Greenwich Council Meeting 27/01/10: Greenwich Time, Council Tax & Royal Borough Status

Greenwich Council’s newspaper Greenwich Time was branded “appalling” and “blatant propaganda” by opposition councillors at Wednesday night’s full council meeting.

The weekly was criticised in a Westminster debate earlier this month, with it and other council publications coming in for attacks from politicians and publishers of local newspapers, who claim it damages free speech and is hurting their business.

Conservative councillor Dermot Poston called it “an appalling piece of paper”, adding it was “a shocking indictment” of the council.

“Ask anyone in this borough who reads it – not that anyone does – and they’ll tell you,” the Eltham North member said.

Brian Woodcraft (Lib Dem, Middle Park & Sutcliffe) said the paper, which was relaunched as a weekly in 2008, was “blatant propaganda”.

“It contains a full week’s TV listings, which is totally inappropriate for a local authority newspaper,” he continued, questioning the cost of employing distributors to deliver it weekly, when previously it had been delivered fortnightly alongside the established local freesheets, the Mercury and the News Shopper.

However, council leader Chris Roberts (Labour, Peninsula) said it was more cost-effective to publish Greenwich Time once a week.

“It’s cheaper weekly than fortnightly, and I’m happy to provide figures to any member who asks for them,” he told the meeting.

He said the decision was made to distribute Greenwich Time separately because the council had received “too many complaints” that the newspaper was not being delivered, and residents were missing out on important items of public consultation.

“Neither the Mercury nor the News Shopper reach the whole borough,” he added.

Addressing charges that the newspaper was propaganda, Cllr Roberts said: “Hammersmith and Fulham Council has its council tax plastered on its lamp posts – well beyond anything that goes on in this borough.”

Referrring to criticism from News Shopper editor Richard Firth – who called the newspaper “a self-serving propaganda sheet” – Cllr Roberts called for an “honest debate” on the issue, reeling off a list of local newspapers published by newspaper group Archant, including The Docklands, a version of which appears in Greenwich as The Peninsula.

“I don’t think the views of the Archant publishing house somehow go unreported,” he said.

However, the News Shopper is published by Archant’s rival Newsquest, part of US newspaper giant Gannett.

Nigel Fletcher (Conservative, Eltham North), complained that Greenwich Time routinely ignored opposition councillors’ views, even on non-controversial matters such as Greenwich becoming a royal borough.

“Our views were represented in three of our local media; the Mercury, the News Shopper, and greenwich.co.uk; but the one local newspaper which neglected us was Greenwich Time.

“It was slightly absurd that a photograph of the leader of the council should have been on the front of Greenwich Time and not one of the Queen.”

He said it “fully vindicated” his party’s pledge to scrap the paper if it took power at May’s elections.

Councillors vote for council tax freeze

Greenwich council taxpayers are set for a freeze in their bills after councillors voted through this year’s budget proposals.

Council leader Chris Roberts said he had “no desire to slash and burn” public services, citing investment in transport, anti-crime measures, housing and children’s centres, adding the cashflow plan was strong enough to deal with any government cuts after the general election.

“Whatever is thrown at us by central government over the next few years, the people of Greenwich will expect us to be prepared,” he said.

“It is a budget which protects our essential services, and does not mortgage our futures.”

With an eye to the council’s own election in May, he said his Labour group had provided “stable and secure financial management for more than a decade”.

Conservative leader Spencer Drury said freezing the budget seemed “the right thing to do”.

But the Eltham North councillor questioned a sum of £3.7 million which was counted as cash to be held in reserve, but he said looked as if it had actually been allocated to services including continuing weekly black bin collections and covering extra costs in social care.

“These things are essentials,” he said, “not things we have any choice over”.

If that sum of money really was available, he said, then it should be returned to council tax payers “who are suffering too”.

Cllr Roberts said he wanted to keep the extra sum of money aside in case the relevant departments needed extra cash for those services.

