference: Caroline Russell

Although relatively new to the party, Caroline has massively impressed both me and others with her community campaigning work and her engagement in Green politics.

The story goes that Caroline was approached by no less than three parties: Islington Labour Party, the Lib Dems and us Greens. All had been impressed by her dedication to the issue of pedestrians: she is the Chair of Islington Living Streets, and is absolutely passionate, not to mention incredibly knowledgeable, about the issue.

Caroline went home and read all three parties’ manifestos, and – of course! – she found that she agreed with the Green Party’s philosophy and aims. It is always good when we can turn a community activist into a Green Party member and a candidate; it’s something we, as a party, are particularly good at. (Contrast that with the Lib Dems, to whom a ‘community activist’ is someone who can hold a petition aloft whilst looking a bit perturbed, or, alternatively, squat down and point at a pot hole, looking simply devastated).

I’m sure Caroline – who follows in a rich tradition of excellent Green Party Carolines, let’s not forget! – would make an excellent Assembly Member, carrying on her dedication to campaigning about important issues that affect the lives of all Londoners.

So that’s my 1-2-3-4, and yet there are so many excellent candidates still left to choose from!

I would really encourage all London Green Party members to take a look at the candidates’ leaflets, attend the hustings if they can do this coming Saturday, and then have their say – deadline for ballot papers is 12 noon on March 17th. It’s both important for internal democracy that we have a good turnout, plus we’ll be campaigning for these folks so let’s make sure we have the very best candidates at the top of the list!

The Feminist 'Big Bank Bail In'

2011-02-27T09:23:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning, NatWest in Camden Town became a crèche, as part of nation-wide protests organised by campaign group UK Uncut. Parents and children swooped on the branches of the bank across the UK, and Camden Town saw a large gathering of parents, armed with craft materials and musical instruments.

I was there with Clementine, my 4 year old. In Camden, nursery provision will be cut from 25 hours a week to just 15 hours a week as a result of Government cuts. Meanwhile, it is estimated that the UK loses over £25 billion a year in tax avoidance. If even a quarter of that could be clawed back we would be able to avoid these huge, devastating cuts which will impact on every single child in the UK.

Bank staff and customers looked on as the children indulged in homemade cakes, sang songs (accompanied by a guitarist, as pictured above) and enjoyed craft activities (glitter featured heavily) - oh, as well as causing much pandemonium (at one point some boys decided to see what would happen if they poured a pot of glue into a toy trumpet...).

Parents handed out leaflets to explain that there was a serious reason behind the fun event.

We cannot underestimate the loss of these services for local families. Universal, affordable childcare is a lifeline for low and middle-income families. People are justifiably angry that whilst the Government cuts are impacting on normal people, the banks are seemingly getting away scot free.

Take, for example, the CEO of Barclays, Bob Diamond, who will be awarded an £8 million bonus this year. That would be enough to cover both Camden and Haringey’s childcare costs!

After a rousing final number we left peacefully, point made. The press were there in force (I was interviewed by Sky News, for example), so the message we were there to promote was hopefully spread far and wide. And NatWest will be vacuuming glitter out of their carpet for some time yet (I speak from bitter (glitter!) experience...).

Featherstone votes 'Yes' to Forest Sell-Off

2011-02-10T02:26:00.000-08:00

In yet another epic betrayal, Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone last week to voted to sell off Britain’s forests.

The government is planning a massive sell off of the UK’s forests. They could be auctioned and fenced off, run down, logged or turned into golf courses and holiday villages.

Three Conservative and four Lib Dem MPs rebelled and voted with Labour on Wednesday night in a Commons forestry debate. A further seven coalition MPs abstained and many others spoke but did not vote, suggesting they were unhappy with the proposals. However, Hornsey and Wood Green MP Lynne Featherstone instead voted to sell off the nation’s forests.

We can't let that happen. We need to stop these plans. National treasures like the Forest of Dean, Sherwood Forest and The New Forest could be sold off. Once they are gone, they will be lost forever, which will both alter the landscape of this country and irrecoverably damage the environment.

A national campaign to stop the sell-off has already gathered almost 500,000 signatures - if you haven't signed it yet, please click on the below link.

The public bodies bill, which would give the government the authority to sell all English state-owned woodland, goes before the Lords next week and the Commons later this month.

Featherstone: Beyond Hypocritical

2011-02-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

I was staggered to read Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone’s assertion last week in the Ham and High that ‘we should protect our most vulnerable’ and that, locally, ‘the drastic cut to service for older people is a very poor decision’.

Why was I staggered? Because Ms. Featherstone, as a Government minister, is in part responsible for the drastic and unfair cuts to public spending, the impact of which we are only beginning to see. The cuts will dismantle the welfare state, send inequality sky-rocketing and hit the poorest and most vulnerable hardest. A cabinet of millionaires (and that includes my own MP) have decided that libraries, healthcare, education funding, voluntary services, sports, the environment, the disabled, the poor and the elderly must pay the price for the recklessness of the rich.

The National Pensioners’ Convention reported on the ways in which the Comprehensive Spending Review would impact on pensioners. Amongst other findings, it highlighted that:

- The Winter Fuel Allowance is to be reduced in 2011 from £250 to £200 for households under 80, and from £400 to £300 for the over 80s.
- Funding for the £280m Warm Front programme will be cut over the next 2 years to £110m in 2011-12 to £100m to 2012-13.
- The money for adult social care will not be ring-fenced, leading to concerns that cash-strapped councils will use it for other services.
- Local councils will have their funding cut by 27% over the next 4 years. This is likely to affect all non-statutory services, some of which, such as day care centres and meals on wheels are vital to many older people.

This, of course, is exactly what is happening in Haringey, with Abyssinia Court in Stroud Green being threatened. I visited the centre in 2008 in my role of Green Party candidate for the area, and was impressed by the staff, the atmosphere and the facilities.

That Ms. Featherstone would criticise the council for cutting services when they have had their budget slashed by the Government in which she is a minister smacks not only of a shameless hypocrisy, but it is also deeply patronising to the voters of her constituency. She herself will know that the constituents of Hornsey and Wood Green are diverse, informed and engaged, and unlikely to be fooled by such hypocritical statements.

Maytree: a lifeline for those in despair

2011-01-28T13:23:00.001-08:00

Yesterday morning I found myself knocking on a very ordinary-looking door on a terrace house in Finsbury Park. But I soon discovered that since 2002, some extraordinary work has been going on behind that door. Lives which had fallen apart and which were deemed unliveable and unbearable were pieced back together, and people were set back on the path to stability and contentment.

Sue Hessel and I have been campaigning on the issue of the Archway Bridge for a few months now, and we have been surprised and delighted by the response we have been continuing to get from the community. A residents’ group is re-forming to help campaign alongside us. A woman, who had previously jumped from a bridge and survived, contacted me to say that she wanted to get involved with our campaign. And just this week, we were contacted by Paddy Bazeley (pictured above with Sue and I), who is the founder of Finsbury Park’s ‘Maytree’, a ‘sanctuary for the suicidal’.

I have to admit to having some slight trepidations about our visit – what would a ‘sanctuary for the suicidal’ be like, exactly? As it turned out my fears were entirely unfounded. A more homely, welcoming and warm place I couldn’t imagine; a place where guests (not ‘patients’, nor indeed ‘clients’ or ‘service users’) can stay for five days and take things at their own speed. There’s no set programme, no ‘one size fits all’ approach, and no money is paid by guests because the centre is funded by donations and relies largely on volunteers. It has been shortlisted for a Guardian Charity Award for the last two years.

When guests leave, they are given a goodbye letter, which many people have said is something they take out and re-read at ‘wobbly’ moments. They will also be ‘linked in’ with services that will benefit them: Paddy told us that around 75% of people who kill themselves have had no help from or contact with mental health services.

Paddy excitedly told us that they are planning to open another centre in South London, and yet another in Bristol, thus spreading the good work of the team to yet more people in need. The people they help come from all backgrounds, and I asked Paddy what she thought the reason was for the three people who jumped to their deaths in as many weeks at the end of last year were all men, in their late 20s or early 30s? Paddy made an interesting assertion that the female suicide rate may be higher than national statistics would suggest because coroners are more likely to record an ‘open verdict’ with women, possibly because men are usually seen as the more likely gender to commit suicide.

“We have space for four people at any one time,” commented Paddy. “At the moment we have two empty beds. We are just down the road from the Archway Bridge. People need to know we are here.”

By a strange coincidence, the aforementioned woman who had contacted us about using her own experience of attempting suicide to lend weight to our campaign was herself helped by Maytree. I will keep her anonymous, but these are her words:

“I have experienced suicidal feelings numerous times since I was a teenager and often ended up in hospital following attempts on my life. Desperate to avoid a repeat of such occurrences I sought out a different kind of crisis help. In the past I had been locked up on psychiatric wards with no psychological help during the darkest of times.

I came across Maytree and after an assessment was allowed to stay for four nights. I have never experienced such a hopeful, loving and compassionate place. The staff - paid therapists and a wonderful diverse and excellently trained set of dedicated volunteers - listened to what I had to say, helped me to explore my distress and gave me a gentle space in which to figure out what I needed to do next in order to pull myself back towards life.

I shall never again underestimate the profound effect kindness, empathy, and straight forward human connection can have on the soul at the most desperate of times. Maytree was more than a sanctuary for me, it fed enough life back to me that I left with a renewed appetite for it.

I really appreciate the work you're doing towards this cause.”

Sue Hessel, my fellow campaigner, and also a counsellor, was hugely impressed by the set-up at Maytree. Sue said “What’s wonderful about Maytree is that it’s about meeting need. It isn’t run as a business with layers of bureaucracy, or with making money as the object. This is how things used to be before the NHS began to be taken apart, and it’s how things should be now: organic and with solid founding principles.”

We continue to demand that TfL, the police, Haringey Council, English Heritage, the Samaritans, NHS Haringey and the engineers with the net solution sit down around a table and make 2011 the year when these tragic and unnecessary deaths finally come to an end.

As well as a net to catch anyone who jumped, we are campaigning for the free ‘SOS’ phone through to the Samaritans be reinstalled. As Sue memorably put it yesterday “All we are asking for is a ‘phone like you get every few hundred yard on the motorway. It seems we can deal with vehicle breakdowns but not people breakdowns.”

Food, fat and feminism

2011-01-19T13:34:00.000-08:00

I'm just back from the Progressive Women Resolution Party, where guest speaker Susie Orbach, author of 'Fat is a Feminist Issue' kicked off by saying that she didn't believe in 'resolutions' She pointed out that most women's new year's resolution is to diet and lose weight, something she herself decided not to do any more when she was in her twenties. (Please note: she is a very slim woman, or 'waif-like' as the only man in the audience commented).

Orbach argued that one of the West's biggest exports is body hatred, and she cited examples such as the rhinoplasty carried out in Singapore, where women undergo surgery to have 'western' noses.

Research has shown that women and girls 'check in with themselves' in a negative way about their bodies ever fifteen minutes. Orbach blames the diet industry, an industry, she says, which relies on failure. She said "we need to be exposing industries who are making money out of making us feel shit. And we need to challenge each other's complicity."

I asked her whether women are not, in many ways, their own worst enemies. Do we not 'police' each other's eating, appearance and weight? There was agreement that this is the case, but that we should always challenge this and make it clear that it is not an acceptable way to treat one another.

One thing Orbach said really stuck with me. It was about how girls learn to mimic their mother's eating habits, and how it is obvious that a daughter who sees her Mum has a fucked-up relationship with food will learn to have issues around eating, too. I think this is certainly the case for me, and something I have been very much aware of trying not to pass on to my own daughter. Whether I have succeeded or not remains to be seen.

A couple of audience members challenged Orbach, pointing out that there is an obesity crisis, and shouldn't we be advocating healthy eating? Orbach rejects the notions of Body Mass Index, saying that some of the people involved with coming up with it were from the diet industry. She said that when the school her kids went to 'banned' biscuits and so on in packed lunches, she went in to complain, saying that kids need foods with quickly-releasing energy, and that the school shouldn't be labelling foods as 'bad' as that actually makes them taboo, and as a result, alluring.

One idea she had which made a lot of sense to me was to train health visitors, midwives and teachers about how parents can pass on a healthy, balanced approach to food, rather than their own issues. She pointed out this would cost very little to do but would have huge benefits in terms of self-esteem and cutting down on the number of people with eating disorders.

As part of her campaign 'Endangered Species' (the endangered species being women who are completely comfortable in and happy with their own bodies) she is challenging the advertising industry to stop filling women's - and, increasingly, men's heads with messages saying that they must lose weight, adapt their appearances - increasingly through surgery - and spend a lot of money before they can be allowed to be happy with themselves.

I would completely agree. Just a couple of days ago, I was speaking with a female friend about the hideous messages we get from advertising. My friend cited the example of a Special K ad a few years ago, which had a song in it which said "Don't let your life go to waste!" In other words, if you are not skinny, your life is wasted. Nice.

I also recalled an ad I'd seen when I was about 5 years old - possibly younger. Again, it was for Special K (hmm...might be time to boycott Kelloggs...), which said that "if you can pinch more than an inch, it's time to eat 'Special K'."

"Mummy, what's an inch?" I asked. She showed me. I lifted my t-shirt and pinched my skin. I was fat. I need to diet. The TV had told me so - it must be true. I can honestly pin-point that moment as being the one where I became aware that my body was something to worry about, rather than just to live in, at ease. I'm hoping to delay my daughter's own 'Special K' moment for a good few years yet - though in an ideal world she would remain oblivious to such malign pressures, and be confident in her body for life.

Marching on the Civic Centre

2011-01-17T11:52:00.001-08:00

Tonight I joined approximately 400 people as we marched from Turnpike Lane to Wood Green Civic Centre, ahead of the Full Council Meeting. Organised by the unions, it was a peaceful though passionate demo, headed up by three 'grim reapers' who had the faces of Clegg, Cameron and Featherstone. Behind them, Homes for Haringey staff carried a full-sized coffin. Then followed a rally outside the Civic Centre. We'll be back next month, no doubt.

Advice to ignore...

2011-01-14T11:35:00.000-08:00

Today's 'news' that babies should be given solids before 6 months is hardly the earth-shattering announcement it is being hailed as being.

I have lost count of how many times the supposed 'official' advice has changed about what pregnant women should and shouldn't eat and drink, and how babies should be fed. All the conflicting advice does is confuse women and worry them that they are doing something wrong.

Take the advice about eating peanuts. When I was pregnant in 2006, pregnant women weren't allowed to look at a picture of a peanut lest it meant their offspring were born with two heads and with a tendency to vote Tory. Or something. Now it's the law that every pregnant woman eats lots of peanuts to ensure her baby doesn't have a peanut allergy and I'm sure peanuts would be provided on the NHS if there was any money left. (Unless the advice has changed again. It probably has. But that rather proves my point).

As for baby-rearing advice, there's a new fad along every five minutes. Being part of the Keep Haringey Breastfeeding Campaign, I am in contact with lots of mums and babies. I've learnt about 'Elimination Communication' (that's making little noises and holding the baby over a potty - reusable nappies are SO three years ago, apparently). Then there's baby-led weaning: present thy sprog with a veritable smorgasbord of edible delights, and then sit back and see what they opt for. They reached for a Silk Cut? Then light it for them - baby knows best!

And what about 'Sling Meets'. "What's a sling meet when it's at home?" asked I, clueless. "Do you go to the park and chuck steaks about?" (I appreciate that gem of a joke is best told orally). Nope - the mums meet up to chat and adjust each other's baby slings - pushchairs are verboten.

So...what do we learn from all this? Not to get too wound up or take too much notice to the latest advice, I reckon. My French ante-natal teacher summed things up perfectly: talking about the diet advice and the long list of 'banned' foods for pregnant women, she commented (imagine French accent, please) "Do you think French women don't eat unpasteurised cheese for nine months? Please. The French economy would collapse!"

Perhaps every fad, headline-grabbing finding and new piece of advice should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt...although certainly not more than 6g a day (probably changing to 4g next week).

'Message of Hope' Event a Great Success - Again!

2011-01-03T12:42:00.000-08:00

My year in Tweets

2010-12-31T11:53:00.001-08:00

Twitter, it seems to me, is like an online diary, and when you look back at what you’ve tweeted it can serve as an aide memoire of the year that’s just gone. How else would I ever have remembered that at Easter I ate a slice of Simnel cake that confused my tongue, or that I started the year by making a ‘to do’ list, getting scared, and looking at Twitter instead? (Actually, I could’ve probably guessed that one). But you catch my drift: little, insignificant details of life, that would be lost forever, are preserved for posterity.

Naturally, the year up till May 6th (election day) was pretty much preoccupied with canvassing, leafleting and generally doing everything that might, just might, result in Green councillors getting onto Haringey Council for the first time ever. January saw me injure my back (I have never felt pain like it, and hope never to again). Consequently I spent two weeks lying on my back, making frantic ‘phone calls to fellow Haringey Greens, drugged up to the eyeballs on a potent mix of Tramadol and Valium. “Go on without me!” I wailed. “Canvass Inderwick Road! I need Woodstock Road done by next week!”

Soon I was back on my feet, albeit gingerly, getting soaked to the skin one night, complaining that I was entirely spherical the next due to excessive fleece wearing antics. The joys of canvassing alone in the dark, in the rain, with a torch in my mouth. Ah, sweet memories.

February saw me attend Green Party Conference in North Finchley, but a bus ride from my abode. I mused how nice that was – better than Blackpool. I spent my time at conference mainly talking tits, a subject I have become a bit of an expert on. (Translation: we passed the Breastfeeding Policy, and later in the year I would help run a ‘Keep Haringey Breastfeeding’ Campaign, which even saw me demand that Nick Ferrari of LBC look into his non-existent soul to see why boobfeeding so disturbed him).

I also had a bit of fun asking questions at Full Council Meetings. Will Haringey 'do a Kirklees'? No. Will Haringey do some good stuff for LGBT History month? No. Will Haringey follow the recommendations put forward by the London Assembly Environment Committee re: street trees? No, no, and thrice no. Now pack up your little bag and go home, wannabe councillor. I had much fun asking ‘supplementary questions’ which had little to do with the subject I was meant to be talking about and giving people a good laugh. Well, I mistook Haringey Civic Centre for the Comedy Club, what can I say? Fun times.

Every bizzare conversation and encounter that I had whilst canvassing is documented on Twitter, by the looks of it. I would have forgotten some of those gems if I hadn’t tweeted them. For example, on March 14th a voter galloped up to me, grabbed my arm and said “Excuse me, are you Lynne Featherstone?” Adopting my best helium-enhanced voice, I retorted “Indeed I am! And I think you should vote GREEN in Stroud Green!” (Actually, I didn’t say that at all. I think I just looked very confused, having been mistaken for a 60ish year old Lib Dem millionaire).

March saw me scrape rubbish from the cold earth with my bare hands at Granville Road Spinney, joyfully noting that the Lib Dems were out leafleting at the same time, but that ‘the pitchfork beats the leaflet, my yellow adversaries.’

