TWENTY-NINE year old Alex Wilson was not old enough to vote when current Greenwich and Lewisham London Assembly member, Len Duvall, was first elected to City Hall. How does the Conservative candidate think he would do the job better than the incumbent, who is looking for his fourth term.

“I’m not going to criticise Len too heavily but I would say that part of the difficulty is that yes he’s a former borough leader, there’s no two ways about that, but a lot of other people would question, who is he and what has he done?”

“The main focus is, and always will be, on the mayor. I get the impression some assembly members went in to City Hall and realised because of the way the legislation was set up, they don’t have as many powers as they would like.”

Wilson was elected to Greenwich Council in 2006 and represents the Blackheath Westcombe ward. His family wasn’t political, he says, so what brought him into party politics at a young age?

“There’s always something that leads you into politics and gets you motivated and for me it was John Roan School and particularly how that school had moved down the order of things, and how it had fallen on hard times.”

He was also adamantly against the proposed move to the Greenwich Peninsula.

“If you close your eyes and imagine a secondary school anywhere in the world, it’s normally a two storey building with a playground outside. What they wanted to build was a five storey building with a playground on the roof.”

Wilson’s own time at John Roan was sandwiched between a primary education at Halstow School, and attending sixth form at Colfe’s, where one of his teachers was Spencer Drury – now his party leader on Greenwich Council.

Education is one of Wilson’s passions in politics, he says. He tells me that he is looking forward to the new free school due to open in the borough and says that he backs grammars.

“There’s nothing wrong with trying to promote excellence in all walks of school, from sports to academic.

“There are a number of Greenwich pupils that go to grammars in Bexley. That’s parents voting with their feet and sending their kids to these schools.”

But, if elected, Wilson won’t be determining education policy – that’s not a policy area covered by the GLA – he will be scrutinising the mayor. What does he think Boris Johnson’s stand-out achievements have been?

“Managing City’s Hall’s finances when the economy’s in the doldrums.  He inherited a huge amount of waste that needed to be sorted out, so his biggest thing was keeping the council tax precept [rise] zero and then actually in the last year reducing it for the first time in the GLA’s history. That shows very careful stewardship.”

He adds that the mayor got a “very good deal” for London in the Coalition Government’s first Comprehensive Spending Review, and was able to safeguard Crossrail.

“In order to guarantee Crossrail, he had to get rid of a collection of other transport initiatives that had come out of TFL and say ‘Look, the one important thing we can’t miss again is Crossrail.’

“That’s going to benefit the borough with both Woolwich and Abbey Wood getting links.”

Boris Johnson has said he wants to see a new Blackwall relief tunnel built. Wouldn’t more capacity just attract even more cars – and congestion – to the area?

“I would comfortably argue two things to that, ” he begins.

“Firstly, we’re already at, or over, capacity so that’s a wonderful philosophical argument but unfortunately it’s not a very practical one. The simple fact is we need this tunnel.

“Secondly, it always amazes me that London is the place that generates more income for the country than any other part of the country and yet some wards in Greenwich and Lewisham are definitely in the poorest ten per cent and we could definitely improve the lives of the people that live there if we had better transport connectivity.”

Would he support introducing tolling at the tunnels?

“With the financial situation as it would appear to be, that’s one of the only ways we could pay for another tunnel. The difficulty of that though is that I don’t think that’s entirely fair to the residents of Greenwich, Lewisham and the rest of south-east London. It should only be for a short space of time as a means to pay for it, and then it should be free to use again”

At the last election, Boris said he would relieve traffic by reintroducing the contraflow at Blackwall but this never happened. Why?

“Unfortunately the legal situation was pretty clear cut and because it had been turned off, and the police had given advice on why it should be turned off, to turn it back on again became incredibly difficult so that’s why you need to find other schemes.”

Shouldn’t the mayor have sought that “clear cut advice” before making it an election commitment?

“Possibly, but a lot of it is bogged down in the minutiae of commitee reports and other difficulties.”

One of the most visible legacies in Greenwich of the current mayoralty is the erection of a new cable car spanning the Thames. Will this benefit Greenwich?

“What Greenwich does very well, and here we are sat in the National Maritime Museum under this amazing roof, is capture the tourist market and I very much see the cable car as feeding into that.”

But is the journey from North Greenwich to Royal Docks likely to attract many tourists?

“My background is in urban planning. When you’re doing these things, you’re looking at the long term, not the immediate year or six months after it opens.

“If you build something like a cable car,  it joins up the connections.  You’re building a connection that makes additional developments on the Peninsula and at Royal Docks possible and attracts footfall which is vital to them. All these small changes add up over time.

“With something like the cable car, maybe not immediately, but in the long term it should add up,” he says.

Another way to cross the Thames is through the Greenwich and Woolwich foot tunnels. What does the candidate think of the way the refurbishment has been carried out by the council?