Council tax bills will not be finalised until after February 10, when London Mayor Boris Johnson’s budget will be settled. He is also planning to freeze his part of the bill.

Royal borough status welcomed by all sides

Greenwich Council could buy a sailing ship to commemorate becoming a royal borough in 2012, Conservative culture spokesman Nigel Fletcher told the meeting.

Councillors from all parties welcomed the announcement, which was made earlier this month.

One idea, he said, would be to purchase a sailing ship to commemorate The Great Harry, a warship built at Woolwich for Henry VIII.

Cllr Fletcher said it was worth noting that royal connections were spread across the borough, and a ship would recognise Woolwich’s contribution.

“It’s an idea that could have a range of benefits, particularly for our youth,” he said.

“There is a challenge to us to answer what becoming a royal borough means in real terms.

“It’s up to us to use this to secure real benefits across the borough. There should be a Jubilee legacy to go with an Olympic legacy.”

Greenwich will be the first royal borough with a “significantly diverse” population when it is awarded the honour in 2012, council leader Chris Roberts said.

“I have always felt the royal element of the borough has been underplayed,” he said.

“Even those who declare themselves to be not tremendous royalists say how proud they are. It’s an incredible honour.”

Cllr Roberts said discussions would start soon on just what the honour, awarded to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, would actually mean for the council, from possible changes to the council’s coat of arms to putting the new borough names on street signs.

“There will be protocols to follow – I’ve been up to my eyeballs in them – but it will be up to us what to do, in consultation with civil servants and Buckingham Palace,” he continued.

“I never thought I’d quote Margaret Thatcher, but ‘rejoice, rejoice, rejoice’.”

Long-serving Conservative Dermot Poston also spoke of his pride in seeing Greenwich’s diverse population honoured, adding that in 1968, the borough had been turned down for the honour by then-prime minister Harold Wilson.

Councillor and historian Mary Mills (Labour, Peninsula) said Greenwich and Woolwich’s royal connections had contributed to many of the borough’s industries, adding that the honour recognised “all sorts of ordinary people going way back”.

Chris Roberts added that he had been touched by letters from people about the honour, adding: “My personal favourite is from a lady who wrote, ‘I’m just waiting for the first journalist to knock it.’”

The “bogus claims” of Olympic protestors and the “cult of personality” at Greenwich Time – Nick Raynsford Interview pt 2

As I walk into Nick Raynsford’s Westminster office, he begins  to tell me about a meeting that he has just had at Greenwich Park.

He talks at length about the benefits he believes the equestrian events will bring from a “new feature” in the children’s playground to a “restructuring” of the Blackheath gate. He also talks about the wider economic development that he believes the games will bring to the town.

But while he is obviously enthusiastic about holding the Equestrian events here in Greenwich, it is striking how dismissive he is of those who oppose them:

“The problem with the NOGOE campaign is that they have not been prepared to listen to any evidence at all. They have their own preset view that this is going to be a disaster. They don’t want it, they don’t like it and they won’t listen to any evidence. That I’m afraid discredits them in the eyes of most rational people and observers”

Raynsford believes that opponents of the events have deliberately been spreading false information about it:

“I have to say that those people who have been campaigning against it have used in my view some extremely bogus claims and made some very dishonest statements that have actually caused alarm and concern to people who genuinely love the park

“And these claims are completely groundless. The claims that trees were going to be cut down in large numbers, that the ground would be destroyed and all churned up and giving the impression that this is some sort of Grand National type event when it is literally seventy horses, on one day, doing one circuit, and that’s it.”

Raynsford also believes that Olympic organisers failed to communicate their plans to the public until recently. He says that LOCOG “let their eye off the ball” in the early stages and “were not as responsive as they should have been” to objectors.

But despite this, he still believes that there is strong enthusiasm for the Olympics in the town:

“The overwhelming majority of young people in the area are wholly supportive, and the interesting thing about this is that there is quite a split between those who have been most vocal against the Olympics who tend to be older, and those under 55, who are in my experience overwhelmingly supportive.”

