Vote Ken, vote Leonie, vote Labour on Thursday

With less than 31 hours until polls open for London's important elections, I'm republishing the post I did a fortnight ago when postal votes were sent out.

In the London elections voters get three different ballot papers: one to elect the Mayor, one for our local member of the London Assembly, and one for a London list of candidates that ensures that the results across the capital are broadly proportional to votes cast.

These are examples of the ballot papers - and how to vote if you wish to support your Labour team. You can click on each image to make it larger:

The Mayoral ballot paper is pink - Labour's Ken Livingstone is candidate 7:



The ballot paper for the London Assembly member representing us in Merton & Wandsworth is cream - Labour's candidate is Councillor Leonie Cooper, candidate 1:



And the ballot paper to make the London results proportional - on which you vote for parties, not individuals, is buff. Labour is party 7:

Big fall in burglaries

I mentioned in my recent report on the Southfields Safer Neighbourhoods team meeting about the sharp fall in crime in that part of the constituency. The main reason for that fall has been a stark decline in burglaries: in one month they fell from 14 crimes per 1,000 of the population (among the highest in Putney) to just 6.5 - the second lowest.

A halving of the rate of crime in just one month is a major achievement and as I said before, the Southfields Safer Neighbourhood Police team deserve congratulation on their success.

And Southfields was not alone - the number of burglaries fell in every Putney ward except Thamesfield. Overall, the crime rate satyed broadly static in March; mainly because the decline in burglaries was off-set by an increase in theft and handling offences. Is there a direct correlation between the two?

Here's the March analysis:



And here's the comparison with February:

"Where do I vote?"

It's been a few weeks since the Council sent out pollcards telling us where our polling station is in the elections this coming Thursday.

We're sending out our own cards letting thousands of Labour supporters in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, know where to vote on Thursday. But if you want to check where you vote, you can do so on my website by clicking here.

There's a list of polling stations down the side, or you can check using the map - by clicking on the links you'll get a list of streets that vote at each station and a satellite image of the location on it.

Most polling stations are where they've always been, but a couple have changed since the last elections in 2006:

• The Putney Vale estate now votes at Stag House in Stroud Crescent, following the Tory council's closure of Newlands Hall;


• Residents of the Alton East estate are back voting at Roehampton Parish Hall (now called Cornerstone), on the corner of Alton Road and Roehampton Lane.

Clamping down on Coleman Court car crime

On Tuesday I was out and about in Coleman Court, off Kimber Road on the edge of King George's Park in Southfields.

I took the opportunity of my visit to Coleman Court to ask residents about problems that had been reported to my via my website.

A number of residents expressed their concern about a spate of car crime locally.

Although there is some parking within Coleman Court, most residents use Burr Road which runs parallel to the estate. It seems there has been an increase in damage to vehicles (broken windows) and some thefts.

Problems of this nature if not stamped out quickly can escalate. They are also exactly the type of crimes that Labour's Safer Neighbourhood police Teams were established to tackle: a local police response to very local problems.

I have been in touch with the Southfields SNT and was impressed with their response. Sgt David Mepham, who leads the team, has a number of ideas about how to tackle this and a number of other problems in the area and I am confident it is "on his radar". He'll be in touch with residents to outline how they can help - and I hope everyone will play their part in tackling this problem.

How many years does it take the Tories to fix a drain?

The answer is: we don't know because they haven't managed to yet; and according to residents in Tildesley Road the flooding they suffer every time it rains has been going on for years and years - as many as twenty according to some I spoke to yesterday.

The flooding in question affects one of the blocks above the shops in Tildesley Road: numbers 389-453 to be precise. Here's the cause of the problem - a drain completely clogged outside flat 425:



Residents told us that over the years so much rubbish has been forced down this drain by the cleaning crews - including animal excrement - that it just got more and more clogged.

