Spring has sprung

The bluebells in Wanstead Park have burst forth over recent weeks, creating a carpet of colour across Chalet Wood. The bluebells have become a real feature over recent years, hidden away, they often appear as an oasis to the unsuspecting visitor A real sign that spring has sprung. The trees have that fresh feel, as they gradually become clothed in new leaf growth. Daffodils have been around for a few weeks, so are beginning to fade. The birds proudly parade with their young. The imperious greatest crested grebes, with their magnificent reddish brown headdress feathers. A youngster or two trundling along behind the adults. Shelduck parading with a string of youngsters behind. The mute swan dominating the lakes and other birds It is also a great time in the garden and allotment. Time to sow seed, new life . The seeds already started are coming through. Seed potatoes can go straight into the ground now. New beginnings that should bring fine harvests later in the year. As humans too, there is more of a spring in the step, when the sun comes out. The cold, wet winter months left behind. People love to come out and enjoy the likes of the bluebells of Chalet Wood. The flowers are there for everyone to enjoy. Since the birth of social media, it does seem a lot more people know about the bluebells of Wanstead Park. More and more people come every year. Some don't respect the natural environment, trampling the plants, but most do. It is important that people come out and connect with nature. The Wren Group and City of London Corporation do a great job looking after the bluebells and ensuring visitors know what is expected. They get the balance about right. So let's all get out there, enjoy what nature has to offer, respecting the biodiversity and enhancing our own physical and mental well being. Spring is a great time to be alive.

Football in need of reform - starting with VAR, player play acting and dodgy offsides

The football season is reaching its climax. Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City competing for the Premiership. West Ham and Spurs hoping to qualify for European football next season. West Ham, Arsenal and Manchester City still in the European competitions this season. So all to play for. There will be great excitement - highs and lows. But football seems to be in something of a transition period at present. The introduction of the Video Assisted Referee (VAR) was intended to improve decision making but seems to be failing in this quest. Not only are the decisions often plain wrong but the interruptions are destroying the flow of the game. At a recent West Ham game against Burnley, it took over five minutes to come up with a decision - then the wrong one in many people's opinions. It is now becoming an automatic reflex to hold back on celebrating a goal until the VAR check has been completed. It is taking the passion out of the game. VAR needs radical reform or maybe scrapping altogether. Another element of the game that needs addressing is the play acting. Players feigning injury to get an advantage in the game. It would be interesting to know if this second rate amateur dramatics is all part of the coaching of young players these days. It really does look pathetic, when players go down, apparently in agony, then get caught by the TV camera looking to see if they've got away with it. Without wishing to go down memory lane, 20 or 30 years ago, players would be embarrassed to have behaved in such a way. Offside is another part of the game in need of reform. The offside rules, almost need a high court judge to adjudicate. The football authorities do try. The penalising of time wasting has been a great innovation, largely eliminating another negative element of the game. It also has to be said that the women's game is a breath of fresh air, not suffering from many of the irritations previously cited. So let's hope as this season reaches it's climax, that things don't get spoiled by bad refereeing or gamesmanship. Then the football authorities need to look at things like VAR, the offside rule. players amateur dramatics and much else to ensure football continues to progress in the future.

Campaigns to defend the local community are vital for democracy

Campaigning has never been more important than it is today when it comes to retaining precious community assets. There is a proud tradition in Wanstead, from the campaign in the 1990s to stop the M11 Link Road (not successful) to Peace and Justice in East London during the noughties. The latter bringing together people of all faiths and none to call for peace, following the 9/11 attacks in America. There have also been individual campaigners like Sarah Hipperson, who went to Greenham Common - remaining for 20 years protesting against the placing of nuclear weapons there. Following the removal of the missiles, Sarah returned to Wanstead. More recently, the allotments in Redbridge Lane West came under threat. The multinational Cadent proposed to close the site for two years, throwing locals off carefully nurtured allotments. The allotment holders came together to campaign to save their allotments. Cadent conceded ground, agreeing to far less disruption, whilst the statutory work required on the gas works was done. A success for people power. Then, there has been the campaign to save Aldersbrook Medical Centre. The present custodians, the Richmond Road Partnership, have done an excellent job over the past five years. But now, the NHS managers want to cut the budget by 10 % making continuation not possible. The locals are understandably angry, with all opportunities to defend the present medical practice being taken up. A case of watch this space. There has been disquiet in the local community about the loss of the George as a Wetherspoons pub. Maybe, a campaign could develop here. Wetherspoons it seems do listen to local people. A Wetherspoons pub, the Rochester Castle, in Stoke Newington was under similar threat but due to protest, the chain rethought the decision, so now the pub remains. So campaigning does work. It is vital for local democracy that avenues to express concerns remain open. They are vital if community cohesion and vitality is to be maintained and increased. They do also result in the area being a better place to live. See: Save the George petition - https://www.change.org/p/save-the-george

