Tulip Siddiq

I went to the opening of the Impressions Events Venue in West Ham last week along with several MPs and Councillors. Amongst others, I spoke to Hazel Blears MP, Stephen Timms MP and Jim Fitzpatrick MP and John Biggs AM about the Mayoral elections this Thursday. All the MPs highlighted the importance of turnout in this election in order to prevent the BNP from getting a foothold in City Hall.

I also spoke to some young people at the event who were all hoping to buy their own houses in London over the next year. They agreed that the issue of housing was the deciding factor between who they voted for on 1 May. The general consensus was that Boris Johnson’s housing manifesto was a complete farce with no real facts and endless inaccuracies. Alarmingly, if Boris is elected Mayor, he plans to abandon Ken Livingstone’s target that 50 per cent of all new homes in London should be affordable.

Amongst countless other ridiculous speeches/interviews/leaflets, this manifesto yet again contributes to the fact that the Tory candidate is incompetent and unfit to do the job properly. I can’t imagine him being in charge of the £39 billion transport budget, let alone running the whole of London!

The truth is that Boris has no experience of London matters nor has he shown any interest in them in the past. If Boris wins, London will be run by unelected, faceless bureaucrats imported into powerful positions from the Conservative Party and big businesses and they will make crucial decisions which will affect ordinary Londoners like me.

Let’s elect a competent Mayor on Thursday- someone who knows what he’s doing.

I wrote to the Ham and High about the Lib Dem’s dubious environmental policies and you can see my letter here.

I went to the screening of BAFTA-nominated film, Brick Lane, yesterday in Leicester Square, to raise funds for Labour’s Camden election campaign. There was a Q&A session with broadcaster, Simon Fanshawe, and director, Sarah Gavron. The book’s author Monica Ali was also there. It was a really fun event for a good cause and afterwards, I spoke to several Londoners about the upcoming Mayoral elections.

People seemed extremely worried that the British National Party were urging their supporters to lend their second vote to the Conservative candidate Boris Johnson on 1 May. It is no secret that Boris Johnson’s track record on race-relations and multiculturalism is truly horrific but the fact that the BNP are actually calling him second preference reiterates suspicions that the Conservative candidate will not support and celebrate diversity in London like Ken Livingstone has done.

After all, what can you expect from a man who referred to black people as ‘picaninnies’ ‘with watermelon smiles’? And did I mention that he thinks ‘racism is natural’?

Yesterday’s poll in The Sunday Times showed Ken on 45% of first preference votes and Boris on 44%. We urgently need to keep the momentum of the campaign moving forward in the next ten days if we want to have a proper Mayor like Ken who has worked to reduce the number of racist attacks in London by more than 50% in the last eight years. If you are able to help out at all, please contact me or sign up here.

I spent the day working with Michael Nicolaides who is Labour’s fantastic candidate in the Highgate by-election on May 1. This by-election was called after Tory councillor Paul Barton resigned because he couldn’t honour his commitments to the council or his constituents.

Michael told me that he thought the former councillor had failed Highgate’s residents by not listening to their concerns and that he was determined to change this. Michael went to William Ellis School locally and has been a resident in the ward for many years so his knowledge of the area is impressive.

I asked him about the main issues that he’s been campaigning on and he explained that he is extremely anxious because the Tory/Lib Dem Council are selling off 500 of Camden’s homes when there are thousands of families desperately waiting to be housed. Michael recently met with the housing ministers to discuss Camden’s homes because he wants to ensure that adequate investment takes place so that properties are not sold off unnecessarily.

We also discussed the Tory/Lib Dem coalition’s poor attitude towards the environment. They have now withdrawn door-to-door recycling from housing estates across Camden and Michael stressed the need to highlight green issues both in Highgate and in the borough generally. Amongst other ideas, he told me that he wants every shop in the Camden ward to either ban or charge for plastic carrier bags.

Overall an excellent campaign and one that I’ll definitely be helping out with. Please do contact me if you can lend a hand or you can email Michael directly – michael.nicolaides@gmail.com.

I delivered anti-racist leaflets in my local area today because I’m concerned that not enough people are aware of the fact that the BNP have a real chance of getting elected to the London Assembly on May 1.

