Your good news paper: Council rags keep the faith
Imagine a world of happy children, where nothing ever goes wrong. Of efficient bureaucrats and clean streets, all thanks to the hard work of smiling men in suits.
Welcome to the world of the council newspaper, designed to ensure you think highly of your abritarily-defined chunk of the capital. Some are monthly magazines like Wandsworth’s Brightside, Islington Life, Lewisham Life and The Brent Magazine (which last month offered the chance to win a year’s supply of biscuits).
Others are fortnightly, like Hackney Today, Lambeth Life and The Newham Mag, featuring those beaming kids pictured in West Ham kits outside the Olympic Stadium.
But some councils are keener than others to get their message across – to the anger of communities secretary Eric Pickles, who has declared war on what he calls town hall Pravdas.
In his sights are Tower Hamlets’ East End Life and Greenwich Time, which thump onto residents’ doormats every week.
Both look like real newspapers, but both stick rigidly to the party line. When Greenwich Foot Tunnel was forced to close due to a lift breakdown, Greenwich Time crossed its fingers and trumpeted “Foot tunnel reopens”.
I should declare an interest here, as a local blogger who follows what happens at Greenwich Council. For me, each Monday brings a new game of “what can they get away with this time?” as the council leader manages to get himself into yet another photograph of grinning youngsters.
But it’s not the overt propaganda that matters, it’s the stories that are missed out. The Newham Mag gleefully reports on the government being forced to review cutbacks to school building programmes, but there’s not a word about the cuts the council is having to make itself. You can pick up the cheery Lewisham Life in the borough’s libraries – but it doesn’t report on the council’s plans to close five of them.
Shouldn’t there be an active, fearless local press covering this kind of stuff anyway? There was once, but some councils are holding meetings with empty press benches, as local newspaper barons cut back their operations.
In south-east London, both Lewisham and Greenwich share their two “local” freesheets – leading to very patchy coverage of local affairs.
The publishers say their businesses, already battered by the internet, are being hit by councils competing with them for advertising. But the councils claim their newspapers save them money, with ads helping them cut the cost to taxpayers.
With local papers on their knees, there’s an argument for public funds to be made available to help protect genuine, independent reporting, rather than promoting the work of local politicians.
But instead – and to the anger of councils who see East End Life and Greenwich Time as giving their own publications a bad name – Eric Pickles wants to see all the council papers cut back to four a year.
He has demanded councils make local bloggers welcome in their chambers to report on and film meetings, hoping to encourage a new army of tweeting reporters armed with Flip cameras.
Already, the council papers are largely fading away. Lewisham Life is being cut back, Lambeth Life may go altogether. Tower Hamlets is reviewing the future of East End Life.
But what will take their place? Many local papers are fading away too. One big publisher, Newsquest, is looking for volunteers for redundancy at its London papers, while local blogs still have fairly small readerships.
If you want to find out what your council’s up to – you might just have to go down the town hall and find out yourself. Just don’t forget your video camera.
04 Mar 2011
London agenda for Friday 4 March
1. Watch Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop and Rise, Rise, Roar, a documentary of the Talking Head at The Riverside Studios [Le Cool]
2. Get some glamour in the slammer at Jailhouse Jam [Run Riot]
3. Visit St Lawrence Jewry [Tired of London]
4. Hear the old school blasting London hardcore thrash punks Flowers Of Flesh And Blood [London Gigs]
04 Mar 2011
Come Outside by Melodica, Melody and Me
Brixton’s Melodica, Melody and Me release second single Come Outside (feat. Nick Pynn) April 4, on Everybody’s Stalking. Catch their brand of soulful folk-pop at Jamm, Brixton, April 7.
03 Mar 2011
“Piss Poor Decision” Not A Very Accurate Turn Of Phrase, Says Science
Another remarkable discovery today from our good friend science — apparently people with fuller bladders make better decisions.
03 Mar 2011
London agenda for Thursday 3 March
1. Wish one’s life resolved around the social club and bingo hall [Le Cool]
2. Dance about comedy at Inconvenient Spoof [Run Riot]
4. Hear the upbeat, oddball tunes of Robyn [Time Out]
5. Watch theatre at the Southwark Playhouse [Tired of London]
6. Listen to straight up improv duo of frantic drums and noisy guitar at Down with the Rest, Urethra Franklin, and One Man Team Dance at the Birds Nest [London Gigs]
03 Mar 2011
Country Dumb by Josh T Pearson
Considering the rather tragic demise of Josh T. Pearson’s previous band, Lift To Experience, in the early noughties (check out this month’s Mojo for the full, sorry tale), it’s perhaps unsurprising that he’s spent the past decade in something of a musical/emotional black hole. Having recently returned from Paris to his native Texas, he’s set to release his debut solo album Last Of The Country Gentlemen March 14, on Mute. “New single Country Dumb is a powerful; yet vulnerable lament to lost love and should, fingers crossed, set the tone for the whole album. According to The Times, ‘not since Leonard Cohen has an artist emerged who can evoke such extremes of human emotion through the device of a simple musical performance’. Catch him at the Union Chapel, May 11. Download a piano version of Country Dumb for free, here.
Josh T. Pearson – Country Dumb (piano version) by snipelondon
02 Mar 2011
Boris's brother rails against bus bother
It can’t be easy when you’re a new MP trying to get to grips with the job – and it certainly can’t be much fun when your biggest problem is something your brother could fix tomorrow, but won’t.
Orpington MP Jo Johnson has a bee in his bonnet about buses. Specifically the 320 to Biggin Hill Valley. Once a sleepy route winding out towards the Kent countryside, it was transformed by TfL last summer into a trunk route, extending it from Bromley to Catford.