As the elections fast approached, I decided to enlighten the Twitterati with ‘Cope’s Campaigning Tip of the Day.’ Starting with the priceless advice that one should always wear an interestingly-coloured nail varnish when leafleting, to make watching your hand do the posting more interesting, I continued to proffer utterly useless advice on a daily basis right up to polling day.

April dawned and I went canvassing with a cat, was asked out on a date on the doorstep by a woman called Syd (I declined, and lost a vote, no doubt), and took a rare trip out of Haringey, over the border into exotic, unknown Camden, where I was mightily impressed by Natalie Bennett’s performance at the Camden Square Neighbourhood Association hustings.

Late April, and our leaflet designer, Nadia, was talking about being ‘kissed by the creative muse’ as she was designing our ‘’We Can Do It! “ ‘eve of poll’ flyer. As election leaflets go, it was a corker and should probably be in an ‘Election Leaflets Museum’ if such a thing exists.

Voters continued to ask me difficult questions, such as the man who kissed my hand and demanded to know whether I was a ‘respectable woman’. I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t even have my breakfast in a café in Crouch End without someone telling me that the first thing they’d seen that morning was “your face on my doormat.” I humbly apologised.

Election day dawned, and my tweets remind me just how bloody terrible I was feeling. Hardly any voice left, temperature soaring, aching all over and consequently off my face on cold remedies. Knocking-up was interesting, as I wasn’t sure what my name was by this point.

Off to the count we crawled, and sure enough, although we had more than doubled the vote in Strouders, we’d not done enough to get councillors. 16 months of hard slog came to an instant end, and I retreated under my duvet, coughing up phlegm the colour of Green Party day-glo posters, I record delightfully. What a truly luscious individual I am. Even more depressing than my snot was the news coming to me via twitter of the loss of all but two of our councillors across London. Like every other Green, I had to repeat to myself for, ooh, 6 months, “but we have our first MP. We have our first MP…”

Next up I was applying for jobs, and getting myself all hot and bothered about my unemployability. Then I decided to be less bothered, possibly because I couldn’t face any more rejection – sob!

Instead I devoted myself to being a Proper Mother and taking my daughter on an endless assortment of edifying day trips. Margate (depressing if characterful ), Broadstairs (ice cream parlour…), Hastings (Funiculaaaar!), Eastbourne (count the mobility scooters), Whitstable (oysters – mmm…), Sandwich (because I liked the name), Deal (because it was near Sandwich). In short, we had FUN, which is something that had been put on ice for far too long.

I visited Norfolk for a week , where I made it my mission to eat crab every day. I succeeded in this, so hurrah for some belated success. Back in London, I got involved with the fantastic Transition Crouch End, where I met a rather nice woman called Tilly. She and I enjoyed rolling tyres at each other in the sunshine (we grew veg, fruit and flowers in the tyres, so there was a point to this activity, I stress).

I did seem to write a lot of blog posts, particularly post-election (lots of posts slagging off the Lib Dems - they've make is so easy), and I even met some people who read my blog, so that was good. (This lengthy post should put paid to that, eh…?). I also had singing lessons this Autumn onwards, and it turns out I have quite a good voice. As I told my singing teacher, Margaret, earlier today, learning to sing has been one of my highlights of 2010.

Well, I think that’s enough about my year. I did some stuff, some of it fun, some of it tricky. I didn’t succeed at some things, other endeavours (crab eating, tyre-rolling, aria-singing) were more successful.

Demonstrating about Lynne Featherstone's Betrayal

2010-12-11T09:19:00.000-08:00

Today, alongside other Green Party activists, I took part in a demo at Crouch End clock tower, after our local Lib Dem MP, Lynne Featherstone, betrayed constituents by going back on her pre-election pledge on tuition fees.

I spoke at the demo, where I said that having spent the 16 months running up to the elections knocking on doors in the area, I knew how well-regarded Ms. Featherstone used to be. "She replies to my letters," people would tell me, time and time again. Yes, I agreed, in that respect she is a good constituency MP.

However, this week, in ignoring her constituents and voting for reforms that will price poorer students out of a university education, she has committed political suicide.

The Lib Dems are hoping that we will have forgotten this huge betrayal by the time the next election comes around, but we won't have forgotten. My fear is not that the Lib Dems have damaged their party for good (which they have), but that voters will trust political parties even less than they did previously.

"What's the point of voting?" some residents have said to me, previously. "You're all the same. You say one thing, get into power, and go back on your word." And when it comes to the Lib Dems, they're spot on.

As I pointed out to the crowd today, though, the Green Party have consistently opposed tuition fees and are continuing to do so in the House of Commons, through our MP, Caroline Lucas, who of course voted against the rise in tuition fees this week.

We believe that if the money can be found to bail out the banks and fund an illegal war, it can damn well be found to pay for education.

Featherstone, the fairweather 'feminist'

2010-12-09T13:55:00.000-08:00

On a day when there was, to quote Johann Hari, 'shameful massive vandalism in Westminster: the Tories and Lib Dems voted to smash up our universities & chance of poor kids getting on', there was at least one thing to have a bit of a laugh about, albeit a slightly bitter one.

Yesterday there was a women's protest about how tuition fee rises would affect women, outside Hornsey and Wood Green MP Lynne Featherstone's surgery. Ms. Featherstone was asked to comment about this by the local paper. Claiming she hadn't decided what way she was going to vote (she voted for the increase today - surprise, surprise), she added that the women were 'demonstrating in the wrong place' and that 'there is no one more feminist than me.'

(I'll leave a little gap here whilst you compose yourselves...)

(Have you quite finished laughing? Good).

Now, there are lots of people with differing views who define themselves as a feminist. But taking a look at how the cuts will affect women, let's consider whether someone who is a 'feminist' would be happy to go along with these measures...

- CUTS TO JOBS - Two-thirds of public sector workers are women, with women accounting for 73% of the local government workforce and 77% of the NHS workforce. Women will be forced out of the labour market in larger numbers than men and expected to take on the care of loved ones – children, elderly relatives, partners. Part-time and hourly paid jobs in which women are over-represented are also likely to be the first to go. 40% of ethnic minority women live in poverty and this figure is likely to rise as unemployment increases.

- CUTS IN SOCIAL SERVICES AND BENEFITS - women rely on benefits twice as much as men do. For example, cuts in Child Tax Credits, Working Tax Credits, Child Benefit, Housing Benefit and linking pensions to the Consumer Price Index rather than the Retail Price Index will disproportionately affect women. The two most vulnerable groups have been identified as lone parents, 90% of whom are women, and women single pensioners.

So far, not quite fitting in with my notion of feminism - how about yours?

Let's look at Featherstone's latest work as Equalities Minister. Surely she's got to be earning some feministing points there? Er...no. Last week she repealed Labour's plan to tackle the gender pay gap. The Equality Act required businesses with more than 250 employees to publish data on how much they pay women and men. Last week Featherstone announced that the system would be voluntary. Yet in 2008, Featherstone said "a voluntary audit system for private industry is hardly worth the paper it's written on." Quite!

I think, Ms. Featherstone, you need to do a little feminist bedtime reading. I live just down the road - I'll bring some books round. Just say the (f) word.

Fawcett's day in court

2010-12-06T07:48:00.000-08:00

I'm just back from the extremely cold protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice, held whilst the hearinge to decide whether there will be a Judicial Review of the budget, called for by the Fawcett Society, took place inside. The Judicial Review was sought because it was clear that the Government hadn't carried out a gender impact assessment before implementing the budget. Women will bear the brunt of the cuts, especially lone mothers and pensioners, with over two thirds of the £8.5 bn cuts in the June budget coming from women. Fair? Hardly. Here's something worth shouting about, and angrily.

The assembled women, including my almost-four-year-old daughter (pictured above with her Green Party placard), made our objections known very loudly, in the hope that the men in wigs inside would hear us.

We await the result of Fawcett's actions, which will very much be a test case for the Gender Equality Duty, establishing whether it is an important new approach to gender equality, or whether it's simply a case of 'business as usual'.

Miliband's Monumental Boob

2010-11-27T06:02:00.000-08:00

It must be hard being an MP these days, particularly if you’re a new parent. You can’t claim expenses in the way that you used to do, there’s a pressure to look like ‘we’re all in it together’, and you’ll be grappling with how expensive it is to get together all the baby equipment you need.

Pity then Ed Miliband, who this week was having a walkaround, with the BBC, in Dudley Tescos (you can’t say being a leader of a political party isn’t dead glamorous). Approaching a shelf of baby formula, Miliband commented ‘Yeah, this is the formula we use, Aptimil 0-3 month.’ The BBC camera then zoomed in to the product in question, showing the container very clearly. Aptimil bosses must’ve been punching the air (or maybe slapping the table is more their style, in the manner of the cabinet when they learned of the impending royal wedding…Ugh, what an image).

There’s enough difficulty trying to convince women that breastfeeding is the best way to feed your baby, and that formula can cause all manner of health problems. In 2006 it was reported that the Government were spending just 13 pence per baby on promoting formula, compared by £20 per baby being spent promoting formula by the formula industry.

But let’s look at the facts about formula. Bottle fed babies are twice as likely to die in the first six weeks of life than breastfed babies. Formula manufacturers are not required to log the contents of their product with any body, and there have been many documented cases of contaminated batches.

The last thing we need is a public endorsement of formula, which will only serve to heighten the perception that formula is best and that breastfeeding is something only ‘earth mothers’ would ever contemplate.

Do you know what I’d like to see instead? I’d like to see Miliband’s partner breastfeeding their baby in the audience of the next Labour Party Conference. I’d like no one to make a fuss about this, and for it to be as normal as her sitting there and breathing. Which of course it is. But of course this won’t happen.

In an ideal world, I’d like to see the female leader of a political party – actually, let’s go one further – a female Prime Minister – breastfeeding her baby in the chamber of the House of Commons. Women, as I’ve written before and will no doubt reiterate, are fantastic multi-taskers, and when I was breastfeeding I would regularly be on the ‘phone to the council or the local papers, or would attend meetings, whilst breastfeeding my daughter at the same time. It was a godsend because it kept her quiet and content, leaving me free to contribute as usual.

We’ve a long way to go before breastfeeding is normalised to that extent, but that’s what we must aim for. Miliband’s actions this week were a massive step backwards, and show just how out of touch he is – but I expect the Aptimil van will be rolling up outside his house soon, so at least he’ll have bagged himself a freebie.

Don't get sick in Haringey...

2010-11-24T11:35:00.000-08:00

Today I attended the NHS Haringey executive board meeting, and presented a deputation on behalf of the Haringey Breastfeeding Campaign. Before the meeting, we unfurled our spectacular banner on an unsuspecting public - see above photo! Marvellous, isn't it?!

Here's what I said to the board (the most senior three members of which were men in suits, who I am sure are passionate about breastfeeding)...ahem...

"We welcome the review into breastfeeding support in the borough. We have read the report and last week had a meeting with Sheena Carr and Claire Wright to discuss our concerns and our recommended changes to the review.

We welcome the recommendation that NHS Haringey and the North Middlesex Hospital begin the process which will see them accredited as ‘Baby Friendly’, according to the UNICEF model. We would assume that beginning the process would result in actually achieving baby friendly as soon as is feasibly possible. We further welcome the recommendation of training for health professionals which is focussed on high quality outcomes not just attendance of training.

We are however surprised at the report's conclusion that ‘where there are specialists there is a tendency for people to over refer to the specialist service’, and that this leads to ‘staff in universal services’ becoming ‘deskilled’. Having read the draft review we have repeatedly asked for a reference to be included in the review on which evidence this assumption is based. As you will see from your copy of the review there is still no reference to any evidence. We would ask you to disregard this recommendation until sound evidence has been provided to back up this conclusion.

The review further highlights the absence of breastfeeding support skills of universal health professionals. Although 11 out of 15 staff who responded to the survey had received training within the last 5 years, and 8 out of 15 felt they were ‘very’ confident about giving advice, 9 of the 15 scored poorly on basic breastfeeding support questions.

We believe that the post of the specialist midwife needs to be re-instated until universal health professionals have been trained to a satisfactorily level and there is sound evidence available to prove that.

We also believe that you need to allocate a separate budget for breastfeeding support until breastfeeding rates in the east of the borough have improved significantly. The inequalities in health in the borough, which the review highlights begin at birth (with, for example, 64.3% of babies in Highgate ward being wholly breastfed at 6-8 weeks, compared to 26.7% in St Ann’s ward).

By not investing in specialist breastfeeding support now you are failing women and babies in the east of the borough.

By not investing in specialist breastfeeding support now the national health service will have to pay more money in future.

As the review points out a recent study in the United States found that if 90% of mothers followed the recommendation to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months then the country would save more than 13 billion dollars per year and prevent more than 900 deaths.

If one were to extrapolate the findings of the US study to the population of Haringey, then it would amount to a saving of more than 9.5 million dollars per year (6 million pounds). For each 1% increase in mothers breastfeeding exclusively for the first 6 months – which amounts to 42 women, seeing as there were just under 4,200 births in 2009 - the borough would save an incredible £78, 500 per year.

The study looked at only 10 childhood diseases so in fact the savings and deaths prevented would actually be higher. It did not include deaths prevented from breast cancer, for example. If women in the UK breastfed for an extra 6 months on average then 1000 cases of breast cancer, and hundreds of deaths, could be prevented each year.

In the light of all this we are asking you

• to set a separate for specialist breastfeeding support
• to budget enough money to pay for the entire process of achieving UNICEF baby friendly accreditation
• and to re-instate the post of breastfeeding specialist midwife until the borough is accredited with UNICEF ‘baby friendly’ status."

****

I stayed for the next three hours of the meeting, and here are my observations:

-The PCT will not exist after April. I was concerned in the meeting that there's a real feel of 'we don't know what will happen, and we don't know if we will have jobs, either', so it was as though they weren't sure what they could plan for.

-The breastfeeding campaign presented the case for investing in the borough, as above, explaining how, by investing in breastfeeding support, the borough could save £6m a year. The board didn't respond to this element of the deputation, despite the fact that the focus of almost the entire meeting was on how to save money!

- There was a new 'Interim Chief Exec' at the wheel, one Ian Wilson. He wasn't up to speed on a lot of what's going on (I know he's only been in the job for 5 weeks, so it's not surprising really). At one point, board chair Richard Sumray asked him to comment on something, and Wilson was stumped. Sumray commented "You ARE the executive lead on this..." and Wilson blushed a deep purple. I wonder if he is taking home the same salary as his predecessor Tracey Baldwin (who earned £190,000 pa!) and whether he thinks it is time to accept a pay cut? In the words of David Cameron, we are all in this together...(I am laughing hollowly as I type, dear reader).

- I was shocked to hear that Clinicenta, the medical arm of a construction company, who last year had their north London contracts suspended due to two 'unexplained deaths', are again active in Haringey. They talked about trying to get out of the contract early, but this was for budgetry reasons, not clinical standards reasons.

- The acute sector is where the overspend is, but Haringey, not having any actual hospitals (lest St Ann's, which is of course mostly mental health), has no control over this. I wonder whether there will ever be a day where our borough once again has a general hospital with an A&E. (There used to be 7 hospitals in the borough. Some of these are now luxury housing...).

- There were some concerns expressed about mental health services within the borough, particularly around the treatment of those with psychosis. I wonder what is being done to address this, particularly because the current financial climate means more and more people will be feeling the pinch, experiencing stress, unemployment, homelessness - all which lead to a decline in mental health.

- I sensed that the board were VERY removed from the health services 'on the ground'. For example, at one point, they mused amongst themselves about what it is that school nurses in the borough actually DO. None of the 18 board members knew. I wondered whether, post-April. the set-up we will have will see the people in charge being more in touch with the service they are running (here's hoping!), or yet more divorced from it?

- There was no sense of planning ahead for the long-term health of residents (as evidenced by the breastfeeding issue). It seemed more that they were in a crisis (financial) and were looking at the least painful ways to cut. Simple as that.

My recommendation, then, is clear: if you live in Haringey, don't get sick.

Community Garden awarded funding!

2010-11-20T07:05:00.001-08:00

This morning I joined my fellow Transition Crouch Enders at Hornsey Vale Community Centre in Stroud Green for a spot of gardening. You may recall I helped set this garden up in July, when we had loads of fun rolling tyres and filling them with bin bags full of compost.

The area, which is along the front of the main hall, turned out to be a fantastic growing spot, both sheltered and sunny. We've grown various veg as well as flowers, most notably nasturtiums, which went wild!

Today we had a clear-up and also put in some blueberries, kiwi (that's what I am putting in in the above picture!), and lots of garlic.

We also enjoyed Tilly reading out the letter we received from Capital Growth yesterday, which told us that having being declared one of the 2,012 official Capital Growth site, we've been awarded £500 to use to develop the garden. So next year it will be raised beds and lots more growing potential!

It was good to have a visit from a couple of people from the plot on Tottenham Lane, which I helped start in summer 2009. They've also been declared a Capital Growth space, as has the 'Learning through Growing' project behind Stroud Green library.

http://www.capitalgrowth.org/

Desperate times, desperate people

2010-11-19T09:21:00.001-08:00

This morning I met up with fellow community campaigner Sue Hessel on Archway Bridge to assess what more could be done to prevent yet more suicides from occuring. Since I blogged a few days ago, it has been reported that a third man has jumped to his death in as many weeks. David Bennett, 33, Andrew Mactier, 31, and Ryan George, 29, have all died here since October 19th.

Sue and I are standing next to the old SOS phone which is now defunct. Two days ago the Samaritans put up some signs about their helpline (which is sadly not a freephone number). Already one of the signs has been made illegible due to vandalism.

The messages which have been written and left with the flowers on the bridge are almost too heartbreaking to read. There is no doubt that these men were let down by the woefully inadequate mental health provision in this country. With the slashing of budgets and the stresses of redundancy, unemployment and personal debt, our fear is that we will see yet more deaths like this.

The time to act to help desperate people is right now.

Postscript: After this photo was taken, I went down the Holloway Road to run an errand (actually, to buy industrial-strength staples to make up some placards ahead of the demo outside Monday's council meeting). There I found a man collapsed by a bus stop, blood coming from a cut on his head. A few of us called for an ambulance and then ensued a game of chase down the Holloway Road, where the man, confused, drunk, and I expect concussed, tried to walk away but kept falling over, sometimes precariously close to the busy road. We eventually united him with ambulance staff.

This encounter, so soon after I had been up on the Archway Bridge, just served to drive home the desperate state so many people are in, and how the present Government's slash and burn approach to the deficit will drive so many more into such a sorry state.

My day at the London Assembly

2010-11-18T03:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I shadowed Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones at City Hall.

The day started with Mayor’s Question Time, where the first question came from Darren Johnson, our other Green Party London Assembly member. Darren asked whether key parts of the work done by the London Assembly on Climate Change, such as the crucial Renew and Refit programme, would now fail to happen because of Government cuts.

