How they influence me

Losing the Plot - Midland Report BBC 2000

Nick Booth has been a great influence. His documentary - Losing the Plot - was aired on the BBC in the early days of our campaign in Handsworth for the Victoria Jubilee Allotments (VJA) - a local action to save green space from building development that began in 1999 and continues. A planning gain agreement - S106A - was negotiated on the VJA in 2003 and formally permitted by Birmingham City Council in 2004 - N/01514/03/FUL. It allowed the applicant - at that time Westbury Homes - to build houses on a third of the site in return for playing fields and 80 new allotment plots. I recall feeling that after a long fight we'd lost - but the new VJA when opened will I've been told, be the largest new municipal allotments site opened in the UK since the second world war.

Plots on the VJA site were supposed to become available in 2008, but did not, then 2009 and then this year. Recession has been the excuse as well as legal complications surrounding the handing over of the land to the ownership of Birmingham City Council. After continued delays and promises the council allotments officer - Adrian Stagg - told us, a few weeks ago, that plots will be available under licence from the current developer - Persimmon Homes - this June.

FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE VICTORIA JUBILEE ALLOTMENTS AND TO GET ON THE SHORT LIST FOR A PLOT WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE PHONE ADRIAN STAGG ON 0121 303 3038 allotments@birmingham.gov.uk

In the film the VJA case arises at 03.28, 07.14, 15.15 and 17.44. Nick Booth moved from a successful career in broadcasting shortly after making this documentary about allotments - the basis for our continued friendship - and has now become a significant presence on the internet as a freelance journalist, mentor and campaigner for the spread of grassroot politics (see also Be Vocal, Help Me Investigate and Nick's page on Twitter)

* * *

On a chill rainy Saturday morning we were litter-picking in Black Patch Park and nearby streets. Most litter was the usual casually discarded beverage bottles, plastic bags, crisp and sweet wrappers. There was the detritus of more organised activity - bedsteads, guttering, plastic strippings from filched copper wire strewn over a heap of crystallised roofing material. I'm hesitant, often sceptical about 'compacts', 'partnerships', 'empowerment of communities', 'communities of practice' - the argot of enabling networks - but there were quite a set of us working together - Friends of Black Patch Park, two PCSOs, Zaida from Midland Heart who organised food in the meeting room of the houses they manage off Murdock Road next to the park, some residents of those homes with whom, until now, we've never made successful contact and a few from Sandwell Council's environmental services. I brought Oscar along, happily sitting in the plastic cycle pannier until I could let him rove. Carl Murphy, freelance photographer, came to get pics for stories that may appear in local papers and Midland Heart's glossies.

Litter-picking: Murdock Road near Black Patch Park

* * *

Another influence. My stepfather's biographer is the writer and journalist Paul Peacock. Since he wrote about Jack we've stayed in touch. Paul has continued a sinuous career, becoming dexterous with the grammar of the blogosphere, popularising issues close to my and many other's hearts and minds.

As well as authoring books, Paul and Diana Peacock, , have been running City Cottage on the web, offering guidance on cooking, farming, self-sufficiency, including butchery, bee-keeping, smoking and curing, and sausage making - a portal to The Internet Gardener, the Mirror Gardening section, and Home Farmer, linked and accompanied by pithy podcasts streamed by Grow Your Own Channel with connection to allotments and the low-impact living initiative. I subscribe to Paul and Diana's circular:

We have moved house and right in the middle of it we fancied something homely: cottage pie .You never know how stressful moving house is - completely tiring, disabling, disorientating but completely wonderful. The vinegar factory we used to look at has been replaced by the Pennines and the factory, the tenth most polluting factory in the UK, has been replaced by hundreds of tradesmen and artisans, lovely bakers, butchers by the score. Where we used to live there was only one proper butchers serving around 30 000 people - the rest were supermarkets. Here there are four in the village, serving only around 5000 people. Bliss!

* * *

Alan who has a slightly deranged Milligan way with words, sends his latest report with photo on the state of the external stairs-balcony project in Ano Korakiana - what he calls the Simlim pass:

I had just finished the lower landing of the Simlim pass and was working around the upper level when the black and white cater-ban insurgence was detected and was making its way down the Simlim pass. Before I could set up reinforcements, it had struck a devastating attack on the lower landing base with some collateral damage to the steps above them making its escape - all most cat-like - into the flowers. Workers sent in to make good the damage before nightfall. I had to return to base camp for rest and supplies to body, hoping that the cater-ban won't make a night time raid! Kids and cats on working backs no room to slack.

It's nice to see the mouldings Alan's putting on the edge of each step and how much of the little window still shows, but regarding the 'cater-ban insurgence' I'm wondering it there's something in the water of Corfu. There was another bloke - Edward something who spent time there....and became quite quare...