Sounds like a good thing, yes? Unfortunately, for the citizens of one of Greater London’s most distant outposts, it’s not worked out. They complain traffic delays on the new section mean the buses are turning around short of Biggin Hill – making them worse off.
Locals in Biggin Hill want things back the way they were. “People from Catford don’t want to go to Biggin Hill,” one said.
So Jo, dutifully, has been banging the drum for his constituents. As a good MP should.
Conservative colleagues from Bromley Council piled in, comparing TfL to Josef Stalin and even calling on the head of TfL to resign.
And yesterday, Jo even used a Westminster debate about Southeastern trains’ poor performance to bring up the woes of the Biggin Hill bus users – even though the 320 is a bus, not a train.
“I urge TfL to revert to the old route of Biggin Hill to Bromley North, which was very successful,” he told his fellow MPs. His Zone 6 constituents will no doubt be delighted.
But there’s a man very close to Jo who could sort all this out – but doesn’t seem to be doing very much. You guessed it – the chairman of Transport for London – his brother Boris.
Perhaps Jo could mention it the next time they meet?
02 Mar 2011
London agenda for Wednesday 3 March
1. Appeal to the vanity of one’s inner child at Red Shoes [Le Cool]
2. Visit the Scratch Cabaret despite the description, ‘exciting performers will be sharing their talents with up-for-it audiences’ [Run Riot]
3. Drink up Scapes by Squidsoup [Flavorpill]
4. Search for the Skylon [Tired of London]
5. Check out Proud2, a giant new nightclub at the O2 [Time Out]
6. Get messy and wired at Chapter 24, Bitches, Chapter Sweetheard at The Drop [London Gigs]
02 Mar 2011
Why Boris Johnson should be losing but isn't
For a politician facing an election in just over a year’s time, prospects shouldn’t be looking good for Boris Johnson.
With growth down, unemployment up and two long winters of transport chaos behind him, any other Mayor would be getting ready to pack his panniers at City Hall.
Congenitally inactive, contemptuous of scrutiny and attached by the pockets to London’s hated banking industry, Boris should by now be the lamest of all lame ducks.
And yet the latest polling conducted by YouGov shows that Boris is actually only marginally behind his opponent Ken Livingstone and could even be ahead once second preferences are taken into account.
And whilst you might expect Boris’s fare rises and support for one of the most unpopular groups in London to have harmed his chances, the poll shows him actually leading with lowest paid Londoners.
So why is Boris proving to be so resilient in voters’ affections? And why has Ken Livingstone failed to fatally wound him so far?
The first and obvious answer is personality. Unlike national politics, mayoral politics is mostly about personalities, not parties.
Labour failed to understand this in 2000, when they pitted the decent but uncharismatic Frank Dobson against Livingstone.
At the peak of his powers and following a landslide general election, Tony Blair figured that the traditionally safe Labour stronghold of London would accept the Labour candidate come what may.
In the end this proved to be a fatal misjudgement and independent candidate Ken cruised to victory leaving Labour in a humiliating third place, only narrowly ahead of the Lib Dems.
Now in 2011 some in the Labour Party seem to be making the same mistake, hoping that unpopular decisions made nationally will swing Ken to victory again locally.
In a close race this may well prove to be the case, but only a fool would rely upon it as a strategy in an election dominated by the clash of two distinct personalities. To win outright Labour and Ken need to face up to this fact fast. So far they’ve failed to do so.
The second reason for Boris’s resilience is the lack of any real day-to-day opposition.
In national politics, the government’s statements are routinely met by arguments from the opposition, with the Prime Minister facing a high-profile battle with his opposite number on a weekly basis.
But in City Hall the Mayor is allowed to govern almost totally unchallenged by the inconvenience of having to deal with his political opponents.
Apart from the monthly clash with a powerless London Assembly, Boris is as free to rule as any medieval monarch, and with few of the same checks and balances.
With a gift for the outrageous phrase and a national media interested only in his various quips and clashes with David Cameron, Boris is free to range far and wide without ever having to seriously fear the consequences.
And yet this could all change dramatically as we get closer to the elections next year.
After two years in government, and following a series of unpopular cuts, the contest between Ken and Boris will be seen rightly or wrongly as a major test for the Conservatives.
Hugely popular within party ranks, a defeat for Boris would be deeply resented and if he were to fall in 2012, it would surely not be long before Cameron fell too.
For these reasons, the battle next year will be closely watched and Ken will find himself getting both the good and bad attention he has failed to get so far.
But attention is not enough and whilst Boris is increasingly showing political weaknesses on all fronts, they are weaknesses that Ken has yet to find effective means of exploiting.
To do so will take huge political skill and a lot of hard work. A resurgent Labour Party will now be hoping that Ken Livingstone still has it in him.
02 Mar 2011
Animal by You say France and I whistle
Refreshingly free of pretension and horny as hell – ‘you’re a sexy motherfucker’ – You Say France And I Whistle last week entertained the waifs and strays at Milan Fashion Week, performing a one-off show for Costume National. The Swedes new EP, Angry Boy, is a delicious collection of sugary indie-pop. Download a track from the record, Animal, for free from the band’s website.
01 Mar 2011
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- Silencing the Brick Lane curry touts could be fatal for the city's self-esteem
- An interview with Desiree Akhavan
- Nice map of London's fruit trees shows you where to pick free food
- Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- Punk brewery just as sexist and homophobic as the industry they rail against
- Random Interview: Eileen Conn, co-ordinator of Peckham Vision
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
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