Boris Johnson responded that he is sure that David Cameron knows the importance of Climate Change. Darren counteracted that whilst Cameron may indeed grasp the importance of the issue, that is not the same as ensuring the money is there for work to be carried out. Continuing, Darren asked the Mayor whether he would promise to lobby the boroughs to commit to the Renew and Refit programme. “I am acutely aware of the pressure the boroughs are under,” responded Boris Johnson. In other words, no.

Len Duvall, a Labour member of the Assembly, asked whether the mayor would use the same rhetoric the Tories are using in Government about ‘benefit cheats’ about tax evaders. Brian Coleman, Tory member of the Assembly shouted “Socialism is alive and well!” not realising that that is not actually an insult…

Indeed, watching the Mayor trying to keep the more unruly and right-wing Tory members in line was extremely amusing. Some of the gems they came out with included abolishing the Assembly, introducing prison ships (“because prison works”. Really? Have you seen the stats?!), and how ‘kettling’ should be used again as a way to police demos. Oh, and following a question by Jenny Jones on how the boroughs were going to be able to pay for improvements to cycling (“You’re making a lot of promises,” said Jenny “but I just don’t see the money there to deliver those promises”), Brian Coleman commented that it was “nonsense about cycling and walking”). Vote Blue, get Green, remember? Er…

Of course, it’s well-documented how much Boris Johnson will avoid answering any question that is put to him. Rather than answering, he will make “jokes” and play to the gallery, many of whom were indeed laughing (though I certainly wasn’t). However, there were also whispered comments, along the lines of “Answer the question!” I’d like to see the public, rather than laughing, simply chant “Answer the question! Answer the question!” over and over again. Boris has only one way of operating, and that is to employ “humour” to distract from the fact that he has no idea what he is talking about. He is both an oaf and clueless, but he is able to get away with it by turning those very failings into attributes, his “brand”, if you will.

I also noted that sexism is alive and well in the chamber at City Hall. James Cleverly (Con), said the mayor was “gallant” in the way he dealt with a question from Joanne McCartney (Lab). Boris Johnson, in response to a question by Caroline Pidgeon (Lib Dem – and she was excellent, I thought – I know, me praising a Lib Dem, what’s occurring?!), referred to her, patronisingly, as “dear Caroline”, shortly before being reprimanded by the chair.

If one of the roles of the London Assembly is to hold the Mayor to account, it seems that the Assembly members who do the best job of that are the ones that ask direct, simple questions and have the temerity to keep hammering home the points they wish to make. Detailed questions allow Johnson to take a side-road, and he is always delighted when an assembly member makes this faux pas.

I am delighted to report that our Green London Assembly Members gave some of the strongest performances of the session, despite being given the shortest time. It’s a real shame though that our politicians are having to play word games and concentrate all their efforts into outwitting and out-manoeuvring Boris Johnson, who for some reason the people of the capital decided to make Mayor of London.

Archway Bridge Death toll

2010-11-18T02:08:00.000-08:00

I was pleased to see that the Hornsey Journal have given a whole page today to the rising death toll from the Archway Bridge (often dubbed 'Suicide Bridge'). I had written to the local papers this week about the issue, and it looks as though we're set to launch a campaign. Here's my letter explaining what needs to be done...

I was saddened to hear that the second person in less than three weeks had jumped to their death from the Archway Bridge. As high unemployment, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the lack of mental health provision takes its toll and is exacerbated by the deeply unfair cuts imposed by the ConDem government, I fear we will see more untimely deaths at this infamous suicide spot.

Can anyone explain to me why the SOS phone on the bridge, which used to connect to a helpline, has been removed? Up until few years ago, it was in working order. If a suicidal person was to go up onto the bridge and see that the last chance of help has been removed, it could be the last straw.

It’s my belief that in these difficult times the need for a working SOS phone on Archway Bridge, as the recent sad spate of suicides suggests, is more pressing than ever.

UPDATE: See our campaign website: www.hornseylanebridge.net

Problems with Poppies

2010-11-09T02:47:00.000-08:00

It's Poppy season and newsreaders everywhere can be seen sporting red paper flowers on their lapels. Every year, I have the same conversation running through my head about this particular issue. To poppy or not to poppy? Now, I'm not a massive fan of pre-emptive strikes or bombing civilians. But the money raised by selling poppies goes to a good cause (veterans and the families of the servicemen and women killed), so you kind of have to think, fair-dos.

I investigated the white 'poppies for peace' notion this year. The issue I was most concerned about was where the money goes. I came across a rather curious statement on their website about this, which I have to say didn't really reassure me any:

Every year there is always someone, often in the media, who implies that money raised is used for some suspect activity; others categorically insists that the white poppies are 'taking money from the valuable work the British Legion is doing' and we get a lot of intemperate emails.
If you happen to hold this view why not check with the British Legion whether this is true before complaining to us.

Ooooh, that's a bit pacifist aggressive isn't it - ho ho! Anyway, that put me off white poppies for good.

So a red poppy it is - though I've customised mine. I've written 'NO MORE WAR THOUGH, EH?' on one of the petals. What can I say? I'm conflicted. But I can't be the only one. I hope to start a trend.

Spot the Difference?

2010-11-08T07:02:00.000-08:00

A father pushes his crying baby in a pushchair around the supermarket whilst struggling to control his two-year-old and balance the shopping basket on the edge of the pushchair.

Shoppers look on kindly, commenting on how ‘beautiful’ his children are, commiserating about how difficult it is to be out and about with kids (“you’ve got your hands full!”) and boosting him with well-meaning if patronising comments (“Aren’t you good?!”/”It’ll get easier, I promise!”).

Women look on and think what a good man he must be to help out with the kids. Older men look on and think perhaps he’s a bit of a sop but his heart’s in the right place. The checkout woman gives him extra help with packing because she can see he’s struggling.

‘I am good,’ thinks the father to himself.

****
Meanwhile, a mother pushes her crying baby in a pushchair around the supermarket whilst struggling to control her two-year-old and balance the shopping basket on the edge of the pushchair.

People avert their eyes and wish the noise of the baby would simply cease. Or at least not occur within their earshot. Men look on and notice the woman’s shoddy appearance. How long since she last brushed her hair? And what’s that on her shoulder – baby puke? Figures. Wow, she’s let herself go.

Someone else’ tuts’ as the woman veers across the fruit and veg aisle with the pushchair, and a comment is made in a loud whisper about women drivers…

Women look on and think ‘must remember to take my pill…’

The woman at the checkout eyes her with disapproval – she would never go out looking like that.

‘I am a disaster zone,’ muses the mother miserably to herself.

Spot the difference!

A piece that came out of a conversation over Sunday lunch with a mother and father of my acquaintance!

Dark Day provides light relief

2010-11-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

With all the doom and gloom thanks to the impending cuts, plus the general hideousness of living under a ConDem government, it's worth doing something a little frivolous and fun now and again.

Today I helped out at Dark Day at Hornsey Vale Community Centre in Stroud Green, where I'm an active trustee. Dark Day is an event we hold every year instead of fireworks and it's always a massive hit with families. Children decorate glass jars with tissue paper and then drop a lit tea-light inside their creations. We all then parade through dark Stationer's Park, forming a circle at the top of the hill and singing songs. It's kind of magical and a wee bit alternative...in other words, very Stroud Green! As for health and safety...see the poster above of the song that our chair, Lynne Brackley, was singing in dulcet if slightly anxious tones!

I helped out in the kitchen which is always fun if chaotic. Totting up the prices in my head for various tea, mulled wine and cake orders was quite a challenge, maths not being my strongpoint. It's great seeing all the familiar faces from the community coming along - many people commented to me today how great such events were. "I can't think of anything better to be doing on a Sunday afternoon," was how one woman put it. Quite!

I couldn't help thinking, though, of what would happen if the council cuts funding to the community centre. Would such events become a thing of the past? Would the community centre stand empty, all boarded up? What constitutes a 'front line service' - and will all such services really be protected in reality, anyway? A few dark thoughts, then, but for today let's just appreciate the light relief and revel in the community coming together to enjoy a bit of candle-lit fun.

What referendum?

2010-11-05T11:59:00.001-07:00

Today is exactly six months until the referendum on voting reform. For that reason, the ‘Take Back Parliament’ campaign took to the streets across the UK, holding stalls and talking to voters, with the aim being to encourage a ‘yes’ vote next May. My daughter and I helped out on the stall in Muswell Hill, handing out leaflets and discussing First Past the Post and Additional Vote (AV) with passers’ by. It was very interesting seeing the various reactions and hearing the differing opinions.

If the good burghers of Muswell Hill (or ‘Muesli Hill’) are anything to go by, people will either not bother voting, or if they do, they’ll be voting for reform. Either way, they’re not all that excited about it yet (“what referendum?”). I can’t blame them, really. It is half a year away and not everyone is a political geek like me. (Never can seem to remember that…).

There’s another good reason why they might be right not to be too excited, of course. The fact is, we’re not going to have the option of voting for true Proportional Representation (PR). Although Green Party MP Caroline Lucas tabled an amendment to get the option of PR on the ballot paper next May, it wasn’t supported by…guess who? Well, naturally, the Tories, but also their little bedfellows in the yellow pyjamas, The Lib Dems, who of course have always had PR as a cornerstone of their manifesto. It was, for many people I’ve spoken to on the doorsteps over the years, the one redeeming feature of the Lib Dems. But of course that’s up the swanny now.

One of the other people helping out on the stall was a Lib Dem activist. “I’m a Lib Dem,” he whispered, “but PLEASE don’t tell anyone! We’re not exactly popular at the moment…” Poor chap.

He went on to say that he keeps getting emails from the Lib Dem spin machine about how well they’re doing in government, all the changes they’re bringing in, and what a load of tommy rot it is. “We’ve gone back on just about everything we promised!” he despaired. I gently suggested he might want to join the Greens instead…

Tories attack abortion rights

2010-10-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

So, the Tories are starting to mess around with abortion rights. Not content with screwing over women with spending cuts that impact worse on women and children, they now are fiddling with one of our most basic, essential rights: access to safe abortion.

Tory Nadine Dorries MP, who previously tried to get the time limit on abortion lowered from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, is on the anti-abortion warpath again. Sadly for us, her party are now in power.

The lowering of the time limit from 24 weeks to 20 would have meant trouble for the most vulnerable of women. Women, for example, who have had to come over from Ireland (often in secret), having saved up the money. Women who have gone for their 20 week scan, excited about seeing their baby on the ultra-sound screen, only to find there is something wrong with it. I’m not sure what would’ve happened to such women had the abortion limit been lowered to 20 weeks – would they have had to make a decision then and there about a termination, or miss their window? That is horrific to imagine – and surely would lead to many hurried decisions, and much psychological damage.

Which is ironic, really. Because the tack that Dorries is now tacking is that abortion ‘damages’ women psychologically and that we need to re-think the way we do terminations to counteract that. In other words, try to talk women out of it. To quote Dorries:

‘If girls and women were offered counselling and information regarding other options such as, wait for it, yes, adoption. As strange as it may seem, some find that an easier option than having to deal with the consequences of a medical procedure which, somewhere in their deepest thoughts, they regard as the ending of a life.’

If any argument makes me angry, it’s this one. The idea being that going through a pregnancy and childbirth, the biggest physical and emotional thing a lot of women will ever experience, is no big deal. So let’s see, that might well involve puking every day for months, back and pelvic pain, extreme tiredness, and your body changing beyond recognition. Oh yes, and possibly life-threatening conditions such as eclampsia. And then there’s childbirth, which as you might have heard is a bit on the painful side (made more so by the NHS being far from up to scratch when it comes to maternity services). But that’s okay, you can just hand the baby over (no breastfeeding, I guess…) and forget about it. NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.

And that’s without even mentioning the affects being adopted will have on the child as it grows up. I’m sure that a lot of work goes into making the transition as easy as possible, but it’s never going to be trauma-free.

I remember when I was researching for my MA dissertation in Toronto. I was in the Thomas Fisher library, looking through a box of letters from Margaret Atwood to fellow writer Gwendolyn MacEwen. One of the letters was written in a much shakier hand than usual, and reading the content it transpired that Atwood was heavily pregnant with her daughter, Jess.

She wrote of how it was affecting her and signed off by saying that there was a word in the English language for being made to have sex against your will, but there was no word for being pregnant against your will. She said that there should be, because having been pregnant, she couldn’t begin to imagine how traumatic that would be.

I couldn’t agree more. Having been pregnant twice – once when I didn’t want to be, and once when I did, I know there’s a big difference. Women know. So please don’t patronise us, Dorries. For the women who need counselling, great, make it available, but please don’t let that ‘counselling’ take the form of pro-life bullying. We’re not stupid. We know what you’re up to, and it’s grim.

Stroud Green Community Cafe

2010-10-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

Today a group of people started a 'Community Cafe' in the Mind Centre on Stapleton Hall Road, Stroud Green. The idea is that they make simple, healthy food from ingredients donated from local shops and supermarkets. Budgens in Crouch End are one of the shops contributing - as per usual - they're always generous when it comes to giving food to community events.

At the moment, the cafe is only open between 12 and 2 on a Friday, and the menu was today limited to one starter (carrot and parsnip soup: £1.00), one main (vegetable pasta bake: £2.50) and two puddings (apple pie or banana cake: £1.00). My daughter and I had a lovely lunch, and the other people there seemed to be enjoying theirs, too.

The kitchen is staffed by volunteers, and it's a non-profit making scheme. The idea, as one of the volunteers explained, was to offer people healthy and affordable food, and get people from the community involved with running the place. "It's an alternative to all of the fried chicken places!" she joked.

It was strange to see the hall usually used for Area Assemblies transformed into a little cafe, complete with wooden tables and flowers in jars. I hope it's an idea that takes off; knowing the number of people in Stroud Green who are community-minded, I'm pretty sure it will. I for one have promised a cake very soon!

Farewell, Child Benefit

2010-10-21T05:49:00.000-07:00

When Child Benefit stops being paid to higher rate tax payers in 2013, my family, like 1.5m others, will lose out (my husband earns just over the threshold; I earn nothing).

We had been doing what a lot of people have probably been doing with their Child Benefit: putting it into our daughter's Child Trust Fund, with the hope that she will then have a lump sum to use when she's older - possibly for University.

With students today in debt to the tune of £20,000 or more by the time they graduate, goodness knows what state University education will be in by 2025, the year our daughter will be 18. The amount we may have been able to save up through Child Benefit probably wouldn't have touched the sides, but at least it would've been something.

Maybe she won't go to University. Already, the idea of a free University place, no tuition fees and readily-available grants - all of which was available just 11 years ago, when I graduated, seems like a thing of luxury in a time of plenty.

But it's not just the practical impact that the scrapping of Child Benefit for those 1.5m families will have; it's what receiving Child Benefit signifies. To me, it felt like a nod from the state that what we as parents are doing is somehow appreciated. Of course, raising a family is in many ways a joy, but a lot of the time it is bloody hard work - emotionally, physically, and yes, financially.

Much of that burden falls on women, many of whom, like me, will put their careers on hold (possibly damaging them for good) and devote several years to childcare. Child Benefit somehow seemed a sign that we were doing a job which was worth doing well - the most important job that there is: raising children in the hope that they will become well-adjusted, kind, engaged citizens. So today, not surprisingly, I'm feeling not a little angry.

Apple Day - popular again!

2010-10-19T08:40:00.001-07:00

This year's Apple Day at Hornsey Vale Community Centre was again a fantastic event, attended by a couple of hundred local people. Organised by Transition Crouch End, a group with whom I'm involved, the idea is to celebrate the humble apple, and in so doing highlight the many varieties available in the UK. Locally grown, seasonal, and above all, delicious.

There was an apple press, which children enjoyed operating, and which produced the sharpest and tastiest apple juice any of us had ever tasted. Apple poetry, information about transition towns, apple cakes...all of these were featured, along with the now legendary Apple Peeling Contest, run by local raconteur, Dave Pepper.

Chris, my husband, of course won the contest last year. I seem to recall he concentrated on the task so hard that he developed a rash on his neck...His apple peel came in at 1m 73cm last year, and he was keen to beat that this year.

When we arrived, word was already spreading of his peeling prowess, with the world's media (i.e. the local papers) ready to photograph his efforts. This added not a little to stress levels, and his first two attempts were not up to standard.

Then a woman known only as 'New York Sara' peeled an impressive 2m 3cm. Not to be outdone, Chris had a 3rd attempt. His peel came in at 2m 3.5cm - phew! A new record, and another victory! He is pictured receiving his prize from Dave Pepper - which he shared with 'New York Sara', since there was only half a centremetre in it.

We had a great time and I think the event really embodied the spirit of the transition movement: the community coming together to have fun and celebrate the season, learning and enjoying ourselves at the same time.

The Economics of Breastfeeding

2010-10-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

This afternoon saw seven members of the Haringey Breastfeeding Campaign, me included, having a meeting with Sheena Carr, senior public health strategist, and Claire Wright, head of children’s strategy for Haringey. The borough are currently seeking views and doing research on breastfeeding rates and support, with a view to presenting this to NHS Haringey in November.

One of our concerns as breastfeeding mums is that there is NO budget in the borough for breastfeeding. It’s not a case of defending the budget from cuts – there isn’t one to cut.

This is something I questioned at the meeting. Ayala Ochert (who infamously dared to bare her bosom in St Ann’s library, creating somewhat of a media storm a couple of weeks back) has been crunching the figures, and worked out how much the borough could save by supporting breastfeeding.

A recent study[1] in the United States found that if 90% of mothers followed the recommendation to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months then the country would save more than $13 billion per year and prevent more than 900 deaths.

If one were to extrapolate to this to the population of Haringey[2], then it would amount to a saving of more than $9.5 million per year (£6 million).

The study looked at 10 childhood diseases so in fact the savings and deaths prevented would actually be higher. It did not include deaths prevented from breast cancer, for example. If women in the UK breastfed for an extra 6 months on average then 1000 cases of breast cancer, and hundreds of deaths, could be prevented each year[3].

The US survey found that 13.6% of mothers were exclusively breastfeeding at 6 months. Extrapolating to Haringey amount, this would amount to £78,534 per one percent increase in exclusive breastfeeding rates.

As I put it at the meeting, the borough therefore cannot afford NOT to fund breastfeeding – and the first thing our group would like to see the money for would be a midwife who specialised in breastfeeding. (You will recall, this is what the borough had until the post was cut…during national breastfeeding week).

I got the sense that Sheena Carr and Claire Wright ‘got it’; they know how important breastfeeding is but that they feel that their hands are tied. Also, because the PCT will soon cease to exist, and because GPs will be put in charge of commissioning, there is a real sense of ‘wait and see – we’re all in the dark.’

As one of the mothers at the meeting pointed out, however, that just isn’t good enough. Since the specialist midwife was cut in June, hundreds of mothers and babies will have fallen though the net when it comes to breastfeeding. Fact.