And here's the damage that one blockage does - would you like the entrance to your home to be flooded like this week in, week out?:



Work to provide extra storage space for the shops below has filled-in the usual run-off for the flood water (that new wall at the back - which also makes the stairwell incredibly dark and dingy), so the water now just builds up and torrents down the steps, as you can see above.

Sadly, the problem's not unique: this is the concourse between the rows of shops: the main shopping area on the Ashburton estate which should be a focal point for the community. Now it's more like a great big pond.

Crime down in Southfields

Yesterday I attended the panel meeting of the Southfields safer neighbourhoods police team. The meeting, held at Southfields Community College, was presented with some encouragingly low crime figures for the ward.

In the first three months of 2008 burglaries are down a whopping 38% compared to the same period in 2007; the number of drug offences is down by 22% and violence against the person is down 13%. Throughout Southfields there were fewer than 300 crimes during this period, a 5% fall compared to 2007 and one of the reasons why one member of the public present described Southfields as "a really safe ward to live in".

We should not allow complacency to creep up on us, but this is a encouraging set of figures and Sgt Mepham and his team and the local neighbourhood watches should be congratulated on their good work. However, I know that some people do not always report when they are a victim of crime, especially if they think it is a supposedly minor incident (e.g. damage to a vehicle). It really is important that ALL crimes get reported so the police can direct resources as necessary.

The meeting also confirmed the priorities for the Southfields SNT for the next three months, which will be:

• dangerous dogs
• problems with some school aged children
• safety in King George's park

If you wish to contact the Southfields SNT then you can do so by emailing southfields.snt@met.police.uk or call them on 020 8247 8760.

Postal votes

On Tuesday, the Council began the process of verifying all the postal votes that have been returned.

This year, the Government introduced extra security for postal votes. What are called "personal identifiers" - signature and date of birth - need to be completed on both the original application and the postal vote declaration form.

For a postal vote to be validly cast, the declaration form has to be returned alongside the ballot papers, and the signature and date of birth on this form have to match those on the original application.

With over 30,000 postal voters in Wandsworth checking them all is a huge task. Some authorities have responded by only checking a sample of postal votes - say one in every fifty. Here in Wandsworth, every single one is being checked: something I fully support because there has been a lot of mostly inaccurate and damaging stuff written about the security of postal voting and it is important to restore public confidence in our voting system.

From reports I've received, as many as 7% of the postal votes cast have been rejected this election. That's an incredibly high number - but before the cynics rush to write yet more nonsense about postal vote fraud, my team was observing this process on Tuesday and the vast majority of rejected votes were because people had made innocent mistakes:

• Writing the date they filled in the postal vote form rather than their date of birth;
• Using the American date system where days go where months should be;
• Because signatures were different enough for there to be a legitimate question - no more than that - as to whether the person who applied for a postal vote had been the one voting;
• And in a handful of cases, it looked likely that a family member had signed the form for an elderly or disabled relative who struggled to write - but these too had to be rejected.

After the election I think the council should look at explaining even more clearly just how critical it is that this information be filled in carefully and accurately - and the consequence that their vote will not get counted if they get it wrong must be hammered home. And the Electoral Commission should review whether the law can be relaxed slightly so that what are obviously just mistakes with the date of birth field, described above, don't cost someone their vote.

But postal voting has to be secure - full stop - and that means rejecting ballots that aren't apparently cast by the people they were sent to. So I congratulate the Labour Government for implementing this tough, secure system and the Council for implementing it so rigorously.

Biofueling the food shortage

After writing about my concerns about Biofuels here back in February, the issue is now beginning to get some serious coverage (you may have seen the feature on BBC Newsnight on Monday).

Biofuels are causing catastrophic environmental damage: because they're one of the main reasons tropical rainforests are being cleared (in order for farmers to produce crops used to make biofuels) - thereby worsening climate change; and because hundreds of thousands of acres of arable farmland that was once used to produce staple crops like corn, rice and wheat have now also been turned over to the biofuels industry.

