Chuka Umunna MP

Last weekend, Tooting Bec Common played venue to the first annual Carnival of the local areas, Balham, Streatham and Tooting. The carnival was a complete charity fundraiser for 4 chosen charities – Re-Play Music (Merton Abbey Mills), Raw Material Music and Media (Brixton), and the Friends of the Neo Natal Unit at St. George’s Hospital (Tooting) – all with a focus on improving the lives of children in South London. The event certainly proved to be a family crowd puller. As Saturday’s sunshine rays scorched the grass beneath them, revelers bathed in the heat while listening to live acts, eating Carribbean jerk chicken, sipping rum punch and evidently enjoying the community vibe.

Two stages continuously hosted more than 40 live bands and DJs, both locally bred and from the international circuit. One group helping to give community support to up and coming talent were given the opportunity to showcase their members on the smaller of the two stages. What started as a few pre-positioned bystanders soon became a significant audience, giving welcomed appreciation to the young acts.

Despite the downpour on Sunday morning, the carnival did not fail in producing some phenomenal soul vocals, punk beats and, amongst others, the eagerly awaited acoustic wonder of Rodney Branigan – ‘a sensational instrumentalist and singer-songwriter who… [has a] show-stopping ability to play two guitars simultaneously to awe-inspiring standards’ (www.CroydonGuardian.co.uk)

Besides the kids’ area, fully equipped with fun fair, music and art workshops, and nearby face painting, a small collection of local businesses and charities offered their festival wares and services to the carnival punters. Bargain fashion sunglasses and Bikram Yoga were amongst some of the delights on offer. A great mix of organic, halal and exotic food stalls also added to the true communal representation of diversity within the locality.

The carnival sponsors should be commended for their breadth of thought in securing such a wealth of volunteer support, which helped recycling and waste reduction throughout the weekend. The bank of fluorescent bibbed rubbish collectors added to the sense of wellbeing and sustainability.

A thorough success from the eyes of a debutant punter – the Balham and Tooting Carnival should be the start of something special, a South London special!

Chichi Umunna

Congratulations are due to Streatham, Balham, Brixton, Clapham and Tulse Hill’s GCSE pupils who have achieved a fantastic set of GCSE results this year. All the hard work paid off for both pupils and teachers as Streatham parliamentary constituency’s secondary schools saw improvements on last year’s grades.

La Retraite Girls School in Atkins Road, Clapham, reported its best ever results to date with 81% of pupils achieving five A* to C passes.  Elsewhere in the constituency, Dunraven School in Leigham Court Road, Streatham, saw 72 % of pupils achieving five A* to C passes, while St Martin’s School in Tulse Hill saw a rise from 69% to 75% achieving five A*-C grades.  Bishop Thomas Grant in Belltrees Grove, Streatham, saw the biggest improvement in its results with a 13% improvement on the numbers gaining five A* to C passes since 2007. Over 90% of pupils at Streatham and Clapham High School achieved grade A* to C passes.

Across the constituency’s schools, there was an average increase of 6.25% of students achieving five A*-C passes and all Streatham’s schools are now above the national average of 65.7%.  The year on year improvements are tangible results of the many changes made by Labour since 1997, including improving weak and failing schools, increasing literacy and supporting more young people than ever to go on to university.

And the changes are continuing with Building Schools for the Future funding arriving in the constituency. Also, the new Elm Green School, set up by parents, will be opening its permanent site on nearby Elms Court Road in 2009.

Chuka, who himself is a governor at Sunnyhill Primary School, sees continued investment in primary, secondary and further education as a major priority and congratulated Streatham’s students :
“ Streatham constituency’s students have done themselves proud. They’ve tried their hardest and now have the opportunity to move on to further success in the future. While education is much broader than targets and tests, these results will improve the life outcomes of our young people, raise their aspirations and take them a long way to gaining meaningful employment .
“Labour has decreased class sizes, improved funding and given young pupils more choices in what they can learn. I’m committed to ensuring that this continues and that every child in Streatham has a place in a good local school.”

Labour has an ambitious vision for every child which sees schools at the heart of each community, providing a wide range of services for everyone and, with staff, students and parents working together to ensure the best outcomes for our children.

You can watch the BBC News 10 O’Clock News report featuring Dunraven School here: “A Generation of Labour Education”

Jamie Audsley

My good friend Dawn Butler, Member of Parliament for Brent South, has written a piece on the Guardian’s website today – “Turning the tide of teenage crime”- which I would recommend to anyone who cares about youth issues. In her piece, Dawn says:

“I believe crime will only get better if the community, and our society, gets stronger. There are still a multitude of problems in society that can beat the hope and aspiration out of the young – all the negative publicity, the labels, celebrity culture. Sometimes it seems that technology has replaced simple conversation. Today’s young people need adult interaction – without this we can’t prepare them for the transition from childhood to adulthood.”
I could not have put it better myself.

Dawn (pictured with US Sen. Barack Obama) is the Labour Party’s Vice Chair for Youth. Writing in the Guardian myself in November 2007 - “Labour’s lost love” – I said of Dawn:
“There has been much talk of politicians lacking authenticity and – automaton-like – being unable to talk in a way that connects with the person on the street. Step forward Dawn Butler, one of Labour’s two black female MPs, who won many plaudits for doing precisely the opposite when given the chance to second the Queen’s speech in the Commons the other week.”
Her article today provides further evidence of this.

Dawn has set up a fantastic website – My Life My Say (www.mylifemysay.co.uk) – for young people, where young people can make their contribution on the big issues of the day and find out how to register to vote.

The average annual spend on domestic energy per household has now breached £1,200. Since 2000, consumers in Streatham and beyond have faced gas price rises of 100% and electricity price rises of 61%. At the same time, the main energy providers have seen their profits rise from £557 million in 2003 to over £3 billion now.

