Air pollutions threat to humanity's well being

The move by London mayor Sadiq Khan to extend the low emissions zones out across the capital must be welcomed. It is the type of radical measure needed if the pollution epidemic, as well as climate change, are to be addressed.

The regret must be that whilst there do seem to be very real efforts being made to address the problems caused by motor vehicles, the same cannot be said for aircraft.

Above our heads, the skies simply fill with ever more planes. The City Airport capacity has expanded, with Heathrow on the verge of building another runway.

The old predict  and provide policies of the road builders that have proved so damaging on the ground, now appear to be replicated in the skies. How much longer before action is taken on aircraft pollution?

One of the most striking things about many environmental challenges is that so many seem to demand back to the future solutions. Things have been done in the name of progress, which in the end are making people less healthy and putting the future of the planet at stake.

So 25 years ago most children walked to school. Today, many go to school in motor vehicles, increasing pollution and contributing to the obesity epidemic amongst children.

It is good to see schemes to get kids and parents out of their cars and walking to school but why did we go down the driving route in the first place?

The expansion of air travel  is also a relatively recent development. 30 years ago, there were not the planes in the air there are today. Are all of those journeys really necessary?

Many regard it as some sort of human right to have a number of holidays overseas every year. But if the choice is a holiday or the ability to feed ourselves and save the planet surely that is a no brainer.

The real challenge is to accept that blundering on in this consumerist style, wasting more and more of the world resources, is not the way to go. To some extent we need to pull back and start living a bit more simply, accepting that maybe not everything that has been done on the altar of producing more profit for a few people is good for everyone.

The recent campaigns to cut the use of plastic marks a dramatic change. There is a recognition that the world simply cannot go on poisoning itself, producing plastic and throwing it away.

Less plastic must be produced, simply recycling it won’t solve the already huge problems the world has to face. If plastic is genuinely removed from much of daily life, it will mean a different world – maybe simpler but certainly a more sustainable one.

It is the sort of questions being thrown up by the plastics revolution that needs to be extended to other destructive practices in the way we live. If humanity is to survive the present challenges, people need to act collectively for the common good. A common good that can only be achieved by living in a simpler way with more concern for each other.

published - Morning Star - 27/6/2018
Wanstead and Woodford Guardian - "Why I support Ulez" - 28/6/2018 
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/16320845.column-why-i-support-the-ulez/?ref=fbshr
"How long until action is taken on aircraft pollution?" - print version
Wanstead and Woodford + Ilford Recorder - 14/7/2018
 

New Redbridge Labour councillors attending Local Government Association briefing day hear how the Tory government have brought local authorities to the cliff edge

Shadow communities and local government secretary Andrew Gwynne warned that the government’s denial of funding for children services and adult social care is dragging local councils to the “cliff edge.”

Addressing the Local Government Association’s (LGA) New London Labour Councillors briefing day, Andrew highlighted how whilst denying funding to local government, the government did manage to give the banks £5 billion back by cutting the banking levy. “The next Labour government will ensure our children services  get the money they need,” said Andrew, who revealed how the Labour front bench is looking at how local government should  be funded going forward. “Council tax is not the answer. We need to fully reform local government finances,” he said.

Much of what Andrew said chimed with earlier comments from Mark Lloyd, the chief executive of the Local Government Association, who revealed how by the end of the decade, local government will have lost £16 billion in funding.

He outlined how local government hand “innovated and been creative” and until recently the public have continued to believe the service has been good. However, recent polling indicates that this may now be changing.

The LGA believes that local government will be £5.5 billion short of cash by the end of the decade and £7.8 billion by the end of the next decade.

The heat is particularly being felt in social care, where 90 children a day are entering the system, with 500 new investigations a day across the country.

On housing, Mark called for council to be freed to build council housing.

He defended the LGA policy of supporting right to buy, which comes with the qualification that all money raised in this way should be able to be reinvested to build new housing stock.

Waltham Forest council leader Clare Coghill told the new councillors that they needed to make sure they had been provided with corporate parent training.

She also outlined her own path to the top, getting elected in 2009, grafting in the local area before being given the children services portfolio on Walthamstow Council. There was then three years working in regeneration  before becoming leader.

Clare wanted to know when Labour are back in government how much money will local government get. “I would like to see the front bench commit to increase income tax, not council tax,” said Clare.

There was lots of good advice on the day for new councillors. Mark Lloyd reminded those present that they were in charge and that the officers were there to serve.

A workshop on scrutiny, emphasised the need to take control when operating as a scrutiny committee. If councillors don’t act in a pro-active way, setting their own agenda, then the officers or executive will do it for them.