This in turn is causing food shortages around the world; in turn pushing up food prices and in turn again making it harder and harder for the very poorest to afford these staple crops. Far from being the environmental godsend, biofuels are actually worsening international environmental and humanitarian problems.

Let's be clear: biofuels are not clean and they are not that green. The energy needed to process this fuel negates its benefits from the outset. They are not economical - or they wouldn't receive the vast and unsustainable subsidies governments pass on to ethanol producers. And any environmental good they (questionably) bring through reduced reliance on carbon-based fuels is eradicated by the loss of rainforests (which greatly reduces the planet's capacity for converting carbon dioxide into oxygen) they have been directly responsible for.

However, it is a fair question to ask - as Jeremy Paxman did on Newsnight - what's the alternative? We do, after all, need to find a sustainable fuel source to drive our vehicles. I think the answer is twofold.

First, we need to use electric, gas and hydrogen powered vehicles far more: they're not sexy, they're not especially fast, but there's no reason that for business use and urban travel they cannot be used. The Prius (featured in the photo above) is not a particularly beautiful car - it's popularity has simply been sourced from its claim to be a "green" car.

And second, we need to stop paying lip-service to the need for better public transport and rail freight. We can get so much of our transit off the roads and onto rail - reducing congestion for those who have no choice but to drive, improving the cost-effectiveness of public transport services, giving people a clean, safe, reliable and efficient service.

Although there's a limit to how convenient public transport can be - because it will never be more convenient than our own private, comfy, car - there's also a reason why London is the only major capital city where public transport use is rising: and that's because our Mayor, Ken Livingstone, has spent the last eight years investing in public transport.

There's one further, deeply ironic consequence of those environmentalists still championing biofuels despite the damage they're doing. This is that they are pushing the need for genetically modified crops - which can be grown in less favourable environments, in larger numbers, yielding larger harvests - higher up the political agenda.

Safer Neighbourhoods successes

We heard it again on the BBC's Mayoral Debate on Tuesday: the Conservative slander that Safer Neighbourhoods Police teams (SNTs) aren't "real police".

Of course the Tories don't want to admit that SNTs have a value and purpose: they fought against their introduction tooth and nail and they've refused to give any reassurance they won't sack Putney's forty SNT offices. In fact, London Assembly Conservative Leader Brian Barnes is on record as saying the Metropolitan Police budget is too large!

Well, the Putney SW15 website is now reporting two more examples of the practical difference SNTs make in our communities - in West Hill by busting a cannabis factory worth £20,000, and in Roehampton breaking up two more drugs dens. And this on the back of the breakthrough a few weeks ago by the West Putney SNT in tackling the dangerous dogs menace there, which I wrote about at the time.

Enough's enough: it's time for the Conservatives to stop running down our Police. Regardless of their title and responsibilities, our Safer Neighbourhoods teams are living up to their name: making our neighbourhoods safer and contributing to the low crime rate I report month-in, month-out.

I have attended a number of public meetings that Putney's SNTs have held to publicise their work and get feedback on local crime concerns. I have never seen Justine Greening at any of these meetings so haven't been able to challenge her to stop this sniping against our police. I hope she, and Putney's Conservative councillors, will pause for thought the next time they run down the hard work of our SNTs.

London Postal votes go out

Over 9,000 Putney residents applied to vote by post in the forthcoming London elections. The town hall sent out postal votes yesterday, and these should be arriving with residents today or Monday.

In the London elections voters get three different ballot papers: one to elect the Mayor, one for our local member of the London Assembly, and one for a London list of candidates that ensures that the results across the capital are broadly proportional to votes cast.

These are examples of the ballot papers - and how to vote if you wish to support your Labour team. You can click on each image to make it larger:

The Mayoral ballot paper is pink - Labour's Ken Livingstone is candidate 7:



The ballot paper for the London Assembly member representing us in Merton & Wandsworth is cream - Labour's candidate is Councillor Leonie Cooper, candidate 1:



And the ballot paper to make the London results proportional - on which you vote for parties, not individuals, is buff. Labour is party 7:

PJ front page in Guardian

Further to my report yesterday on backing British Serviceman and Wandsworth resident PJ Williams get action from the Home Office so that he continue serving our country in the army, the Wandsworth Guardian have made this story their front page this week.

