In terms of logistics, I would make three suggestions. Given the layout, it’s important that each table isn’t talking amongst itself thereby making so much noise that you can’t hear the speaker. Secondly, there are two breakout rooms. I would like to see the two used for an hour each for anyone to stand up a present an idea for five minutes. Thirdly, I’d like to see it recorded and ideally live streamed. Certainly, the plenary sessions could be on uStream or BlogTV.

—fold—

I start with some of the themes Sunny suggests, and add in some more. This is by no means exhaustive; just some things that interest me.

London

Firstly, I don’t think anyone who can’t beat Ken for the Labour nomination will be able to beat Boris. However, I’m not convinced that Boris will run again; it’s certainly not a foregone conclusion and it seems the main reason he would stay on is that there is no obvious heir apparent from the Conservative ranks, certainly not with with any significant profile. If the competition is between Ken and Oona, I would favour the former on the basis that he stands a better chance of building a broad coalition that goes beyond the Labour party. We will need to develop a narrative on the Conservative administration of City Hall, and I would suggest that it should focus on a lack of big ideas and not making the case for London in Whitehall and Westminster. Boris has also had a few bizarre flights of fancy – Boris Island Airport and the Boris Bus (especially its cost) – while scrapping ideas like Cross-River Tram that would have been beneficial to London.

When it comes to the Mayoralty, I have no idea who the LibDem candidate will be (although Susan Kramer is available). The choice of LibDem candidate may well indicate how London LibDems feel about the ménage à deux and whether they feel the Orange Book tendency has moved their party in a way with which they feel uncomfortable. We will have to determine whether attacking the LibDems for their coalition with the Tories is sensible, responsible and effective, and that may well depend on who the candidate is.

I am plotting an idea to set up a London political podcast. I will do a separate post on that as and when I have settled my ideas, but some of the ideas that have come out on that are important. We will need to look to the growth in Labour councillors and councils to be the starting point of a fightback against the Tories in the capital.

Wales and Scotland

We must avoid making this project too London-centric. Yes, it is being hosted in the capital and London has many millions, but we should look at the other devolved areas in Britain: Wales and Scotland. All three could learn from each other, but they may be particularly useful in working out a tack to take with regard to the LibDems. We also have to work out how we strengthen the progressive position at Holyrood and the Senedd, given that the former has extensive powers and it seems likely that the latter will be gaining similar powers. Alternate centres of power in Wales, Scotland and London may well be able to slow at least some of the damage I fear the current administration will bring.

The West Lothian Question

I think that progressives need to seriously consider the idea of English regions.

There is a lot of talk about devolution, giving power to the people and so on. We need to work out what that actually means. If we regionalised, we would see alternate centres of power. To give them meaning, they need powers substantial powers and we should consider the inclusion of policing, transport, housing, spatial planning and, potentially, health. I feel that counties are too small and too easily controlled by the centre to be able to effectively devise and implement policy.

Regions would mean the main parties would have to have some sort of meaningful regional structure. Much as I hope the regions would be able to stand up to Whitehall, I hope that meaningful regional structures within political parties would weaken the wearisome control from the centre to which so many people object.

I would hope that this would lead to the economic weight of the country shifting away from London and away from financial services and giving parts of England outside of London the opportunity to be something more than vassals.

We have spoken much about the sad state of local media. I merely raise the question as to whether regions would cause a re-alignment of newspapers, radio and television so that there could be meaningful coverage and scrutiny of politics and competition between outlets.

I reject the idea of and English Parliament as an answer to the West Lothian question out of hand (a Parliament for forty-eight million people isn’t much less unitary than one for sixty-one million).

We should emphasise that this would not create an extra layer of bureaucracy. There are already Government Offices for all the English regions along with Regional Development Agencies and Local Authorities Leaders’ Boards. This is about democratising those structures.

Ultimately, I think we have seen a flourishing of the London, Welsh and Scottish blogospheres that is indicative of better relations between citizen and state in those three areas and I want the same for the rest of England. This will mean addressing some of the mistakes and lack of ambition from the failed north-east referendum.

