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Politics and statistics have long had a chequered relationship. It’s one of the reasons people tend not to trust politicians as much as politicians would like. However, when – as the government is currently doing over changes to firefighter…
Sixteen years ago as a graduate doing admin work in an office in Edinburgh I applied for and got a job with the Labour Party that undoubtedly changed my life. I had been a party member since shortly after the 1992 election but the networks…
This week, I was accused by a Tory politician of using language from the 1960s when I – and other Labour colleagues on the London Fire Authority - used the term ‘lockout’. This was in relation to proposals in a paper we were legally…
This time last year, the government announced that it would introduce free school meals for all infant school children before the next election. The policy had been endorsed by the School Food Plan commissioned by Gove. It was being…
Universal healthy free school meals is a policy that has been pioneered by Labour and by Labour councils in Southwark, Hull, Newham, Islington and Durham. At the National Policy Forum (NPF) over the weekend, Labour’s policy for the General…
On Saturday, the Ritzy Picturehouse in Brixton was closed for the sixth time due to a series of strikes by staff who are campaigning for the Living Wage. With high profile supporters ranging from Eric Cantona to Ken Loach, this weekend they…
I am no fan of Nick Clegg and like most people reading this have to admit to occasionally taking some pleasure from the thought of the Lib Dems getting a kicking in the polls, or in the media.However, in the case of one coalition spat…
I recently spoke at an event at which I was effectively the warm up act for two of the Ford Dagenham machinists, Pamela Brown and Sheila Douglas. The dispute and strike they were involved in was made famous again by the film Made in…
New figures show that more than 63,300 Londoners were fed by a Trussell Trust food bank in the eight months between April 2013 and January 2014. With four months of the financial year still to run, this already represents a near 400%…
Tomorrow (Thursday) Boris Johnson will have succeeded in his bid to close 10 fire stations, axe 14 fire engines and cut 552 firefighters. This is a hollow victory, these are unnecessary and potentially damaging cuts, and he should be…
This week the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, added himself to an unglorious list of Tory frontbenchers who are effectively poverty-deniers. When asked by Luciana Berger in Parliament about food banks, he replied that having visited a…
You may not have noticed with the focus on Syria, but this week it was announced that the Fire Brigades’ Union members voted by a massive margin (78%) in favour of strike action over the government’s changes to their pensions. Nobody really…
