Suggsy

She also suggested that the 2017 Manchester terror attack (perpetrated by an Islamist extremist) was due to "divisiveness" and tried to pin the blame on the far right. Grim, really.

@Sue the Green's campaign video showing Keir Starmer shaking hands with Modi and David Lammy shaking hands with Netanyahu is one such example. As I say, I don't know the organisation, but I would expect election observers to only report after polls have closed. To do otherwise could be perceived as interfering in the election. They might need to check patterns across multiple polling stations. Any public criticism by an independent observer mid-poll could discourage participation and could be interpreted as campaigning. Much safer / more robust to check observations and release after the event. Sorry - those posts merged. Not intended.

Precisely this. It was alarming when Zac Goldsmith tried to exploit ethnic tensions as part of his London mayoral bid (he specifically targeted Hindu, Tamil and Sikh communities saying their jewellery was at risk from a Sadiq Khan wealth tax) but to my mind the Greens have practised this on a far more significant scale in Gorton and Denton. I don't know who Democracy Volunteers are, but reports of an uptick in family voting is also of concern.

To invoke another body part, I can't help thinking the Greens and Reform might be two cheeks of the same arse. Populism innit.

A stellar win for the Greens in Gorton and Denton, no doubt. But by-elections are funny beasts. Labour's strength traditionally has been in its ground game. Legions of canvassers over many years in many seats usually means that they are best placed to 'get out the vote' on election day. I can't quite believe that the Greens have enough data, or people, to wrest control of the council from Labour.

But there's an obvious policy tension here between the police model and the civil model. The police model theoretically acts as a deterrent but, as on Lordship Lane (and many other A-roads where most collisions happen) there is limited enforcement coverage. With the civil model there is the potential for wider enforcement coverage but the penalties are weaker (some may think of speeding as a 'cost of doing business') and funding it is expensive. There's a real risk of patchwork enforcement within a local authority and between local authorities. As I understand it, this is why the Assembly has been cautious in taking it further.

@blahblah agree. And I can't see that Zack Polanski has raised any objection to the FFR. So McAsh's position seems ever more emptily performative, as well as illogical.

Surely the question is whether James Mcash is effective in his various roles? I've seen nothing to suggest otherwise as a GG councillor or cabinet member. No idea about the teaching but he's made a career of it, so one would think he's perfectly fine on that front too. What I do object to is him being elected under one banner and hopping under another one, I suspect out of naked self interest. His headline rationale for the move is scarcely credible. He claims "the council was “planning for funding gaps larger than those faced in almost every year of Conservative and Liberal Democrat austerity, this time imposed by a Labour government...Unless something changes, Labour cuts will devastate the local services that as residents of this fantastic borough, we all rely on.” But what he's actually talking about here is the new Fair Funding Review, undertaken by notorious Tories Angela Rayner and Jim McMahon. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-fair-funding-review-20/the-fair-funding-review-20 The Fair Funding Review is explicitly about the redistribution of resources based on updated needs assessment, which, last time I looked was a key tenet of the left (including the Greens). Mcash also claims Southwark "cannot and does not stand up to the government" but that simply isn't the case as Southwark, Lambeth and London Councils have objected to the FFR because it fails to take into account Londoners' high housing costs. https://www.southwark.gov.uk/news/2025/southwark-and-lambeth-leaders-call-fair-funding He seems high on bluster and low on actual detail. And the great problem Greens have to overcome, like everyone else, is that the country has no money.

Yup. Student politics. https://bright-green.org/2012/04/09/democracy-and-direct-action-an-interview-with-edinburgh-universitys-new-student-president-james-mcash/

Love Franklins. Rod and Tim created something wonderful. Glad to hear it looks like it will continue in the same spirit.

Not sure about that. Rockets seems to have (rightly in my view) identified two key motivating elements in Mcash's defection: anger at his previous (arguably shabby) treatment and a (linked) desire to trash the Labour party, nationally and locally. The defection, timed for maximum damage, combined with the invective and moral exhibitionism of his statement counts as rather more than a "hissy fit". I would add a third motivation of political ambition: it's not inconceivable that he has his eye on the Dulwich & West Norwood seat which is predicted to go Green. James Barber was indulging in typical LibDem sleight of hand, claiming that Blair introduced austerity to *councils* before the coalition. This is a kind of sixth form debating point. From 1997-1999 Labour broadly stuck to Tory spending totals, meaning there was limited growth in departmental spending, including local govt grants. However local government funding rose substantially in the Noughties, especially in education and social care. It is a matter of record that real-terms local authority spending increased in the Blair / Brown years overall. So he's manifestly wrong (or only right if the focus is on 1997-1999, which would be a bizarre focus and one he didn't include in his claim) but he wasn't claiming Blair introduced austerity more widely.

To be fair to Rockets, there is more than a whiff of sour grapes about McAsh's move. And clearly his timing and statement have been chosen to maximise damage, so to my mind the analogy holds.

As I understand it Charlie Smith did put himself forward for selection in GG but Labour members chose someone else to represent them, Liam McGrath https://southwarklabour.com/our-candidates/ It'll be interesting to see if there are other defections - surely the Greens want a drip, drip, drip of news from now to May suggesting the momentum is with them.

He's an ambitious guy - presume the aim is to get elected as a Green MP. But a lot can happen in 3 years. Personally I think planning for funding gaps when you have no money is the sensible thing to do.

Exactly. I had to then scale down the rest of the ingredients. It's happened twice that I know of.

I also do not want to name a shop but there is one on Lordship Lane that sells fruit and veg and on several occasions now I have brought produce home to discover that what was weighed as 500g in the shop was 460g when I weighed it at home. And yes I checked my scales weren't wrong by weighing a 1KG bag of sugar. Beware folks.

I like that both of our councillors seem to be posting on X less.

Thanks James.

What have the Dulwich Village Councillors done in this regard - supported recent applications or not?

Surely part of the council's tenancy agreement includes provisions for ASB? The threat of violence should be something they take seriously. I would've thought it is worth raising with your councillors and MP.

yes there does seem to be a drift from Labour to the Greens

Everywhere around here is a slam dunk for Labour. I do wonder why thousands of fairly pointless leaflets are going out for Helen Hayes - huge majority - will no one think of the climate emergency?

Maybe bring a pair of secateurs one day and trim a bramble or two? And yes, that outer circuit is for runners and dogs, and occasionally runners with dogs...

Helen Hayes is perfectly fine as an MP - though calling for a Gaza ceasefire and then not voting for one when she had the opportunity an hour later was not a glorious episode.

I was at the Dulwich Society meeting (I'm a member of over a decade's standing) and IMO the Chair and trustees behaved badly. Threatening the members with an en masse resignation if they didn't vote for their proposals was a real low.