The LibDems

We should pursue a strategy of splitting the Social Democrats from the Liberals/Orange Book in the Lib Dems with a view to one side joining the Tories and the other Labour. We should make it clear that you cannot go into coalition with the Tories and call yourself progressive.

I think we should advocate that the cuts are being implemented too soon; that if they are going to do a zero-budget process, it has to be zero-budget across everything¹; that these cuts are also the political desire of the Orange Book and Tories; ensure efficiency where they are made; oppose the most egregiously unfair cuts; maintain support for industry.

That having been said, we need to work out how we can use social democratically-minded LibDems to control the excesses of the coalition.

Others

• Low pay. We must continue to support the living wage, consider the benefits of a citizen’s wage and ensure that the minimum wage is increased appropriately.
• Europe. As people will know, I am pretty pro-European. However, we should explicitly say that there should be no further integration for a couple of Parliaments to give the Lisbon changes and expansion time to bed down. We could expand to the relatively small countries of the Balkans when the time is right, but we will need to be in an economically strong position to welcome Turkey to the EU when the time is right. It should be made clear that member state of the EU have the right to nationalise, municipalise and deprivatise and that the principles of the free market should not prevent this (although I would retain the state aid prohibitions as they are).
• Co-ops. It strikes me that this is a movement to which we should reach out; surprisingly large, but often very local and potentially powerful for community organising.
• The BNP. We need to consider what’s going to happen next with the BNP and their fellow-travellers. I welcome their thorough trouncing at the recent election and I look forward to Richard Barnbrook being invited to pursue interests of his own choosing by the good people of Barking and Dagenham. However, I have three concerns. One is that we will become complacent about the BNP et al. and that they will be able to regroup. We must keep the pressure on them. A second is that the BNP’s problems may lead to more support for the EDL; while they are clearly not going to get anywhere electorally, they are violent. Thirdly, we need to explicitly oppose and combat the rising populist nationalism that we see in UKIP, sections of the Conservative party, sections of the media and, frankly, amongst people who should know better.
• Women’s rights. We must defend the right to abortion. I feel the likelihood of an attempt at restricting it in this Parliament is high and I feel there is a good chance it could be successful. I feel that we should also be looking at Norwegian-style rules for gender-balance in the boardroom. We should discuss the sex industry and the objectification of women.
• Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t want to belabour these subjects. For the moment, I want to set aside whether they were a good idea or not, and just look at the conduct of the campaigns. It is clear that there were mistakes and shortcomings. We should look at what they were, how they happened and how we stop them happening again. In order to do it properly, we must be able to do it without always going back to the morality of the conflicts. I’m not saying we shouldn’t consider the morality of the conflicts; I’m saying it’s not the only issue.

I’ll probably do something on electoral reform in the coming days.

xD.

1 – Including the NHS and Trident. I am prepared to at least consider that (for instance) industrial promotion is currently more important than (for instance) fertility treatment. I am not saying that is the case, but that we should be prepared to consider it.

Firstly, Gilligan says

Yet this would be no ordinary service. It would never be stopped by traffic or points failures.

That may be true, and it is some time since the Thames froze. However, the Thames is a tidal river. A very tidal river, it moves at speeds of up to 8 knots. Moreover, the tides do not occur at the same time every day. Altogether, this means that the Thames is fundamentally unreliable for timekeeping purposes as, from the point of view of the commuter, you have to leave at a different time each day to get to work on time and may well have a variable amount of hanging around (or extra work). If the Thames Barrier, in this or a future incarnation, is permanently raised and the Thames is no longer tidal, this could change.

Secondly, Mr Gilligan makes a somewhat simplistic analysis of cost/benefit for buses and tube extensions. Certainly, the numbers might be, prima facie, better for the river but it does not consider at all how well served riverside locations already are against the relative lack of provision in other areas.