** ** **

The Mayors of Corfu, Paxos and the Community Council of Diapontia - the north western islands - have written to the Prime Minister opposing being united, under the Kallicrates Plan,into one municipality. Back in March Ioannis Bravis made a case for three new authorities - one in the north west including the Diapontian Islands, a second in the south up to Benitses and Lake Korission, with a third key council containing the biggest concentration of settlements and economic drivers covering an area from Kassiopi and the north west down the east coast to Benitses over to Lake Korission and back up the Ropa Valley to Paleokastritsa centred on Corfu Town. Papandreou's one council including all Corfu plus Paxos up to Diapontian Erikoussa will - suggests the latest letter - dilute the potential of the 'concentrated' area suggested by Ioannis Bravi, and fail to provide the local services and local focus needed to develop the special concerns of the smaller, more distant, less populated and unique smaller islands. It's ironical that by including Paxos with Corfu and its satellite islands to the north west, the Kallicrates proposal for the area matches the inflammatory proposal of Lord High Commissioner Sir John Young during the latter years of the British Protectorate for Britain to colonise Paxos and Corfu, ceding the remaining Ionian islands to the Greek kingdom.

*** ***

Jim Potts is concerned about the future of cycle lanes on Corfu.

...after listening to Greek friends and watching tonight's Logos-Anti logos programme on the Corfu TV Channel, I came to realise that the project had not been properly planned, but was submitted to the Municipal Council for comment and possible amendment only 24 hours before the cut off date for submission to the European Union. Will all this funding go to waste? Was the initial study done by people with sufficient experience? (Corfu blues 31 May 2010)

Elias Valaris wrote an op-ed on cycling in Corfu - not just recreational cycling - in Corfu Press (Greek version - Να κερδίσουμε το στοίχημα της μετακίνησης με ποδήλατο) on 19 May.

Το διασκεδαστικό βέβαια, είναι ότι πλέον ψάχνουμε τρόπους και ευκαιρίες όλοι στην εφημερίδα μας να χρησιμοποιήσουμε περισσότερο τα ποδήλατά μας κι αυτό μπορώ να σας πω ότι εκτός από αναζωογονητικό μας προσφέρει και μια νέα επαφή φιλίας μεταξύ φίλων και συναδέλφων.

The fun, of course, is that now we are looking ways and opportunities for everyone in our newspaper to use more of our bikes...I can tell you that as well as being healthy, cycling offers new contact between friends and colleagues. Besides liberating the bicycle, we are assured of finding a different Corfu hidden...beneath the routine of everyday life.

Celebrating the bicycle in this way, still seems bizarre to many. Despite frustrations and costs, most people embrace cars as essential; in many cases, as objects of desire; part of the aspirational vector of the times - especially among those whose parents, and certainly grandparents had no choice but to walk, ride bicycles and even donkeys. The arrival of cyclists with attitude; cyclists who actually want to cycle instead of driving, who in some cases have divorced their car is shocking and irritating...and when these cyclists start campaigning for the removal of cars from many streets, from whole areas of the city and for more and more restrictions on those things that made cars a means of tapping into unprecedented independence and freedom, taking over the highway, lobbying for speed limits, traffic calming and cycle lanes....well, no wonder drivers begin to feel that even behind the wheel of 2000 kilos of metal they've somehow become victims. Before year-round cycling can increase in popularity, there's a universe of embedded values fed by sophisticated marketing to be unpicked. It will take a long time, even with escalating fuel prices, for the majority to prise themselves from their beloved cars. Physical changes in road design seem like impositions in an autodependent world.

Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia. H.G. Wells

* * *

A very public admission of corruption reported in a Kathimerini's editorial today: 'Into Corruption's Labyrinth' - a confession to a Parliamentary Select Committee by a close colleague of ex-Transport Minister Tasos Mantelis that his Minister took money from Siemens as a bribe - formally described as election sponsorship - to award them a major IT contract in 1997 while Mantelis was a member of Costas Simitis’s PASOK government. The bribe money was partly used, to fund Mantelis' son's studies at Columbia University - see 'the horror'- how corruption works. Linda remarked of Papandreou "He really is trying to sort out this problem' This after I'd told her about Corfu MP Angela Gerekou's resignation over her entertainer husband's falsified tax claims

Visiting Richard and Wendy Hill

Roach (Rutilus rutilus) carved by Richard Hill in 1975 and 2010

I took the train to Havant to see Richard and Wendy Hill again. I forgot the number of their house, cycled by, turned my head and there he was to usher me into his home where Wendy had a cup of tea ready.

I restrained myself from asking, despite my keenness to see the sleek carving of the roach he'd finished. He gave it to Jack forty years ago - a fish he'd carved in profile - right side only - from a piece of the taffrail of an old paddle steamer. J fixed it to the bedhead at Raven Cottage (Googlemaps identifies the wrong address) where he lived to the end of his life in 1994. This March Richard took the fish back from me after I'd asked if he'd carve the blank side.

