Rupa Huq's Blog

As the Tories Manchester gathering appears to be contradicting everything their coalition partners the LibDems said in Birmingham there’s a brilliant thing here in the Daily Mail from Craig Brown which is a handy cut-and-keep guide to speech-writing that David Cameron could do with reading. Intended for Ed Miliband, it fits any party although it’s only had 4 comments unlike their story on raising the motorway speed limit to 80 mph that’s had about 100x more. With the stuff about human rights coming out yesterday (cat or no cat) there is a danger that the Tories will lurch to the right, living up to their “nasty party” image of old. After all thir de-toxification work this would be a mistake.

Mark Ferguson on Labourlist meanwhile goes for the nuclear option of suggesting that Ed Miliband ditch the speech next year at Labour’s conference in favour of the Q and A approach which it’s widely being reported he did better than the set-piece to which the tv broadcast link was lost for 10 mins at the beginning (as with the unethical reporting of the “bigoted” remark by Gordon Brown unbeknown to him it was a SKYnews feed pooled to all channels). There is a problem of preaching to the converted when actually the final product is aimed at the tv audience beyond watching evening news bulletins in which maybe just a few seconds out of an hour plus worth of speech will make it.

I think no leaders speech at all on the menu would be a bit weird as it’s what is expected from these “rouse the faithful” type gatherings however I have argued before that the whole centre-piece lengthy oration is in need of a revamp as is the whole overly-long conference that no-one with a job or life could afford to be at for the whole duration leaving mostly professional politicians and lobbyist types there all talking amongst themselves.

I was actually in the hall for Ed M’s Q and A last week attending the conference for just that day alone but despite my hand being up I didn’t get picked to put forward my question. Fair enough, they did want non party members rather than old lags and Ed kept asking for difficult questions. I would have asked “As you may have heard REM broke up last week, I wonder if you had a favourite REM song and the reason for that choice”. I’m not sure how he would would have reacted (“difficult” is a subjective concept) but we will never know.

Lastly I am inclined to agree with Channel 4′s Gary Gibbon who has argued that it’s not the same in big cities (saw it in the Guardian print edition, cannot find it online). All my early conference memories as a tv observer are stuff like Neil Kinnock falling over in the sand at Brighton. The first Labour party conference I actually attended was in “kiss me quick” Blackpool. In short bring back the seaside.

Poignant/ bittersweet to see the first episode of the final series of the Sarah Jane Adventures, CBBC’s superior Dr Who spin-off recorded before the late Elisabeth Sladen died earlier this year and set in Ealing where the actress herself lived. It was pretty momentous in an era of Miriam O’Reilly , who you’ll remember successfuly sued the BBC for ageism at 53, that they gave a 60something her own show zapping aliens with sonic lipstick. The sadness underlying this final series was allieviated by the fact that the episode itself was really on top form with allsorts including pyrotechnics, an abandoned alien baby, the ever versatile Lib Dem Floella Benjamin and judging from the trailer bit at the end, tomorrow’s episode looks even better.

The Dr Who-Ealing connection is longstanding. In this clip from 1970′s “Spearhead From Space” scenes of dummies smashing out from a shop window of what is now Marks and Spencers in Ealing Broadway can be seen. The startled coppers are in Lancaster Rd, a side-street since demolished to make the Broadway Centre and shots can be seen of a bloke on a bike and people at a 65 bus-stop (gateway to Kingston) by Ealing Green or “leafy and afflent Ealing Green” as the rolling news channels had it after the August looting there.

Shame neither (i) the good Doctor nor (ii) SJA could have helped on that fateful night when Ealing Police were left short-handed as London burned but both are of course fictional characters. In real life Sladen is sadly missed – here in the Radio Times her daughter reminisces about her mum. Meanwhile this very worthy campaign revolving around a walk from London to Cardiff is raising funds for the Meadow House Cancer Hospice in Southall where Sladen was before her sad death and/or there is also this one for Cancer Research more generally.

After another absorbing Downton yesterday (filmed at that world famous Ealing studios) where an ink and cowpat plot to assasinate nobility was foiled that’s two days running Ealing-connected shows have been trending on Twitter.

Bumped into Ealing Council leader Julian Bell yesterday who had interrupted his attendance at the Labour party conference to dash back for the funeral of Richard Mannington Bowes the 68 year old who met his death after the night of looting/ “rioting” in Ealing on 8th Aug. He’s blogged it here. The Ealing Gazette carries the story here and Ealing Today here.

Back in August we were told that the prison population was rising by 100 a day in the wake of post-riot related 24 hour court hearings/ showtrials etc. There have been various analyses of whodunnit but presumably these are changing everyday. When the pal I was with asked Julian if setences were a bit harsh he replied that doubtless some cases would end up in the appeal courts but that all the violence that had gone on was inseperable from the death that occurred. Ed Miliband also said in his Q and A at Labour’s conference that exemplary sentences can have a part to play in sending out a clear message of condemnation. On the chain of causation point, defence lawyers meanwhile have claimed that the courts are treating some offenders as riot cases, even though their crimes were committed miles away from the scene of any disorder.

In the meantime the message the Mayor (that’s councillor John Gallagher of Ealing not Boris) emailed round yesterday expressed deepest sympathy to the family of Manningham Bowes ending by expressing that the tragic incident should never be repeated – something that everyone can agree with.