I’ve lived in London for 10 years now and one of the greatest things about this city is its unique multiculturalism. The BNP are effectively trying to wipe this out with their theory that non-whites can never be British, even if they were born here and have spent their entire lives here. Additionally, the BNP believes that any form of mixed-race relationship would lead to the “dilution of the white race”.

If you do not want a member of the BNP representing you in London’s government, you need to vote on May 1. The upcoming elections work on proportional representation and everyone, regardless of which mainstream party they support, needs to vote in order to stop the BNP from reaching the 5 per cent of the vote they need to be elected.

I went to the Surma Community Centre today for an event to celebrate the 37th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence.

Along with Camden Councillors and residents, Frank Dobson MP, Nicky Gavron and Murad Qureshi made speeches about the Bengali community’s important contribution to life in London.

The event finished with an excellent cultural show where young children from the community sang and danced. I was really impressed with their talent and confidence. You can see some of the photos from the event here.

Nicky highlighted the importance of voting in the upcoming Mayoral and GLA elections on the 1st of May. She spoke about her priorities for the two boroughs she’s standing in which include more affordable housing, better youth facilities, increased employment and transport improvements.

Nicky and I chatted about the closure of local post offices and she told me that she has been campaigning to save post offices both in Camden and Barnet. We discussed how the Conservative Party’s false local campaigns against post office closures were exposed after the performance of their front bench team in an Opposition Debate in Parliament last week.

Conservative MP Alan Duncan’s cynical opportunism was revealed almost immediately in the debate. He agreed with the Secretary of State about the need to “face the facts” about the Post Offices position: namely, falling customer numbers and revenues due to online mail. He also said:

“Let me make it clear that we fully expect the network to shrink in size. We have never given a guarantee that no post offices will close, because such a guarantee is not ours to give.”

Throughout the debate, the Conservative MPs offered no ideas about what they would do differently to deal with the new realities the Post Office faces in attracting customers in an online age. They had no idea how to make up the £200m fall in Post Office revenue that resulted from providing customers with a more efficient and effective service by paying benefits directly to their bank accounts.

Ultimately, the Tories admitted they had ‘no new money’ to offer the Post Offices which makes me think that they really need to stop campaigning on false promises!

I’ve had a very busy week at work dealing with media calls about the situation in Tibet as my boss, Harry Cohen MP, is the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Tibet.

On Tuesday 18th March, Harry went to give his support to hunger strikers outside the Chinese Embassy in London. Tibetan students studying in the UK are participating in a twenty-four hour hunger strike in solidarity and support of Tibetan students who have been arrested following the demonstrations in Lhasa.

The hunger strike is a relay with each group completing twenty-four hours before breaking and passing on to the next group of protesters. At the invitation of Tenzin Samphel, Chairman of the Tibetan Community in Britain, Harry provided the protesters with fruit juice to break their strike and mark the beginning of the next twenty-four hours of hunger. I found out later that some of the Tibetan students had camped overnight outside the Embassy with hardly any bedding which, considering the current weather conditions, could not have been very pleasant.

On Wednesday 20th March, Harry and I went to meet Tibetans from all over Britain who had come to lobby their local MPs about helping their family and friends in Tibet. Just before meeting them, the Prime Minister announced during Prime Minister’s Questions that he would be meeting with the Dalai Lama when the Dalai Lama visits the UK in May this year.

Harry was delighted with this piece of news as he had previously written to Gordon Brown urging him to meet the Dalai Lama. Harry believes that this meeting will be crucial in conveying the message that Britain favours freedom of religion and cultural diversity. We discussed Dalai Lama’s important position of ‘the middle way’, which is basically a non-violent path to achieving his people’s rights.

Harry and I decided that although we don’t usually agree with what David Cameron has to say, we thought his opening question during PMQs was an excellent one.

David Cameron asked:

“The whole world will have been shocked by the pictures on television last night of the security crackdown and the dead bodies on the streets of Lhasa and other parts of Tibet. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that, yes, our relationship with China is vital, and China is a major power, but we must be absolutely clear in telling the Chinese Government that this is completely unacceptable?”