He'd done an exquisite job as I knew he would - adding an eye, a gill, a second pectoral fin, filling fixing holes in the fish's uncarved flank, scarfing a new tip for the chipped tail fin.

I knew Richard would balk at any payment, but I'd been able to dig out a passport of JH's with signature and photo as a small souvenir and gift.

I'd met Richard because he'd sought my help getting permission to extract a film* from the archive in Plymouth of him taking Jack fishing long ago - a day that J made into an episode of Out of Town. Richard showed me a DVD put together by South West Film and Television Archive of him, two friends - Eddie Cooke and Jamie Fox - fishing for Black Seabream off Littlehampton in 1975. Jennie Constable and her colleagues at SWFTA managed, out of hundreds of separated clips, to marry Stan Bréhaut's film with a background soundtrack, and sent it to him. I've borrowed this, ripped it and added some titles and uploaded it to Vimeo (click on the four diverging arrows next to the word Vimeo to get full screen).

We enjoyed each other's company chatting about everything until it was time for my train back to Birmingham. Richard wrapped the wooden fish carefully and I brought it home. * * * That same evening Kim and Tanya and I had one of our regular reunion suppers at Henry's in St.Paul's Square, sharing news, speculating about the future, wondering what's going to happen - "let's be adventurous" - ordering nearly all the same things. "People are vexed aren't they?" I said, retailing recent incidents. "I was in a shop the other day buying ciggies, and caught the tail end exchange 'anyone could be redundant'. I was in front of a large new car cycling to a meeting at Warwick. The driver abruptly hoots at me, mainly, though I don't really understand, for being in front of him. As I left Euston station a man in his thirties with an earphone and a sagging shirt muttered 'Idiot!' I was cycling slower than he was walking. 'F*ck off' he muttered not even glancing askance as he scurried by' I was puzzled but not as dismayed as this morning on New Street concourse. A man walked by trailing a loose lace. 'Excuse me, your shoelace's undone' I called, 'Piss off' he says not looking at me." Casual incivilities. Growing cracks in a strained dyke? The recession isn't bringing visible privation - yet. "Maslow's hierarchy reversed. A vacation that can't happen; a voyage postponed more and more indefinitely. Hope of a place at university recedes; a house move grows impractical. Young people can't leave the parental nest. A business can't expand. Hopes become attenuated. "perhaps it's that being older I forget my own volatility when younger." Tanya and Kim asked me about Greece. I surfed impressions - strongest in their impact on Linda and me are local robberies. We'd felt free of that. Then in early May I heard of two burglaries - one from the home of an acquaintance in the centre of Corfu town; another from the house of relatives of friends on the fringe of Ano Korakiana and I read that Teacherdude in Thessaloniki- whose street blog with images on how things are in Greece I value - had had his apartment robbed yet again.

** ** **

MY NOTES ON THE MIDWEEK CABINET SEMINAR

To supplement recollections. The event was put together by xx & ** with Simon Baddeley, Birmingham University, as facilitator. The programme, from 1000-1530, was introduced by the Leader and CEO, followed by a talk and discussion with ** ***, Mayor of *** then two sessions – one from the senior council lawyer on decision rules and one from head of corporate strategy on ***'s structures and processes, a talk from Simon on constructing trust at the political-management interface, followed by two exercises – one facilitated by Simon B and *** *** exploring differences in perspective among members and officers in the policy process, with the final session led by the Leader looking at issues surrounding the development of a performance framework for Cabinet

Leader of the Council: What does ‘cabinet’ mean? What are we going to do? How do you want to lead the council in a different way? Every member of staff behave like a parent, treat members of the public as if they were a relative. Treat council finances with the same care as you would your own money. Innovative approach to problems – whether with officers or people outside. Important the Leader and CE work together, and remember we are the politicians.

CEO: We want the same close working relationships we had with the previous administration. Positive things. We don’t have to broker now between parties. We need to be told how in future you want us to manage things. “We need to be told that” ‘Talk-machine’. How staff see and note the officer-member conversation. Extremely difficult times. We want to be challenged. “A draft is a draft”. We’re here to help you on the journey.

*** *** Mayor of *** - Taking power: working with councillors and officers: What was the vote? Manifesto – respect for detail. How to get it into the Corporate Plan of the authority. Meetings, meetings meetings with officers. How will it work on the ground? How much £? Group has already worked up proposals within the officer machine. A method of performance management – embedded, strong performance management, scheme – web based programme. – In-depth quarterly reviews of performance, key projects – phone charges – detail. “Don’t get sucked in.” Follow the finances – your relationship with the direction of finances. (We brought in financial competency at 2nd/3rd tier. Expensive but essential).