Apparently Britney Spears’ latest video has her waving around a replica gun and robbing a shop at gunpoint. The locations she filmed in were Stoke Newington Town Hall in Hackney and a grocers shop in West Ealing – both in boroughs hit by riots. This is probably just conicidence but the subject matter of the video is ill-judged. When I volunteered in an Oxfam shop as a sixth former guns were not accepted as donations. Why is there still this fascination with these objects? More condemnation from Diane Abbott MP, a pizza chef and a local councillor here on ITV’s local news bulletin London Tonight.

Was emailed the following petition from a pal which implores PUBLIC TOILETS SUITABLE FOR ALL – Make it a legal requirement for Local Authorities to provide them. Given the massive public spending cuts exerting pressure on council budgets (not to mention uses that people like George Michael had for public lavs) am doubtful of the thing being enacted but its democracy in action and a worthy issue – I remember it being raised by the elderly contingent present back at the David Miliband housemeeting I hosted last year. What with the number 10 e-petitions link as opposed to finding a stamp as in the days of old you don’t even have to spend a penny (not directly any road).

Still as watchable as ever is the second series of Downton Abbey, Sunday nights ITV1. If you missed the first series a condensed version via Comic Relief 2011 can be caught here and here (second clip alludes to the way that all the below stairs bits were actually filmed in Ealing.

I am reminded of Dennis Pennis surprising Emma Thompson by asking her if she’d considered playing a tampax “seeing as you love those period parts”. According to this Madame Taussaud’s has got in on the Downton act. Much commented on/ tweeted was the tasteless running Aviva sponsorship ad for life insurance featuring all sorts of disasters that seemed wrong for a storyline based on knife-edge trench action in the first world war. According to them it was all in the name of innovation. Roll on part 2 I say…

Up here are the boundary commission proposals for London which seem bad news for Labour as the capital loses four seats under what’s planned. Its all officially under wraps but bits for various parts of the country seem to be leaking all over the shop. The safe Ealing Southall seat according to the propsals is carved up, so the ward where I live (presently Conservative Northfield) goes into what it will be a new constituency with the Tory wards of Ealing North – genius. Streatham and Tooting are also amalgamated according to Guido Fawkes. Most of the comments I’ve seen so far all seem to be about Nadine Dorries losing her seat but there’s an interesting post here from Denis McShane having a go at the shady nature of the Commission in a time when we were told there’d be a bonfire of the quangos.

Let’s be under no illusions: the 2010 General Election was already fought on new boundaries. There was no need for another review, the whole point behind this is to keep Labour out of power forever. There is still time for submissions though so if a compelling case is made these need not turn intoi reality. I guess it’d be best to register discontent starting tomorrow when it’s official kick off mind…

This one at the FT shows the distance between those charged with rioting and the locations that they looted. It’s not letting me insert it directly into this post so instead click here You have to register but it’s free to do so.

To cut a long story short the median avaerage distance beteewn London riot suspects’ home addresses and riot locations was 3km. In Camden and Brixton it was under 2km but in Ealing it was 7km. Could my retired neighbour who bemoaned free teenager tube travel as a contributory factor have a point?

Spotted this through putting “Ealing” in the search engine of Twitter (still don’t have my own account) where it was tweeted by the FT’s Sally Gainsbury who weirdly enough I once taught when she was an undergraduate.

Every election defeat brings a slew of publications from the losing side about how to win again. Back in 1935 was “The Strange Death of Liberal England” by Dangerfield. In 1959 after Labour lost a third successive time it was “Must Labour Lose?” In 1997 the late Iain Gilmour co-wrote a book called “Whatever Happened to the Tories?” Now the hand wringing/ soul seraching is on for Labour.

I blogged before that I was contributing to a volume called “What Next for Labour?” Well it’s actually now out and I have my copy of this rather handsome volume here. The cover looks something like this:

The contents are a thought-provoking bunch of 29 relatively short and readable chapters grouped into sections on campaigning, equality and Labour’s future as well as various policy briefs. A bunch of different people are the authors: ex-NUS President Aaron Porter, ex MP Sion Simon, some current MPs, peers of the realm and serving councillors. A full list is here.

As a collection it can be dipped in and out of rather than neccessitating a cover-to-cover read. So far I’m enjoying the contribution of Lord Temple-Morris. Whilst I don’t agree woth everything he says (as in the 1959 defeat analyses he toys with the idea of abandoning the name “Labour” in favour of something less clunkily historic) he is an interesting figure – was son of a Tory MP and thrn a “dripping wet” Conservative MP for 23 years fighting 10 elections as a Tory before taking the plunge and joining Labour in 1999 after growing disillusioned with the Conservatives’ increasingly rightward shift. Temple Morris asserts:

“Labour does not quite seem to get enough credit for its considerable accomplishments. The foundation of our modern state occurred in the 1945-51 period yet seems taken for granted; the 1960′s was a vital decade of social change certainly made easier by a centre left Government; the achievements of the Blair period, constitutionally, electorally and socially are to be lauded and never denied; similarly the social spending of Gordon Brown together with his international financial management at a time of need- all represent considerable governmental achievements. That is progress to be proud of and to be built on. No blank sheets but rather a turning of the page.”

As Osborne ignominiously downgrades his growth forecast and a double-dip could be on the cards, the words are more true than ever.

Get hold of your copy of this required reading for anyone interested in the future of British politics for a bargain price of less-than-a-tenner here.

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Even bloggers have to leave the wired world sometimes. This is where I was for the past week.