“It’s taken far too long. I do appreciate that, a bit like doing a house up, when you take something down you uncover more problems that need solving.  But there’s been two particular difficulties: its taken too long and the communication of problems has been frustrating.”

The mayor’s bicycle hire scheme reached Tower Hamlets earlier this year. If elected, would Wilson lobby the mayor to extend it to Greenwich?

“I would particularly like to see the bicycles come to where we are now, which is Greenwich town centre.

“But if you have those cycle hire schemes anywhere near a hill, everyone gets on them and cycles down the hill and you end up with all the bikes down the bottom and none at the top. So there are certain practical difficulties about spreading the bike hire scheme across the entirety of London.

With his councillor’s hat back on, I ask him what he makes of the recent Democracy Greenwich campaign, which aims to return council to the old Committee System.

“We put forward a motion at the last council meeting saying we want to go back to the committee system. Chris Roberts [Leader of the Council] said, ‘Look, let’s not do a motion here, let’s have a conversation between both groups and then we’ll come back and look at it in the autumn.’

“We thought that sounded fine and prudent and then what then seems to have happened is that certain members of the Labour group thought they weren’t going to get the hearing they deserved so started this campaign and jumped on the bandwagon we’d started.

“What’s depressing is that they knew about this motion but didn’t come and talk to us at any point, they decided to go off and do their thing.”

One of the issues that the Conservative group on the council raised in the run up to the election, and since, is Greenwich Time.  Local Government Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, tried to clamp down on council newspapers but still Greenwich Time keeps going. Is Wilson surprised?

“No, because I know Greenwich Council, they will cling on tooth and nail. Every other council, with one exception, have got rid of theirs and moved to less frequent editions.

“It is a source of frustration but I don’t think Greenwich Council is going to get rid of it any time soon – not if they can cling on to it.”

Councillor Wilson was elected as the Deputy Leader of the Conservative group on Greenwich Council at their recent internal elections.

Slightly guarded about what he can or can’t say, he merely says of his elevation to a leadership role, “I’m looking forward to the opportunity.”

The Conservative group lost seats on the council in 2010, which he puts down to it coinciding with a General Election. Does he expect them to improve next time around?  “Hopefully. I would like to see a few more seats going the Conservative way.”

He will assume his new responsibilities as Deputy Leader following the council’s Annual Meeting on May 16th. Whether or not Alex Wilson is to get two new jobs this month or one remains in the hands of the electors on May 3rd

Alex Wilson is one of eight candidates for the London Assembly member for Greenwich and Lewisham. Find out more at London Elects.

See our interviews with Len Duvall, John Russell and Roger Sedgley here.

 

 

John Russell (Photo: © Vijay Naidu)

“If I was a young black man I would hate the police” says John Russell, Liberal Democrat candidate for the London Assembly speaking to Greenwich.co.uk last month.

“I would hate the police because I would know that I was ten times more likely to get stopped and at the moment we have black kids dying and to be honest about it because they’re not white and middle class they’re not seen as important. They’re not as important. If we had same number of killings happening against upper class white kids there would be outrage.”

John Russell is young, passionate, articulate, and outspoken. Maybe a little too outspoken. As I begin my interview with him we are suddenly joined by one of his party colleagues who I get the distinct impression is here as a minder.

As our companion looks on I ask John how he feels about the Liberal Democrats being in coalition with the Conservatives.

“I’ve had issues with the coalition on a personal level. I think a lot of Liberal Democrats have struggled with it. Not very many of us ever saw being in coalition with the Tories. Personally I find the Tories abhorrent in the main.”

Abhorrent?

“Look nobody who stood in London signed up to the coalition agreement. We are going to be to the left of that and it was very clear from the start”

It’s true that London Liberal Democrats have distinguished themselves from the party nationally. On the London Assembly they regularly attack the Mayor from the left, have formed a coalition with the Green Party and Labour, and their manifesto was described as “a properly liberal and progressive agenda” by the Guardian. Yet they have also campaigned against things which are arguably a direct result of cuts made by their party nationally. How does John manage to square those two things?

“It can be difficult. You can’t be in government and completely ignore everything you’re doing in government. The London elections are on London issues so that’s my focus. Obviously we only managed to get 23% of the vote and we’ve managed to get three quarters of our manifesto implemented in government. Obviously the economy was a mess. Obviously Labour left us in a terrible state. Obviously horrible difficult challenging decisions have had to be made and obviously that’s had an impact on Londoners.”

The Lib Dems have traditionally been a party of protest, picking up seats against whichever party happens to be in government at the time.

With that role taken from them, they have instead focused relentlessly on local issues. In this part of London that has meant campaigns on the closure of the Greenwich and Woolwich foot tunnels, and a campaign to highlight how much the council has spent on becoming a Royal Borough.