In a session on media, new Newham mayor Rokhsana Fiaz told of some of her ups and down with the press, particularly in the mayoral campaign.

Evening Standard columnist Ayesha Hazarika outlined some of the dangers but also how the media can offer an opportunity for councillors to get their message over and build profile.

Redbridge was well represented, with many of the record 15 new Labour councillors in attendance. All made their presence felt, coming from the council with the largest Labour gains in the country.

It was certainly a worthwhile information filled day, which ended with a drink on the terrace of the LGA headquarters in Smith Square.

What happens when the jobs go?

The recent problems with the TSB bank, saw many enraged customers unable to access their accounts. One of the repeated complaints from customers was that there was no one to speak to.

This is becoming an increasing occurance across society, as people are increasingly replaced by machines. 

The supermarket checkout has been heading that way for many years, with the companies concerned, often deliberately cutting back human staffed checkouts, in order to force customers towards the automated tills. 

These often seem to malfunction, requiring a human to then step in and sort out the problem However, short term inconvenience to the customer appears a price the supermarket is prepared to pay in order to cut staff.

The question is where is this all heading?

It is estimated that over the next 10 to 20 years 50% of jobs are set to disappear. This will have huge implications for society, yet few seem to be giving it much thought.

At the moment it is the usual, let the market decide - a recipe for chaos in many instances.

Less work can be good, if it provides more time for leisure, education and other things. It was a vista imagined in the 1970s, with shorter working weeks and early retirement. However, then it never materialised.

In the event, we got longer working weeks, with retirement pushed ever further into the distance.

What is for sure is that while there may be less work for people in the future,  there must be greater equality - a fairer distribution of the total wealth.

if the present polarisation of wealth from the many to the few continues, dark and uncertain days lay ahead.

Moving forward, there need to be bold imaginative plans made for this brave new world of automation, not simply letting the market decide.

Need to build links with the earth and each other

The Wild Wanstead tree pit planting initiative has really caught fire, with some 40 roads now taking part.

One of the striking things about the initiative is that it brings people out from behind their front doors to participate in the community.

When we first did the planting around Snaresbrook in 2014, it was noticeable how some people thought it was someone coming in from outside to “do” the job for them. In reality, although the council funded the purchase of the seeds, the actual planting was all done on a voluntary basis by local people.

The latest Wild Wanstead effort has further built up those community links. It is important that not only do people reconnect with the nature around them but also those equally organic community links are made with our neighbours.

Street parties are another great way of bringing community alive. In my road, we have had a street party for the past couple of years. The event has been a great success with the street cut off from traffic for the afternoon, allowing people to take charge of the whole street. Children play on the road, parents eat and drink together. There is music, The street party here has really worked, to the extent that it is not long after the event is over in September that people start asking when the next one will be.

It is these type of initiatives we need to build on in Wanstead going forward, reconnecting with people and nature. Break down those barriers real or imagined and reaching out to each other in pursuit of the common good

Time for Essex County Cricket Club to return to Valentines Park

Essex cricket week in Valentines Park used to be one of the highlights of the summer back in the day.

It was June, the football season had just finished, the sun would be out and Essex cricket week began at Valentines Park.

Teachers and kids would head over to the park in the weekdays, once school had finished, to watch the likes of Graham Gooch, John Lever, Keith Fletcher, Keith Boyce and Ken McEwan thrash the opposition around the field.

On the weekends, we would spend the whole day at the park.

On Saturday there could be a carefully built hundred from Fletcher. But on Sunday, it was the 40 over one-day rush.

One particular Sunday memory was when Sussex were the opponents, with their overseas stars Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux in tandem. The two formed a fearsome bowling partnership but could also bat. I remember well Le Roux and Imran thrashing the ball around as they chased a distant total.

My fondest memories of the Essex Week cricket came in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Essex were becoming a formidable force in all forms of cricket. The team won the county championship no fewer than six times between 1979 and 1992.

Cricket week though disappeared, as the county game took on its four day format. However, Essex continued to visit and entertain.

But by the noughties the popularity of the cricket week seemed to be waning or at least the money coming into the coffers began to fall. So with the costs rising, Essex decided to discontinue Valentines Park cricket in 2002.

Thus, Ilford joined other redundant local arenas, like Leyton, that had previously hosted Essex cricket over the past decades

The counties have tended over the years to reduce their outreach via the likes of festival weeks, confining themselves in most part to the centrally placed county grounds. This however is a rather short sighted policy. Cricket needs to be seen in order that future generations can be attracted to play the game.

It was a fateful decision when the cricket authorities signed their collective soul over to Sky sports thereby removing the game from the tertiary channels where everyone was able to watch – without needing to have special subscriptions etc. the move to Sky was the start of cricket moving to the sporting backwaters.