Councillors’ role in changing the system. Capacity/competence. Procurement is managerial but it’s also political. Political-management. Capital projects. BSE. Decent homes. Make it possible for “officers to ‘fess up.”

Relations with senior officers – strong relationships/ strong partnerships. Can take years. Away-days. Tricky but you need quality time with them. Myers-Briggs? Relations with the wider political party - have a detailed performance ledger to show them what you're achieving with what resources.

Structures and decision-making. Principle Lawyer/Head of Corporate Strategy

SB on political-management leadership. ‘Cabinet’ is still a relatively new idea in local government. Can you present your portfolios in 3 minutes? Present and defend each other’s portfolios? Speak for Cabinet if required? These challenges are made manageable by the quality of your collaboration; the quality of briefing from officers. Constructing trust. Recognise tensions between political and managerial spheres. Working where these activities overlap. Negotiating the overlap. Simplistic separation of policy (members) and implementation (officers) not an option given communication and trust needed to address ‘wicked’ challenges. A frequent conversation in political-management space is about where policy is made. A 'fuzzy grey area' that needs to expand. This can be compared to ‘policies’ about what is cooked and eaten in a restaurant. Decisions by a guest presented with a menu are constrained by decisions made in the kitchen about the menu’s content. Choice may be widened; the initiative shifted if there’s prior discussion, between chef and guest, about the menu. Choice-making becomes more sophisticated as the guest learns more about how the kitchen works and the chef learns more about customers’ tastes. Guest palate and chef’s cuisine may - via mutual learning based on conversation, tasting, observation, ratchet up the quality of the relationship between what’s cooked and what’s eaten, making it increasingly difficult to tell where decisions are made about what gets served, even though it remains clear who’s guest and who’s chef. (‘don’t get sucked in’”, “If the chef insists on observance of certain health and safety rules before you enter the kitchen, that shouldn’t be construed as reluctance to have you in there.”)

SB/** Officer-member perceptions exercise

Leader of the Council - ‘Performance framework for Cabinet’

• Ability to defend the Cabinet beyond the scope of your portfolio

• Engagement with the local population – keeping in touch with the voters. ‘Winning the argument in the community” “Being political champions”. Campaigning

• Building an understanding and keep on refreshing that understanding of finance + the way money is spent in your portfolio (and beyond)

• Taking people with you → public perceptions

• Knowing what the risks are

• How you recover from a bad situation

• Managing political risk

SB suggested evolving a web profile of Cabinet – first for internal understanding among Cabinet members and senior officers, other members and all officers, and as its refined, the public domain (not a big exercise. With the web so available, a cabinet profile can be assembled piecemeal by individual Cabinet members. S volunteered to help)

*** *** Amy's changed her name and is now in the police. Her formal training started in April; continues to October, followed by two years' probation. With public sector cuts these posts are vulnerable, but cutting front-line policing is politically unpopular with the public.

And on the Ano Korakiana website Thanassis has posted a picture of me walking with Amy to the church on her wedding day and sent this sweet message:

Γάμος και χαρά

Οι συγχωριανοί και φίλοι μας, ο Simon και η Lin, βρέθηκαν αυτήν την περίοδο στην Αγγλία με αφορμή ένα ευτυχές γεγονός: στις 17 Μαΐου παντρεύτηκε η κόρη τους στην εκκλησία Alvie στη Σκωτία, σε στενό οικογενειακό και φιλικό περιβάλλον. Όπως σημειώνουν στο blog τους, η τελετή ήταν απλή σαν την εκκλησία και η μουσική έπαιζε για την περίσταση. Ο ιερέας τους καλωσόρισε και η γαμήλια τελετή άρχισε με την απαγγελία ύμνων, ενώ οι δύο γονείς ήταν φανερά συγκινημένοι...

Τους ευχόμαστε ολόψυχα κάθε ευτυχία…

The posting titled 'marriage and happiness' finishes: .

...the priest welcomed them and the wedding ceremony began with the recitation of hymns, while both parents were visibly excited ... We wish them every happiness ...

* * * *

On Tuesday I met with friends at The Soho Foundry pub to learn, after missing several meetings, about progress on winning support for Black Patch Park. Harjinder, Andrew, Barbara, Ron - our chair, and Sue were in our group. Links have at last been made with residents of Murdoch Avery and Boulton Roads who are concerned about Midland Heart's plans for their future.

There's no money - now or in the future - beyond the most basic maintenance from Sandwell Council responsible for stewarding the park. On Saturday the council will provide us and other volunteers with a skip, gloves and litter-pickers so we can spend a couple of hours cleaning up. Harjinder has been working over the last year on listing all potential partners and the group commented on a final draft of a membership form - to build up support and raise money through subs. We do not seem to be a site for drug users, mugging or other delinquencies - possibly because though full of large trees, hedges and shrubs the park is quite conspicuous from the surrounding roads and most of its users travel to the park from quite a distance. Its relative isolation in a limbo between Birmingham and Sandwell turns out an advantage. Part of our strength comes from Ted Rudge's work in bringing back the history of the Gypsy connection with the Black Patch and the support we've had campaigning from old Gypsy families. Another strength comes from the footballers and the value they place on this piece of ground. The hoped for connection with next door Soho Foundry remains tenuous. Sandwell with many other local councils is deeply cash strapped but at least the Soho Foundry has been moth-balled rather than set for demolition.