Some of the mothers recounted horror stories of being publicly humiliated by midwifes who were anti-breastfeeding. One recalled how her son had been fed formula, against her wishes, and that the baby ended up with constipation so bad that he bled when he finally managed to excrete.

Another woman told of how she had needed surgery when her daughter was still young, but had been told by the Whittington hospital that they couldn’t allow her daughter, who she was still breastfeeding, to come into hospital with her, and so she would either have to quit breastfeeding or delay surgery. She chose to delay surgery, causing her much physical pain. “That’s a struggle no one should have to go though,” she commented.

We discussed the Unicef ‘Baby-Friendly Status’ which the borough is starting to move towards (it will take about five years, incredibly). I asked how it would work seeing as there are no hospitals in Haringey, and the borough’s babies are largely born in Islington, Barnet or Camden (unless they're born at home - and we know how rare home births still are). The answer was pretty vague, and we are concerned that some elements of gaining ‘Baby-Friendly Status’ are simply box-ticking exercises. For example, the Whittington has now got a certificate to say that it is committed to going ‘Baby-Friendly’…yet the above experience of the breastfeeding mum shows that the hospital having a certificate to wave about didn’t improve her experience in any way. Other anecdotes, many of them shocking, seemed to back this up.

What will happen when the council takes over much of the work of the PCT, or the GPs decide what the priorities should be for local healthcare? My guess is that we have even more of a battle on our hands, but that despite being sleep-deprived, our group will not be giving up easily.

1. The Burden of Suboptimal Breastfeeding in the United States: A Pediatric Cost Analysis, Bartick and Reinhold, Paediatrics 2010
2. Based on US population of 307,006,550 and Haringey population of 226,200
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2136824.stm

Milking It!

2010-09-29T05:14:00.000-07:00

Since being interviewed last week on LBC on the subject of public breastfeeding (you can listen to the interview here: http://tinyurl.com/34t8rl5) , I have been really trying to understand why a man would be ‘acutely embarrassed’ by being made to ‘endure’ the sight of a woman breastfeeding. Now, it’s hard for me to peer into the Nuts magazine reading branch of the male psyche, but I’ve tried – Lord, how I have tried. Here are my attempts to make sense of this – I’ve come up with two theories.

Theory Number 1: ‘Oh my God, that bird’s getting her tit out. TIT! TIT! I can see a TIT! And I didn’t even have to pay her or google ‘big tits’! But I’m not meant to be looking. But I can’t help but look. But there’s a baby. How can I be getting turned on when there’s a baby involved? Oh my God, I’m a paedo.’

Theory Number 2: ‘Oh my God, that bird’s – yep, she’s getting her tit out! Hurrah! But…hang on. Something’s wrong here. It’s just not sexy. I can see a tit but I’m not feeling sexy...what’s wrong with me? Oh my God, I’ve turned gay.’

There you go – that was my effort to understand. Maybe someone could enlighten me if they’ve got any other theories. I had another idea which was that maybe men feel excluded from breastfeeding, and this makes them feel angry and rejected, but frankly that wasn’t as funny as Theory 1 and Theory 2, so I let that one fall by the wayside.

To be serious for a second (sorry): breastfeeding is a hugely emotive, complicated issue, especially once you start to come across really negative reactions to it. I do think part of it is how we are used to seeing breasts as sexual parts of a woman’s body, and then suddenly here they are performing an altogether different role. If it’s complicated for the confused male onlooker, it’s also complicated for the woman. Overnight your breasts look and feel very different, and they are suddenly seem to be someone else’s property – that of your baby.

I’ve spoken to a lot of women who say they love breastfeeding and that they find it a very sensual experience (personally I wasn’t massively keen, having mastitis a couple of times which was awful – I even started to really pity dairy cows and thought about becoming a vegan for, ooh, 30 seconds). It’s interesting though that when a lactating woman is sexually aroused, it stimulates the ‘let down reflex’ – that’s breastfeeding lingo for milk flow. Not something you’d know unless you’d breastfed, I guess – quite strange!

Anyway, like I said in the radio interview, please don’t be embarrassed, folks. They’re just breasts doing their rather clever job, and we’ll try our best not to spray you – too much – with milk.

The youngest Green

2010-09-16T04:25:00.000-07:00

This is my three year old daughter, Clementine, 'reading' her copy of the Young Greens newsletter. She joined the Young Greens when she was two, and as far as I know she's the youngest member of the Green Party.

Some people have been a little cynical about me joining her up when she's so young, but I had some good reasons. We're always swift to complain about the apathy of the general public when it comes to the democratic process, but I think if you get people interested in playing a part in politics from a young age, the better chance we have of having a generation of active, engaged citizens in years to come.

It will be vital that today's children become the informed, concerned citizens of tomorrow, because of course they will unfortunately be inheriting the runaway climate change caused by the generations before them.

I don't know how common it is for schools to run mock elections, but they are certainly a good way of engaging young people. I remember one taking place in my school at the time of the General Election in 1992. The headmistress was unfortunately a staunch Tory and put up posters of John Major all over the place. (I drew a moustache on one of them, as I recall).

Anyway, my hope is that when she's old enough, she'll use her vote (by the way, she doesn't yet return her internal elections ballot papers - she uses them as drawing paper). I know who I hope she will vote for in the future, but she's happily a rather independent-minded type, so time will tell! Just this week, at the breastfeeding campaign meeting, she was holding forth about the importance of breastfeeding ("it makes us grow big and strong") and, unprompted, brought up the issue of the Whittington hospital ("we need to keep it open in case people get sick.")

Anyway, watch out for Clementine at a Green Party conference in a year or two - you heard it here first!

(Please note: I apologise for the perhaps slightly nauseatingly proud tone of this post - I honestly can't help it).

Breastfeeding campaign update

2010-09-14T13:22:00.001-07:00

Today I attended a meeting of the Haringey Breastfeeding Campaign. We held a demo outside St Ann’s hospital during the summer to protest against NHS Haringey cutting the borough’s one paid breastfeeding support worker…something they announced during national breastfeeding month!

It isn’t a case of cuts causing the lack of provision, namely because there’s no budget to cut. That’s right: NHS Haringey doesn’t have a budget for promoting and supporting breastfeeding. This despite the fact UK breastfeeding rates are low and have been for decades: 42% of babies are being breastfed at 6 weeks, 29% at 4 months and just 22% at 6 months of age. (It’s worth knowing that the World Health Authority recommends that babies are exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months, with breastfeeding continuing for at least the first two years).

Research from 2004 showed that 9 out of 10 women who gave up breastfeeding in the first 6 weeks said they stopped before they wanted to because they didn’t feel they had access to adequate support.

Haringey has in fact just increased the ‘drop in’ sessions in the borough, but these are funded by Sure Start…and we anxiously wait to see how that will be slashed by the current government.

But there is much the borough can be doing to encourage breastfeeding, especially if is wants, as NHS Haringey boss Tracey Baldwin claimed recently, to be accredited as having ‘Baby Friendly status’ as established by Unicef.

Just yesterday a friend of mine was breastfeeding her 2 month old daughter in St Ann’s Library (whilst reading her 3 year old son a book…what was that about women and multi-tasking?!). A male librarian asked her if, in the future, she would please ‘face the wall’ because they’d had complaints in the past. He also said that there would be some children coming in soon, so she better not get her tits out again. God forbid kids should see a woman breastfeeding! They might think it’s normal and think about feeding their own future babies that way! Just say no, kids…

In short, we’ve got a long way to go. The group of strong, opinionated and informed women I met up with today – who threw around ideas, facts and figures and brandished letters from our MP, often whilst breastfeeding a baby at the same time – left me in no doubt that this will be a successful campaign.

Prison - an expensive failure?

2010-09-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

I’ll be heading to Birmingham this Friday for Green Party Autumn Conference, which, judging from the timetable, looks like it’s going to be a good one. I thought I’d blog about the panel on UK Prison Reform which I’ve been busy organising for quite a while!

The panel will take place on Friday 10th Sept at 6pm in the main hall. It will be chaired by Jean Lambert MEP and I am very excited about the panel I’ve lined up…

- Juliet Lyon CBE, Director of the Prison Reform Trust (and Commissioner for the Women’s National Commission (WNC)).

- Denise Marshall, coordinator of Birth Companions (an organisation who help pregnant prisoners and prisoners with babies).

- Joy Doal, coordinator of the Anawim Project in Birmingham (an organisation that supports sex workers and former women offenders).

- Rebecca Cunningham, a user of the Anawim Project.

Conference will also be considering a motion to adapt and augment our existing prison policy. I hope the policy is passed as it will add some important details to what is already a good, solid approach.

Particularly, I am keen to see points about women prisoners added to Green Party policy. Some facts on prisons I came across during the research for the motion and the panel discussion include:

- 17,000 children are deprived of their mothers annual when they are sent to jail (2004).

- Between 2005 and 2008, 283 babies were born in UK prisons. 8 mother and baby units in UK prisons – one is in Holloway.

- 12,000 women pass through the prison system every year. One third have a young child. (2010). 68% are in for non-violent offences, 56% have used drugs daily. Costs £27,000 per woman per year to keep them in prison (2004).

- A quarter have been in care as children, half have been beaten by their partners, 70% have been diagnosed with two or more mental disorders. (2004).

Little wonder, then, that there is an epidemic of suicide and self-harm in prisons – with the most likely time for a prisoner to attempt suicide being their first night in jail. Shockingly, six women on average have to be cut down from nooses every night in Holloway prison (2004). Women prisoners are more likely to self-harm than men (The Corston Report).

And of course there are less ‘dangerous criminal’ women than there are men - in 2007, it was reported that 1000 heroin-addicted women are jailed each year for selling sex. This begs the question, what is prison actually for? Protecting the law abiding? Enforcing normative moral codes? Or further damaging the life chances of the already seriously vulnerable and disadvantaged?

People ‘on remand’ are being imprisoned for long periods, and are not necessarily guilty of any crime. 12,000+ people in UK this applies to every year (2005). This raises some important civil liberties questions. ‘Remand’ is used incorrectly – e.g. to imprison people who actually need sectioning (according to The Howard League for Penal Reform). Two-thirds of the women who go to prison do so on remand and more than half of them do not go on to receive a custodial sentence, with one in five acquitted. (The Corston Report).

There are several steps that can be taken to improve the lot of those sentenced to a term in prison. Placing new prisoners in a separate wing, and talking them through the routine of prison life has been shown to be effective. ‘Buddy schemes’, where prisoners help each other, guided by The Samaritans, has also worked well (more so than help from professionals, apparently).

The problem we read about time and time again is overcrowding – we cannot rehabilitate prisoners if prisons are overcrowded. In 1993, our prisons contained 40,000: 47% ‘went straight’ upon release. Now the prison population us double (2008) – and only 25% ‘go straight’.

Something which also has a detrimental affect on prisoners’ chances of ‘going straight’ is the fact that a third of prisoners are homeless when they are released from jail, making it very likely that they will re-offend. In Liverpool Prison, prisoners were taught construction skills and then used them to do up an abandoned council house once they were released.

Another way to make sure that prisoners remain a part of society, rather than cut off and angered, is to allow them to retain the right to vote. Because they do not currently have that right, MPs do not have to listen to their concerns or raise issues about their welfare. It further disenfranchises them from society, and there is no incentive to make prisons better.

Lastly, it is worth bearing in mind, particularly in this era of ‘savage cuts’, that prisons cost £2.2bn a year. With re-offending rates after release still at about 60% (and over 75% for young offenders) prison is an expensive failure, which has no impact on crime levels or the fear of crime.

Free Wheel - not so fabulous

2010-09-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

I’m not much of a cyclist (though, inexplicably, I own two bikes), but yesterday I attended the Free Wheel event in central London. It’s sponsored by Sky (that’s the main thing that’s wrong with it) and I generally had mixed feelings about it.

First off, the positives. It encourages people to get on their bikes and not have to worry about traffic. There are lots of different events to get involved with, stalls to visit etc – my three year old daughter loved the little kids fun section, where she tore around the track on a ‘like-a-bike’.

There were some spectacles to be enjoyed: a punt on wheels and a piano and a bicycle morphed into one melodic, travelling contraption.

Cycling helmets off also to the stewards and the lead riders, who lead big convoys of riders from the start points to the ‘traffic-less’ sections. It was a tricky job and the ones I saw in action were doing great work.

The less positive points now…Although one didn’t have to worry about traffic (as in cars etc), there were so many bikes, wheel to wheel, that you really did have to be on red alert every second so as not to have a collision. Indeed, I saw some people having bumps and falls because of this very problem.

It was great that it was so well-attended, but the feeling I had was that cycling, a solitary pursuit (unless you’re on a tandem, but let’s not quibble here, folks), didn’t really suit this massive, crowded event.

There was also a feeling of ‘organised fun’ – ooh, we’re in the loud zone, everyone ring your bells, wooo! No thanks. Maybe I am just a curmudgeonly misanthrope (actually, there’s no ‘maybe’ about it!) but organised fun makes me want to crawl into a burrow and not come out for a long time…

One more gripe: if the event is about encouraging people out onto the streets to cycle, isn’t this a rather unrealistic introduction? No cars, go-go dancers cavorting in tunnels, penny-farthings sailing past. Actually, that description makes it sound much more fun than it actually was!

Hague's ill-advised comments

2010-09-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

I am not sure why William Hague is making such a big deal out of his sexuality. Who cares if he is or isn’t gay? It’s not really all that interesting. From the way he’s been reacting, you’d think he’d been accused of paedophilia or murder. Maybe, to the Tories, being gay is a sin akin to those crimes, who knows? I wouldn’t like to assume how a Tory brain works.

About 11 years ago I was at a party in south London (I don’t get out much these days, but long ago, oh yes). A Tory-faced man told me that he knew Hague and filled me in on gossip much along the lines of what the papers are reporting this week. Again, so what? Not all that interesting. Apart from the fact that, if true, why the hell does it have to be such a secret? What year is it again, 1952?

What struck me as particularly odd was Hague’s comments about his wife’s miscarriages. Despite how commonplace they are, no one really talks about miscarriages – especially men. One sensed it was Hague’s trump card, and the message was ‘so that means we have SEX and so I am HETEROSEXUAL! Hurrah!’ A little bit on the tawdry side, I thought, using his wife’s unpleasant experiences in such a public and insensitive fashion.

In short – Hague, if you’re gay, get over it, it couldn’t be less interesting. If you’re not, then do shut up – being accused of being gay in 2010 is no big deal – it’s (whisper it) not actually an insult, or haven’t you heard? Whichever is the case, leave your wife’s womb out of it. Ta ever so.

Children and domestic violence

2010-08-25T06:27:00.000-07:00

We often hear the shocking statistics about domestic violence – that on average over two women are killed by an ex or current partner every week in the uk, and that one in four women will experience domestic violence at some point in their lives. But it is perhaps not until we have direct or indirect experience of the issue in our own lives that the true horror of those statistics really dawn on us.

When I was at primary school, my mother looked after a girl who was in the year below me. She came to our house for lunch and after school, until her mother picked her up. I got on well with this girl, A, and I think we enjoyed playing together because we were both ‘only’ children. We found we had a lot in common, not least of all that we were in what were often unhappy marriages. Not our own, of course – that of our parents.

A and I would hold regular ‘meetings’ to discuss the state of our parents’ marriages. These would take place in top-secret locations (I recall one under the dining table and one behind the garden shed). We would report on recent explosive arguments, recent scoldings we had received (verbal, physical) and whether we thought our parents would divorce - I always rather hoped mine would, though they never did! It really helped to have someone to discuss these issues with, I realise now.

Then, aged 8, I was sent to a different school, and I never saw A again.

I never knew what had happened to her, until in recent months when she has been featuring in the press for a terrible reason. It turns out that her parents never divorced either, and that in February this year her father had killed her mother in a savage attack. He has escaped being given a life sentence because of mental health problems and has instead being charged with culpable homicide.

A never told me about any physical violence that took place towards her mother in her household, but I wonder now what horrors she, as a child, was a witness to. Not much is said about the children who survive these situations, and how it affects them in later life.

So today I am thinking of children in that situation – there must be thousands, millions – and hoping that they are not irrecoverably damaged by their far from ideal upbringings. Much is made of ‘staying together for the sake of the children’. Perhaps ‘splitting up for the sake of the children’ would be more appropriate for many warring couples.

Women and the media

2010-08-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I attended Day 2 of the UK Feminista Summer School. It says a lot about how big the resurgence of feminism has become when an event such as this becomes fully booked.

The first event of the day was a panel on ‘women and the media’, with freelance Hannah Pool, Kira Cochrane, the Guardian’s women editor and Jess McCabe from the F Word as Chair.

Both Cochrane and Pool agreed that there is still very much a culture of machismo within the newspaper industry, “even at the Guardian”, with a belittling of 'women’s issues'. They both observed that they get very misogynistic comments written under their articles when they appear online. As an experiment, Pool wrote a feminist article under the alias ‘Harry Pond’, and wasn’t surprised to see that this time she received no negative comments. Both writers agreed that it was important for women readers to make comments about articles, as difficult as it is to do so when you know you will then be attacked.

The issue of female journalists writing misogynistic articles was raised – Liz Jones and Melanie Phillips being two examples of this unfortunate species. Pool commented that this is a common trick that male commissioning editors now use – they know that men cannot say certain things about women these days, so they get a female journalist to do so instead. “It’s a pressure to be worse than men in a pressured environment, which is almost all-male,” she explained. Kira Cochrane concurred, saying it was also a way for female journalists to make a lot of money.

An audience member asked about whether writing in the Guardian is very much ‘preaching to the converted’, and what would their advice be on writing, for example, for the Daily Mail? Cochrane described it as “like walking into a really, really, really dark forest.” She said that if you wrote copy for such a paper, you had to be prepared for them editing what you had written substantially, and that it might also appear under a really awful headline. Pool said that she had written for the Evening Standard, and that she had ‘got away with’ writing feminist articles without much censure. She also noted wryly that her bag of hate mail was only as big as the one she received at the Guardian.

We all know the importance of the media in influencing society, and so this session, which also allowed women to ask about becoming journalists, pitching stories, and getting coverage for their campaigns, was extremely useful. Much was also made of the democratic nature of the internet – anyone can blog, and anyone can submit articles to sites such as The F Word.

As one older feminist in the audience commented, “the battles we fought so many years ago – they need to be fought again.” And the more visible and high-profile that fight is, the more successful it will be.

Haringey Council cuts luxuries – including being green!

2010-08-03T03:45:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended a meeting at Haringey Council between the officers who are coordinating the Green door knocking scheme and members of the Sustainable Haringey Network.

The council have been given some Government money through the ‘Future Jobs fund’ to do some ‘environmental door-knocking’, talking to people about green issues such as sustainable transport, energy reduction, water conservation, sustainable food and of course recycling.

It’s a good idea in principle – taking the message to the doorsteps, giving people practical tips on how to reduce their carbon footprint.