Cricket needs to reconnect. This means teams getting out of their central bunkers and taking the game to the different corners of the counties. Reconnect with people of all ages, particularly those youngsters who will be the sports life blood of the future. A return to tertiary channels would also be welcome, though maybe less easy to attain.

Let’s hope it happens, Essex cricket is now on the up again, winning the country championship last year – the first time since 1992. How wonderful it would be to see county cricket again in Valentines Park and other local venues in the coming years.

"Time for Essex cricket to return to Valentines" - published Wanstead & Woodford + Ilford Recorder - 14/6/2018

Jeremy Thorp trial in the era of Lord Denning's "appalling vista" construct regarding the Birmingham Six conviction

Those shocked at the one sided nature of the judge’s rulings in the Jeremy Thorp trial in 1979, should remember that this was the era when the establishment could do no wrong.

A year after the Thorp judgement (1980) Lord Denning was denying the Birmingham Six’s appeal declaring: “If they won, it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted in evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous. ... That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, "It cannot be right that these actions should go any further.”

How much does social media contribute to creating a fear of crime?

“Good morning thanks to everybody for your posts concerning the escalation of crime if any members have a spare half hour to walk around the streets during the day especially after school time keep a look out and report anyone suspicious..” read a post on a community hub in a middle class East London suburb. A suburb, where the threat of crime has been hyped up, largely due to social media, out of all proportion to what is actually happening on the streets.

Levels of crime have certainly grown nationally over recent times, no doubt helped by central government cuts in police budgets. Figures from police forces across England and Wales show crime increasing by 14% in the year to last September. Meanwhile, police numbers have reduced by 22,424 below their peak in 2009, when there were 144,353 officers.

Another contributory element to the growth in crime is no doubt the continuing polarisation between a small group of haves and a burgeoning level of have nots in our society.

However, the question here is how real is the growth in crime and how much is the fear of crime being fanned by social media? One personal experience which got me wondering came after canvassing a local road asking about issues that concerned people. At a few houses - which were party to the facebook hosted community hub - there was real concern about crime. “There has been all sorts around here,” said one householder. A little more questioning brought forth the information that some kids on bikes had vandalised cars a month or so previously. This incident though had been splashed across the community hub, with myriad comments following. There was a lack of any context. Similar views were echoed at other houses in this street, that were also on the hub. However, when I asked about crime in a few houses not connected to the hub, the response was that crime was no worse than before and they hadn’t heard much about it.

So the social media activity was having the effect of whipping people up into a frenzy of fear. This has some alarming effects, leaving some people literally cowering behind the door, wondering when the criminals were coming for them.

The fear of crime, whether real or imagined, in a number of places across the UK and lack of belief in the capacity of the police to deal with it has led to the growth of vigilante style initiatives. Community groups may launch their own patrols. It can only be a matter of time surely before the headline arises “Vigilante group severely injures suspect.”

Crime has always been a popular media issue, the more gory the crime the more popular it is with news desks. Big crime stories have come to dominate press and TV news agendas ever more over recent years, sometimes almost developing into mini-soaps in the nature of the coverage. Terrorism could be classified as a sub-category in the crime genre.

Traditionally, local newspapers have been filled with crime stories. They are easy to do and the police are generally only too willing to get the free publicity to help them in their work. The overall effect has often been to over emphasis the amount of crime in a given area, fostering fear, which in turn may keep people off the streets and make crime more likely.

Social media can ofcourse have positive benefits in combatting crime. People get in touch via such channels. Indeed, arguably growing numbers of individuals are living their lives through social media these days. People can be alerted to crime in the area, making them more vigilant about suspicious behaviour. Useful networks can be created via the likes of street Whats App groups to make it easier for people to let each other know what is going on.

The problem comes, though, in defining where the line is drawn between whipping up hysterical fear and simply providing better information and communication in order that people know what is going on in their communities.

Social media has a positive role in perpetuating the spread of useful information but when it comes to hyping fear and suspicion it just becomes another adjunct of the fake news world.

In terms of greater connectivity social media has a positive role to play in combatting all sorts of anti-social behaviour, including crime. However, social media is also increasingly seeing people isolate themselves off in silos of like minded individuals each feeding into and exasperating each others prejudices and insecurities. Social media can also facilitate the plain and simple perpetration of falsehoods.

The line between fake news and useful community communication is a thin one, made more problematic in the modern world by the use of social media.  The area of crime provides and interesting example of where the border is becoming blurred, however, it is something that needs to be addressed if the world is not to become one of virtual threats coming to govern, dare I say it, our actions in the real world.

*published in the British Journalism Review - Not finally - spreading fear -  June 2018