'Aint' nothing going on but the rent': London Mayor & London Assembly elections 2016

So we are all waiting for the results. Following fairly uninspiring, though at times controversial campaigns ("It's ugly and dangerous': the inside story of the battle to be London mayor."), we are told to expect during this evening the results of the Mayor of London & London Assembly elections.

Sadiq Khan (Labour) and Zac Goldsmiths (Conservative) have slugged it out for the Mayoral position, to succeed Boris Johnson, while numerous others have competed for the 25 London Assembly places. While we've been bombarded with how #KhanCan and why we should #BackZac, and on the face of it there are so many important issues facing one of the most important cities in the world, others have questioned just how much power the Mayor actually has ("Message To The Next Mayor: Show Us Why We Should Care").

But don't hold your breath on the results. Four years ago, just after the 2012 London elections, I wrote at the time:

"Despite a result promised early in the evening, especially given the low turnout, we were kept on tenterhooks until almost midnight. During this time, the result kept being expected 'in about half an hour' but was constantly pushed back, with tales of 'lost and found' ballot boxes and the electronic counting machine failing...."

Despite a low turnout predicted again this time, I wonder when the results will be in, perhaps especially given one or two electoral irregularities ("Angry London voters including Britain’s Chief Rabbi were turned away from polling stations today after a huge blunder hit thousands in the mayoral election."). This is a terrible happening in any circumstances, but given the current sensitivities around antisemitism, it's not good news...of all the constituencies, of all the voters, comes to mind...

Although polls predict a Khan win, many are wary of counting their chickens given the epic fail of the general election polling a year ago. And there are predictions of a low turn out, not thought to be good for Khan. So it could be close. Just like the 2012 Mayoral election in fact when Boris won by a narrow margin of only 3%.

So, for now as we wait, for posterity...

These are the 2016 Mayor of London candidates:


with the results for the 2012 Mayoral election:


and the 2012 Greenwich & Lewisham breakdown of these mayoral votes:



The 2016 Constituency London member candidates for Greenwich & Lewisham:
 


with the 2012 results for Constituency London member candidates for Greenwich & Lewisham:
 

 and the 2012 results for how Greenwich & Lewisham voted for their London-Wide AM:

It will be fascinating to compare these to the 2016 results...whenever we get them. It will also, more importantly, be fascinating to see what the new Mayor does with the four years ahead of him.

It's time for ParksFest 2016 in Eltham

Parksfest 2016 has been announced - it's a now-annual Royal Greenwich Borough-wide programme of free cultural entertainment in the Borough's parks and open spaces. It's been running for many years and includes Eltham's many open spaces and parks during the coming June and July - here's a selection of what Eltham is putting on show this summer:

They'll be lots of familiar talent on show from in and around Eltham, as well as food stalls and also entertainment for the children.

The ParksFest programme is co-ordinated by the Greenwich Parks Forum, a network of twenty four Friends of Parks groups.  The full calendar of all the ParksFest events this summer:

Find out more at the ParksFest 2016 site

New Eltham's Fiddler on the Roof

Musical theatre is not normally my thing. The final straw came a couple of decades ago when I had to walk out of Lloyd Webber’s never-ending show, Time, at the interval – I couldn't stand it anymore.

All that suspension of disbelief, all those excruciating looks on their faces as they emoted around tenuous plots – no. No more. I was done.

It may be surprising to hear this from a Brit-Asian bought up on a diet of Bollywood's musical films. In these films it was an unremarkable and frequent happening for 30, or more, backing singers and dancers to suddenly pop up and accompany the hero and heroine as they burst into song in some verdant scene.

Admittedly, the more excessive fantasy sequences went out with the 80s and 90s (I’m thinking demure Indian woman, with improbably blonde wig, with oversize silver puffball sleeves, swinging on a huge low-slung crescent moon amidst a smoke machine on full power…you get the picture). No, these days one is able to enjoy more ‘realism’ in Bollywood cinema, though it’s all relative of course. I mean, the highly-westernised, elite wealthy, light-skinned lives portrayed in many of today’s Indian blockbusters are a million miles away from the lives of ordinary Indians.

