Latest news with #Streatham
BBC News
17-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Can Palace shut out City?
get involved Get Involvedpublished at 16:05 British Summer Time 16:05 BST #bbcfootball, via WhatsApp on 03301231826 or text 81111 (UK only, standard message rates apply) Contrasting emotions here. We only got one ticket so I've dropped off my son to go in with friends while I slope off to find a pub to watch it in... Buzzing for him. That's Dad life for you! Eagles! Simon (Dad) and Samson (son), Streatham. Image source, Simon Image source, Simon
The Independent
17-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Starmer's power is propped up on borrowed votes. Here's why I won't be lending mine next time…
When Labour is in power, it's customary for the left wing to spend much of its time grousing about how badly it's doing, whereas those on the right have remained staunchly silent about criticism of its leadership, no matter how outwardly deranged. Where then, to start on Keir Starmer 's Labour, which in its much-touted plans to be the Grown-Ups coming to clear up the British Playroom after the Big Argument, now seems more determined to cosplay as Nigel Farage than to take advantage of its massive majority and put some actual Labour policies in place. As with many people staggered by the Conservatives' plunge into self-destruction, I did what I could to avoid them getting into power again. I lent my vote to Labour. Unlike many people, my vote made little difference. My constituency, previously Streatham, was Conservative for 74 years until turning resolutely Labour in 1992. Where Labour should not be complacent is that my vote, as with those of many who embraced tactical voting came from fear. The prospect of another five years of political sleaze made me feel quite unwell. However, I had also hoped that things could only get better, as I dimly remembered from school. As was the case in 1997 a 2024 vote for Labour was a vote for hope. Yet all I have seen since Labour came to power is shocking. A government whose only inspiration for the British public is repeated epithets about the Conservatives' 14 years in power and the ensuing black hole. I had hoped for bold steps towards helping the roots of Britain's problems: reinvigorating youth clubs and SureStart centres so young people didn't turn to gangs and online influencers for connection, and supporting parents so future generations felt confident in affording to have children. I'd certainly hoped for appreciation of the workers from abroad who keep our health and care sectors running because successive governments are apparently too miserly to pay their workers properly. Instead, splendid: three more prisons to be built rather than anything positive to reduce poverty, increase opportunity and reduce reoffending. Well done Labour! This isn't quite "40 new hospitals" territory, but it feels awfully close. A conversation around immigration that is now in its fourth day of focusing on Starmer's inflammatory language and apparent denigration of every migrant in the UK, rather than finding solutions. Labour has been by no means alone in its inaction on Israel's enforced famine of Gaza, but for a generation raised on Blue Peter coverage of Bosnia and genocide in Rwanda, its silence has said volumes. And it's not just the very young that Labour is alienating, it's millennials and Gen X. Recent decisions on PIP, and disability benefits more widely, have seemed incomprehensible if not downright cruel. Labour seems to be chasing some mythical voter who doesn't exist, rather than listening to those it has. There is the odd flicker of the positivity and capability so many of us hoped for: its trade deals with the US and India, Ukraine, and how Starmer has stepped up to lead the Coalition of the Willing and support Ukraine. Wes Streeting's immediate deal with the junior doctors was impressive, but his capitulation to the vocal minority on trans healthcare simply baffling. There is arguably little more British than letting people be who they are. And by also denigrating migrants, LGBT+ people, and women – who will inevitably have to pick up the slack when care companies cannot afford to pay for British workers and hike prices accordingly – this feels like a very un-British Labour Party. Most shamingly of all is the news that the UK's reputation as Europe's leading country on LGBT+ human rights is gone. In 2015, we were top with 86 per cent. This week, we have dropped to 46 per cent – in no small part thanks to baffling white noise nonsense around loos and trans people, which successive polls show Britain at large doesn't care about in the slightest. Nigel Farage and his policy-free pot-stirring – rightly called out by the otherwise ghastly Rupert Lowe, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day – are not where the UK should be heading. Labour has four years until the next general election. Why on earth isn't it promoting forward-thinking policies and communicating to the public with even a modicum of skill? Why isn't it at least trying to make a positive difference to the country's lives, rather than dealing in the populist fear wafting across the ocean from the USA. As the local elections showed, Reform voters won't be won over by mystifying attempts to out-light blue the light blue. Reform continues to lead Labour in the polls, by five points this week, and eight points last week. A new poll by Survation finds voting intention for Reform at 30 per cent. Meanwhile, those who held their nose for Labour previously are joining the floods heading to the Lib Dems and the Greens. Reform voters do not want Labour. And there are other parties for Labour votes to join, however much Starmer and his team refuse to believe it. In 2025, the Conservative Party is almost annihilated. Unless the government looks to its voters, whether lifelong or borrowed, by 2029 Labour may join it in the wreckage.
Telegraph
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
For once, local government is correct: nobody has a right to park in their drive
It's rare to get a story out of local government where the council is unambiguously right about something; doubly so when that council is Labour; and triply so when it's suddenly enforcing a planning regulation. So it's important to call it when you see it: Lambeth Council is entirely right to crack down on unauthorised driveways. Affected residents are, of course, furious. They say that the town hall is just using them as a cash cow; formal applications for a dropped curb cost £4,000 in Lambeth, and enforcement is apparently projected to net £1 million or more in fees. Many Londoners, understandably angry about Sadiq Khan's various attempts to squeeze motorists, will reflexively put this in the same bracket. But they shouldn't, for three reasons. First, it is not actually wrong for councils (and indeed, government) to ask people to pay for things. Yes, Lambeth's official spiel about the move helping to 'support resilience to the climate emergency' is probably nonsense; the local Tories are almost certainly closer to the mark when they point out that 'the council currently needs to save over £69 million over the next four years'. But… the council does need to make up that budget shortfall, or it goes bankrupt. And due to successive governments' efforts to keep huge areas of public spending – mental health, special educational needs, and social care – off the Treasury's books, local authorities are simply not in control of how most of their budgets are spent. As a result, any savings are concentrated on the things a layperson probably thinks of as the council's job: fireworks displays, bin collections, and so on, most of which have already been cut to the bone. Therefore, the only other way to make up the numbers is to raise revenue. Would Streatham and Croydon North Conservatives prefer if Lambeth hiked council tax? Second, people with 'unofficial' driveways are a legitimate target for such revenue-raising before official driveways represent a direct transfer of value from the public realm to private households, and that should be paid for in full. By this I don't simply mean the direct cost (to taxpayers) of physically installing a dropped kerb, but everything that comes with it. For pedestrians, dropped kerbs mean an uneven pavement; perhaps not something you notice if you're young, healthy, and unburdened, but which can be a real pain to people with pushchairs, wheelchairs, or who are otherwise unsteady on their feet. For motorists, the loss is even more direct. Because you can't block an official driveway, it's illegal to park in front of a dropped kerb. As a result, dropping a kerb converts a public on-street parking space, accessible to many, into a private space reserved for a particular property. That isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself. On-street parking is its own plague, and a combination of private drives and proper carpark provision would lead to nicer streets. But if you're going to annex part of the street to your house, you should pay for it. Finally, the council has legitimate planning concerns. If a driveway isn't official, it isn't protected – and that means there's nothing preventing the council installing formal parking bays or other things on the street that would block vehicular access to a property altogether. You can bet that if that happened, the outraged residents of Lewisham would be more outraged still. But why should they be entitled to the privileged use of public land, at the expense of 'parklets, cycle parking and seating' or whatever other more widely-useful things the council could install on it, without paying it – and by extension, taxpayers – for the privilege?
