London Fire Brigade privatises 999 call centre

Boris Johnson’s fire authority yesterday voted to privatise the brigade’s 999 service.

The controversial deal with Capita is the first time that a fire brigade’s call handling service has been outsourced in the UK.

A spokesperson for the authority claimed that it would save the brigade £5 million over the next ten years.

The Mayor’s fire chief Brian Coleman said today:

“This is a win-win situation for Londoners. Outsourcing the Brigade’s 999 control centre will mean people in the capital benefit from a new, high-tech system that will mobilise our firefighters to incidents even more quickly and this will be done at less cost.”

Coleman caused controversy in recent years after he outsourced the brigade’s “appliances” or fire engines to another private company.

My investigations revealed that the company’s chief executive had previously taken Mr Coleman for a number of lunches and even given him a £350 hamper from Harvey Nichols.

Asset Co later hit severe financial difficulties and even risked going bust.

The brigade admit that this has resulted in a serious deterioration in the service they provide.

According to a worrying authority report, the crisis means that Asset Co have not been able to carry out the proper checks on equipment that they are legally required to do with some appliances being used beyond their natural life.

The Fire Brigade’s Union claim that “the safety of Londoners is being jeopardised” and have warned that yesterday’s deal with Capita could lead to similar problems with the 999 service.

A spokesperson for the FBU said today:

“There are some things that should be beyond privatisation, and this is one of them. The profit motive has no place in the delivery of frontline emergency services… The staff of the London Fire Brigade are against this move, and I’m sure Londoners will oppose it too. It is a step too far.”

A spokesperson for the GMB Union told the BBC: “They are playing with people’s lives, livelihoods and properties. The service will suffer.”

Last year Labour’s Mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone described the proposals as “a new low.”

Mat Riviere, Octagon Court @ Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art is possibly the most perfect place to see Mat Riviere perform. The Brainlove man’s performances are like art installations in themselves as Mat pouring his agonised thoughts and feelings into three-and-a-half minute masterpieces of lo-fi laptop, synth and pedal-based electronica, dividing the audience into camps of complete immersion and total bafflement. Backed by archly theatrical alt-pop duo Octagon Court, this one is a voyeuristic spectacle not to be missed.

Brian Paddick comes right out and calls stop and search use "racist"

Lib Dem Mayoral candidate Brian Paddick said this in an interview with The Voice.

He’s starting to differentiate himself from the big two with some strong declarative statements. Which is an improvement.

See also:

The Met’s stop and search webchat digested
‘London’s trains don’t really matter,’ Lib Dems’ mayoral candidate declares

If you keep your memories in a box, you never have to worry about anything ever changing

Moving House is stressful. Moving house in London is very stressful. Moving into a house in London with your girlfriend for the first time, and her finding a box of your old love letters among your possessions and reading them all, that takes us beyond stress and into the realm of minor psychological breakdowns.

This just happened to a friend of mine. Oh he’d been foolish, no doubt. But aren’t we all? Love letters, like love itself, are inherently foolish. That’s why all those clever PhD students are such committed loners.

But letters my friend had, and letters he kept in a box upon his bedroom shelves. Why, I asked, had he not done the gentlemanly thing, hired a safety deposit box, and stowed them safely away with a vial of cyanide, two false passports and a box of snuff? Or scanned and emailed copies to himself and burnt the originals? I know it’s not the most romantic thing in the world, PDF’s rarely are. But what was his girlfriend more likely to open: a mysterious box with a faint whiff of faded perfume, or a PDF entitled “archived correspondence”?

In any case, romance had nothing to do with it. The old flame who wrote the letters had last licked him long ago. Not an ember remained. This guy was moving in with his girlfriend whom he loved. So why had he kept them?

As usual with human beings, the reason for his behaviour had very little to do with anyone else, and an awful lot to do with himself. The letters had happened to him. They were a chapter in his autobiography. No one likes to pulp their autobiography, especially the early racy chapters about how young, virile and desirable you are.