I was amazed then to find myself transfixed by last night’s production of Fiddler On The Roof by New Eltham Community Productions (NECP), a performing arts groups based at the New Eltham Methodist Church in the south-East of London. What had initially been a well-meaning booking to support some local artistic activity has now turned out to be a revelation.

From the Programme

The stunning quality of all the creative talent on show belied the fact that this was an amateur production. The spot-on choreography, the surprise live orchestral music, the period costumes, the track lighting and, of course, the acting, would not be out of place at a central London venue at a ticket four times the price. Instead, we were sitting in a small church community centre in a sleepy suburb (or ‘New Eltham Village’ if you please…)

‘Fiddler’ is of course a well-established musical play and film, a staple for amateur companies – the story of a life in Anatevka, pre-revolutionary Russian Jewish village, focussing on Tevye’, a dairyman and the ‘Papa’ trying to bring his daughters up according to the long-held traditions of the community. Modernity and love get in the way, as ever. The setting may seem obscure but its universal themes, and stonking tunes, have proved highly-appealing. Come to think of it, this IS every Bollywood film!

This NECP production is skilfully directed and choreographed by Hannah Bond.  The large cast challenged with many musical numbers and dances were brilliantly handled. The catchy opening whole-cast number ‘Tradition’ set the tone and was a refrain throughout. Later “If I was a Rich Man” was subtly done without giving into to hamming it up. The key lead Jewish father, Tevye is played brilliantly by Neil Stevens who, by all accounts, grew a beard especially for this part along with other male cast members. He struck just the right note with his combination of serious and comedic acting (“On the one hand…, on the other hand…, on the other hand, there is no hand”). For me, a large part of this production’s success was Neil Stevens’ ability to hold the audience for his solo pieces and to take us so convincingly with him on his journey. The acting was matched by his stage wife, Golde, played magnificently by Rachel King, with both of them excellent singers too.

A real and unexpected treat was the live orchestra and the entrancing 'fiddler' who started off playing in a small balcony above the stage and then descended later to interact with Tevye as he muses on life.

There was poignancy, comedy and romance in the portrayal of this little village but also the intrusion of the darker outside world. We see this Jewish community in Russia subjected to a progrom by anti-Semitic Czarist forces forcing our characters to flee and scatter, many setting off to emigrate to America as refugees, a sadly familiar scenario still with us though with different collection of communities, faiths and countries.

In short, I’d thoroughly recommend this production though it finishes its run tonight! However, I’m so glad to add the discovery of this gem to our list of local Eltham and SE London venues. We shall be looking out for the next NECP production.

See local professional photographer Robert Piwko's fabulous photographs of this production here.

"Warm Welcome to Winter in Eltham" - Eltham Arts Winter Festival nearly here!

One of the biggest arts and cultural events to hit Eltham starts next Saturday.

The Eltham Arts Winter Festival takes place from 31 October to 22 November at venues all over the SE9 area. This unique three-week community festival also includes an Art Trail of fabulous art which can be seen in and around Eltham High Street and surrounding areas.

Poetry, theatre, music, exhibitions, talks, quizzes and yes, a beer festival (!), can all be found during the Festival in SE9's cafes, shop windows, galleries, community centres, theatres and historic buildings. It all kicks off with a Halloween-flavoured opening event on Saturday 31 October at Eltham's Passey Place from 11am to 3pm.

I'm very excited to have been involved in this entirely voluntary initiative organised by Eltham Arts, a community organisation established in 2013 to promote the arts and led by its energetic Chair, Gaynor Wingham. So many people have contributed, from local artists of all sorts, local venues, local businesses and many other Eltham Arts supporters. We were delighted to have the tremendous support of the widely-read Greenwich Visitor local newspaper which has published the full Festival programme in its October issue with an introductory article by me.

You can download the full Festival programme at the Eltham Arts website, including details of the Art Trail, or pick up a copy of Greenwich Visitor at various venues (including the Eltham Sainsbury's).  Do also check out Eltham Arts on Twitter for updates, news and any changes.

In the meantime, here's an at-a-glance run down of the events which you can enlarge:

Eltham Hustings - GE 2015

Last night we had before us four out of the five candidates standing for the Eltham constituency in the General Election on 7 May.

Eltham is a marginal constituency, in the southern half of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, with some interesting developments. The 2010 election saw the Labour candidate hold his seat with a majority of 1,663 (4.0%).