Black Patch Park, Foundry Road, Sandwell

** ** ** Very encouraging news about the old band building - a most handsome but semi-derelict structure at the top of Ano Korakiana. We'd heard rumours of an application for a restoration grant. That's now in the pipeline along with grants for musical instrument:

Με το έγγραφο αυτό η Νομαρχία θα προχωρήσει εντός των ημερών στη δημοσίευση πρόσκλησης ανοικτού διαγωνισμού στον Τύπο, προκειμένου να αναδειχτεί ο Ανάδοχος του Έργου, στις 29 Ιουνίου (αν όλα πάνε καλά), οπότε θα ανοιχτούν οι προσφορές.Ήδη σήμερα, στη Συνεδρίαση της αρμόδιας Νομαρχιακής Επιτροπής, εγκρίθηκε η διενέργεια του διαγωνισμού.Έτσι, μάλλον ολοκληρώνεται η πρώτη φάση της προετοιμασίας, της εξασφάλισης χρηματοδότησης και της προκήρυξης του διαγωνισμού και στο μεσο-καλόκαιρο θα ξεκινήσει η φάση της υλοποίησης.

There'll be an invitation to tender and the successful bidder should be announced on 29 June '10.

** ** **

*Except for commercial material sold on DVD of Jack Hargreaves' Out of Town series, I had, until the SWFTA's collection appeared, a number of extracts recorded on domestic VHS video recorders. I'm enormously grateful to people who donated copies preserved this way and then donated them to me, and since kept on CD as MPG and MOV files. Here's an example:

Jack Hargreaves 'Out of Town' ~ Dorset Buttons

Ithaca or The City

So we made it back from Corfu to the Highlands for our daughter's wedding. Richard, our son, took the photo of Amy and Guy leaving Alvie Church. Now we're properly back in Birmingham. It's hot for England. Lots to be done in the garden. Trailing Oscar, I visited Handsworth Park

Many were enjoying the hot weather. Chatted with Keith, one of the wardens, about staffing uncertainties, and shared his frustration that yet another motorist had driven into the park wall on Grove Lane, distorting railings; smashing 10 feet of brickwork, just after the repair of similar damage off Hamstead and Holly Roads.

Peered through the railings at the Victoria Jubilee Allotments site. There's still a lot to do if they're to be ready by June 6th. Dropped into Apple in the Bullring to get my keyboard repaired, and raised with Nick M the possibility of tutoring in Greek. Amy and Guy came round - both back at work. I'm touting some new short courses, seeking to arrange another Leader-CEO video, going to a meeting on Tuesday evening about Black Patch Park, going to Warwick tomorrow morning to see Jonathan Davies to put together another bid to the ESRC, skyped Annie G in Bendigo, noticing she was her on line at one in the morning there; heard news of changes at the Durrell School and the success of last week's seminar, wrote a brief slightly garbled email to Thanassis and Katya in Ano Korakiana about building knowledge on what makes a village sustainable...and collected Richard from New Street after his Sunday flight back from the Highlands. He's assembling and editing photos of the wedding.

** ** **

I know very little of Cavafy - an humane and self-deprecating genius - a man who in the 1930s presciently described himself as 'a poet of future generations'. The introduction which guided me is Auden's. [He wrote 'I do not know a word of Modern Greek, so that my only access to Cavafy’s poetry has been through English and French translations.'] When Cavafy says 'you', he means himself. In his latest book about Epirus and the Ionian Islands, Jim Potts quotes lines from Cavafy - à propos Corfu - the last two lines of The City - to which I've added one earlier line:

There is no ship for you. There is no road.
As you have ruined your life here in this little corner,
you have destroyed the whole world.

δεν έχει πλοίο για σε, δεν έχει οδό.

Ετσι που τη ζωή σου ρήμαξες εδώ

στην κώχη τούτη την μικρή, σ' όλην την γή την χάλασες.

Unlike Ithaca and Waiting for the Barbarians - often recited, more portentously than I suspect the poet intended - I'd not come across this poem. I looked it up. The City inverts Ithaca. The latter's a benediction. A prayer for a wedding. Your destination is less important than your enjoyment of the journey. Keep advancing the ETA. The City's an execration, a curse. Blight one place, you'll blight the others. Give up trying to find a place where the grass is greener. You carry the waste land with you. Thank you Jim..a new planet...realms of gold...peak in Darien.

