So at a time that young people in London and their families are worrying about knife crime and gang culture, Boris Johnson and what are left of his henchmen are plotting to remove the Police Commissioner (more here)

Concern among London Labour MPs that we were getting neither reliable information nor action from the Mayor led us to approach Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.  She convened a meeting with us last week to begin a direct dialogue with her and senior police officers (story here).

We discussed methods of prevention, detection and punishment to deal with the current problem of knife crime.  None of the issues is simple – from parenting to stop and search to sentencing.  But the problem is not made easier by grandstanding by the media and simplistic rhetoric from politicians.

I asked the Hammersmith police what they thought.  I was told knife offences are down 16% for the first half of 2008 compared to the same period last year and violence against young people generally down by almost a quarter.  The borough is also in the lowest risk band for Operation Blade.  Their view was that the high profile reporting of every serious offence was exacerbating the problem by glamorising knife attacks.

They may have a point but I also believe there is under reporting of knife incidents that stop short of physical harm.  Carrying, producing and threatening with a knife are real problems if my conversations with constituents of all ages are to be believed.

I think the government is right to introduce the presumption of prosecution for all knife offences and a real risk of custody.  I know from many years of representing and prosecuting young offenders that the risk of prison and sometimes the actuality has a salutary effect.   Better still the additional police resources and concentration on catching those who are carrying will have an effect.   If you think you will be caught and see your friends actually being caught and sent down you are likely to stop taking a knife out with you, we were told by Louise Casey and Alf Hitchcock who are advising the Home Secretary.   

We discussed prevention and providing constructive things for young people to do.  This was also the theme of a debate I attended last week at the Commons.  ‘Peace on the Streets’, hosted by Choice FM and my neighbouring MP Dawn Butler, asked an audience of young people, their parents and youth workers to provide their own solutions.  Some thought compulsory community service was the answer, most thought there was under investment in youth services.

Earlier this year Ken Livingstone announced a £79 million investment in young Londoners, £59 million of which would come from the Government.  Ealing’s share was £1.5m and Hammersmith & Fulham’s £1.8m.  To rather greater fanfare Boris Johnson said this week he would spend £700,000 on three projects, which is a start but less than 1% of Ken’s commitment.

And in the meantime Hammersmith & Fulham council is cutting youth spending (by over £300,000 last year) and selling off youth clubs, like the Castle Club in Fulham.  This is perhaps why Tories fall back on moralising rhetoric, as Cameron did in his recent ‘it’s your own fault’ speech.  If being poor or addicted or delinquent is no one’s responsibility but the individual concerned, the state can save a lot of money on funding benefits or rehab or youth clubs.  This curio of Victorian values that the Tories revive every now and again is a favourite of Bailey, my opponent at the next election.  Very mouthy at telling the poor to shape up, he is silent on the cuts which are decimating services for the elderly and children alike in the borough he aspires to represent.

What started as the single issue of the Central Line closure has mushroomed throughout the year and I now have regular meetings with Transport for London, the council, Westfield, residents and local businesses on the crisis enveloping Shepherds Bush town centre.

A week ago I held a coffee morning at the Village Hall to hear from residents their own experiences of living in the Wild West (here).  My quarrel is not primarily with Westfield but with the abdication of responsibility by the public services we fund – council, transport, police – to deal with the consequences of the development and operation of Britain’s third biggest shopping centre. The comparison with America’s lawless frontier is beginning to sound all too accurate.

We discussed the disruption caused by the rash of transport closures and extended hours working.  If you want to know more about these see the minutes of my four weekly meetings with TfL. (here)

We also talked about crime.  There were complaints that residential streets are still not being policed and drug deals taking place openly.  All residents had been written to by the council and police to say crime was falling in the area.  This is true in the borough as a whole, but not around the Green.  What hope is there when we cannot trust the information put out by law enforcement agencies?  Residents thought the public relations budget would be better spent on extra policing. All matters I will take up with our new Borough Commander, Kevin Hurley.