In an article on the Guardian newspaper’s website on 7 August 2008, Chuka wrote:
“Shell, BP and Centrica (which owns British Gas) reportedly made £1,000 every second of the day for the first six months of this year. To put this in context, what BP presently makes in profit every month is roughly equivalent to what my local council, Lambeth, spends on running local services every year.”

Every 10% increase in energy prices leads to an extra 400,000 people joining the 2.5 million already living in fuel poverty in Britain today. Chuka pointed out that people living in communities like Streatham, containing some of the most deprived wards in the country, “are being clobbered.”

So Chuka has called on the government to levy a windfall tax on the energy companies to help ordinary people. Commenting on why he supports this measure, he said,
“I am in the business of politics because I want to build a fairer, more equal, democratic and sustainable world for people here – I think this necessitates, amongst other things, government intervention where appropriate, which is I am calling for this measure.”
“The point is not to punish the energy companies – the winners in this situation – for their unearned fruits, or even that the increase in global fuel prices is their fault; the point is that those fruits should be spread more widely to relieve the burden on the many residents in Streatham, Brixton, Clapham, Tulse Hill and beyond who, faced with these huge price rises, are the loosers here.”

Chuka has said the windfall tax, in the short term, should be ring-fenced to immediately help those struggling with rising fuel bills and to ensure every home is insulated and energy efficient to the highest standards; in the long term, he thinks proceeds could also be invested in renewable energy production. If you agree with Chuka, you can join the campaign for a windfall tax on the energy companies by signing up by here (scroll down to the bottom).

Above, five local residents of Streatham say what they think about the proposal.

Jamie Audsley

…this is the number of workers in London who stand to benefit from the National Minimum Wage (NMW) this year, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last month.

When the NMW came into being, wages of as little as £1.20 an hour were common and legal – that’s just £1.38 an hour in today’s prices!

I remember the Conservative Party and others strongly opposing the introduction of this measure. They said the NMW would cost the country 2 million jobs – in fact an extra 2.3 million jobs have actually been created since then.

To date nearly one million low paid employees, two thirds of them women, have benefited from the NMW and more continue to do so.  I know what a difference it makes because I regularly deal with NMW issues in my work as an employment lawyer. 

Presently the NMW rates are as follows:
Workers aged 22 and over – £5.52 per hour
Workers aged 18-21 – £4.60 per hour
Workers aged 16-17 – £3.40 per hour

From 1 October 2008 the NMW rates will increase as follows:
Workers aged 22 and over – £5.73 per hour
Workers aged 18-21 – £4.77 per hour
Workers aged 16-17 – £3.53 per hour

Labour is building on this and has recently announced that it intends to change the current NMW rules on tipping, to ensure that in future tips will be additional to the NWM. When we go to a restaurant or to have our hair cut in Streatham, Balham, Brixton, Clapham or Tulse Hill, and we leave a tip, we expect it to go to the staff member in addition to their pay, not to be processed through the payroll to make up the NMW – dealing with this is a matter of fairness and common sense in my view which is why we are taking action to outlaw this practice.

For more information on the NMW, click here.

Last week the fantastic “Urban Art” fair on Josephine Avenue took place and had its most successful year ever despite the credit crunch, Brixton tube station being closed all weekend and Herne Hill being closed on Sunday. Selected pictures of the event are below.

Locally based artist, Paul Anthony Smith, exhibits his paintings.  More information on his work can be found at www.pasartwork.com.

Enjoying the sun with one of the organisers.  We are standing near Priscilla Watkins work (not pictured), which particularly caught my eye – you can see her work at www.priscillawatkinsart.co.uk.  

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There is considerable alarm about the gun and knife crime on our streets today. It seems that not a day goes by without a media report of a stabbing or shooting incident in London.

Here in Streatham, the shooting of 16 year old James Andre Smartt-Ford at Streatham Ice Rink (outside which I am pictured with a youth worker) on 2 February 2007 was one of the first in a wave of teenage murders to come to national prominence. Months later, on 22 October 2007, there was the shooting of Gary “Curry Cat” Guthrie at the Starlight Room nightclub behind the Ice Rink (the trial of the seven men accused of his murder takes place in January). On 31 March this year a teenager was shot in the face on Tierney Road. This list is by no means exhaustive.

Each and every incident is shocking, all the more so when it results in death. Unfortunately I have not had time to do justice to these issues in a post on this website this week, but I do intend to blog in much greater detail in this regard in the coming months. For the moment, here are some brief thoughts.

Firstly, I think it is important to get these issues in perspective. Yes there is a problem – no one would deny that when faced with the statistics of young people tragically killed over the last 18 months – but it is still a minority engaging in this kind of violence. The Home Office estimates that just 5% of young people are responsible for half of all youth crime, so lets not demonise the majority of them.  Mark Easton, BBC News’ Home Affairs editor (right) did a very good blog this week on our teenagers – “10 reasons to cheer our teenagers” – which is well worth reading.

Secondly, knife and gun crime is not the sole preserve of young people as the murder of Gary Guthrie demonstrates. Guthrie was aged 35 and all those charged with his murder are aged 20 or over. Lets not forget there is knife and gun crime being committed across all age groups which must be addressed.

Thirdly, the government is taking action, not only to crack down hard on those committing these dreadful offences, but also to prevent people getting involved in this kind of activity in the first place as the Youth Crime Action Plan published on Tuesday demonstrates.

Elements of the Youth Crime Action Plan include street based teams of youth workers and ex-gang members to tackle groups of young people involved in crime and disorder, giving the community the opportunity to say what type of work they want young people on community sentences to do undertake and expanding youth centre provision. This builds on measures we have introduced to tackle crime more generally such as Safer Neighbourhood Teams.