I'm delighted that this story - little short of a scandal, in fact - is getting the attention it deserves. If we continue the pressure on the Home Office, I'm confident that we'll get the breakthrough needed, and PJ will get the resolution to his two year nationality dispute he deserves.

Click here to read a full-size version of the front page.

How not to treat our servicemen

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about my campaign session in the Arndale.

Following our work there a resident od Sudbury House, Mr Williams, got in touch to seek help with a problem he's having with the Border & Immigration Agency (BIA).

MrWilliams is a Jamaican national who serves in the British Army. He married an EU citizen and has a teenage daughter who was born in this country. He has always worked and saw active duty in Kosovo. He is entitled to permanent leave to remain in our country, which he has made his home.

Yet the BIA has so far failed to deal with his application – despite having over two years to do so. On its own, this is a shoddy state of affairs and one wonders why exactly such a relatively straight forward matter should take so long.

However, it is compounded by the fact that in making his application Mr Williams was required to surrender his passport to the BIA. Consequently, he has been unable to travel abroad for either personal reasons or professional business. That means that he has been unable to join his unit in either Afghanisatan or Iraq, where his services as a mechanic would be of obvious use and benefit to service personnel serving in those theatres of war. Imagine for one minute how you would feel if your passport had been confiscated by the government for two years - unable to travel abroad on work or holiday.

I have written to both the Border & Immigration Agency and Liam Byrne MP, the Immigration Minister, to argue Mr Williams’ case. I want his application determined as a matter of priority.

Mr Williams has served this country in Kosovo and is willing to serve it again in Afghanistan, Iraq and wherever else he may be needed. He has shown a degree of commitment to our country that deserves our gratitude, an entitlement to stay as long as he chooses, and his passport back.

The Wandsworth Guardian has now taken up this story after I got in touch with them.

Today's the deadline for Postal vote applications

If you want to vote by post in the London elections on May 1st then 5pm today is the deadline for applications to be in with the town hall.

There are already almost 7,000 postal voters in the Putney constituency, with at least 1,000 more expected once the deadline has passed.

The Government has acted to make postal voting more secure this year: nowadays every postal vote applicant needs to provide their signature and date of birth on their application form; and the same information alongside their ballot papers.

When postal votes are opened, the signature and date of birth are checked against the application form to make sure they match. Postal ballot papers are also only sent to the address the applicant is registered to vote at unless they can give a good reason why they want their vote sent elsewhere (if they've just moved house, for example).

These measures should go a long way to reassuring everyone that voting by post is safe and secure. I support postal voting on demand because it's been the only electoral innovation that has consistently increased legitimate voter participation in elections. There have been academic studies that show that the further one lives from a polling station the lower the likelihood we are to vote.

If you miss the postal vote application deadline but can't vote in person on Thursday 01 May, don't worry - there's still another week to apply for a proxy vote - that is, someone you appoint to vote on your behalf for this one election. The deadline for these applications is Wednesday 23 April - but unlike postal votes, you need to give a specific reason as to why you want a Proxy vote (and you also need to identify who you want to vote on your behalf).

Edwin Saunders

I often do a short news item at the start of each month summarising the amount of "traffic" (i.e. visits) this website receives. As you'll know if you've read these posts, last month we had just over 2,500 unique visitors, which usually means between 130 and 250 visitors a day.

Well, on Saturday 6th April, something strange happened: in that one day alone we had 1,275 visits - almost nine times our usual traffic. And here's what people were looking for: information on Sir Edwin Saunders, who lived on Wimbledon Parkside and who was Dentist to Queen Victoria.

I wrote about Sir Edwin in my post about English Heritage Blue Plaques and he also features in my Putney Quiz, which is the reason why those search results directed visitors to my website. But if anyone can reveal the sudden reason there was such interest in him on Saturday 6th April do let me know!