Perhaps, if he possessed any foresight (and the fact that he left old love letters lying round for his lover to read suggests he may not), he saw them as an investment in his memory. Perhaps he looked ahead 30 or 40 or 50 years, to an old man stumbling blindly through the cluttered rooms of his past, searching of some sign of who he was and what he did, and finding in these letters a memory of himself so fresh and pure it brings a tear to his cataract eye.

Or perhaps he just forgot to chuck them out. That’s also a real possibility. He’s a messy guy.

The past is precious to us all. That’s why we hoard it. But in the end my friend threw the letters out. He realised that the love he has now is more valuable than the idealised recollection of a love which never really was.

As for him and his girlfriend, so for us and our city. Last month a petition was raised to stop Brick Lane’s bricks being tarmacked over. It was claimed the tarmac would damage the historic character of the much-loved street.

And yet the bricks were less than 10 years old. This was an attempt to preserve a city which had never existed. Likewise, this month English Heritage objected to a new tower in Dalston. There are several objections to the tower, some of which are valid—I commend to you OPEN Dalston’s website for a précis. But English Heritage’s objection was that “the proposed frontage… does not adequately respect the historic area’s character, grain and vertical rhythm.”

I’m sure we all love Dalston’s vertical rhythm. As for its grain—I couldn’t possibly comment. But if you object to new developments on rhythmic grounds, you ultimately contribute to higher rents and duller neighbourhoods. It’s like re-reading old love letters instead of going out and finding someone new. You’d be better off storing your objections in a safety deposit box, putting on a spangly new frontage, and trying to focus on the present. Cos that past you’re lusting after, it was probably never even really there.

Twitter: @MikPollitt

London agenda for Thursday 15 March

1. Discuss her new book ‘Girls to the Front’, and the Riot Grrrl movement, with Sarah Marcus [Run Riot]

2. Enjoy rish stew, a pint or two of the black stuff, and plenty of craic with musician, producer, sound engineer and key figure in the lover’s rock genre, Dennis Bovell [Don’t Panic]

3. Refuse to ever, ever, change despite what these guys say [Ian Visits]

4. Listen to jazz at Hideaway [Tired of London]

The promises Boris Johnson claims to have delivered but hasn't

Lots of coverage yesterday for Boris Johnson’s claim that he has “delivered 91% of his manifesto promises.”

The BBC, Evening Standard, and even The Guardian all printed the claim without bothering to check whether it was true.

The Guardian quotes Boris describing his Progress Report as “brutally honest.”

However, as I said on LBC last night, just a cursory glance through the document shows that many of the promises he claims to have delivered, he simply hasn’t.

Here’s a few that immediately jumped out at me:

“I will Chair the Metropolitan Police Authority” – Promise delivered.

Boris chaired the authority for a year before resigning. It has since been abolished. Promise most definitely not delivered.

“Create a Cabinet for London” – Promise Delivered.

You what? Even the document itself admits that he didn’t create a Cabinet for London, and yet it still claims that he’s delivered his promise. This must be some new definition of “delivered” we’re yet to be aware of.

“Stand for only two terms” – Promise Delivered.

Eh? He hasn’t even finished his first term yet and just last month he refused to rule out standing for a third term, telling the Evening Standard that he “regrets” ever promising such a thing.

Now it’s fair to say that hasn’t broken this promise yet, but he can hardly claim to have “delivered” something four years before it’s even possible to do so.

“I will focus on fare evasion” – Promise delivered

Whether or not he’s ‘focused’ on it is a matter for debate, but the amount of fare evasion has increased or stayed the same on all modes of public transport since 2008, apart from the Tube which has shown a slight reduction.

Overall revenue loss also increased from £53.5m to £63.2m by 2010. Now to be fair, overall ridership has also risen over this period.

