What's the Second Line of 'The Red Flag'?

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert reports back

Cllr Guy Lambert

February 9, 2024

Not a huge amount to say about Friday and the weekend, because I didn’t do much very exciting. Spent some time on Friday at the Labour local headquarters in Chiswick where industrious people were creating packs of leaflets and what have you. I took the Young Mr Grace role of saying they had all done very well. A few years ago when the technology didn’t work (and I was less busy) I used to sit there quite a bit helping out and looking to encourage people to sing Socialist songs, a role that I wasn’t very good at. I didn’t know any such songs beyond the first line. I managed to get myself told off for picking up a leaflet that was one of a previous collated set of 100 and making them 99.

Sunday was the Chiswick Flower Market and to me it looked like Chiswick was buzzing with people whereas some others (e.g. the local councillors) suggest that everyone has been driven away by the lack of parking. Actually our cunning and evil plan of stopping people driving and destroy the local economy seems to be partly unsuccessful, and sabotaged by dastardly people who insist on walking, cycling and taking the bus. Whatever, despite it being the very start of February and dull, cold and sometimes drizzly it was well attended as usual.

On Monday morning I was in Hounslow House, following up on a young woman who had been evicted from her damp-infested private rented flat in Brentford and dumped with her two young sons in Hounslow. To get her children to school and nursery, and get to her part time job as a cleaner (she’s a single mother) in Shepherd’s Bush she has to get up very early in the morning. To add to her burdens, she is being sued for back rent for the period where her husband walked out and disappeared together with most of her housing benefits. It took 6 months for the benefit people at the DWP to catch up and start paying the rent direct, as they might have done throughout. She is terribly worried and I’m not surprised: she doesn’t have enough income to pay her fares and feed herself and her kids in her inhospitable home. I am doing my best to help her to deal with all these problems but it’s hard to make any progress. I find this deeply distressing.

Later on Monday we had the newly-inaugurated Shareholders Committee for the Lampton Group. In the afternoon I met with the former treasurer of the FoodBox, who is working manfully to retire from this role – he’s nearly there. Always a pleasure to meet with him – one of the people who makes this town tick, and Café Capri is always a pleasure – excellent coffee and outstanding hosting!

On Tuesday I met with a resident down in the Blue Road for a coffee and a discussion about things he’s hoping to do. I went away with a small task to support him but when I was down there I heard Lance ‘Romance of Rust’ was busy working on his de Tomaso Pantera. Of course these de Tomasos were made when I was in charge of Ford Britain. Actually I was an undergraduate trainee and my influence was less than imposing but I’m sure you’ll agree that I should have been in charge. Lance rolled by whilst we were supping our coffee and when I finished I went out to inspect the supercar.

I hadn’t realised that de Tomasos had a wooden chassis like a Morgan and you may not believe me but there’s the evidence. Incidentally, Lance was not wrestling with the Pantera at the time, but was engaged in boxing with somebody nearby. He didn’t seem to be very good because his punches were always landing on a large glove being worn by his opponent. No pictures, because I abhor violence.

Later that day I attended an online review of business attitudes and priorities. This was organised by London Councils, which is a cross party organisation which combines the 32 London Boroughs and the City Corporation and for this study they engaged the well-known polling company YouGov. The survey talked to about 1200 businesses around London – all sizes, industry and area and the number of responders and the scientific way they are selected means they are statistically weighted.

There is lots of fascinating and sometimes unexpected (by me anyway!) priorities which you can find here.

A lot of this is 2023 data but there is also interesting comparisons going back 4 years and all these are very thought-provoking. Here’s a taster with the first three priorities probably not people would expect to be business’ main priorities. Gratifying, because they closely map what I believe to be the priorities, and those of the Mayor and the Labour party.

The other slide I selected is to do with what business wants from local councils, again a fairly close match to our priorities.

In the afternoon the Lampton LLP board. The LLP is technically a joint venture between Hounslow and Lampton and it is about the work we do (well, Lampton mainly do it) developing homes on council-owned land. There are 6 possible developments on the horizon, none of them without challenges in the current environment, because inflation is high, borrowing costs have been very high since Liz Truss’s triumphs and the demand for properties, other than social homes, is very weak because nobody can afford a mortgage (thanks Liz). The priority is always to maximise the number of homes we build for social rent but public money is restrained and private sales and rentals provide some scope for subsidy. Despite the challenging economy we have a good chance to move a number of these forward because of the professionalism and expertise of the team, but I’d love then to be able to move quicker, but that will probably come after a general election.

In the evening I was back in Hounslow, for a lengthy Cabinet briefing with 538 pages of data to master. Obviously not a problem for me. Except for about 500 pages of it. This is us preparing for the formal Cabinet which takes place on the 20th – be there or be square. Main thing is the budget, but also CIL (developers’ contribution to infrastructure etc costs) schools and some technical review documents monitoring the council’s progress.

Then an informal cabinet session, mainly about the Pavement Pledge that we made in our manifesto. It has been challenging to find money for it and manage the programme, looking for a fair apportionment of the available funds across 22 wards. We will be announcing the plans shortly and doing the first half of the work over the second half of this year.

On Wednesday morning, a web meeting about the flytipping which takes place continually on the railway embankment by Isleworth station. Not precisely my problem because it’s Network Rail’s land but the problem occurs because our lovely residents throw stuff over the fence, and it’s a very awkward place to clean. Tony Louki, the scourge of flytippers and other vagabonds, organised this and we’re hoping between the council and Network Rail who were present and keen to find a solution we have made good progress. Time will tell.

Then it was my fortnightly meet on Health Integration. Not a huge amount to say at this stage but we are about to receive an interim report which should help us tie down our plans and activities. This is actually pretty important and we must make sure it doesn’t continue to fall between 2 stools (NHS and council) but there’s lot to do to ensure that.

In the afternoon the Lampton main board. A few concerns mainly related to inflation continuing and the need to find more funding for asset improvements after 14 years of austerity.

In the evening I was down to the Six Bells for the first of what it is hoped to be the first of many Brentford Voice organised drinks meetings to enhance local engagement (and fun). Well attended from people all over the local area and I hope it grows. Plus nice to see the too often quiet Six Bells buzzing. Or perhaps I mean chiming.

Today, Thursday, just a couple of brief catch ups, one with the Chairman of Lampton and one with our senior officer, who is my main contact on both Hounslow Highways and Recycling, where once there were three senior officers. He’s holding the fort but there’s plenty going on, and he needs reinforcements.

Rather denuded of pictures this week. Note to self (like my teachers often said) must do better.

Councillor Guy Lambert