Thirdly, Mr Gilligan, when not continuing his obsession with standing outside on moving vehicles ¹ makes an interesting admission:

Boris has sometimes been accused of lacking a big idea, an equivalent of Ken Livingstone’s congestion charge — something people can point to and say: “He did that.” I think a new TfL riverbus could be it.

I was rather under the impression that the New Routemaster was meant to be the big idea. Maybe Gilligan has gone off it, or realised that it’s either not going to happen or, if it does, will be suboptimal value for money.

I would add Mr Gilligan needs to be a bit more careful about his sweeping statements.

You only have to try it once to know why. In the morning rush hour, the traffic in Greenwich inches round the one-way system. The trains are slow and crowded. On the river, charging upstream at 30 knots (35mph), we are the fastest thing in a five-mile radius.

AsPolitical Animal and Boris Watch point out on Twitter, within five miles of Greenwich are trains (60mph), the Jubilee line (50mph), High Speed One (140mph) and City Airport (takeoff speed for a STOL aircraft ~160mph, although they don’t make many stops in London) (here, here and here).

xD.

1 – “On the open rear deck of the Cyclone Clipper, two newcomers to the service are grinning to themselves at the sudden surge of speed, and the glorious, if rapidly receding, views of the Royal Naval College. Inside, the more seasoned passengers have settled down with their laptops. There is a small buffet, and on the way home you can even get a massage.” I wonder how many people would be standing outside in today’s inclement weather.

That happens to be about the cost of scrapping the WEZ.

Before Boris started axing them, there were 396 bendy buses in London. They are being replaced at a cost of £250,000 each, giving a grand total of £99,000,000.

And that’s before we allow for the £13m per year extra London TravelWatch thinks it will cost on those routes.

I think Simon Fletcher might agree with me.

xD.

The reason for the opposition is made clear in the headline – it would affect the middle class.

While I’m having a go at the Heil, and because I’ve had to look at the website, here’s the headline of a story from the FeMail section

Wanting Aniston’s arms and Angelina’s cleavage has led women to a body-hatred crisis… but are men to blame?

That’s the last headline in a sidebar that has pictures praising Cindy Crawford’s looks in a bikini, saying that ordinary women could never look as good as Cheryl Cole in a particular bikini and criticising Nigella Lawson for not wearing makeup.

Hypocrisy? The Mail? Shurely shome mishtake!

But we did. Repeatedly.

I rather doubt this will have much electoral impact as lots of the people on the 507 are coming from outside the Greater London area.

In other bus news, which I hadn’t heard about, East Thames Buses has been sold to Go Ahead. Both the sale and the fact that the only news outlets which carried the story, other than Mayorwatch, seem to have been Socialist Worker and Investors’ Chronicle, neither of which I read, bothers me.

As a commenter under the Troll’s bridge points out, there’s no figure given for streets, which partially falls under TfL’s remit.

Given that the Tube and Overground and in various stages of upgrade, that’s not too bad. Between three-quarters and four-fifths satisfaction is pretty good. They missing number – which I’ve FOId to find out – is the number of daily journeys by each method. For the Tube, it’s about four and one-quarter million riders per weekday; the same figure for the buses is about six million.

xD.

I took away a few things from it all.

- Firstly, I was gratified that the nutty left wasn’t there but that there was a broad range, from government ministers through ordinary Labour party members, trades unionists, Greens, Lib Dems and that they were largely willing to come together for an occasion like this. I did see George Galloway floating around, though, but without any groupies.

- Secondly, there was an acceptance that, the rights and wrongs of high finance notwithstanding, London (and the UK) had been overly dependent upon them and that we would now have to find, ahem, alternative employment. A lot of people thought this could be to do with green innovation.

- Thirdly, a lot of people seem to understand that we have to work to maintain the vibrancy and toleration of our city.

- Fourthly, it wasn’t just the free market ideology that had been hit; progressives needed to re-evaluate their positions, and quickly, in this brave new world.

- Fifthly, there was a widespread feeling that we should work across London, not just focussing on the Mayoralty. That having been said, progressives would have to work hard to remove Johnson in 2012.