The Prime Minister replied:

“I spoke to Premier Wen of China this morning, and I made it absolutely clear that there had to be an end to violence in Tibet. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will agree with that. I also called for constraint, and I called for an end to the violence by dialogue between the different parties. The Premier told me that subject to two things that the Dalai Lama has already said—that he does not support the total independence of Tibet and that he renounces violence—he would be prepared to enter into dialogue with the Dalai Lama. I will meet the Dalai Lama when he is in London. I think it is important that we all facilitate discussions, but the most important thing at the moment is to bring about an end to the violence, to see reconciliation, and to see legitimate talks taking place between those people in China.”

Mr Cameron’s expression and response made me think that he really wasn’t expecting Mr Brown’s answer to be quite so positive. He said:

“Can I congratulate the Prime Minister on making absolutely the right decision with regard to the Dalai Lama? It is a difficult decision, but it would not have been made any better by delaying it, and I congratulate him on doing the right thing.”

And obviously Gordon couldn’t resist delivering his final line:

“We make the right decisions at all times.”

Good old Gordon. He’s been coming out with some great one-liners lately!

I met Ken Livingstone at Chadswell Healthy Living Centre in King’s Cross on Friday whilst he was recording his BBC Political Broadcast. You can see my photos here.

I had the chance to question him about his plans for improvements to transportion in London. Since I use public transport every day, it’s a very important issue for me and I was pleased to hear that it is top priority for Ken. Coincidentally, he uses the same route as I do to get to work so I asked him specific questions about delays, overcrowding and topping up my Oyster card.

Ken said that he was going to introduce measures, which will allow me to use my mobile phone to put money on my Oyster, which will definitely ease the stress of queuing up before work to do it. I know I should really try and top up the night before but somehow I always find myself doing it during rush hour on a Monday morning!

I also asked him about the buses on Finchley Road which are really good for getting to Oxford Street and Victoria, but I am always worried about using them because I never know when they are going to arrive. He said that there was already 2,000 ‘Countdown’ display systems installed at bus stops across London and that Finchley Road will certainly benefit from this second-by-second bus information technology very soon. I’m glad that the display will also include information about planned road works, as this tends to be a key factor when timing my journey.

I quizzed him further about his ideas for making London’s transport system more environmentally friendly and he spoke about his commitment to ‘greening the buses’ which entails a new fleet of cleaner hybrid-powered buses. I then told him about my recent trip to Helsinki where my Finnish sister-in-law told me about their popular ‘Citybikes’ . I told him that a similar system would encourage more people to cycle and allow tourists to explore London on bikes.

Mr Livingstone replied that although there are a few cycle hire schemes in London already, he recognised the need to improve cycling in London so he is definitely going to bring in easier methods to hire bikes, introduce super cycleways and design safe cycling zones. If this is implemented, I may consider cycling occasionally, as it will also increase my dwindling exercise intake!

I spent the whole of yesterday working on housing cases whilst watching Chancellor Alistair Darling’s 2008 Budget.

As Women’s Officer for London Young Labour, I was happy to hear Mr Darling’s announcement that there will be a capital fund of £12.5m to encourage more women entrepreneurs. I was also encouraged by the Chancellor’s promise to help lift 250,000 children out of poverty.

There was definitely a distinct ‘green’ streak running through the Budget. As well as a pledge of £26m to help make homes greener and consideration to raise the UK target for emissions cuts to 80% by 2050, the Chancellor also seemed determined to do something about disposable plastic bags. If retailers do not take steps themselves to cut back on their use of plastic bags, then legislation may be brought in next year that could force them to charge for these bags. I think this is an important step and one that has already been adopted by countries, not just in Europe, but worldwide. In fact, polythene bags have been banned in Bangladesh for 5 years now - perhaps Mr Darling should consider following that example?

I went out campaigning in Queens Park today for Lesley Daisley. The by-election is this Thursday (13 March) and I think Lesley would make a fantastic councillor. She is the only candidate who lives in the ward and has extensive knowledge about the the local issues. If any of you are around to help out on Polling Day, please do contact me. We need all the help we can get!

I’m also looking forward to helping out with the Hope Not Hate campaign this coming weekend. It’s the London-wide push to stop the BNP from getting a seat in the GLA elections. There are several events taking place all over London and I would definitely encourage everyone to get involved in this important campaign.