Yet while he believes that the “overwhelming majority” of young people are “wholly supportive” he is dismissive of a recent survey carried out by Conservative Assembly member Gareth Bacon showing significant opposition to the equestrian events:

“That was completely unscientific and politically motivated and frankly I do not regard it as serious and it is trying to use this for political purposes and I think that is very unprincipled. I think the right approach here has to be to engage seriously with LOCOG and the Royal Parks Agency, which are the two agencies best able to judge how this can be managed and then to listen to their views.”

Throughout our conversation I am struck by the relative weight he places on the views of officers, experts and agencies against those of politicians and campaigners.

I wonder whether this is a result of his extensive work outside parliament in the private sector.  Does this work interfere with his main role as a constituency MP?

“I think that parliament would be a very much weaker place if MPs didn’t have outside interests. My interests are all in the area I have worked throughout my professional life, so it’s housing, it’s construction, regeneration, that sort of area where I have quite a lot of expertise. I ran a consultancy before I was elected so this is not doing something new and it’s certainly not cashing in on ministerial experience which is one of the other allegations that is made. It’s simply pursuing expertise that I have had as a result of my professional career which I think makes me a better MP to comment on what is happening here at Westminster. So in debates on regeneration housing and construction I can usually give a pretty informed view and without sounding too immodest it does usually command a certain amount of respect rather than just partisan responses.”

I ask him how many days a week he spends in Greenwich. He says that he spends “at least one” to which he adds

“I tend to work around a 70-80 hour week and I’m quite confident if anyone looked at the hours I spend they would see that I spend at least 55 hours a week on parliamentary or constituency business, so the outside work is not interfering with that.”

There is little doubt that Raynsford is closely involved in local politics and on the morning of our interview I spot him on page three of the council’s newspaper Greenwich Time.

In the picture, he is standing alongside Labour Councillor Peter Brooks, celebrating the acceptance of Oyster Cards on Thames Clippers.

I ask him how he can justify appearing in a publication that many people believe is just “electioneering on the rates”

“I think it is important that the council does have a mechanism to communicate but I think it does have to be very careful how it uses that. I took with a pinch of salt some of the criticisms that were voiced about this being party propaganda because it came to a head when the Evening Standard was running an absolutely vitriolic campaign against Ken Livingstone and I think that what is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander”

Yet in my copy of Greenwich Time I also find reams of advertising for local businesses, a feature on Leona Lewis and even a TV guide. Isn’t this deliberately designed to weaken independent newspapers in the area?

“I think there is a general problem for local newspapers across the country irrespective of whether there are aggressive local council newspapers as well, so I don’t think it is entirely fair to say that the problems facing the News Shopper and the Mercury are simply the fault of Greenwich Time. I think it is a wider problem. I do think we have to have diversity and I’m a strong believer in keeping viable local newspapers and I would certainly not want to see Greenwich Time replacing them as the only voice locally.”

But what about all the non-council related content in Greenwich Time? How can the council justify that?

“I don’t know enough about, I haven’t spoken to Peter Cordwell the editor about his reasons for doing that. My prime concern is that this should be a means of communication between the council and local people.”

But if it is just about communicating with constituents, why have  there been so many front page pictures of Council leader Chris Roberts in recent months?

“I am not myself a great believer in the cult of personality and you will not see many photos of me in Greenwich Time” he replies rather uneasily. “I don’t seek publicity in that form.”

Read part three of the interview tomorrow and find out why Nick Raynsford thinks Ken Livingstone should not stand for London Mayor in 2012.

Missed part one of the interview? Read it here

Andrew Gilligan: Taxing Times

AM I SE10’s Max Mosley? Just to make clear, I do not live in a basement being whipped by whores – but I am surely the only person in the entire London Borough of Greenwich who actively seeks out our dear council’s ludicrous parody newspaper, Greenwich Time.