Below the fold are my notes and thoughts on the sessions I attended. I don’t know if anyone’s collating these, but it would make sense, if there are future events like this, for something like Liberal Conspiracy to have someone at each breakout session. Some of the other bloggers I saw there include the Tory Troll, Mayor Watch, Boris Watch, Peter Kenyon, Dave Hill, Sunny Hundal and Steve Cowan.

xD.

This is not going to be chronological; if anyone’s that interested, the schedule for the day is here. It’s probably a good sign that for each of the breakout sessions, there was more than one I wanted to attend.

First plenary
Second plenary
First breakout – Learning lessons from London Votes 2008
Second breakout – Transport
Third breakout – Blogging London

First plenary

Ken ‘the once and future king mayor’ Livingstone gave the first talk. He mentioned a generational turning point. There had been a broad, social democratic consensus in the quarter-century following the Second World War. I think that point is debatable; the situation constrained state actions to a great degree, but the effect is perhaps the same. Following that, Friedman et al came to popularity (and a particular mention for mobility of capital being increased) but that era has now passed with the current financial crisis.

In a rather witty remark, Ken said that he was sad Reagan hadn’t seen the collapse of his dream before saying

I expect an apology from Thatcher imminently

The question, then, was as to the new structures that should be put in place. One that drew near-universal applause was that every person should pay tax on money in the country where they earn it and, similarly, corporations should pay taxes on profit in the country where they make them. This would have to be done through global and international agreement, effectively closing off tax havens.

It could not be denied, according to Ken, that the economies of London and the UK would be damaged because of the problems in the City. As a solution, he proposed that London should be at the forefront of the new technologies that we, as a species, need to deal with the serious environmental situation; on this, Ken painted a bleak picture, largely agreeing with the Tyndall centre.

Closing, he mentioned the need for greater support of London’s dynamic cultural centre and a need to recognise the importance of happiness – and so to put in place a progressive consensus for the future of the city.

Second up was the playwright, Bonnie Greer, who started by recalling two huge, generational shifts through which she had lived; the Sixties and now. In both instances, a part of the shift is technological. Then, it was the television, now it is the internet and mobile technology. In both instances, older people colonise the space made by young people who either very quickly adapt or grow up with these new technologies.

Greer went on to say that, soon, most humans will live in cities, which will have consequences for how we view race. Nevertheless, manufacturing will return but it will be high-tech. There will have to be greater cross-generational cooperation as the idea of a passive pensioner changes to that of an active senior who may have retired but still has two or three decades of living ahead of them.

Greer concluded by opining that political parties would more and more be vehicles for charismatic individuals unless they learned to communicate – properly – with Gen-Y, Gen-Z and the Millennial generation.

Next was Eric Hobsbawm.

If I understood Hobsbawm correctly, he argued that the ideologies of the ‘short twentieth century’ – socialism unbound and capitalism unbound – were both, now, bankrupt. The former failed at the end of the eighties while the latter’s thirty year dominance, although we don’t know how severe the current crisis will be, had ended with it. The future, in short, belongs to a mixed economy.

He added that even the left parties of Europe of rich Europe were attached to this free-market fundamentalism, describing Blair and, until recently, Brown as ‘Thatcher with trousers’.

Certainly, the central idea of parties like Labour had not been soviet socialism, but rather that the market would take care of growth and the government of distribution. That position had been undermined by globalisation. It therefore needed refitting, but instead swallowed free market ideology whole. Because of decisions then and the balance of the economy now, the recession will be harder for us.

The question, then, is whether we use old tools like nationalisation. The answer was ‘not necessarily’ as, in something I thought slightly contradicted his opening, Hobsbawm thought we didn’t know how to get out of the current crisis because our leaders are addicted to ‘free market schmaltz’, questioning whether we had really moved away from the idea that profit-making companies were always good; that a large gap between rich and poor was acceptable; that increasing GDP is the sine qua non of good governance.

In order to do this, it was necessary for people to understand that GDP is a means and not an end and that the end – or something closer to the end – would be jobs, house, schools and the like. A good quip: “Poor secondary schooling isn’t changed by the fact that UCL could field a football team composed solely of Nobel prize winners”.