There’s one big problem, though. The Future Jobs fund has been scrapped, and Haringey’s scheme, which started just last week, will be come to an abrupt end in February. That is if it isn’t extended by the use of volunteers. “The Big Society”, I quipped, and we all grimly chortled.

We raised the issue of Free Mass Insulation – that if it can happen in Kirklees, it can happen here. Creating local jobs, lifting the borough’s poorest out of fuel poverty, drastically lowering the borough’s CO2 emissions. “I can’t think of anything more worthwhile to spend any remaining money on – it’s win, win, win,” I told the officers.

Like most local authorities, Haringey have always come up with excuses rather than take what are seen as radical steps – the Free Mass Insulation scheme being a case in point. They’re big on proclamations “We’re going to reduce emissions by 40%!” – but less good on the detail of how that’s actually going to actually happen.

Now, though, they have the seemingly cast iron excuse to do very little – “there’s no money.” Sorry, I don’t buy it – pun intended. They can afford to publish a glossy magazine and send it to every household in the borough. They can afford to spend a fortune on consultants. They clearly have more money than they know what to do with – why else would they heat council offices to tropical temperatures and leave all the lights on at night?!

It’s time Haringey Council realised that tackling climate change isn’t just some trendy thing – a box that they can be seen to tick without taking real action. I do not blame the council officers – speaking to them individually, I sense that many of them would love to be more radical. Instead I blame the lack of political will. Oh, for some Green councillors, punching well above their weight, and not taking no for an answer!

Instead, for now at least, we’ll have to shout from the sidelines. My megaphone is at the ready.

Lynne Featherstone and the 'ideal' body shape

2010-08-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

Lynne Featherstone MP’s recent proclamation that actress Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan Harris in Mad Men, has the perfect figure, the one that all women ‘should’ be aiming for, was bizarre to say the least.

Featherstone described Hendricks’s figure as ‘absolutely fabulous’ and held up a silhouette of her figure.

Now, I know Featherstone meant well with these comments. I know that she is concerned about the pressure on young women to conform to beauty industry standards and also about the airbrushing that goes on in the magazine and advertising industry.

But saying that this is the outline that we should all be aiming for is crazy. I’m sure flat-chested women everywhere will be delighted to be told that it is ‘absolutely fabulous’ to have big breasts.

And as a fan of ‘Mad Men’, I can’t help but recall the treatment Hendricks’s character, Joan, receives, due largely to her appearance. Men talking to her tits, not her face. Raped on the office floor by her fiancé – who she still goes on to marry. And the subtle little shot (what other sort of shot is there in this excellent drama?) of Joan rubbing the raw marks on her shoulders where her bra straps have been cutting into her skin all day…

Not so ‘absolutely fabulous’ after all…

Demanding Justice - holding the police to account

2010-07-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

Today I attended a protest outside the Office of Department of Public
Prosecution HQ. This was in response to the CPS decision to charge no one over the
death of Ian Tomlinson, despite a mountain of evidence showing him being
attacked by PC Simon Harwood at the G20 protests on 1 April last year.

The demo also served to highlight the deaths in police custody which have occurred over the years, for which, again, no one has been held to account. There was a real feeling of anger and injustice today - and rightly so.

This will be a long battle, but one that needs to be fought. If the police are not held to account for attacking and killing - depsite, in Ian Tomlinson's case, there being video evidence of what happened - we do not truly live in a democracy.

Support Breastfeeding - don't be a boob!

2010-07-28T07:06:00.001-07:00

This morning my daughter and I attended a good-sized demo outside Haringey's St Ann's Hopital, ahead of a meeting of NHS Haringey board members. The demo was part of a campaign to reinstate the post of a midwife specialising in helping new mums to breastfeed after NHS Haringey scrapped it during National Breastfeeding Week.

There were breast-shaped placards and cakes which I can best describe as titillating.

Although the World Health Authority recommends that babies are exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months, with breastfeeding continuing for at least the first two years, UK breastfeeding rates are low and have been for decades: 42% of babies are being breastfed at 6 weeks, 29% at 4 months and just 22% at 6 months of age. Haringey should be doing everything it can to support breastfeeding in the borough – cutting breastfeeding support is exactly the wrong way to go.

It’s support as well as information that is essential – research from 2004 showed that 9 out of 10 women who gave up breastfeeding in the first 6 weeks said they stopped before they wanted to because they didn’t feel they had access to adequate support.

If NHS Haringey can afford to pay its Chief Executive, Tracey Baldwin, £190,000 a year, Haringey can afford to support breastfeeding mothers.

They're my woods and I'll walk if I want to!

2010-07-22T02:38:00.000-07:00

When I first moved to Summersby Road in Highgate, one of my work colleagues looked up my flat on Google Earth. "You lucky thing!" she said. "You are literally going to live in the woods!"

It's true. The block in which I live is surrounded on two sides by the edges of Queen's Wood, one of the four ancients woodlands in Haringey. I can get into the woods via an entrance a few steps from my front door, and it's fair to say I have totally fallen in love with the place. It is splendid in every season, and its unkempt, natural state (much less manicured than neighbouring Highgate Woods - though I love that too), means that I have spent a lot of time there over the last 4 years. Indeed, I'm a 'Friend of Queen's Wood' - the organisation recently celebrated its 10 year anniversary.

It's strange, however, when I tell people this. I often get a very negative reaction, especially from women. "Is that safe?" they ask. "Should you go there alone?" Someone even said recently "Wasn't someone murdered there once?" (I don't know, I'm not one for subscribing to 'Grisly Murders Monthly' - first edition comes with a miniature Peter Sutcliffe).

The fact is, I've always felt very safe there. I walk with my daughter, or by myself, and think thoughts. And those thoughts are not 'Hmmm...I wonder if I am going to be raped and murdered today?'

That said, my female neighbour was flashed at in the woods last week when walking with her son. I have advised her to tell the local safer neighbourhoods' team (the police, to you). I await to see what reaction she will get from them, and whether they will advise her not to walk in the woods without a big strong man to protect her...

I say this because I was recently working as a backmarker on Walk London, and we were traversing the beautiful Parkland walk (we're not short of scenic places to stroll around these parts!). A woman was walking with me and she said "It's great being back on the Parkland walk. I used to come here all the time, but a local policeman told me never to come here alone again, it was too dangerous."

This made me very angry. It would make the job of the police a lot easier, I suppose, if women all deigned to stay at home, because surely by stepping out of our front doors we are asking for it, massively. How incredibly stupid. Maybe the police should concentrate on catching criminals, and the justice system should be improved so that we get a higher conviction rate for rape, rather than imprisoning women with fear serving as bars.

Screw that - I'm off for a walk in the woods. Alone.

A post-election project...

2010-07-04T07:34:00.000-07:00

When I was out canvassing in Stroud Green, I’d often walk past a little unloved flowerbed which runs along the front of the Hornsey Vale Community Centre. I am a trustee there, and had many a ‘pang’ about how the space should be made use of for growing things both beautiful and edible. After the election, I told myself, after the election…

It turned out that I wasn’t the only one thinking that way. Members of Transition Crouch End were also planning and plotting, and today we started to make our shared vision a reality.

After weeding and de-littering the area, we stacked up big old tyres as planters (kindly donated by a local garage), and then filled them with compost. Plants such as herbs, geraniums and sunflowers have been put in and we’re setting up a watering rota – essential, of course, in this weather.

I returned home covered in soil and engine oil (from the tyres – the rolling of which was a joy. I definitely recommend rolling tyres).

The plan is to apply for funding for ‘Stage 2’, which will be to build a raised bed and replace the tyres with a more permanent garden.

This summer should be pretty blooming though, and it only took a small group of us a few hours work. The hope is that local people will get involved and it can really have a feeling a shared ownership. That’s the idea with transition towns, after all – building community, sharing skills, and moving away from multi-nationals and an oil-based economy, and towards growing food locally.

I had loads of fun today. Physical labour is to be recommended, I feel, though if I ache like a billy goat tomorrow, I may revise my opinion…

http://chati2009.ning.com/

Toronto and Civil Liberties

2010-06-27T03:20:00.000-07:00

News of heavy-handed police tactics in Toronto, following protests around the G20 summit, reminded me of the force's dubious track record when it comes to civil liberties.

This is something I researched a few years ago as part of my MA dissertation, which was on depictions of Toronto in Canadian literature. Concentrating a great deal on the history of minorities in the city, a troubling picture emerged of Toronto's police force, particularly in their attitude towards the city's gay residents.

I managed to secure an interview with Margaret Atwood, and her incisive comments on the situation are contained within the article.

*****

Toronto’s gay district is situated to the east of the downtown area, and centres around the streets of Church and Wellesley, where most of the city’s gay clubs, bars and shops are located. Interestingly, the lower part of Church Street is also a red-light district, which mirrors the nature of the Bowery area of New York, where the gay area and a red-light district co-exist.

This would suggest that sexualities which are viewed as deviant are relegated to one area. The vibrancy of Toronto’s gay area is testimony to the strong presence that the gay community has in the city; with the annual ‘Pride’ march and several free newspapers and magazines widely available, the gay presence is hard to ignore.

Despite this feeling of a strong community identity, however, and indeed of an outward acceptance of gay people, the city has a history of intolerance and homophobia. This intolerance is also evident in Canadian law’s attitude to homosexuality. Canada took on many of Britain’s antiquated laws concerning homosexuality, and then added some even more stringent ones of its own. For example, there are laws concerning lesbianism, something that has never been criminalized in the UK. Although the Canadian Criminal Code has been amended over the last three decades, a clause remains about the illegality of homosexual acts in ‘public’ places. This definition of ‘public’ is unclear, and has led many of the country’s gay bathhouses, including several establishments in Toronto, to be raided.

The beginning of the 1980s was a particularly conservative time in the city, when, as Gary Kinsman explains, ‘[t]he elections witnessed an emergence of a vocal anti-gay right-wing, which had the tacit backing of the police department.’ 5 February 1981 was the lowest point in the relationship between the gay community and the Toronto Police Department, when bathhouses across the city were raided, premises were damaged, and gay men were mocked, threatened and arrested. The Toronto Star, in an article entitled ‘Homosexuals fear suicides and broken marriages in wake of raids’ reported that,

Rev. Brent Hawkes, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church, said one police officer taking part in the raids had told a group of men, found in a shower room: “It’s too bad the showers weren’t hooked up for gas instead of water.”

Richard Brown, president of the Lambda Business Council, a group representing gay businessmen, charged the police with a “wanton rampage of destruction.”
“Look at history and see what the blackshirts did in the ‘20s and ‘30s. We’re the new Jews.”

This comparison between the fate of the Jews and the gays is interesting; Brown was of course making a reference to Nazi Germany, not the formerly anti-Semitic Toronto. There are, however, many similarities between the sudden attacks in the city on the Jewish community in 1933, and the sudden attacks on the gay community in 1981. A major difference is in evidence, however, in the reaction to those attacks; whereas the anti-Semitism of the city’s past has been largely forgotten by Torontonians, the gay community’s response to the victimization they experienced at the hands of the police has been strong and enduring. The night after the raids, for example, a massive demonstration marched through Toronto, bringing the city to a standstill. The raids served to politicise, radicalise and organise a community which before had perhaps been a little too reticent in its actions against prejudice.

The events of 1981 have been the subject of some of the city’s gay literature, such as John Grube’s short story ‘Raid’, published in 1997. Grube’s story highlights the way in which the city’s police attempted to demonise the gay community at a time when the public were perhaps beginning to tentatively accept the existence of homosexuality. The handling of the factual material is perhaps somewhat laboured on Grube’s part, although this does not detract a great deal from the power of the story. For example, the Police Chief’s dialogue is slightly improbable when he says, “By the way, here’s our press release...what do you think? This bathhouse bust is really about breaking a boy prostitution ring, how does that sound?” Despite the overtly polemical nature of the story, it is nevertheless factually accurate. Toronto’s police, along with the city’s media, had a history of attempting to link crime and homosexuality, and claimed that ‘much crime [could] be traced to homosexuality.’ In 1977, for example, a twelve year old boy called Emanuel Jaques was found murdered and sexually assaulted on Yonge Street, near the city’s gay district. Gary Kinsman has claimed that ‘by constantly referring to [it as] a “homosexual” murder, the media suggested a relationship between homosexual behaviour, pedophilia and murderous acts that cemented in the public mind.’

As already outlined, however, Toronto in the twenty-first century does seem, outwardly at least, to be very tolerant of its strong gay community; a community which has been forged and strengthened by adversity. The phrase ‘gay community’, however, could be seen as somewhat misleading, suggesting as it does that the gays and lesbians of the city exist as one homogeneous group who concur on all issues. Furthermore, the city has been keen to encourage enclaves, such as China Town, GreekTown and Little Italy, to name but a few. To what extent, then, is Toronto’s gay district, or ‘village’ as it is often known, a similar enclave or ghetto?

On visiting the city, one does get the impression that the facilities set up to serve the gay contingent are very much ‘squeezed’ into the Church Street area, with very little evidence of gay activity elsewhere. Julia Gonsalves, herself a lesbian living in Toronto, wrote in August of this year:

I spend a lot of time complaining about the absence of a visible queer presence outside of the Church-Wellesley village. I bitch about being the only one holding hands in Scarborough, in Little Italy, in Bloor West Village.

Gonsalves concludes however, after visiting the Dominican Republic and meeting a gay man who has to hide his sexuality because of extreme homophobia, that ‘I am not alone in Toronto and never will be.’ Her original point, though, is a valid one; why, if the city is so tolerant, is the gay community squeezed into such a small area of the city?

This lack of tolerance outside of the gay village, as well as the lack of tolerance outside of Toronto, is one of the themes of the city’s plethora of gay literature. In Peter McGehee’s Sweetheart (1992), Zero and his lover Jeff experience homophobia whilst onboard an aeroplane. The ‘rules’ of political correctness are seemingly abandoned in this no-man’s land in the air, as are the ‘rules’ of how one responds to homophobia. Jeff challenges the bigot and asks every gay passenger to raise their hand, which they duly do. Their inability to evade the issue means that an honest exchange is possible; honest in its unfortunate prejudice, and honest in its reaction to that prejudice.

Similarly, in Andy Quan’s short story, ‘The Polish Titanic’, the narrator finds himself amongst strangers on ship that has been temporarily marooned due to storms. His reticence in expressing his gay identity to the strangers is because he fears their rejection:

In the back of my mind, I wonder if we would be sitting here together if they knew I would rather flirt with Piotr than with either of the women here. All the camaraderie and laughter, the french fries and jokes, what would be left?

The narrator, then, realises that his acceptance in the group is perhaps based on a false premise. He eventually tells one person onboard the ship, who spreads the news, and, on disembarking, the narrator finds that he has been abandoned by his new ‘friends’. This device clearly shows that outside of the gay enclave in Toronto, its gay citizens often face the same prejudice which was the norm in previous years.

Quan’s collection of short stories reads in many ways like a disjointed novel. The protagonists, with only one exception, are young gay Chinese males, who, throughout the collection, gain in confidence regarding their sexuality. This gain in confidence is despite the fact that the protagonists often face discrimination at the hands of other members of the gay ‘community’. This, we learn, is because of their Chinese origin. One protagonist, for example, bemoans the fact that as an Asian male he is viewed as asexual:

Anyway, what I really hate are gay Asian clubs. [...].
Why do we have a separate club night anyways? Does this put us into the category of leather nights, rubbermen, underwear parties? Are we a fetish or a themed party? [...].
But I’m being facetious. I know why there are separate club nights. [...].
The fact that we can’t get sex at other clubs, and don’t know whether some white-black-latino-whoever is going to just look right through us, or that guy we’re interested in is going to turn his back, but before doing so, snarl, as if to say, how dare you? Since we’re not sexual, not masculine, since they don’t go for Asians.

Here we see evidence of fractures and bigotry inside the so-called gay ‘community’. Asian gays have their own club nights because they are thought only to appeal sexually to each other, and to no one outside of this category. Such is the discrimination, in fact, that Asians are sometimes barred from non-Asian gay clubs, according to the Quan short story ‘Immigration’. This confirms Margaret Atwood’s assertion that “you assume that bigotry is Anglo-Saxon people being bigots about other people. It’s not true. It’s also people amongst those groups being bigots towards other people.”

Evidence of this phenomenon can be seen in Barbara Gowdy’s depiction of 1960s Toronto in her novel Mister Sandman (1995). Bisexual American Al Yothers, eating what he terms “Chink chow” with his lover Gordon Canary, opines loudly about his views on Chinese people, as well as mocking the Chinese waiter:

“Famry man,” Al mimics, before the waiter is out of earshot.
[...].
Al holds the floor, the theme being “Chinks”, their eating habits (slurping, shovelling it in), the food they themselves eat (Labrador retrievers and stray cats), their feelings (none).
(MS, pp.33-4)

Here we see that despite being in a sexual minority, Al Yothers has no qualms about discriminating against ethnic minorities. Thirty years later, Quan depicts Chinese gays in 1990s Toronto as still suffering from discrimination, even inside the gay ‘community’.
Indeed, Quan’s protagonists remain largely invisible on the streets of Toronto’s gay enclave, until, that is, they learn to assimilate and conform to a stereotypical gay image. In the story ‘Hair’, the protagonist explains that because he grew his hair very long he was repeatedly mistaken for a woman. He asks,

Where have these people been? I thought. Have they never seen a Chinese face? [...].
Or do people not look? Do they see only a flash of black hair? A flash of something strange and foreign and unlikeable, so they turn their heads? [...].
At the same time, I enjoyed hiding behind that hair. [...].
With long hair I could be almost anything.

He ‘could be almost anything’, we are told, and yet he cannot be what he really wishes to be, which is a visibly gay man on the streets of Toronto. Only when he shaves off his hair, having heard that the closely-cropped look is the one currently in vogue with the city’s gay men, does he give – and receive – the ‘backwards glances’ that Mark W. Turner has argued are an established part of gay urban life. Quan’s newly shorn protagonist notes that

Most importantly, I walked along sunny Church Street and felt the weather on the very top of my body, and, amazingly, like a miracle predicted but not believed, heads swivelled, other eyes caught mine. [...]. I had never known what it was like to be recognizably gay, and to walk in a gay street on a hot summer day. With all that mess of hair, the denizens of my gay world only saw an exotic creature with foreign roots. [...]. For with my skin already a different colour, they needed another signal to call me their own. Shaving my head, I had learned to play the game I wanted to play.

The need to give a ‘signal’ to the gay community that he is one of them is significant, and this can be related to Judith Butler’s assertion that ‘gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original [...].’ [her italics]. The protagonist’s conformity to, or ‘imitation’ of the stereotypical gay image allows him to be accepted at last into the gay community. Similarly, in the Quan short story ‘On The Paris Metro’, the gay narrator, whilst staring at an attractive man on the Parisian underground, considers how he became visibly gay. Unaware that he was supposed to ‘act’ in any specific way, two friends decided to ‘teach’ him how to be gay:

They both approached me, one on either side. To my bewilderment, each rolled up one of my shirt sleeves, exposing a thin, round bicep. “Now walk!”
And so I did, giggling, thinking it was a joke.
“No, pretend you have something really big between your legs. Stick your chest out. Walk slowly.”
[...].
Much to my surprise, horror and amusement, that evening, I got the most attention I’d ever had at a club.