Increasingly the attention of SB residents is on what happens when Westfield opens.  No plans are in place to deal with extra traffic, parking or criminal activity despite the expected millions of new journeys being made to and from the Bush. I have circulated a survey to residents on this issue, which you can also fill in on line.  I am dealing separately with TfL, LBHF and the police on these issues but am amazed that the statutory authorities have adopted a wait and see approach.  Talking to other MPs  it is clear that had development on this scale been happening in a provincial town or city there would have been months if not years of integrated planning.

Finally, the widespread publicity about London Underground’s deceit over the closure of the Central Line station has served to flush out more of their position (TV, radio , the locals and the London Paper all ran the story – though not of course HFNews or , the Standard both Tory house mags, though only the former is paid for from our taxes).  In interviews and talking to me LU did not try to defend the closure on engineering grounds – the original reason given – but operational ones.  They said they could not cope with the Westfield traffic with only one escalator working at a time.  Thus they confirmed our original conclusion that the hypothetical extra shoppers are more important than the actual current users.

Less well reported was what the disclosed documents (here) said about the lift.  It appears it was the decision to abandon these works (which would have enabled the station to remain open) which led LU to accept Westfield’s offer and close.  So their and the council’s continued protestations that they would like to see a lift put in are just more whitewash to cover up a grubby little deal.

You will hear a lot in the coming months about the Tories’ plans to demolish council estates around the borough in an effort to quite literally cement their vote Shirley-Porter style.  This is easier said than done, I’m pleased to say – for the residents’ sake.  Surcharges – like Porter’s £44million - are a thing of the past but there is the small matter of hundreds of families evicted, as they found last time they were in power here and tried the same trick with Fulham Court.

So where to strike is likely to be a matter of looking for opportunity – hence their clever slogan ‘Borough of Opportunity’.  First up looks to be the West Ken and Gibbs Green Estates.  Last month the respected property journal Estates Gazette revealed that the council had approached the developers of the Earl’s Court area asking them to include about 800 council flats in West Ken in their development plans.  This was picked up by the Chronicle (more here), and now I am, understandably, getting anxious enquiries from residents.  I have put in Freedom of Information requests, but am not holding my breath. 

As a member of the Schools Select Committee I got embroiled in the row over late SATs result, asking questions of the Secretary of State, Ed Balls, in the Committee and the Commons (here).  While some of my colleagues wished to put all the blame on the US contractor ETS, and the Tories on Mr Balls, I thought the QCA, the government agency responsible for letting the contract should be more in the frame. ETS were clearly unable to carry out the mechanical side of the contract – the process of delivering sacks of scripts first to markers and then schools at the right time and in the right order.  This sounds very like the QCA trying to get it done on the cheap, with inadequate attention to procurement and specification (shades of street cleansing and refuse in Hammersmith & Fulham).

 The second and more important issue is whether quality will also be affected – which we will see not so much by the number of results challenged but by the number of appeals upheld.  When I asked the Secretary of State to refer this to the independent inquiry he pointed me towards another quango, Ofqual, instead.  And by chance I met its Chairman the next day ay Ealing, Hammersmith & West London College, so was able to question her too.  The reason we were there, by the way, on the Ealing campus in Virendra Sharma’s constituency, was to celebrate  VQ day – celebrating vocational success (here)

With Reading and Oxford MPs Martin Salter and Andrew Smith I attended a seminar at the Commons held by WWF to warn of the dangers of climate change to the Thames basin.  You can read about the environmental issues at www.wwf.org.uk/freshwater but they also dealt with some issues closer to home – like drought and floods - that are causing misery to many residents in Shepherds Bush and Hammersmith.  I am talking regularly to Thames Water and Ofwat about a long term solution, but those basement and ground floor dwellers – myself included - who have flooded up to three times in the last four summers watch the skies nervously at this time of year.