I read about one of the moderators of last week's seminar on the History and Culture of the Ionian Islands at the Durrell School website - a man immersed in the poetry of Cavafy

Anthony Hirst, until recently Lecturer in Modern Greek (and now honorary research fellow) in the Institute of Byzantine Studies, Queen's University Belfast, is a member of the Board of the Durrell School. Hirst has written a commentary on the parallel Greek text of a 2003 translation by Evangelos Sachperoglou of Collected Poems by C.P. Cavafy; introduction by Peter Mackridge, a fellow moderator at the same seminar. I've just ordered it, second hand, from Amazon. Reading about the challenges of capturing Cavafy in English given his 'braiding of demotic with Katharevousa Greek' I can see the especial value of publishing original Greek and English alongside each other.

Briefing

The City in May

I've got mail - about the coalition:

Simon...Whatever else might be said about our sainted Coalition, it's certainly transformed the political landscape. Already, a coupla weeks down the line, New Labour are the oldest news. Scarcely a day (or a joint press conference) goes by without the ober-Tories going a deeper shade of scarlet. The Rage on the Right is a joy to behold and the smart money has to settle on the short-odds bet that Dave and Nick probably mean it...never thought I'd wake up to sniff a bonfire of Tory manifesto pledges - Inheritance Tax, Capital Gains Tax, and constitutional reform to name but three. Neither would I ever have associated St Vince with yet another assault on the Post Office* (sugared with a helping of shares for the workforce). These guys are serious and a full five years begins to sound less than fanciful.

Dave is clearly the King of Political Opportunity, out-ballsing even Blair in his C4 moment (parking his tanks on the 1922's turf was a delicious piece of Sudenten-kraft). So where do the ubers go now? And - much more importantly - WTF happens to the metropolitani of New Labour?

In the annals of Blind Robbery, Dave is an extremely gifted operator. In broad daylight, with Lib Dem connivance, he's stealing NuLab's clobber and leaving the poor bunnies to their fate. The only real direction to head is leftwards, towards (brace yourself) some kind of socialism... but a journey like that would tear the party apart. No wonder Cruddas, wise man, said no thank you.

And here's the best quote from this morning's press...an aside from a comparison with the giddy days of '97. These guys, says whomever, are moving at breakneck speed and bolting down promise after promise. Much of this stuff will necessarily have to wait a while, not least because - as smiler Liam confirmed - we're skint. But the sheer velocity of what's happening takes your breath away. And Blair's boys? Back in '97? They hit the ground reviewing.

Nice.G.

** ** **

Took the train to London, cycled through the city to the river, via Holborn and Fleet Street, King William Street; crossed the river on Waterloo Bridge, commuters coming the other way; east on to Tooley Street. When I ride at rush hour in the city I think lines in the heads of thousands since they were composed, since I heard them at school - recorded by Eliot in Mr Lushington's English class at Westminster. He encouraged listening, slipping in analysis when you weren't looking. Redemption and commuting elide unhindered by reasoning:

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought ... And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

... Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours...

But London wasn't like this. Nor I. Lushington also explained the objective-correlative in a way I could understand; which still makes sense. Unvoiced words - phrases - assemble in my head - the river glideth...mighty heart...all bright and glittering in the smokeless air...and with the heart of May doth every beast keep holiday - correlating artlessly with my surroundings connecting them timelessly to all I've known and been taught since birth - sublime and banal, agreeably jostling.

The crowd, like me, did feel sprightly, flowing indeed but more like a parade than a procession. Brown fogs gone.

I'm working with a new council executive next week. This morning I met with with a senior officer and the new council leader to talk through my draft:

GOVERNANCE IN XXX: GETTING THE BEST FROM OFFICERS

Seminar for a new Executive

AIMS

• To understand political and managerial roles, responsibilities and structures and how they are changing,

• To demonstrate ways in which member-officer collaboration gives direction and purpose to local government,

• To learn more about working effectively with and through officers.

This event for senior members aims to strengthen the purpose, creativity and direction of the Council in difficult times. It will focus on better understanding of how new policies emerge, about negotiating the respective roles of members and officers, about clarifying the role of cabinet in the decision-making, modernising corporate governance, reviewing individual skills and information needs, and enhancing organisational capacity.

STYLE: Simon Baddeley with xxxx will use short talks, films, and exercises to stimulate analysis, reflection and shared discussion of these issues.