We gathered at 7.30pm in the Eltham Baptist Church on Westmount Road for this little advertised event. It was a packed house. The chair turned out to be the resident pastor, 'Rev Paul' as he introduced himself. The candidates present were, in the order they were sitting, left to right:

Alex Cunliffe (Lib Dem), Spencer Drury (Conservative), Clive Efford (Labour), Paul Oakley (UKIP subbing for candidate Peter Whittle), James Parker (Green)

Efford and Cunliffe were the first to arrive, with the UKIP rep being about 10 mins late.

'Rev Paul' began the proceedings very efficiently explaining the structure but a bit disappointingly letting us know that there would be no questions from the floor - instead only pre-written questions, tidied and selected by a 'team', would be accepted, with no discussion.  This drew some consternation on Twitter (I was attempting to cack-handedly 'live tweet' the event):

Each candidate began with a five minute statement, timed with frightening efficiency via an overhead countdown display (we need this at work meetings...).

A terrible summary of their statements:

Lib Dems:  spoke on what they've stopped the Tories doing over last 5 years; what their own priorities are; listed the 'red lines' from their manifesto; being proud of holding back extreme positions and holding the centre ground.

Labour: Not been a greater divide between the parties. The choices are clear. Listed the services Labour would want to protect. Want to clear the debt but also want to do it in a fair way. Pointed out that young families have suffered most, according to a study he quoted. Wants to build houses, protect society and deal with the economy.

Cons: Stressed that he was part of the local community. Wants to get the big picture right, economy etc. and also focus on local issues ie. school places, housing etc.

UKIP: Concentrated on the national economic picture; questioned where the Tory £8bil for the NHS was coming from; HS2 "was ridiculous".

Greens: wanted to look not from a petty politics perspective but from an intelligent perspective; the coming climate crisis needed to be recognised. (sorry, I drifted a bit during this...)

And then they were off with the questions - paraphrasing them:
(Sadly, I don't have time now to post fully on their replies to the questions but there were no surprises, here's a flavour...I may be able to update this later, or not..)


Q1: How do you intend to deal with/resolve/manage (?) the spiralling debt of the NHS?

(Labour would build up a fund from various sources e.g. Mansion Tax. Tory was 'bemused' and felt Tories had sorted out things locally eg. QEH debt, Eltham community Hospital. LD (I drifted) but I'm sure he said they would sort it out, his wife works in NHS... UKIP said they disagreed with everyone. Gave Lewisham A&E example as one of people victory against Tories. Redirect Foreign Aid money)

Q2: Many children have not been offered their first choice of school; how will you resolve/address this, and we don't want to hear you doing the 'blame game' in your answer?

(This last clause drew a collective appreciative sigh!)

Q3: With the high deficit, are we living beyond our means and do we have the right to burden our children with it?
(everyone said yes, and no to this question)

Q4: What are you planning to do about the rise in violence?
(Bit of bemusement - what did the question mean? Some candidates answered on a local/national basis, others widened out to extremism; bit of discussion here about local Safer Neighbourhood Schemes)

Q5: Why are there no women on this panel? What are you doing to involve more women?

(All agreed should be encouraged. Drury held up Elizabeth Truss as a recent success story, so good now propelled to the heart of govt; UKIP agreed, said he'd been 'friends' with Truss 'for a long time' and pointed to their 'brilliant candidate' in Lewisham East, the controversial Anne Marie Waters...)

Q6: What are you planning to do to alleviate housing and give young people a choice of owning their own home? (asked by Eltham North Cllr, Linda Bird)
(Basically, need to increase the supply, restrict overseas buying, make affordable, against big local developments eg. Kidbrooke, that don't help)

Q7: What are your thoughts on freedom of speech, freedom of thought and dissent in society being suppressed due to laws on perceived bigotry?
(again the standard answers, with obligatory mention of the Voltaire quote (that wasn't actually a Voltaire quote); big clap for Drury when mentions the 'propaganda' of Greenwich Time)

Overall, although there were no surprises, it was good to see the candidates and hear from them in person. Questions from the floor would have been a good alternative but that would have involved a different ball game for organising this.

There's so much more to add but I have to feed the kids, make their packed lunches and go to work now...(cue violins).