Most of us, of course, have as much choice about receiving this publication as we have about paying for it – it is thrust through our doors whether we want it or not, just as the money it costs is taken from us through the council tax. But my street isn’t assured of a reliable supply (it’s pretty rough down Hyde Vale, where even the milkmen fear to tread) – so most weeks, with a sick feeling of guilt, shame yet also secret, forbidden pleasure, I make the trip to West Greenwich library.

Furtively, hating myself, I enter the building, blow the dust off that week’s thick, virgin pile of Greenwich Times and – trying to ignore the staff’s incredulity and contempt at my actions – slip a copy, perhaps two, into a brown paper bag. I tell myself it doesn’t do any real harm – surely everyone involved must be over 18 – but that ignores the terrible price paid by all those vulnerable young trees, whose innocence has been quite literally pulped to print this ghastly perversion of natural, healthy journalism.

I get it to find out what the council wants us to believe it is doing – from which, through a simple formula (assuming exactly the opposite), you can usually work out what it is actually doing. It looks like a real newspaper. Quite intentionally, I’m sure, there’s no mention that it’s an official municipal propaganda sheet on the front cover. There are even bylines. Someone called “Peter Cordwell” seems to write most of the stories – surely this must be a pseudonym? Would anyone with any professional pride at all want to be associated with this stuff?

Because the front-page news story on the latest edition is just about the closest you can come to taxpayer-funded political propaganda without actually putting “Vote Labour” as the headline. “It’s not just freezing outside!” starts ‘Cordwell’ (who has a regrettable weakness for the exclamation mark – another sign that he cannot be a real person.) “Council leader Chris Roberts intends to bring the chill into the council chamber next month when he proposes to freeze the council tax.”

Goodness me – as recently as last October, Greenwich was one of 16 London councils which rejected a council-tax freeze proposed by the shadow chancellor, George Osborne. Could there possibly be an election coming up?

Anyway, back to Greenwich Time: “Chris told GT: ‘For the past ten years Greenwich has established a record which is all but unparalleled across London for rigorous and efficient management of its budgets. While continuing to levy what is almost the lowest cumulative Council Tax increase in London, we have seen Greenwich go from having the second-highest Council Tax in London to being 22nd of 32 boroughs.’”

Both these latter claims are in fact misleading, since they relate to council tax in the current financial year, 2008/9 – not next year, when the freeze Greenwich Time trumpets comes into effect. We don’t actually know how Greenwich will compare to other London councils next year yet, because not all have yet announced their 2009/10 council tax levels. It seems likely that many other boroughs will also freeze, or even reduce, their council tax, which might make Greenwich one of the more expensive authorities again.

And as for that “all but unparalleled” efficiency, the truth – which Greenwich Time somehow forgets to mention – is that our current council tax is in fact the fourth highest in inner London, the class of councils in which we are included, and almost precisely the average for London as a whole.

It’s true that the level of any authority’s council tax depends on factors other than its own efficiency – such as Government grants. But since the level of the council tax is the ground on which Greenwich Time has chosen to blow its PR bugles, a more accurate claim would therefore be that the council tax shows our efficiency is, at best, average.

No doubt the purpose of all this, and all the other Greenwich Time bullshit, is to persuade us to love the council, and to re-elect the wise and beneficient leader who features so constantly in its pages. But I feel increasingly sure that it is having precisely the opposite effect.

I never used to have all that many quarrels with the people who run Greenwich. I’ve even voted for some of them. It isn’t one of the more outrageously useless authorities – it was quite good over Greenwich Market, for instance.

But I, and other people I know, feel insulted by the sheer stupidity and relentlessness of Greenwich Time – now published, incredibly, every single week. We feel angry at the simply improper way that our money is being used to promote politically-motivated distortions. And with non-council related feature material alongside all the Town Hall happy-news, I feel concerned that the clear intention is to undermine independent local newspapers which can paint the full picture.

They no longer have a state-controlled press in East Germany, Poland or the Czech Republic. But below the radar, and in keeping with our new status as a country where freedom is being nibbled away, we are getting one in Britain.