Talking to Thames this week I also discussed the new super sewer designed to carry high volumes of waste away from the Thames and prevent the overflows of effluent that kill marine life.  Hammersmith & Fulham council is running a campaign to sabotage the sewer – because they say the entry points to it will destroy public open space, including Furnival Gardens.  I agree with them it is unacceptable to lose any open space in a borough already short of it  – but I also smell a rat, sewer or otherwise.

Firstly, Thames have made no formal proposals for the site of the portals – this is pure speculation typical of the dishonest journalism emanating from the town hall (this week HFNews ‘saved’ the parcel collection service in Shepherds Bush that had never been under threat).  Secondly it chimes with the anti-Green agenda Hammersmith Tories are famous for (where else do you pay to recycle?) -  this time apparently it is the evil EU forcing us to keep the Thames free of excrement.

• The Peterborough school send off was lavish as befits the wake for a grand old Fulham institution (story here).  The exhibition of 107 years of history by the staff and pupils was lavish – and I found my name in the enrolment book for 1965.  Looking at the elegant and imposing structure it was clear why the French Government had picked this over the other schools in south Fulham for their prize.  At least they have good taste – but why should the children of ordinary Fulham families  be evicted to make way for those of French bank executives?  The Department for Communities and Local Government is now investigating the dodgy sale at a £700,000 undervalue (see last eNews)
• With so little affordable housing now being built in the borough it was a pleasure to attend the opening of Du Cane House, the first phase of over 50 affordable rented flats for key workers opposite Hammersmith Hospital (here) .  Du Cane Housing Association is a small organisation which originally just provided homes for medical staff, but it is well run and now independent and expanding.  Bodies like this still preserve the ethos of the housing association movement which most of the big associations have lost in their rush to become developers.
• I would not be telling the truth if I said I had attended the Concert in the Square at St Peter’s Church, having to leave after the reception and miss among others the Cwmbach Male Voice Choir.  But by all accounts I missed a treat.  The concert was organised by Square resident Alun Watkins in aid of Leukaemia Research and will not be the last.  You can keep in touch on www.concertinthesquare.com.
• More evidence of local enterprise when I met Auriol Herford the owner of Kite Studios in Bassein Park Road.  The studios are an oasis of calm and light hidden behind the Askew Road.  In addition to small IT and fashion businesses Auriol runs an art studio for local schools including Good Shepherd and Wendell Park.  Now she is looking to expand the building and open it to the public – in the process absorbing a yard misused for drug and alcohol abuse and rough sleeping.  Local Labour Councillor Gill Dickinson arranged for tons of rubbish to be cleared from the site and we met with site owners and architects to get the project underway.
• Residents of Steventon Road and surrounding Streets are alarmed at a proposal to widen the narrow access routes through the Wormholt Estate to allow a new bus service to run from East Acton to Ladbroke Grove via White City.  The bus – the 228 – would serve some areas of Acton and Shepherds Bush with low car ownership and provide a link to the Westfield shopping centre.  But after hearing residents concerns at a street meeting I met with London Buses and have put forward an alternative route which might keep everybody happy.
• I don’t usually mention my constituents’ surgeries here – it’s a bit like a doctor telling you he saw some patients today.  But last Friday’s lasted five hours.  I’m not looking for applause but noting that even in the three years I have been an MP the complexity of casework has dramatically increased.  Most casework is still dealt with by my office, but the people I see take a long time to deal with.  The reason for the change I am sure is the cuts in advice agency services.  I was delighted that Southall Black Sisters won its judicial review against Ealing Council’s proposed cuts last week.  It is a unique organisation providing a dedicated service – what a pity Hammersmith & Fulham wasn’t forced to reverse its cuts to the Law Centre and many other advice and support services.  
• Through membership of the Children’s Select Committee and the All-Party Group on Autism I was able to meet recently with foster parents of damaged children and hear about the latest developments in Autism research.  One of the best privileges in being an MP is this face to face contact with dedicated and exceptional people like these.who every day rededicate themselves to improving the lives of others.  It puts the politics into perspective