“I do think it was over the top. I have no issue with Greenwich becoming a Royal Borough. What I do have an issue with is the fact that they have been so secretive and have suddenly found such a lot of money. And for the ordinary resident in Greenwich, they got a fireworks display, there was a weekend where lots of lovely things were done, but generally a lot of people thought that it was a three day celebration for councillors, for people in power. And actually I don’t particularly get the sense walking around Greenwich that the average citizen thinks that money was well spent or particularly beneficial to local people.”

As part of this campaign John has attempted to get full costs for the celebrations from Greenwich Council. The council restricts public questions at full council meetings to two per person, and they can only be asked by residents of the borough.

In March, John tweeted:

“I have been putting in questions. 11 this time. They will not let me put in questions in my name as I live in Lewisham!”

Wasn’t this a misuse of council resources in order to further his election campaign?

John’s colleague jumps in: “it’s true that there’ve been a miraculous number of questions from the gallery which may or may not have been Liberal Democrats.”

So was John using assumed names I ask again?

“No” comes the reply from our companion.

“There’s nothing wrong with me putting in a question is there?” says John to his colleague, now looking a little worried, before quickly recovering himself:

“I work with local members so that I can get answers and where I can’t do that I put in Freedom of Information requests. I’m not writing questions and they’re going in verbatim I’m raising issues with Greenwich members and encouraging them to use the avenues available to them as Greenwich citizens to raise questions and I have absolutely no issue with that.”

Any protest votes in this election that John does manage to get will be against the Labour incumbent Len Duvall. I ask him what he makes of Duvall’s record as Assembly Member.

“Look I’m not into personally attacking other politicians that’s just not where I come from. I don’t think Len is the worst politician. I certainly don’t think he is the best. I think Len is very busy with certain projects, whether that’s his land company that he’s on the board of, or whether it’s being chair of the London Labour Party. To be honest in my canvassing in Lewisham and Greenwich I have not come across a single person who knows who he is yet.”

Would that be something he would change?

“Yes. One of the things that upsets me is that the Assembly is over ten years old. Nobody knows what it does. Nobody knows who their local member is. Nobody knows how the voting system works. Nobody knows what its powers are. Nobody knows what it does. And whoever is on the Assembly next time what we really need is to tell Londoners what it is, what it does, how it affects their lives and how they can engage with it. And frankly it’s appalling after ten years that every voter I talk to still has no idea.”

Is Duvall partly to blame for that?

“Look on Len’s website, actually he doesn’t have one, but look on his London Assembly site. Have a look at when his last press release was. He doesn’t have a website. He does a little bit of tweeting. He’s never produced a leaflet outside of election times. He doesn’t do much to stay in touch with voters. Frankly I don’t get the sense from Len that he’s fired up, that he’s passionate, that he cares, that’s he’s spending all day every day working to make improvements to Lewisham and Greenwich. I was a councillor in Lewisham for four years and he rarely got involved in issues. He wasn’t there on the ground.”

Another big issue for John locally is the Olympics. Although the party officially supports having the games in London, John is critical of many aspects of it:

“I’ll be honest with you against my party’s policy I’m not a huge fan of the Olympics. The Olympics are here. They’re happening. I think it’s great that Greenwich has Olympic venues but the security issues and the impact on the local citizens raises a whole host of questions. My primary concern is about the security impact of placing missiles in Oxleas Wood and Blackheath. Obviously the Olympics are a terrorist target and the government need to work with security personnel to make sure that citizens are safe during the games, but step back and look at what’s happening.

“We have more troops than we have in Afghanistan. We have the largest ship in the Royal Navy docked at Greenwich. We have surface to air missiles in three sites in London presumably with the power to shoot down any single aircraft of any type straight into central London airspace and this is a worry for residents. And I think that the military and the government need to be clearer and more open in communicating with residents so that they know what is happening and why it’s happening.”

Surely it’s better to be safe than sorry I ask him? What exactly is he worried about?

“I understand that the people guarding those missiles are unarmed and I’m actually worried that they’re going to end up in terrorist hands. What happens if there is an attempt to capture those missiles?”

It’s certainly an alarming prospect and one that John will have a chance to put to the organisers directly if he is elected. Why should voters choose him?

“At the end of the day what matters when you’re elected is not what party you’re from but do you talk to normal people, do you work hard, do you have sensible ideas, are you diplomatic and if you can tick all those off then you’re going to make a difference and if you can’t then you won’t. For me as a candidate in Lewisham and Greenwich that is what I aspire to do. To work hard, to be an effective politician and to improve the lives of people who live in the two boroughs.”

Elections to the London Assembly take place on May 3rd. Get more information from London Elects.

You can read our interviews with Green Party candidate Roger Sedgley and Labour’s Len Duvall here.