UPDATE: I've just been told that this was a quiz question in The Times, so that's that mystery solved!

Out and about in Putney

The main reason I've been posting a little less frequently in recent days is because of the London election campaigning my team and I are up to.

We've been out all over the constituency, and I've just today finished adding all the places we've been too in the past month to my constituency map page.

We've been talking to you about your concerns and priorities for London in the next four years and the clear choice between the experience, tested leadership and delivered improvements to the capital over the last eight years with Ken Livingstone; and the bluster, blunder, lack of substance, lack of vision, and lack of any credibly-costed plans of his Tory opponent.

So far this campaign we've been to the Longstaff Estate, Galveston Road, Lebanon Road, Sutherland Grove, Skeena Hill, Combemartin Road, Girdwood Road, Whitefield Close, Arcadian Place, Wimbledon Park Road, Albert Drive, Hayward Gardens, Pullman Gardens, Beaumont Road, Whitlock Drive, Kersfield Road, Lytton Grove, Littlecombe Close, Arlesey Close, Chepstow Close, Whitnell Way, Gay Street, Crown Court, Waterman Street, Kingsmere Close, Felsham Road, Glenthorpe, Hanover House, William Gardens, Minstead Gardens, Aubyn Square, Toland Square and Vanneck Square - apologies if we've visited you but aren't listed above.

We've a lot more campaign stops all around Putney, Roehampton and Southfields before polling day on Thursday 01 May so look out for us!

Putney unemployment falls further

For the first time in recent memory, there are less than a thousand people out of work and claiming benefits in the Putney constituency.

In April 1997 after 18 years of the Tories, the number of people claiming Job Seekers' Allowance in Putney stood at 2,583. In February, the comparable number was 955 - that's a drop of 63%.

And as I've reported previously, to the cynics who suggest that this is just people being switched to other benefits that don't count towards the claimant totals, bear in mind that with Labour new business start-ups in Wandsworth borough (measured by the number of businesses registering for VAT) increased by a quarter in the ten years since 1997.

Britain - and London - are better with Labour. Don't let the Tories wreck it.

Hypocrisy

Each year, Members of Parliament receive about £10,000 as a "communications allowance".

They can spend this pretty much how they like on communications - funding a website or distributing a parliamentary report are the most common uses.

The Conservative were strident in their opposition to this allowance. This is what Conservative Shadow Cabinet Minister Theresa May said at the time:

"Of course MPs have a duty to communicate with their constituents. But we also have a duty to spend our constituents' taxes wisely. With modern means of communication, we can communicate with our constituents without spending great sums of taxpayers' money...The real risk of these proposals is that the money will be used for political marketing and therefore give an unfair advantage to incumbent MPs. I'm sure the sceptical public don't want more of their taxes spent on MPs' spin funds."

Putney's Conservative MP Justine Greening was clearly convinced by that argument - she joined most of her colleagues voting against the allowance. That's a perfectly honourable position to take - I disagree with her, but it's nice to see her taking a clear stance on something substantive.

In this light, you may have been surprised, recently, to receive through your door a newsletter from her - a party political leaflet in all but name - paid for entirely out of the Parliamentary Communications Allowance (i.e. by you and I). One day she's voting against MPs getting this allowance - the next she orders thousands of newsletters, paid for by the allowance.

Some Conservative MPs had the courage of their convictions and didn't claim the allowance because they knew that to do so would have been hypocritical. Justine Greening had no such qualms.

Heathrow: who got consulted

After several weeks of battling with the Department for Transport, I've finally managed - via a Freedom of Information request - to obtain the list of streets to whom Heathrow expansion consultation documents were sent.

We know from the low resolution maps that were produced that only a small corner of the constituency was within the noise contour deemed loud enough to merit being consulted, but until now the DfT has been tight-lipped about the exact streets that did - and as importantly did not - get the consultation paper.