The fact that this pretence is what necessary in order for the protagonist to be visible, and, therefore, for him to get sexual attention, confirms that gender behaviour often amounts to a performance. That a certain code of behaviour, and a certain conformity to stereotype is essential in order to be accepted shows that identity categories are somewhat limited, and indeed, limiting.

Edmund White, writing of the attitude of the French gay community, has claimed that the French do not like to be labelled with their sexualities. For example, gay French writers do not like to be termed ‘gay writers’. Judith Butler, who claims to be ‘permanently troubled by identity categories, [and] consider[s] them to be invariable stumbling-blocks’, would presumably agree with the French stance on this issue. However, as White has argued, this lack of a clear gay French identity has led to an ignorance about many gay issues, and therefore, to the high levels of HIV amongst gay Frenchmen.

This issue of the response to HIV is an interesting one when we compare France’s response to Canada’s, or, more specifically, Toronto’s. In recent years, the city has become very proactive about preventing HIV and in giving help to AIDS sufferers. Indeed, there is currently a high-profile campaign in the city, in order to encourage the use of condoms. The campaign posters are quite explicit and can be seen across Toronto, on the side of recycling bins and streetcar shelters. If the gay community did not have such a loud voice, these posters would not perhaps have been possible. This would therefore seem to support the notion that ‘identity categories’ can serve their purpose, even if they do, to a certain extent, limit the behaviour that is possible for a gay man who wants to be recognizably gay on the streets of Toronto.

As I have argued, the gay population is not always deserving of the word ‘community’, which would suggest an all-encompassing group who welcome gay people into their enclave without prejudice. As Quan’s stories illustrate, this isn’t always the case. However, if we compare the depiction of Gowdy’s husband and wife (and closet gay and lesbian) characters Gordon and Doris Canary, in the 1960s Toronto of Mister Sandman, we can see just how much the existence of a gay community, unprejudiced or otherwise, has meant for Toronto’s homosexuals.

Gordon, in a desperate attempt to understand the feelings he has for other men, takes to looking in medical textbooks in the library:

Back then, these books were catalogued under “Mental Disorders” and “Sexual Deviance” and were not on the open shelves. [...]. Bland passages would explode into such graphically clinical description that he would be driven to the washroom to masturbate.
Which was not at all why he was there that August. He was there for information. And for a kind of punishing reassurance that it was true. He was sick. [...]. The premise of Curing The Male Homosexual was that you should enter into a study of ‘real’ men. [...]. In this book there were diagrams showing you how to walk and sit in a masculine manner, how to cross your legs [...].
(MS, pp.71-2)

This passage, of course, makes for interesting comparison with the Quan short story, where a man is ‘taught’ how to walk in a way that is perceived to be gay. Gowdy notes that ‘[i]t was the strangest time’ (MS, p.72), and although her depiction of Gordon, and indeed of his wife Doris, who seduces the Avon lady on the living room sofa (MS, pp.64-66) are written with much humour, what they clearly show is that before there was an established, strong gay community there was a lot of confusion, denial and loneliness.

In conclusion, therefore, beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Toronto’s gay contingent established themselves as a vocal minority. They have memorialised their past and dealt with discrimination, rather than sweeping away that history. This is perhaps in contrast to what has happened with the histories of some of the other minority groups in the city. The existence of a gay literature which problematizes the very notion of ‘community’ and uses the past as a site of exploration, ensures that the strength f the population is something the city is well-known for, as detailed in most of Toronto’s guide books.

The depictions I have chosen to centre on in this chapter have been those of gay writers Andy Quan, John Grube and Peter McGehee, as well as the heterosexual writer Barbara Gowdy. Lesbian writers were not included, simply because I was unable to find any who dealt with lesbianism in a way which was ‘Torontocentric’ enough for my purposes. Indeed, the gay scene in Toronto, as is often the case in urban gay enclaves across the world, is largely dominated by gay men rather than lesbians. This, however, will surely change, as lesbians become increasingly politicised. Just as the bathhouse raids of the early 1980s radicalised the gay men of the city, perhaps the recent police raids of the first lesbian bathhouse events will shift the balance between the sexes.

For although the public show increasing acceptance of the gay populace within the city, as Ceta Ramkhalawansingh has pointed out, “the police are a whole other issue. [...]. There have been difficulties in getting the police to fall into line.”

Margaret Atwood concurs with this appraisal of the situation, concluding that Toronto is “reasonably tolerant except for some police problems we may have had.” Atwood also notes that, when it comes to the annual ‘Pride’ Parade in the city, “[t]he Mayor now goes as a matter of course. It’s no longer a minus for a mayor to appear at such an event, it’s a plus – in fact it’s a necessity.” This turnaround in opinion – that the attendance of the mayor at a gay pride event would be a vote-winner rather than the opposite – shows the extent to which the gay community in Toronto has made the larger community accept their presence, and even learn to celebrate it. This must be due, in no small part, to the rich and diverse gay literature that is stocked by the city’s many gay – and mainstream – bookshops, which serves to problematize, celebrate, and moreover to historicise gay Toronto.

Royal Free Maternity Services - still big problems

2010-06-18T08:03:00.000-07:00

This week I attended the monthly Maternity Services Committee at the Royal Free Hospital, where I have been on the committee since giving birth there in January 2007 (the above picture shows me and my daughter sleeping in a hospital bed).

Improving maternity services is something I care passionately about, and being on this committee is I suppose an attempt to help improve things on a local level.

The committee comprises of maternity staff, NCT representatives and users. Well, when I say 'users' I actually mean 'me'. Unfortunately, I am the only woman present at these meetings that has actually given birth at the hospital – something I have been challenging for as long as I’ve been attending the meetings!

I pointed out that the meetings might be better attended if they didn’t now hold them in a room on the labour ward. Any woman who had had a traumatic experience (and there are 10 million women in the UK who suffer from post-birth trauma) would not want to come back to the labour ward, the scene of the trauma.

I admitted that I was none too keen on coming back onto the ward for the sake of the meeting. At this point, one of the NCT reps also said that, although it was 17 years since she’d given birth, she was still ‘half listening out for the screams.’ I was doing the same.

The Royal Free has had a bad reputation in the past when it comes to maternity services. I was appalled by the details of the latest complaints, which show that in many ways the situation hasn’t changed since I was there in 2007. So many of the complainants raise the issue of the attitude of midwives; the words ‘rushed’, ‘uncaring’, ‘unsympathetic’, ‘no respect’, ‘incompetent’, ‘abrupt’, ‘rude’ and ‘aggressive’ are all used to describe the midwives in the complaints received April 2009-March 2010.

I asked the committee why this problem continues when we were told that it was being dealt with back in 2007? Was it shortage of staff, job dissatisfaction, paper work overload? I was told that the problem of midwife attitude is “a problem across London, not just here” and that staffing levels were now at one midwife to every 32 births – the aim is one for every 28 births. Hmm…what ever happened to ‘one mother, one midwife’, I longed to ask?!

The issue of support for breastfeeding was raised. My own experience was that the midwives actively discouraged breastfeeding, telling me that I “don’t have a clue” and that my baby was “suffering”. I was also told that colostrum (the first milk breastfeeding women produce) is not enough for babies, and that you needed to supplement with formula – completely untrue! I remember that I was the only woman in the bay where my bed was that was actually trying to breastfeed – bottles of formula abounded – provided by the hospital.

One member of staff commented this week “Some units [in other hospitals] don’t have bottles and formula. But that would be a radical step.”

Not surprisingly, feeding problems are one of the main reasons why babies are readmitted to hospital.

Home birth was also discussed. The Royal Free has a 1% home birth level. As it says on the maternity pages of the hospital’s website ‘We provide midwifery support for home births only within a limted [sic] area in order to ensure safe staffing levels.’ This despite the fact that home birth often results in the most natural and least traumatic births possible.

It depresses me that after three years, we’re still talking about the same issues, and the same problems are still very much in evidence. As one woman wrote in her complaint about the care (or lack of) that she had received, she ‘would like to log this complaint so that other mothers do not got through what [I] went through.’

My thoughts exactly.

I really would urge mothers who have given birth in the last few years at the Royal Free to come along to the committee meetings – we need more mothers standing up and saying this cannot and must not be allowed to continue.

The Adventures of Bertha Sturdy

2010-06-03T15:23:00.000-07:00

‘Well, who was this woman? Thereby hangs a tale.’

Not my words, but those of Bertha Sturdy, my great-grandmother. She is pictured above with her husband and children Hilda, Thomas (my grandfather) and Edith.

One of my most treasured possessions is a little book entitled ‘A Yorkshire Woman Came to Blackpool and stayed thirty years’. It’s no more than a pamphlet really, and she had it printed herself, but it very inspiring insight into the rather eventful life of a woman I never met. Born in 1880, she lived to be 92, and she certainly packed a lot into those years, as her short memoir explains.

The book starts with a small section about her childhood, and includes the fact that she left school at the age of 13 ‘because I had a job to go to’. She mentions that she had 4 children before the age of 25 (one out of wedlock, I happen to know – but oddly enough, she doesn’t mention that!).

She then stresses that she doesn’t want to talk about having children or struggling to make ends meet, and claims ‘Oh no, you see I went a lot further – I went to town!’ (the last four words in bold for extra emphasis!).

Bertha arrived in Blackpool about the beginning of WW2, and she became involved with the WVS ‘on a big scale.’ This involved a fair amount of public speaking, which she clearly enjoyed:

‘I was becoming known as a public speaker, not an orthodox type by any standards. Oh no, not on your life – I couldn’t help but add some broad Yorkshire, and you can bet your life I played up to my listeners who were usually women who were attending the Salvation Army, Women’s Free Church Council, Liberal Party, Co-operative Women and several other women’s organisations. Oh, I just loved it; I brought a breath of the countryside and the women just loved to hear me break out in the Yorkshire dialect.’

She then comments that she then ‘came in touch with the seamy side of Blackpool’, but which she means the strip shows. ‘I realised I couldn’t give a true record when I hadn’t even seen one of the shows,’ she writes, ‘so not to be beaten, I disguised myself and went along.’ Indeed, she was photographed doing just that and there’s a clipping somewhere (that I’ve yet to unearth) showing her walking along the seafront in strange garb…

What did she uncover? She declares the strip show ‘a sorry spectacle of degrading the human form in front of an audience which expected nothing better.’ She reckons that her campaigning meant that the Golden Mile was cleaned up and that ‘Princess Anne herself’ visited it on an official visit.

Another campaign she was involved with for over 20 years was the Flyde House of Help for unmarried mothers and girls in distress. She writes ‘I was very concerned with this particular kind of service which really gives a helping hand in times of need.’

During the war, it came to Bertha’s attention that widows did not receive any extra war gratuity when their only sons were ‘called up’. She therefore set up the Mothers’ Pension Association, branches of which were set up all over England. She also began travelling to the House of Commons once a month to interview MPs in the lobby. She writes:

‘What a life of excitement I had entered into, and it was “right up my street.” I journied [sic] to London by the 10 O’Clock night train from Blackpool, arrived in London in the very early hours of the following morning, waited on the station on one of the seats until it became daylight, then made my way to a Lyons’ Café for breakfast and to tidy myself up a bit. I then took the bus to the centre of London and Westminster.’

She also recalls organising a march from Trafalgar Square to the Houses of Parliament, as well as visiting Fleet Street (‘the hub of the news world’, it says here!) to be interviewed about the campaign. Although the demands of the Association were not met, Bertha concludes that they at least managed to ‘rouse public opinion in hundreds of towns and villages in England, Scotland and who knows where.’

Next, she got involved with the Old Age Pensioners’ Association, helping to set up many local branches and even holding auditions for Wilfred Pickles’ pensioners’ television programmes in her front room, bizarrely. She also campaigned for better living conditions for older people, and writes:

‘The places for me to visit nearly broke my heart; there were old people living in basements and back rooms of the worst conditions I had ever seen. I was shocked.’

She was one for blowing her own trumpet – I quote ‘so many good things came into being because I pushed things forward.’ Never let it be said that Yorkshire folk don’t know their own worth!

However, she will admit that some things were beyond her capabilities. She went to help out at a home for children with disabilities but writes that ‘I had to let it pass me by because it made me depressed.’ Rather than abandon the issue entirely, she decided to fundraise for the group instead.

She was involved with a great many more campaigns, but I think the above gives a flavour of her endeavours. Towards the end she concludes:

‘I am still a member of the Liberal Party and if I were younger I would try and join the Women’s Liberation Party. […]. There I was, too busy with my babies when Votes for Women were being fought for, and oh, how I would enjoy having a ‘go’ with Women’s Liberation.’

Needless to say, Bertha Sturdy is my favourite ancestor, and I’m hugely proud of her achievements. I’m also so very glad that she put it all down on paper, otherwise I doubt I’d have known any of this. My mother said, of Bertha’s activism and campaigning zeal, “it must have skipped a few generations...”. It did – two to be exact!

Birth Behind Bars

2010-05-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

Birth Companions is an organisation which provides support for pregnant prisoners, including before they give birth, during labour and in the post-natal period. They currently only work with the women in Holloway Prison (pictured), although through their work they are able to assess what the conditions are for pregnant prisoners and those with babies. Crucially, they are best placed to suggest what needs to change.

First of all, there isn’t a ‘prison service order’ concerning pregnant women. This means that the treatment they receive is patchy, as there is no policy or guidelines about these particular prisoners.

Whereas the birth of their baby can offer a fresh, positive start to some women prisoners, for others it can be difficult, and this isn’t helped by some aspects of our current criminal justice system.

17,000 children are deprived of their mothers annual when they are sent to jail.
Between 2005 and 2008, 283 babies were born in UK prisons. There are just 8 mother and baby units in UK prisons – one is in Holloway Prison.

12,000 women pass through the prison system every year. One third have a young child. (2010). 68% are in for non-violent offences, 56% have used drugs daily. Indeed, many women have said that being in prison has meant they have been able to access detox programmes that they couldn’t access in the outside world.

A quarter of female prisoners have been in care as children, half have been beaten by their partners, and 70% have been diagnosed with two or more mental disorders. A lack of mental health beds mean that many women who are in prison should really be in a mental hospital. Indeed, according to the Corston Report, women prisoners are the most likely to self-harm – the problem is very common in our prisons. Suicide attempts are also common, and in 2004 it was reported that 6 women a night had to be cut down from nooses in Holloway Prison.

Not the sort of environment that any woman would choose to spend her pregnancy or the early months with her baby, then. The work of Birth Companions, together with other groups such as Babies in Prison, who provide volunteers to take babies out for walks, is invaluable in giving the babies the best start in life, and the mothers the support they need.

There is little consideration given to pregnant women in terms of concessions because of their condition. Some pregnant women feel fine, but others suffer from various symptoms, including sickness, back pain and debilitating Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD). Only with a doctor’s letter are they exempted from work. One good thing is that they no longer have to travel to court in so-called ‘sweat boxes’ – instead, they are transferred by car.

Imagine, though, giving birth with only a prison guard for company – possibly male – who may not consent to going out of the room during, for example, an internal examination. This has been known to happen. Imagine being shackled during labour – this too is on record as having occurred.

If the baby is ill and kept in the Special Care Baby unit, the mother may be sent back to prison whilst the baby remains in hospital. If there aren’t enough officers, a woman may not be taken to visit the baby as often as would be appropriate.

Imagine too being sent to prison when you have a very young baby, and having to wait 3 to 4 weeks before the baby can join you, as is the current arrangement. Birth Companions helps women to continue to produce breast milk by expressing, should they be breastfeeding and wishing to carry on. However, if social workers were asked to produce the necessary documentation before the court date came, this traumatic separation of mother and baby wouldn’t be necessary at all.

Most women’s prisons only allow babies to remain with their mothers inside prison for 9 months – after this, they are sent to family or to foster parents. This is a real problem for foreign national women, with no family in the country. I cannot begin to imagine how traumatic this separation must be, both for mothers and babies. Indeed, mothers have reported that even after being separated from them for a weekend, babies have been acting differently.

Prisoners are expected to work during their incarceration, and in many ways this is to be applauded. But I was shocked to hear that 6 weeks after giving birth, the women’s £5 per week maternity pay - ! – is stopped, and they are expected to put the babies in the crèche and work once again. This is hardly conducive to breastfeeding or bonding. Indeed, a woman who had had a caesarean will only just be recovered at this point.

Birth Companions and other groups provide an invaluable service for women and babies. There’s a feeling though that some of their work isn’t seen as the vital, life-enhancing service that it is, and good practise often isn’t shared.

Having a baby can be the chance these women need to turn their lives around, and for the fortunate ones, who receive the right support, it is just that. A lot though still needs to change.

http://www.birthcompanions.org.uk/

Thank you!

2010-05-09T13:29:00.000-07:00

Well, we hoped to make history by getting the first Green Councillors elected. For 16 months, we pounded the streets of Stroud Green, come rain or shine – or snow! – and met an amazing array of residents, many who had interesting stories to tell.

From hearing about squirrels rights (yes, really) to seeing Dusty Springfield’s cowboy boots - ! – and from learning about the history of the area to learning of the terrible conditions many of the residents of this supposedly affluent area live in, we became part of the community, and did our best to help residents, albeit in an unelected capacity.

So many members and non-members helped out, whether it was through fundraising, or slogging around delivering leaflets, or knocking on thousands of doors. Some of them raised our media profile, helped us with our election material, and yet more stepped forward to participate as ‘paper candidates’ in neighbouring wards, meaning we could stand a ‘full slate’ in Haringey.

All of this led up to last Thursday, where, in Stroud Green, we ran a full election day operation. When I went out to ‘knock-up’ voters, I was told, again and again, “We’ve already voted for you!” “Good luck!” It was both humbling and a great boost.

Then at the count we had to endure a Tory surge nationally (always thoroughly depressing) and the realisation that we had not taken Stroud Green, despite our hardest of efforts.

The result was as follows:

Name of Candidate Party Votes

BRAGGA Anna Leigh Green Party 1,209

BUTCHER Ed Liberal Democrats 2,889

COPE Sarah Elizabeth Green Party 1,234

COWAN Dorothy Eugenie The Conservative Party Candidate 436

CURTIS Kay The Conservative Party Candidate 423

FORBES Jayne Elizabeth Green Party 1171

KEEVER John The Labour Party Candidate 1591

NORTON Roy The Conservative Party Candidate 451

PATEL Jayanti The Labour Party Candidate 1,522

REECE Katherine Mary Liberal Democrats 2,551

ROBERTSON Jo-Ann The Labour Party Candidate 1,562

WILSON Richard James Liberal Democrats 2,427

So the average vote for a Green candidate in Stroud Green was 1204. In 2006, at the last local elections, the average vote for a Green candidate in Stroud Green was 516. In other words, although we did not win, all of our efforts meant that we more than doubled the Green vote. Not enough for Green Councillors to be elected in Haringey, but surely a step in the right direction.