Loss of George will be a blow for Wanstead

Many local people will have been disappointed to learn that the George pub in Wanstead is soon to cease being a Wetherspoons outlet. There are fans and foes of Wetherspoons pubs. They provide food and drink at reasonable prices. The George has been typical over the years, providing a place to go and socialise for young and old alike. Service has always been excellent. The pub has been particularly good with it's choice of beers on offer - always a good choice, sourced from local breweries. A number of snobs look down their noses at Wetherspoons pubs, most probably having never honoured such establishments with their presence. What the loss of a pub like the George does do is take away a basic rubric of the community. The pub is a community focus. Pubs generally are under pressure, with countless closures announced everyday across the country. Inflationary pressures have seen the price of drink and food head upwards. The prices have put many pubs beyond the means of some people already struggling to survive Yet, pubs are needed, especially in an increasingly atomised world. Somewhere to go and be with other people, rather than just the phone or laptop. Having a drink and some reasonably priced food. A hub, that should host local groups and community events. The appetite for such provision was evidenced with the Wanstead Beer Festival last October. Sold out early, there was certainly a great appetite for reasonably priced food and drink Hopefully, there will be similar support for our second festival this October. But can there be more? More community based pubs, prefaced on food and drink that most people can afford. Pop up pubs are a concept successfully run in many parts of the country. Maybe, there time has come here? There are ofcourse a number of local pubs in the area, offering a good service - they need support. But there needs to be more choice, especially at the lower end of the price bracket. It remains to be seen what will happen with the George. Many will miss the old place. But other new alternatives could emerge, that help foster that vital community spirit.Somewhere we can all go to eat ,drink and be merry at a reasonable price? Petition to Dave the George https://www.change.org/p/save-the-george

Review of Wild Men by David Torrance

published by Bloomsbury. £20 The main achievement of the first Labour Government of 1924 proved to be demonstrating that they were not wild men at all. The establishment clearly saw the mixture of working class representatives, elected in 1923, as a potential revolutionary threat to its existence. The British version of the Bolsheviks in Russia. What David Torrance clearly demonstrates is that they were anything but. There were the initial niceties of dress, certain suits for different occasions. The Prime Minister having to personally fund the furnishing of Downing Street. The lack of trust of the first Labour administration is amusingly illustrated with the story of four splendid silver candlesticks, which reappeared in the colonial office, as Labour minister Jimmy Thomas left. Central to the book is the figure of Ramsay Macdonald. The first Labour Prime Minister, he also took on the role of Foreign Secretary as well. It is the weaknesses of Macdonald that chart, to a large degree, the fate of the government. Torrance sets the scene in the early chapters before moving onto case studies of the main players. So there is the conservatism of characters like Macdonald and Chancellor Phillip Snowden balanced against the more radical Education Secretary, Charles Trevelyan and Health and Housing minister, John Wheatley. Wheatley's housing reforms, which led to 100,000s of new homes being built over the following years were one of the big successes of the government. The government only lasted nine months before largely self destructing due to Macdonald's bad decision making. The mishandling of a case against, John Campbell, the editor of the the Workers' Weekly, effectively saw the government fall. It didn't have to happen. Then, the infamous Zinoviev letter helped ensure defeat in the October 1924 election. But Torrance offers a shrewd assessment of the government's achievement. It proved it could govern, without upsetting the monarch the City or the general populace. That achievement - if it can be called such - set the blueprint for Labour Government's going forward, enthralled to the establishment, ever keen to please. Labour could be trusted. Macdonald's preference for the aristocracy and Conservatives began here, being later consummated with his role in forming the National Government in 1931. Perhaps, the most significant outcome of the first Labour Government was that in electoral terms it marked the replacement of the Liberals. So the decision of the combined Liberals of Herbert Asquith and David Lloyd George to support and at first sustain this Labour administration lead in the end to their own demise. And the formation of the two party system we still have today. Torrance provides an excellent accessible analysis, whilst also disproving the title. These were not wild men at all but easily mouldable future pillars of the establishment - as such they proved their worthiness to govern.