He finished, in his gloomy manner, by saying that climate change would mean a big shift from private to public, bigger than that envisioned by the Government and sooner than we all think. “Time is not on our side”.

Harriet Harman had the unfortunate task of following on from Hobsbawm. I say unfortunate because he really seemed to hold the audience. Nevertheless, Harman did well, starting by identifying people’s presence at the conference as part of a new zeitgeist, related to the real apprehension people felt, particularly about jobs. Although we are in uncharted waters, the Labour deputy leader said that the government would not be like Thatcher about losing jobs.

Something I found particularly interesting was the to- and fro- about Obama. Harman said that not only was Obama not going to fail, but that he had already succeeded in changing both how the world sees the USA and how people see themselves. A large welcome should be organised for him. A later question challenged Harman on this, saying that Obama should be judged on action rather than rhetoric. Harman simply replied that we should support him in building a progressive future – which he was doing – and received strong support from the audience.

Responding to Hobsbawm, Harman said that all tools would be used, and gave a list of what the government was doing to ameliorate the crisis. Specifically, bringing forward capital infrastructure expenditure was mentioned, in contrast to the Tories who wanted to cut those back at the time of a recession.

Harman emphasised the need for coordination of international action and the multiplier effect of states working together and accepted Hobsbawm’s point that a strong economy was a means and not an end. Agreeing with Greer, Harman added that our new economic arrangements would have to be fairer and based on high tech industries; £20m bonuses would no longer be acceptable.

To that end, what Polly Toynbee described as ‘socialism in one clause‘ – the duty on public bodies to narrow the gap between rich and poor.

Harman closed by saying that there were those who would exploit the current situation to build racial divisions. At the June 4 elections, it was imperative to work for a high turnout because there is a real chance of the BNP gaining an MEP. Labour would be building on the work of Jon Cruddas (who chaired the session) and Margaret Hodge; Martin Salter would be coordinating that with support from Frank Dobson.

I found it interesting that people listened to Harman really quite attentively. I’ve often seen people shout abuse at any New Labour minister, but the couple that did received very short shrift from the audience. That’s not to say that everyone necessarily agreed, but that they wanted to listen. I assume that Harriet Harman was invited in her capacity as deputy party leader, but it does seem she was acceptable to the assembled.

There was a lot of support from the audience for questions on the need to repeal anti-trades union legislation and in opposition to trades unions’ support for the third runway at Heathrow. Hobsbawm did not directly answer a question on which member of the government could lead the country out of its current crisis, but did say that long periods of effective isolation from normal, run-of-the-mill society at the top of politics did mean that senior politicians lose contact with the ordinary.

Harman liked the idea of resurrecting the ‘Claimants’ Commission’ from GLC days. This, apparently, brought together people who claimed benefits to work out responses to proposed changes in benefits arrangements. A sex worker wanted to ask Harman a question; unfortunately, the one turned into five and the questioner was shouted down, the chair having immediately previously asked people to keep their questions short. The response from Harman was, essentially, that although a small percentage of sex workers freely chose from amongst other options to sell sex, the allowance of that particular market would force a lot of people into it who did not have a choice.

A few closing remarks. Hobsbawm felt that Labour and the unions had sold the traditional idea of a class struggle down the river as they didn’t strike and didn’t demonstrate. Lots of BNP voters thought they were voting for a class struggle; we cannot say that any class struggle is good.

Bonnie Greer said that old left-right paradigms were not working and that the Brits ‘did themselves down too much’.

Ken said that a lot of the questions had been looking backward. The progressive movement was in a weaker position than Thatcher and Reagan had been at the end of the Seventies. They had had a project; ‘we’ need to recraft our traditional ideals.