But even if you take that into account, the ‘rate’ of fare evasion has stayed exactly the same as it was four years ago at 2.2% according to Boris’s report.

“I will stop the proposed Tube ticket office closures in outer London” – Promise delivered

Lots of ticket offices have already had their opening hours dramatically reduced and London Underground have drawn up plans to close all but 30 ticket offices altogether.

At Mayor’s Questions yesterday Boris even went so far as to accuse opponents of ticket office closures of being “luddites”. Promise not delivered.

Many of the other ‘delivered’ promises involve trials of things such as orbital buses and live CCTV both of which he has since rejected.

Even the handful of things he admits to not having delivered, like his promise to run the tube later at weekends, are blamed on “exorbitant demands made by trade union bosses” rather than the obvious impracticalities.

I could go on but maybe you should take a look yourself.

Let me know if you spot any other porkies.

Ken's Lambeth allies pop into the 'drugs supermarket' to attack Paddick

There’s actually an interesting letter in tonight’s Evening Standard, once you’ve got past its City Hall correspondent taking more dictation from Boris Johnson.

It comes from Lambeth councillor Florence Nosegbe, who is the Labour-run council’s “special representative on youth violence”.

She’s taken offence to some words from Lib Dem mayoral candidate Brian Paddick. The former policeman – who probably knows a thing or two about this kind of thing – thinks the Met’s policy of throwing manpower at dealing with gangs is simply bowing to political pressure. He thinks going back to “neighbourhood policing” basics are a better way of dealing with the issue.

“Brian Paddick was wrong when, as Lambeth borough commander, he stopped arresting cannabis dealers on the streets,” she writes.

“That decision turned Brixton into London’s drugs supermarket and fuelled gang warfare as they battled to secure the best sales pitches.”

Putting aside the issue of whether or not Brixton was a drug-free paradise before Commander Paddick’s reign, which heavily influenced the Labour government of the time, it’s an interesting choice of language from Cllr Nosegbe.

Spin back two years, and her colleagues in the Lambeth Labour party were out in nearby Herne Hill trying to fend off a determined challenge from the local Green Party, which had a councillor in the area at the time..

Bearing a photo of then-cabinet minister Tessa Jowell, a letter to locals claimed…

“Lambeth Green party policies include… pressing for the legalisation of drugs including skunk cannabis and class A drugs in Herne Hill – a measure which would risk turning our area into South London’s main drugs supermarket.”

No such policy appeared in the local Green manifesto, though. As local (at the time) blogger Jason Cobb noted, it was simply a smear.

With all that in mind, I wonder what Florence Nosegbe and her Lambeth Labour colleagues would make of these comments from one wild mayoral candidate – the one she’s presumably backing?

“You are not going to have major banks in the City relocate to Frankfurt because young men want to go out on the pull and do a load of cocaine and they can’t really do that easily in Frankfurt.

“So you need to have a dynamic city. Our only real rival is New York.”

Ken Livingstone’s “drugs supermarket”? Coming to a Labour Party leaflet near you. If you’re in Lambeth, that is.

Reviewed: "The Room" at the Prince Charles Cinema. A monthly chance to see the worst film ever made

It’s a few minutes to midnight at the Prince Charles Cinema, and the train crash that is ‘The Room’, dubbed the Citizen Kane of bad movies, is pulling away from the station. Allegedly costing $6 million to make, star and Director Tommy Wiseau clearly intended for his melodramatic yarn about a love triangle set San Francisco to be taken seriously. However, its release in 2003 left most audience members so appalled that they demanded their money back within 30 minutes.

Since then, cinema-goers with a more finely-tuned sense of irony have metamorphosed this resolutely crappy drama into a black comedy of the “so bad its good” variety – developing a game to play throughout the film, which essentially involved shouting abuse following on-screen prompts and cues. It’s one hell of a ride – just don’t expect to be able to hear the film’s dialogue over the participative chaos.