I've had emails and 'phone calls from Stroud Green residents since the result came through - one wrote 'I'm sorry that you did not get elected on Thursday in my ward. You certainly worked hard and I think would have been a good councillor for us.' Thank you - and thanks to all of you who voted for us.

We of course had some wonderful news to boost us: we have our first MP. I’m informed that the Green Party website is currently crashing because there are so many people joining the party today. Indeed, we’ve attracted new activists and members through our campaign in Stroud Green – just this week, when canvassing, I picked up a new, enthusiastic member on Oakfield Road!

Now we need to let the dust settle before analysing things and planning our next steps, and in the meantime I hope we can have a great party, to thank all of the activists who have given themselves so generously over the last year and a bit.

I want end by saying a special thanks to Chris, my husband. Not only did he look after our daughter every night and weekend whilst I was out campaigning, he more often than not put in hours of work every night, organising leaflets, posterboards, logging data, sorting out the website...the list goes on.

Thank you all – and onwards!

Whittington gets its claws out

2010-04-29T09:48:00.001-07:00

Today I attended the 'day of action' at the Whittington Hospital, where of course the A&E, maternity unit and other services are under threat. The above picture shows Islington Green Party member (and Parliamentary candidate) Emma Dixon explaining passionately that the Green Party are opposed to privatisation and cuts, and want to protect and invest in the NHS. She also rightly said that come May 7th, whatever the result of the election, the Green Party will continue to believe this and continue to fight against the destruction of the NHS.

It was announced that Andy Burnham had pledged to 'save' the Whittington, but an air of disbelief and mistrust reigned, and mutters of 'can we have that in writing?' were heard.

Tory Andrew Lansley claimed that the Conservatives were 'the party of the NHS', at which point I began to feel somewhat sick, and wondered whether I might need to avail myself of the services of the handily-situated (for the moment, at least) A&E.

I was rather shocked how heavy-handed the security guards were - I wasn't even allowed to take my daughter inside the hospital with a balloon. Hmm, I guess I looked like a threat carrying a 'Save the Whittington' balloon. Highly controversial, huh?!

Let's see what happens post-election. I'm pretty sure this fight isn't over yet...

Campaign Video Launched

2010-04-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

Stroud Green Neighbourhood Day - a success again!

2010-04-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

Stroud Green Neighbourhood Day was a great success today - the sun shone and people really got into the spirit of it. Lots of residents had stalls in their front gardens, there was music (partly courtesy of Haringey Green Party members Peter Budge and Mary Hogan!) and this year us politicians had a 'speakers' corner' - see our stall there in the above picture. Ken Livingstone even turned up, his pet newt in his pocket.*

It was great to be involved again - big congrats and thanks to the organisers, particularly Helen Riley. A few community activists with a talent for organisation meant lots of fun and a day to remember for many residents. Roll on next year!

*Untrue, as far as I'm aware.

All work and no play...

2010-04-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

At last, a blog about the brilliant 'bus trip around the playgrounds' I went on a few weeks back (sorry, I've again been too busy out meeting people and doing things to actually write them up!).

Haringey Council set up a bus trip around various exemplary playgrounds a few weeks ago, and I went along as a Friend of Stationer's Park. The German-built wooden playfort in Stationer's is fantastic but it's falling apart, and residents are keen to see it replaced with another wooden structure. I often take my daughter to the playfort and I agree.

We toured playgrounds in Waltham Forest, Hackney, Camden and Tower Hamlets and saw some fantastic places. Playgrounds that had been built in part by the kids who play in them, giving them a sense of ownership. Spaces that catered for people of all ages, including stuff for bored teenage to get involved with. And brilliant builds which incorporated trees into the structure, as seen in the picture above.

Friends of Stationer's Park (FoSP) are doing a great job in applying for funding, and this outing gave us loads of ideas on what to spending it on, should we be granted some cash.

I overheard one council worker saying a councillor, who shall remain nameless, recently claimed that "play isn't a priority." I find this outrageous. How can encouraging children to explore the outdoors, get exercise, socialise and appreciate nature not be important? Parents too reap the benefits of play areas, as they provide us with social hubs where we meet and converse with other parents - all for free. And if play areas give teens something to do as well, we're cutting down on so-called 'anti-social behaviour', to use a new Labourism.

If elected in May I am going to support FoSP in every way I can in securing funding for the project. Other areas of the ward could benefit from new play equipment too, notibly Carlton Lodge, where new equipment has apparently been promised for years.

Granville Road Spinney gets a clear up

2010-03-20T12:21:00.001-07:00

Volunteers including myself and Jayne Forbes, one of my fellow Green Party candidates for Stroud Green, cleaned up Granville Road Spinney today. Bags of litter were cleared from the wooded area, meaning the green space will look its best this Spring.

Granville Road Spinney is a small wood which is an oasis of calm for local residents. There’s a wonderful mix of trees including plum, cherry, hornbeam, hazel and willow. There’s also a range of other woodland flowers, including daffodils, crocuses, ramsons and three-cornered leek. There are also several edible plants including wild garlic.

The area also provides a welcome habitat for wildlife – volunteers uncovered a toad, to the delight of my three year old daughter, Clementine, who also mucked in (sort of!).

I often take some time out in Granville Road Spinney – it’s truly a local treasure. It was a pleasure to help make it an even better place to spend time.

Daffodils and crocuses are pushing their way through the soil, a sure sign that Spring is in the offing - at long last!

Private Sector Housing - time to get tough.

2010-03-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

Sewage splattered across the path to the front door due to a broken fall pipe. Houses split into 10 or 12 rooms, looking decidedly delapidated. Huge bundles of wires strung along outside walls, clearly a health and safety nightmare.

These are just some of the badly managed properties that I have come across in the private sector whilst door-knocking in Stroud Green. One resident told me it was "like living in a slum" and that it had been that way for years.

All it takes is a landlord unwilling to spend the rent he or she collects on basic repairs, and soon you have a property in decline. Not only is it bad news for the residents, it's not great for the neighbours either.

I was interested, then, to hear at last night's Area Assembly from Dave Princep, Team Leader of the Private Sector Housing in Haringey. Mr. Princep stressed that 77% of residents in privately rented accomodation are satisfied with their abodes (I'd be interested to know where that statistic came from). If that statistic is true, it is just as well as about 1 in 3 of Haringey's residents reside in this sort of housing.

There are various financial incentives and schemes that landlords can take advantage of, including one to implement energy savings measures, which is good news for tenants because it obviously means lower bills. (Interestingly, when I put in a Freedom of Information Request last year, asking how many landlords in the borough had made use of this scheme, I was told that the council didn't run it and so they didn't know).

I was more concerned about the issue of enforcement, and what tenants could do if they found themselves at the mercy of a negligent landlord. The council's website gives woefully little information on this issue, merely stating that most large landlords have their own complaints procedure, though failing that tenants could call the council. This isn't the most reassuring of news for struggling residents.

The council are concentrating on registering good landlords through the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme, and relying on tenants to inform them if landlords are being negligent. This is all well and good, but imagine a tenant, perhaps not speaking English, trying to figure out how to complain about a landlord who is charging them to live in a veritable slum. It seems unlikely they will complain lest they lose the roof over their heads.

I asked Mr. Princep how much more money needs to be invested in enforcement, but he didn't seem to think it was the solution. But as I outlined at the beginning of this article, you just need to walk down a street to see some of the examples of run-down, over-crowded private sector housing. Sure, some delapidated properties will be that way because of a negligent owner-occupier, but the majority will be in the privately rented sector. Sure, some may look habitable from the outside, but inside might tell quite a different story. But I am confident that with more enforcement, more negligent landlords would be exposed and more tenants would reclaim their right to a decent place to live.

Mothers March because Maternity Matters

2010-03-07T09:11:00.001-08:00

Today I joined over a thousand mothers, fathers and children marched from Lambeth to Downing Street, to protest about the closure of the Albany Unit in Peckham, south London. It supported women to give birth wherever they choose – almost half give birth at home – and medical intervention rates were low. All women have their babies delivered by the midwife they have seen throughout their pregnancy, and the group's caesarean and medical intervention rates were very low.

However, South London’s King's College Hospital terminated its contract last year, alleging that a disproportionate number of the babies it delivered suffered damage during the birth.

Children, many of whom brandished placards stating that they had been born at the Albany Hospital, marched to Downing Street to hand in a petition asking for the Albany midwives to be allowed to return to work.

Speakers at the rally included Professor Wendy Savage, a long-time campaigner for maternity rights and renowned obstetrician, and Beverley Beech, chair of the Association for Improvements in Maternity Services (AIMS).

The strength of feeling at this march was incredible. There’s a sense that, despite the government’s pledge that ‘maternity matters’, women are still not being listened to. Home births are still not an option for many women. By the Royal College of Midwives’ estimation, we are approximately 5,000 midwives short in the UK. Women are ending up with unnecessary interventions and are being traumatised. The day you give birth to a child is one you will remember for the rest of your life, and for many women it is a terrifying experience. This is partly because our medical approach to birth is completely wrong, and this is exacerbated by a chronic shortage of midwives.

I lodged complaints with both the Healthcare Commission and the Nursing and Midwifery Council after giving birth at the Royal Free in 2007. A catalogue of errors left me in labour for 48 hours, at which point an emergency caesarean was performed. I was then subjected to bullying by one midwife, who ordered me not to breastfeed. It was no surprise that The Ham and High reported later that year that high levels of complaints had been made about midwives at the hospital.

That the Albany midwives have been stopped from practising means that we have lost the ‘gold standard’ that all women should be entitled to. It was important to have this unit because it served as a reminder of what birth can, and should, be like. If I had had a one-to-one relationship with a midwife throughout my pregnancy, if I had been listened to in a non-pressurised environment, my experience would have been completely different. Bringing new lives into the world has to be one of the most important things to get right, and that’s why I was marching with my daughter today.

Plants, not Pogo Sticks

2010-03-04T06:48:00.000-08:00

A corner of rubbish-strewn wasteland at the intersection of Ossian Road and Mount Pleasant Villas in Stroud Green was targeted by a group of locals and us Greens last Sunday in a massive clear up and greening operation. Anna Bragga and I, along with Crouch End candidate Pamela Harling and local residents, armed ourselves with sturdy bin liners, pitch forks and shovels to transform the eyesore into what we hope will become a thriving oasis of plants, flowers, trees and wildlife.

We spent several hours clearing a large quantity of litter and an assortment of bizarre objects from the tangle of ivy roots covering the turf.

Local resident, Gloria Else, who spearheaded the Stroud Green Reservoir Project, commented:

"There are not many green areas in Stroud Green, but the few areas that do exist are basically ending up as dumping grounds. We were shocked to find a pogo stick, feather dusters, shoes, cricket bats, pots, plates, a carburetor, a hub cap, the entire contents of someone's kitchen, builders' rubble including bricks and glass, check book stubs, plastic bags filled with dog poo and rubbish amongst the beer cans, bottles and crisp packets. If six year olds can enjoy caring for their environment as two young residents of Ossian Road did yesterday, maybe others can take their example and put a little love and care into this area."

I've been walking past this particular 'grot spot' for over a year, and it's been progressively been getting worse and worse, with more dumped rubbish appearing endlessly. Although we've made the council aware of dumping hotspots in Stroud Green, we thought we'd tackle this head on, encouraging locals to take ownership of this neglected corner.

By shifting four car-loads of dumping, which included a billiard cue and a pogo stick, and planting shade-tolerant plants, we hope to reclaim this space as a community garden for locals rather than a dumping ground. We should be making the most out of every bit of land we've got. It was great to have local residents come out and join us, despite the weather! The children seemed to have a good time too.

The guerrilla gardening movement seems to be really taking off in Haringey. Last August, the Hornsey and Crouch End Journal reported that local woman, Bethany Wells, transformed a disused public garden on Tottenham Lane into a thriving community garden with the help of local residents.

Bethany's project really inspired us and showed us how easy it is, with a little imagination, to transform derelict land for the benefit of the whole community. Ever since then we have been looking at neglected plots of land that would benefit from a little DIY gardening. Because we spend so much time in Stroud Green, we soon identified a number of areas needing attention and chose this one to get started on.

Crouch End's Got Talent

2010-03-01T07:33:00.001-08:00

On Saturday night, Hornsey Vale Community Centre hosted 'Crouch End's Got Talent', a fundraiser for the Haiti Earthquake Appeal. As well as hearing the dulcet tones of 'Songwork's', the community choir, we heard from an amazing array of local people with some serious talent. I tried to get the Green Party's Parliamentary Candidate for Hornsey and Wood Green, Pete McAskie, to duet with me on 'Elected' by Alice Cooper. He was strangely reticent. (For the record, I refrained from singing and stuck to baking and waitressing).

I'm so glad that I am a trustee at Hornsey Vale - we managed to turn this event around in less than 3 weeks notice, and raised over £500 (the money's still being counted, so no exact figure yet). Added to that, we gave a lot of people a good time - which is an end in itself.

The top picture above is Hornsey Vale coordinator and Stroud Green resident Tanya Wright as you've (well, I've) never seen her before. She compered the entire event, and did an excellent job of ad-libbing (in various odd accents - she evidently trained at the Sarah Cope school of dodgy accents).

Knackered as I was after the Whittington demo, it was a night to remember - more please, and I promise never to sing.

Whittington demo gives hope

2010-03-01T07:20:00.000-08:00

First off, apologies all my legions of blog followers (yes, all 4 of you) for my lack of postings of late. It sounds lame, but I have been too busy doing it to write about it. 'It' being knocking on doors, attending exciting meetings of various flavours, protesting about the Whittington demo (see photo), Guerrilla Gardening (post to follow), raising money for Haiti (ditto). Phew.

Friday night saw me, together with Haringey Green Party member Pamela, making placards a'plenty for the Whittington closure demo. Our placards read 'HANDS OFF THE WHITTINGTON', 'CUTTING COSTS COSTS LIVES', 'SAVE THE A&E: SAVE LIVES' and 'MATERNITY WARD MUST STAY'.

It was inspiring to see so many different groups in attendance, making their voices heard. Curious that Labour were there, opposing the cuts, and yet...

This is just the start of the fight to save the Whittington, and the placards are ready for their next outing, if needs be.

Hovels for Haringey*

2010-02-04T15:24:00.000-08:00

Regular readers of my blog will know that there’s nothing I like more than moaning about the shockingly bad service often given by Homes for Haringey. As a council flat resident, I have long battled with the powers that be to get even the simplest repair job done – and had to suffer a lot of ill-will and sometimes staggering levels of rudeness from staff.

What have I done about this? How does a Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3 and a complaint to the Ombudsman sound? Check. Meetings with my local councillors? Check. Even, on two occasions, meetings with the Chief Exec of Homes for Haringey, Paul Bridge.

Mr. Bridge apologised about the ‘can’t do’ attitude (his words) of some of his staff, and promised things would be changing under his tenure. Have they changed? Judge for yourself:

As one of the Green Party candidates for Stroud Green ward, I have been taking up hundreds of pieces of casework for residents in the area. This has included reporting dumping, broken pavements, defective street lighting, and dog poo, as well as ordering up new refuse bins and recycling boxes.

As well as taking up things for private tenants and house owners, I have of course tried to take things up for Homes for Haringey residents. Some of the problems I have made Housing Managers aware of include:

- An elderly woman with scaffolding outside her house, which has been there since the Summer. No work is being carried out, and water is leaking through her ceiling.
- A resident in a council block is terrified of the mice that run amok in her abode. She cannot sleep and is having to stay with friends. Other residents complain but the Housing Manager says that unless EVERY resident in the large block complains, the interior of the flats cannot be treated. (I checked whether this is in fact the council’s rule, and it isn’t).
- A resident in a basement flat with condensation running down the walls and windows complains that the council told him there was nothing they could do to alleviate his problems.

Despite making the council aware of these issues, and asking that the housing managers responsible for this patch get in touch and at least try to sort out these (and many more) problems, I have had my emails ignored.

I did receive a terse ‘phone call telling me that they couldn’t tell me details of individual cases because of confidentiality issues. I explained that I didn’t want details – I wanted action. “Just let me know you will contact these people and try to help them,” I remonstrated. But to no avail.

Why do we have so many problems with Homes for Haringey? It is my opinion that it’s because it’s an ALMO (Arm’s Length Management Organisation). The clue’s in the name. They are not accountable and they are therefore unlikely to be putting residents’ concerns at the top of their list of priorities.

In Hillingdon, council residents are being balloted as to whether they want their ALMO to remain in charge of housing, or whether they’d like to see it brought in-house. That’s democracy in action. In Camden, 77% of residents voted NO to an ALMO when they were given the opportunity to do so. I’d like to see Haringey’s council residents have the same choice.

*I am indebted to a certain Stroud Green resident for the title of this piece.

What a dump!

2010-01-29T07:01:00.001-08:00

No, I am not insulting the beautiful tree lined boulevards of Stroud Green – I am referring to the disgusting habit of dumping which serves to turn a lovely neighbourhood into a municipal tip.

Spending as much time as I do ambling through the streets of Stroud Green, I cannot help but gasp – still! – when I see mattresses, bed bases, TVs, pallets, Christmas trees, kid’s bikes (the list goes on, but you get the picture) dumped unceremoniously on the pavement. Sometimes people put things next to litter bins, like that makes it ok. Clue: it doesn’t.

I report what I see to the council and then go back to make sure it’s been taken away, as promised. But that’s not a sustainable answer – we could go on forever like that.

Obviously, there will always be those people who dump their stuff, no matter how easy/cheap/free you make it for them to be able to get rid of the unwanted items. Maybe they get a perverse thrill out of dumping a three piece suite at 3am, who knows. It’s not an experience I think I’ll be trying somehow.

But there must be ways of making it happen less. The council provides free collections for fridges, freezers, ovens, tumble dryers, washing machines, TVs and car tyres, car batteries and gas cylinders – hands up how many people knew that? Perhaps not those who dump their fridges, freezers, ovens, tumble dryers, washing machines, TVs and car tyres, car batteries and gas cylinders!

But what about furniture? Bed bases, mattresses, arm chairs and settees are the things I see dumped the most, I think. You have to pay to have those things taken – hence the dumping.

If elected in May I am going to see what I can do about this – whether it’s extending the list of things the council collects for free, encouraging the use of Freecycle and also establishing a council repair service for household goods – just like Green Party Cllr Katie Dawson, in neighbouring Islington, has just done! Repair, reuse, recycle…

Resting on their LGBT laurels?

2010-01-27T07:40:00.000-08:00

Last week I asked a question about the council’s record on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights. I framed it as a question about LGBT History month, which is in February.