Second plenary

First breakout – lessons from the London elections

Second breakout: Transport for a progressive London

Third breakout: Blogging London

• The proposed replacements for 18m bendy buses are 12m single deckers. Operators have been asked to submit bids for 12m single deckers and 18m articulated.
• There has been no public consultation on the change; there has been stakeholder consultation. As most people on the 507 and 521 come from outside geographic stakeholder areas (that’s why they arrive at Victoria, London Bridge and Waterloo), it seems likely their views will not be taken on board.
• Only 1% of passengers on the 507 and 521 use paper tickets bought from roadside machines.

xD.

Update: Many thanks to the excellent Dave Hill for writing about this at his blog over at The Guardian.

1. What, if any, assessments have been made of the difference in loading and unloading times between double-decker buses and bendy buses?

I have attached a report providing this information entitled “Comparative dwell and journey time surveys on routes 36 & 436 and 53 & 453” that was prepared for London Buses by SDG in 2003.

2. What studies, if any, have been conducted on the breakdown of tickets, Travelcards and passes on the 507 and 521 routes?

Nearly all passengers on articulated buses use an Oyster card (including pay as you go and Freedom Passes) or a paper Bus Pass. Around 1% of passengers purchase a ticket at Roadside Ticket Machines.

3. What studies, if any, have been conducted on the nature and length of journeys on the 507 and 521 routes?

The average passenger journey is 0.9 miles on route 507 and 1.2 miles on route 521.

4. What advertising has been placed regarding the change from bendy buses to double-decker buses on the 507 and 521 routes?

5. What passenger and stakeholder consultations have been conducted regarding the change from bendy buses to double decker buses on the 507 and 521 routes?

There are no plans to use double-deck buses on routes 507 and 521. However, we are considering a proposal to use 12-metre long single-deck buses in place of articulated buses on these routes. No advertising has been placed in relation to this, but we have consulted stakeholders (including the relevant Boroughs, MP’s, Assembly Members and London TravelWatch) on this proposal as part of our regular review programme. Responses were requested by 3rd October.

6. What studies and/or proposals have been conducted or issued on the effect of the 521 no longer being able to use the Aldwych underpass?

As mentioned above, single-deck buses have been proposed, which would be able to use the Aldwych underpass.

7. What studies, if any, have been made on the effect of longer loading times on the 507 and 521 routes, with particular reference to Waterloo, Victoria and London Bridge stations?

The operating contracts for routes 507 and 521 are being retendered. Operators have been asked to submit bids based on 12-metre long single-deck buses and on 18-metre long articulated buses. We are considering operational issues as part of the current tendering process.

I ask myself cui bono – who benefits? It’s a nice piece of technology, but hardly a priority. Part of the answer lies in the OneTouch card from Barclays, which combines a credit card, Visa PayWave and Oyster.

So far as I can tell, PayWave is only available if you take the credit card. I neither have nor want a credit card; I’m not the only one. Equally, there’ll be people who don’t qualify for the credit card. The only way to obtain this (clever and useful) card is to use, in some fashion, Barclays. In fairness to Barclays, there were the UK pioneers of credit cards. However, it took a few years for competition to emerge.

Adding or modifying a chip in a card is not a big deal. Adding it, however, to a mobile phone is a potentially more difficult task. Not insuperable, but not negligible. I’m not an expert, but shielding the RFID chip from the signals put out by mobiles will be an issue. At a guess, mobile phone manufacturers will have to work out the technology themselves so that it works with existing infrastructure rather than doing any retrofitting to Oyster readers.

The pay-off will be people wanting to buy Oyster-enabled phones. I’ll be interested to see what the difference in cost will be and how many manufacturers offer the facility and whether there will be specific models that you can only buy with the capacity to use Oyster.

I’m a big fan of the Oyster card, which is Transport for London’s contactless ticket. Aside from the near-automatic appeal of technology to the geeky part of my soul, it allows for better ticket pricing options and speeds up boarding buses and tubes. The latter is obvious; instead of the bus driver having to fiddle with change, you just swipe your Oyster. If you go to South Kensington tube, the station nearest the V&A, Natural History and Science Museums as well as the Albert Hall and other attractions, you will notice the delay; lots of tourists using paper tickets take time to go through the barriers.

xD.