The Prince Charles hosts monthly screenings of film but the reason for this particularly raucous midnight spectacular is that the man himself is there to open it. With a lime green tie, mirrored sunglasses and gothic Bon Jovi hair, Wiseau is busy sharing some dubiously phrased words of wisdom with his enraptured audience. “Let me educate you something”, he slurs down the mic, “Two is great… but three’s a crowd!” The sold-out venue erupts with cheering and a few dozen plastic spoons are hurled in his direction for good measure. Before the show starts, he has some final words of advice: “You can laugh, you can cry, you can express yourself – but please, don’t hurt each other!”

Wiseau plays Johnny (though his co-stars do accidentally call him Tommy on occasion), a successful banker who seems to spend most of his time having incidental sex with his fiancée Lisa. Cue a whole cheeseboard of schmaltzy R&B on the soundtrack. Many in the audience start holding their illuminated phones and lighters in the air and sway to the music like Year Sevens at a Justin Beiber gig. “You’re doing it wrong!” somebody shouts a few aisles down from me. It’s true – Tommy’s (Sorry, Johnny’s) dimpled ex-bodybuilder buttocks are a good few inches lower than is physically feasible, and as the camera slips drunkenly in and out of focus, a few on the back row groan in unison: “Nooo! Soft focus!”

During the course of the screening, plastic spoons become a much-coveted currency with people scrabbling for them on the popcorned carpet so they can pelt them at the screen whenever a picture of the innocuous piece of cutlery appears in the background. It should be symbolic, except that it clearly isn’t. During the birthday party scene, a group near the front of the cinema release multicoloured balloons amidst cheers and whoops, while onscreen Johnny deadpans with glazed eyes: “Thank you honey, this is a beautiful party! You invited all my friends. Good thinking!”

In case anyone is still following it, the plot meanders past a mixture of well-trodden Hollywood plot devices and strangely perplexing cul-de-sacs. Just why was Lisa’s evil anti-feminist mother diagnosed with breast cancer, never to be mentioned again? What kind of drugs was Johnny’s doting semi-adopted street urchin Denny taking? Who is Chris-R? Who cares? Boggy subplots aside, when our hero finds out that Lisa has been sullying the name of R&B with Johnny’s best friend Mark, you can bet the audience shares his pain as he hops from one fantastically wonky cliché to the next. “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” we all holler in anguish in vaguely Eastern European accents. “Everybody betray me. I’m fedda up of this world!”

The final scene, where Johnny appears to simulate having sex with Lisa’s discarded red dress before shooting himself in the mouth, is like a Greek tragedy written by someone with all the imagination of a packet of Feta cheese. As blood gushes from Johnny’s temples, Lisa and Mark run to his still-warm corpse. “C’mon, Johnny! Wake up!” we cry together with the adulterous pair, before Mark solemnly confirms: “He’s dead”. Beneath the sarcasm, mockery and feigned contempt we’re all secretly very, very sad it’s over.

The next screening of The Room is at the Prince Charles Cinema on Thursday 22nd March 2012. 7 Leicester Place, London WC2H 7BY

London agenda for Wednesday 14 March

1. Listen to the ‘spiky, marvellously contagious indie pop’ of Veronica Falls [Run Riot]

2. View a four decades of radical and experimental video treatments by Lis Rhodes [Flavorpill]

3. Discuss Ross Ashcroft’s new documentary on the economic crisis, Four Horsemen [Don’t Panic]

4. Listen to some commie pinkos discuss the media’s creation of the loony left [Ian Visits]

5. Explore West Norwood Cemetery [Tired of London]

London is getting sadder, says reputable study

It’s almost as sad as it used to be. Cheer up guys!

Source (PDF) GLA Intelligence Unit: Taking Park Survey

See also:

East London is England’s unhappiest place to live, says unscientific promotional survey
Survey reveals Londoners to be more unhappy than rest of the UK. You miserable gits