Just over 9,000 consultation documents were distributed - and they went to households in:

Abbotstone Road, Arabella Drive, Archway Mews, Ardshiel Close, Ashlone Road, Atney Road, Aubyn Square, Bangalore Street, Beauchamp Terrace, Bemish Road, Bendemeer Road, Biggs Row, Blackett Street, Blade Mews, Borneo Street, Breasley Close, Brewhouse Lane, Briar Walk, Burke Close, Burstock Road, Carlyle Place, Carmalt Gardens, Charlwood Road, Chelverton Road, Clarendon Drive, Colinette Road, Commondale, Daylesford Avenue, Dealtry Road, Deodar Road, Dover House Road, Dowdeswell Close, Dungarvan Avenue, Dyers Lane, Earldom Road, Egliston Road, Mews and Lawns, Eliot Gardens, Erpingham Road, Fairdale Gardens, Fairfax Mews, Fanthorpe Street, Farlow Road, Felsham Road, Festing Road, Florian Road, Gamlen Road, Gay Street, Gipsy Lane, Gladwyn Road, Glendarvon Street, Gwalior Road, Gwendolen Avenue and Close, Henry Jackson Road, Horne Way, Hotham Road, Howards Lane, Huntingfield Road, Isis Close, Kingsmere Close, Lacy Road, Landford Road, Lantern Close, Lifford Street, Lower Common South, Ludovick Walk, Lysons Walk, Malbrook Road, Mascotte Road, Merivale Road, Modder Place, Montserrat Road, Newnes Path, Norroy Road, Olivette Street, Parkfields, Pentlow Street, Pettiward Close, Priory Lane, Putney Common, Putney Embankment, Putney High Street, Putney Park Avenue, Putney Park Lane, Queens Gate Gardens, Quill Lane, Redgrave Road, Rockingham Close, Roehampton Lane, Roskell Road, Rossdale Road, Rotherwood Road, Ruvigny Gardens, Salvin Road, Sefton Street, Spencer Walk, Stanbridge Road, Stockhurst Close, Stratford Grove, Swinburne Road, The Platt, The Pleasance, Upper Richmond Road, Waters Place, Weimar Street, Weiss Road, Werter Road, Westhorpe Road, Woking Close, Woodborough Road and Wymond Street.

Abolishing the 10p tax rate

Labour stands for social justice or it stands for nothing. That is why the very real prospect of some of the least affluent families facing a virtual doubling in their tax bill under a LABOUR Government is indefensible.

Yet that is what will happen when the 10p income tax band is abolished - a move announced in the 2007 budget but which will come into law with the passing of this year's Finance Bill. Anyone earning over £18,000 will be unaffected or indeed better-off with the abolition of the 10p band, because the quid-pro-quo of that abolition was the reduction of the 22p tax band down to 20p.

But everyone who currently only pays income tax at the 10p rate will now find that they are paying 20% tax - and that means pensioners, part time workers and low income workers. In other words, three of the core groups Labour exists to serve.

I recently had a letter from a pensioner under 65 who lives in a West Hill council estate; someone who receives a basic state pension plus pension credit; but who also receives a small private pension that takes her income above the tax threshold. The extra amount of tax she'll now have to pay is not vast: but should she be paying any more when people earning over £35,000 are going to be paying less? Of course not. When other bills and food prices are rising? Of course not.

When you are in the wrong it is a virtue, not a vice, to admit it. The Government is in that situation right now. Unfortunately it does not appear to be willing to do so on this critical issue. The responsibility for holding the Labour Government to Labour ideals therefore falls to the backbenches: the MPs that give Labour its majority in the House of Commons.

I understand the difficulty normally loyal backbench Labour MPs are now in: I am not standing to be your Labour MP to go to Westminster and then habitually vote against a Labour Government. So in no way do I underestimate the dilemma loyal Labour backbenchers face - and the distaste voting down our own government leaves them with - it's the same for me.