PROGRAMME (As the programme is participative, timing of specific sessions between start at 1000 and finish at 1500 may vary. Short breaks to be agreed)

Welcome. Introductions. Purpose of the day - Leader and CEO

'The Improvement Journey': working with councillors and officers – invited elected Mayor from an exceptional council

BREAK

Briefing on Xxx Council’s organisational structure – xxxx

A performance framework for the new Cabinet? – Simon Baddeley/Cllr xxxx, Leader of the Council

LUNCH

Constructing trust between members and officers – short talk and discussion introduced and illustrated by SB

Summary: What we take from the day; implications for our work as a Cabinet – Leader of the Council

CLOSE

* * * My colleague Philip Whiteman has helpfully extracted local government relevant policies from ‘The Coalition: our programme for Government’ published by the Cabinet Office yesterday, putting in bold what will be of most interest to us at Inlogov: 4. COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT The Government believes that it is time for a fundamental shift of power from Westminster to people. We will promote decentralisation and democratic engagement, and we will end the era of top-down government by giving new powers to local councils, communities, neighbourhoods and individuals.

• We will promote the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups. This will include a review of local government finance.

• We will rapidly abolish Regional Spatial Strategies and return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils, including giving councils new powers to stop ‘garden grabbing’.

• In the longer term, we will radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live, based on the principles set out in the Conservative Party publication Open Source Planning.

• We will abolish the unelected Infrastructure Planning Commission and replace it with an efficient and democratically accountable system that provides a fast-track process for major infrastructure projects.

•We will publish and present to Parliament a simple and consolidated national planning framework covering all forms of development and setting out national economic, environmental and social priorities.

•We will maintain the Green Belt, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and other environmental protections, and create a new designation – similar to SSSIs – to protect green areas of particular importance to local communities.

•We will abolish the Government Office for London and consider the case for abolishing the remaining Government Offices.

• We will provide more protection against aggressive bailiffs and unreasonable charging orders, ensure that courts have the power to insist that repossession is always a last resort, and ban orders for sale on unsecured debts of less than £25,000.

•We will explore a range of measures to bring empty homes into use.

• We will promote shared ownership schemes and help social tenants and others to own or part-own their home.

• We will promote ‘Home on the Farm’ schemes that encourage farmers to convert existing buildings into affordable housing.

•We will create new trusts that will make it simpler for communities to provide homes for local people.

• We will phase out the ring-fencing of grants to local government and review the unfair Housing Revenue Account.

•We will freeze Council Tax in England for at least one year, and seek to freeze it for a further year, in partnership with local authorities.

•We will create directly elected mayors in the 12 largest English cities, subject to confirmatory referendums and full scrutiny by elected councillors.

•We will give councils a general power of competence (SB note: what about 'general competence'?)

•We will ban the use of powers in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) by councils, unless they are signed off by a magistrate and required for stopping serious crime.

•We will allow councils to return to the committee system, should they wish to.

•We will abolish the Standards Board regime.

•We will stop the restructuring of councils in Norfolk, Suffolk and Devon, and stop plans to force the regionalisation of the fire service.

•We will impose tougher rules to stop unfair competition by local authority newspapers.

•We will introduce new powers to help communities save local facilities and services threatened with closure, and give communities the right to bid to take over local state-run services.

•We will implement the Sustainable Communities Act, so that citizens know how taxpayers’ money is spent in their area and have a greater say over how it is spent.

•We will cut local government inspection and abolish the Comprehensive Area Assessment.

•We will require continuous improvements to the energy efficiency of new housing.

•We will provide incentives for local authorities to deliver sustainable development, including for new homes and businesses.

•We will review the effectiveness of the raising of the stamp duty threshold for first-time buyers.

•We will give councillors the power to vote on large salary packages for unelected council officials.

Coming home on the London to Birmingham Pendolino

* * * And from the Ano Korakiana website a reminder, dated 19 May, that the current local council - Demos Faiakon (Δήμος Φαιάκων) - will very soon cease to exist under the Hellenic Government's Kallicrates Plan for reforming Greek local government, and hoping that attention will be given to the collapsing edges of the road just below Venetia by the ravine, and just below the bridge on the same ravine where rain is threatening more damage as well as the need to re-tender the work for the long uncompleted football ground below the village which I understand to be the property of the great Thessaloniki football club PAOK:

Όπως είναι γνωστό, σε μερικούς μήνες, Δήμος Φαιάκων και Νομαρχία Κέρκυρας δεν θα υπάρχουν, σύμφωνα με το σχέδιο «Καλλικράτης». Στη θέση τους θα δημιουργηθεί και θα λειτουργεί μάλλον ένας Δήμος…για όλη την Κέρκυρα. Όσο είναι λοιπόν ακόμη καιρός, η Δημοτική μας Αρχή ας φροντίσει να κλείσει κάποιες εκκρεμότητες και να προωθήσει κάποιες άλλες προς τη Νομαρχία. Ενδεικτικά αναφέρουμε: 1.Την αποκατάσταση από το Δήμο του δρόμου, που από την Επαρχιακή οδό οδηγεί στην είσοδο του χωριού στις Μουργάδες, μέσω Λαμπράδων. Κυρίως εξαιτίας του έργου της γεώτρησης, ο δρόμος έχει καταστραφεί από τη διέλευση βαρέων οχημάτων. Εδώ και μήνες έχει αναγγελθεί η αποκατάστασή του, ενώ έχουν γίνει και οι απαραίτητες τοπογραφικές μετρήσεις. Ενώ όμως το έργο ήταν να δημοπρατηθεί το περασμένο Φθινόπωρο, ακόμη δεν έχει γίνει κάτι και ο κόσμος που τον χρησιμοποιεί καθημερινά ανησυχεί… 2. Την ανάγκη αποκατάστασης από τη Νομαρχία δύο σημείων του επαρχιακού δικτύου εντός του οικισμού όπου το πλευρικό τοίχωμα του κεντρικού δρόμου έχει υποχωρήσει, από τις βροχοπτώσεις του Χειμώνα. Το ένα σημείο βρίσκεται στην είσοδο της Βενετιάς, όπου έχει υποχωρήσει το έδαφος στον τράφο μαζί με τα παρακείμενα δένδρα και το άλλο πριν από το γεφύρι στον μεσαίο δρόμο…όπου πέρα από το χωρίς οπλισμό τοιχίο που «έφυγε» με τις βροχές, έχει αρχίσει και ο δρόμος να «γέρνει». 3.Υπάρχει επίσης η σημαντική εκκρεμότητα του γηπέδου του ΠΑΟΚ, για το οποίο έχει δοθεί για άλλη μια φορά υπόσχεση στη Διοίκηση του Συλλόγου, ότι είναι προς υπογραφή νέα δημοπρασία για την ολοκλήρωση του έργου…Για να δούμε !

* * * Today is of course a day of celebration in Corfu and the other Ionian Islands. 21 May 1864 is the date of the formal ending of the British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands and their union - enosis - with the Hellenic Kingdom. How could any Ionian, unless they were paid servants of the British profiting from the continuance of our military and administrative presence, oppose the lowering of the British flag and the raising of the Γαλανόλευκη over the Septinsular? There were those whose material interests were linked to the spending of the British. There's a fine house near us in the centre of Ano Korakiana that Kostas Apergis - village historian - told me was built from the profits of providing bread to the Protectorate garrison. But I do not mean these people. I refer to that faction within the rizospastai led by Ilias Zervos of Cephalonia

who bitterly resented the calculative way - as they saw it - the British seemed to have deferred to the populist arguments of Constantinos Lombardos of Zakinthos

for enosis, abandoning their Protectorate to the Greek Kingdom before it had been possible to negotiate Zervos' vision of an autonomous Septinsular Republic.

The remnants of this resentment seem to have faded now that Ano Korakiana's band no longer, as they did for many years, absent themselves from the celebration of the anniversary of union along with the band of Kinopiastes

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Alan and Honey, as promised yesterday, sent pictures of the double doors at the top of the new stairs and the support column at the end of the balcony.

Today Greece received the first tranche of the EU bail-out loan. My Greek Odyssey posts Elytis' prophecy from Axion Esti - a recording.

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*It's going to anger many, especially Liberal Democrats, seeing Vince Cable pushing further privatisation of Royal Mail. I fact the LibDems raised this at an annual conference 5 years ago. It's about risk and who'll pay for it, given the demise of paper correspondence, even for legal documents, and growing consumer resistance to junk mail, one of the main items now carried by postal workers. I've scanned the response from businesses that use the post office - the Mail Users Association; also the Postal Services Commission's response to the Independent Review of the UK Postal Services Market. Believing instinctively in the contribution of village and 'corner shop' post offices to social cohesion, this is sad reading. Two years ago I imagined trying to explain to intrigued great grandchildren the process of writing and posting letters. It may be that my sense of place can no longer be confirmed by objects and actions to do with the post as we've known it for two centuries. Perhaps I have to brace myself and unpack, empty and refill a bundle of cherished things I associate with a sense of place and community; fill it with other objects and activities. It's chicken and egg. As conventional paper mail declines so the cost of providing it to those who still use it increases. People, as have we, turn to other ways of doing what was previously done by post. Post boxes are threatened with the same future as phone boxes, even though removing them has taken away traditional place markers - objects older people and their ancestors knew as part of the unnoticed noticed. For the young these things have less resonance. This isn't just a public-private issue, though that debate will dominate the politics of the matter. It's about human invention - socio-technical change. Where do I look for other ways to maintain and recreate what matters? Closer settlement patterns versus sprawl; villages instead of suburbs; access via proximity (walking, cycling, urban transit) replacing access by mobility (motoring, flying); carfree and car-lite rather than autodependent; local rather than global food chains - allotments, city farms and home produce versus big box food retailing. Further invention. Smart growth. Sustainability. In Ano Korakiana we don't have much to do with post, collecting electric and water plus rate bills from the last shop in the village.