You can see me watch my question here – and hear the answer I received from Cllr Amin:

http://www.haringey.ukcouncil.net/site/player/pl_compact.php?a=35376&t=0&m=wm&l=en_GB#the_data_area

(Click on Index Points tab, then, under section 11. I am 'Speaker' at 01:19:50, 01:24:31* and 01:24:47)

*don't miss this bit!

I was dismayed to discover that although Haringey have a Sexuality Equalities Related Review Action Plan, but it is several years out of date. Several of the points on the plan are marked as 'not achieved'. You would expect a council to be engaging with, consulting and encouraging the involvement of all sections of society. I am not confident this is happening as much as it could in Haringey.

With hate crime reported to be rising nationally, and a homophobic attack and subsequent death of a gay man in Trafalgar Square in September, I would argue that the council cannot ‘rest on its laurels’ when it comes to sexuality.

Although society is much more accepting of same-sex relationships, ‘gay’ is still used as a term of abuse in schools. As someone who has had relationships with both sexes, I know that there is still unfortunately a big difference between the way one gets treated by society when in a same-sex relationship to when in a heterosexual one.

The council needs to address this head-on rather than assume the problem of homophobia has disappeared.

Cllr Amin assured me that the 2004-7 Action Plan is not the most up to date of its kind. I emailed her and asked her to send me the most recent plan – and am still awaiting a reply!

Update! I have a reply: 'We are no longer carrying out individual equalities reviews but include sexual orientation as part of the Corporate Equalities Scheme and Action
Plan. A revised action plan covering the period 2010 to 2013 is currently being prepared and when completed will be available on the web.'

Amnesty Event was a big success - again!

2010-01-01T13:49:00.000-08:00

A bit of an update on this year's Amnesty International card signing event which we held a few backs ago.

We posted the record 358 cards and letters today - the traditional'posting in action' video is below. This year my daughter Clementine posts them...veeeeery slowly.

Around 50 people came to pen messages of goodwill and solidarity to 32 case studies; people around the world who have suffered human rights abuses and those in danger for defending human rights.

Green MEP for London, Jean Lambert, who attended the event in Stroud Green for the second year running, said: “It’s easy to forget prisoners of conscience at Christmas time. Events like this change that. As well as offering hope, courage and comfort to those unjustly imprisoned or seeking justice for loved ones, this greetings card campaign shows authorities that the world is watching. I would like to thank everyone who came and supported this event.”

We handsomely beat last year’s number of 268. The day was a real success. A lot of people commented that they were glad they came and that it felt like a special afternoon. It reminds you of the freedoms we have and not to take them for granted.

For anyone who missed the event but would like to support the Amnesty Christmas Card signing campaign, it’s not too late to get involved. Simply email iar@amnesty.org.uk or call 020 7033 1572 for a booklet. For updates on cases in the campaign see: www.amnesty.org.uk/gcc

Councillors as baubles mean xmas cheer

2009-12-24T08:06:00.000-08:00

I didn't even notice the rubbish Christmas tree that has been shoved on the corner of Archway Road and Muswell Hill Road, until I read about it in yesterday's Evening Standard. The dishevelled-looking specimen is leaning against the oh-so-attractive safety railings and has been hastily 'decorated' with cheapo lights.

Oh, and it's cost £1,500. Somehow. Perhaps the council had to do a consultation, asking what colour lights people wanted. 'Multicoloured' they replied. So of course the council put white ones on. Thems the breaks...

Anyway, the thing that really bothered one local resident was not the odd angle of the tree or the fact that it cost a small fortune, but the simple fact that it didn't have any baubles on it. For shame.

Said resident then went about making some decorations - hey, there's a recession and a war on, times are tough, right?

Because the tree screams 'Haringey Council!' the resident decided it should holler this joyful refrain even louder. So what did they decorate it with? Stars with of 12 of our wonderful councillors pictures on them.

The decorator has taken a cross-party approach - this tree is certainly democratic.

12 stars though. I don't think Haringey will ever get 12 stars, somehow, do you?

The decorator explains "The 12 stars represent the 12 days of Christmas. I am rather chuffed with the finished results. I would urge Haringey's councillors to come and see if they are one of the chosen ones."

Midwifery Under Fire

2009-12-16T05:58:00.000-08:00

I have fought for decent maternity services since giving birth to my daughter at London’s Royal Free back in January 2007. I was always heartened to hear about the gold standard of care given by the Albany Group in Peckham, south London. It supports women to give birth wherever they choose – almost half give birth at home – and medical intervention rates are low. All women have their babies delivered by the midwife they first see and the group's caesarean and medical intervention rates are low. This is in great contrast to birth elsewhere on the NHS – as my own experience echoes.

However, the future of the Albany has been put in doubt after south London’s King's College Hospital terminated its contract, alleging that a disproportionate number of the babies it delivered suffered damage during the birth. Such brain damage can be caused during birth – for example, if the cord gets wrapped around the baby's neck – but it can also occur in the womb.

King's decided to terminate the contract after commissioning a report from the Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries (CMACE). It is claimed that the investigation was triggered by the death of Natan Kmiecik, one week after he was delivered at Kings by one of the Albany midwives. The parents' lawyers claimed proper procedures were not followed, because the baby's heartbeat was monitored only by a small hand-held device so she could have a water birth.

Supporters of the Albany group are outraged by what they consider an attack on the philosophy of independent midwifery and non-medicalised delivery. A vocal demonstration took place at the weekend outside the hospital, where women and children chanted: "Save the Albany".

"I'm very angry and very keen to see the Albany continue," said one. "This is just the beginning - the tip of the iceberg."

The fact is, birth on the NHS is in trouble. The existence if the Albany is in some ways an embarrasment to the medical establishment, highlighting as it does how wrong our general approach to birth is these days. We need a non-medicalised delivery setting to exist in order to remind us what birth can – and should – be like.
More demonstrations are planned and I hope to take part – along with my daughter, whose traumatic birth got me passionate about this issue in the first place.

Please get involved with the campaign and sign the petition:

www.savethealbany.org.uk

Climate Marching

2009-12-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

I was at the annual Climate March in central London on Saturday, this year dressed as a Suffragette as part of the group Climate Rush. That's why I am dressed thus in the picture.

There was a great turnout, brilliant atmosphere - plus a sense of both optimism and urgency, I thought.

My Green Party colleague Pamela is going to Copenhagen this week, the lucky thing. I hope to hear all the news from the front line when she returns. A minibus of activists is going from Haringey to the summit, helping, with thousands of other protesters, to put pressure on world leaders at this incredibly important moment.

Carlisle Rd - sign up at last! And a poo update.

2009-12-03T07:23:00.000-08:00

I've been badgering the council to put this sign up since the Summer - see my earlier blog. After (another) reminder, they've put it up. Hopefully this will mean less lost motorists driving up there and then noisily reversing out.

A small victory for Stroud Green residents...but one that got me a bit excited, despite the rain, as you can see.

On a separate note - back to dog poo again. The Hornsey and Crouch End Journal today report that there's to be a 'crackdown' on dog fouling in Stroud Green, Crouch End, Hornsey and Harringay wards. This is because, reportedly, there has been an increase in the number of people reporting the problem in these areas. I find this surprising as the enforcement team told me that only a handful of people in Stroud Green had reported the problem in the last 18 months. (This despite the fact it is a problem - as my shoes can report. Nice).

Whatever is the case, I am glad they're going to be attempting, at least, to enforce the rules. One small step - ooh, mind the dog poo!

Edible landscapes - and a Walthamstow update!

2009-11-28T10:02:00.000-08:00

I joined my fellow Tree Trust members in planting a number of fruit and nut trees in Priory Park this morning. It's all part of encouraging the council to plant more fruit and nut trees in the borough. The council's tree strategy mentions it's a good idea so the Tree Trust are planning to make this vision a reality. Rowans and sweet chestnuts were amongst the trees planted.

"I'll be back in 18 years for my nuts!" said one resident wit.

Next year some of us in the Sustainable Haringey Network are planning to organise an urban harvest. Fruit and nuts which would either simply be left to rot would be harvested and shared. It just takes a bit of coordination and, hey presto, free food - healthy fare at that!

Organic Lea in Walthamstow have been doing similar in recent years. Harvesting local apples, they've juiced them and shared the juice out in the community. Brilliant!

Speaking of Walthamstow, a little update on my general election candidacy. I was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Walthamstow a year ago, but this week I decided to let someone else take on the role. My focus, along with my fellow Haringey Greens, is obviously on Haringey, and our push to get the first Greens onto the council here.

I hope a suitable replacement candidate can be found and that Waltham Forest and Redbridge Greens can also continue to work at getting some councillors elected next year, too! Exciting times...

Meeting the Seniors

2009-11-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

This photo shows my fellow Stroud Green Green Party candidate Anna Bragga deep in conversation with an attendee of the drop-in centre at Abyssinia Court, Weston Park.

We went along today to meet both residents of the 'housing with care' accomodation and to those who attend the daily drop-in sessions. They provide a great community service in that local older people can meet regularly, have dinner and socialise in comfort.

I have to say that one of the groups of people I have most enjoyed meeting on my door-knocking excursions over the last year has been the older residents of the ward. This is partly because, as a history nerd, I love to hear about how the area has changed over the decades. Some people have told me their wartime memories of Stroud Green and beyond, which has fascinated me.

Today we also had the chance to discuss the issue of pensions. The current full state pension for a single pensioner is only £95.25 (figure from April 2009). There's been a massive decline since the link with earnings was broken by the Tory government in 1979. Many pensioners, especially women, don't even get a full state pension.

Private pensions are in crisis too, of course. Some occupational schemes have failed, leaving pensioners who've contributed all their lives with nothing.

The Green solution would be to introduce a Citizen's Pension which would pay single pensioners £165 per week - with no means testing, which is demeaning and requires pensioner to jump through hoops. Independent studies by the National Association of Pension Funds have shown that this could be afforded today within current net expenditure and state pensions. Furthermore, by abolishing the tax relief on private pension contributions, which mainly benefit the more wealthy, we would save money which would then be plowed in to providing a fair Citizen's Pension for all.

It was great meeting the people we met today - and they seemed to enjoy the chat, the cake (thank you, Dunn's the Baker!) and meeting my daughter Clementine, who helped one of the residents make Christmas cards.

Whittington A&E closure outrage

2009-11-23T14:03:00.000-08:00

Back in the summer I was blogging about the new polyclinic on Park Road, saying that local GPs were closing and that means longer journeys for sick people.

I've also blogged about the closure of so many of Haringey's hospitals and the fact that we have no A&E.

I'd heard a rumour a few months ago that the Whittington might close, or 'merge' with another hospital. It seemed unbelievable at the time.

Well, I've just got back from a heated 'Defend Haringey's Health Services' meeting, where the proposed closure of the Whittington's Accident and Emergency was the hot topic of the evening after the plans were announced last week.

Already Haringey residents have to travel out of the borough to get to A&E. If they had to go beyond the Whittington, to the Royal Free, that's another bus ride for a lot of people.

Anne Gray, Green Party Parliamentary candidate for Tottenham, put it like this: "Green Lanes is an accident black spot. What's going to happen if you have a traffic accident there and need to be taken to the Royal Free? You're going to die."

It really is as stark as that.

The Government have been planning to close and outsource much of the NHS for years. The fact that they can now cite spending cuts and budget deficits is a handy excuse but not really a legitimate reason.

Tonight we planned a series of actions to protest against this plan. No doubt it will be wrapped up as a positive for patients in some devious way. It is for activists to point out, repeatedly, that this is a cut too far - that lives will be lost. By the time this goes out to 'consultation' it will probably be too late - the decision will be made. Now is the time for action.

Extreme Action Saturday!

2009-11-14T08:58:00.000-08:00

Leaflets, strong winds and driving rain don't mix. Any political activist will tell you that. So it was rather an inconvenience that our Action Saturday coincided with extreme weather! A great opportunity for talking with local people also turned into a papier mache experiment. We managed two hours of chat and leafleting and then dragged our wet haul home. Pic above shows me trying to keep it together!

The other picture is how my living room looks right now. I am drying out the leaflets - waste not, want not!

Next month, sunshine please. Or at least not gales and downpours...

Clementine the Apple Tree

2009-11-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

As previously mentioned, my husband Chris won an apple tree at Hornsey Vale Community Centre's 'Apple Day' a couple of weeks ago. He peeled a piece of apple peel measuring 1 metre 73cm. Competitive? No, surely not.

Anyway, he won the tree and the honour of naming it - he named it after our daughter, Clementine. I know, Clementine the apple tree - it's pretty confusing.

It was to planted somewhere in Stroud Green and today we found it a home. An allotment holder in Stroud Green decided she could provide a home for it. So today Anna Bragga, my fellow Stroud Green candidate and I, along with Clementine (the small human) and Chris, the champion apple peeler, found ourselves planting it, and we wish it well. We look forward to tasting the fruits of our labours...

Poo Patrol

2009-10-29T04:56:00.000-07:00

This morning I went on a poo patrol in Stroud Green with Haringey council's Tony Chapman and Martin Lester. Lots of residents and shopkeepers had complained about dog fouling in the ward and so I called on the enforcement team to take a look.

We visited various hot spots (ew...) looking for dog poo. I learned a lot about poo today. As the mother of a two year old I thought I was an expert on the matter, but no. Lots of the poop we see on the pavements is in fact not dog poo, but fox poo apparently. Sometimes cats will poo on the pavement - we saw a delightful example today on Lancaster Road.

Not many people bother to report dog dirt - there were only 9 complaints on the matter in Stroud Green in the last 18 months. It does obviously matter to people through - as well as being disgusting it poses a public health risk, of course.

Anyway, the council are aware of the worst spots in Stroud Green and leaflets are going out from next week on the subject. Wardens will patrol the areas I have highlighted - although more staff are needed as there are only 18 wardens for the whole borough at present.

As we walked through the ward we also made a note of dumping problems. It as great to have the staff there to see it for themselves - it's an approach I very much want to take if elected next year.

Good news for sheltered housing residents

2009-10-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

49 elderly tenants at Campbell Court, are celebrating this week, after Haringey Council dropped plans to move out all existing residents to reallocate the block to general needs housing. The block has also been restored to the borough’s programme of decent homes works.

"We are delighted", said Gwen Owens of the Campbell Court Tenants Association. "Thanks are due to everybody who has supported us. Now we are ready to support the other Haringey sheltered housing tenants still under threat of losing their homes".

Haringey has also had three other sheltered housing schemes under review. Decisions on Larkspur Close, Tottenham, with 36 homes, and Stokley Court, Hornsey, with 47 homes, have been deferred for one year, although neither scheme has been restored to the decent homes programme.

The council wants to demolish Protheroe House, Tottenham, moving out its 47 tenants to make way for an extra care facility, probably to be provided through the sale of the site to a housing association.

The 179 affected tenants have suffered stress and anxiety during this period of uncertainty. Their campaign to stay in their homes has been helped and supported by Haringey Defend Council Housing, Haringey Trades Union Council and the Haringey Federation of Residents Associations.

Gearing up for winter

2009-10-22T06:12:00.000-07:00

At the weekend I met a Homes for Haringey resident in Stroud Green who was suffering due to broken radiators. Workmen had been sent but she complained that the radiators hadn't been fixed properly, despite assurances.

I was knocking on doors with Katie, my Green Party colleague, and the resident invited us in and handed us instructions on how to assemble an oil-filled radiator. Well, I am no DIY expert, but Argos's clear as mud instructions meant we had the thing assembled in...well, it took a while, but we got there in the end.

This is a sad story. Here is a woman paying her council tax and rent, but who cannot rely on the council to do a proper repair job. As winter draws in, these issues become more and more serious. She shouldn't have had to shell out for a heater, nor lug it back from the shops.

I have reported the problem to the housing manager...and received an out of office reply. As a Homes for Haringey resident myself, I know only too well the difficulties residents face in trying to get even the simplest repair job done. It shouldn't be that way, clearly.

Onwards.

Apple-icious

2009-10-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

Apple Day at Hornsey Vale Community Centre was brilliant! Kind of like a secular Harvest Festival, as my husband Chris pointed out. I have never eaten so many different varieties of apples, nor imbibed such delicious apple juice.

Then of course there was the apple peeling competition which Chris took VERY seriously...peeling a strip of apple measuring 1 metre 73 cm. He won, of course, and his prize was - a tree! An apple tree, naturally. He's calling it after our daughter, Clementine (I see a fruit theme emerging), and we are on the outlook for somewhere in Stroud Green to plant it. With all those empty tree pits, it shouldn't be a problem...

It's quite ironic we should be planting a tree when I spend such a lot of time defending street trees in the area! The petition we launched regarding the street trees in Denton Road is going from strength to strength and Monday sees me taking on the councillors at the full council meeting...

Voting with our feet!

2009-09-29T13:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight I attended the Hornsey Neighbourhood Health Centre's user group meeting. We were told that the meetings would include us all working towards an NVQ in volunteering, and would include homework. We 'Defend Haringey's Health Service' people suggested that the NHS Haringey staff, who were dominating the meeting, let the people decide what they wanted to do instead.

We were talked over and patronised for our efforts.

Why had the user group not been advertised more widely, we asked? Why had they not made an effort to be more inclusive?

I explained how the Royal Free Maternity Services Committee works (I am a member). It certainly isn't a perfect arrangement but it doesn't involve homework, which the time-pressured amongst us (wait a minute, that's everyone!) might be put off by.

The predominant feeling was that whilst the NHS Haringey staff were claiming to want to listen to us patients, the very opposite was the case.

So we walked out. But they haven't heard the last of us, of course! Veteran campaigners such as Janet Shapiro, who have a wealth of knowledge, will never be silenced when it comes to something as important as our health service.

Haringey gets a little greener!

2009-09-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

In partnership with Haringey Council's library service, The Energy Saving Trust Advice Centre for London is making 100 energy monitors available to library users to help them cut electricity costs. I suggested the idea to the Homes Group at the Sustainable Haringey Network Spring Gathering earlier this year.

I knew that Lewisham Green Party had done this in their borough and I thought it would be an easy and effective thing that Haringey could do too. It’s a simple idea which will help people both lessen their carbon footprint and save themselves some money.

Library users can borrow these special devices - wireless energy monitors - which show how much electricity is being used in the home and how much it is costing.
Borrowers will instantly be able to find out which electrical appliances are costing them the most money to run.

The monitors are easy to install, a simple fact sheet on how to fit them is provided, and they come with a portable display showing how much electricity is being used in costs per hour, kilowatts or and associated greenhouse gases emitted.

Every library user who borrows an energy monitor will also receive two free energy saving light bulbs to help them decrease their energy consumption and electricity bills by up to £16 a year.

In Lewisham, where the meters have been available to borrow from libraries since last year, householders have reduced energy consumption by between 5 and 15%, representing £25 to £75 from a £500 bill.

Residents can also attend a free Home Energy Doctor drop-in session to get advice on energy efficiency in the home and how that could save up to £300 per annum on home energy bills.