But the government is wrong on this and if it refuses to back down or rectify its mistake - as they have said they will not, I can see no purpose, merit or honour in being a Labour MP if that role is to make life harder for the least affluent, the pensioners and the part-time workers of Putney.

Boycotting the Beijing Olympics

There seem to be two camps in the row over whether Britain should boycott this year's Beijing Olympics: those who believe British participation in them condones China's utterly attrocious record on human rights, especially in respect of Tibet; and those who argue that Politics should not interfere with sport.

Although I'm strongly critical of China in respect of Tibet and their human rights (lack of) record, I can see the difficulty facing the Government. Matters are also complicated by the fact that the UK is going to be the next host of the Olympics - something that traditionally incurs additional public responsibilities at the preceding games.

But this doesn't have to be an "either/or" choice. We should try to keep politics and sport separate as far as possible. So our athletes should go to Beijing, without any criticism, pressure or censure from their fellow countrymen and women. But I'm struggling to see why politicians should attend - albeit that many of them have been looking forward to this junket for some time. I hope it won't come as too much of a devastation to our leaders that their presence will make little difference to the performance of those competing for Olympic honours.

However, it is naive to argue that never the twain shall meet between politics and sport. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has to be more aware of the political regimes of the countries that bid for the Olympics. This is not playing politics - the IOC has a charter setting out the Olympic ideals, and it must pay more than just lip-service to measuring whether bidder nations share those ideals. I struggle to see how China can reasonably claim to.

That, of course, cuts both ways. It has been mantra in the West for getting on for two decades at least that "bringing in" China and trading with them is far more likely to bring reform than isolation and criticism. As part of this process of inclusion Western governments strongly encouraged the IOC to look favourably on China's Olympic bid. The IOC must retain independence - because I can see very little reciprocity from China during this time that the West has been turning a blind eye to its misconduct.

We are 1

On March 30th this news and blog section of my website had its first birthday.

Since then, 239 stories have been added and the website itself has grown from being a complement to my campaign to win selection by local Labour members as Parliamentary candidate for Putney to incorporate much more content - from surveys, quizzes and petitions, information from around the constituency and about me and a far wider range of news stories.

The growth in this site continues to be reflected in the numbers of you visiting the site: In March another record was set with 2,597 unique visitors - that's an increase on February of 506. Compare that also to the first set of stats we collected, six months ago in October 2007 when we had just 575 different visitors.

Again, thank you very much for your interest - it's appreciated and shows that nowadays the internet is absolutely critical in reaching constituents who "traditional" forms of communication, like newsletters and leaflets simply don't receive or read.

I keep an eye out for new ideas to keep improving the site: the next overhaul will take place over the Summer, so if you have any suggestions, please email me.

London's elections & the BNP

A low turnout in May's elections could result in the BNP winning a seat on the London Assembly. The more of us who turn out and vote, the harder it becomes for the BNP to slime their way onto a capital-wide stage.

In case you didn't read it in Tuesday's Evening Standard, this is what the person who the BNP felt so well represented them that they placed him second on their list of candidates thinks about rape:

"Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal. To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched."

Since his comments became public the candidate has been dropped by the BNP. But ask yourself whether he's been sacked because of the views he holds, or because those views have been unearthed?

I hope you will vote for Ken, Leonie Cooper and Labour in May's elections. But if you do not want the BNP and their abhorrent opinions elected to represent YOU in London, whoever you support make sure you vote on 1st May.

Redevelopment in Putney

We're facing an increasing wave of plans to build huge tower blocks in our patch. Rising land prices and the general lack of space in London is prompting developers to build up rather than out.

A couple of years ago, the first of these applications, for the site at the top of East Hill above the Wandsworth Bridge roundabout, was rightly rejected by the Council; a slightly less tall block is now almost complete.

Today we have three "landmark" buildings proposed for the area:

• Putney Place, opposite East Putney tube in the triangle between the two railway viaducts plans for two tower blocks: one of 25 storeys and one of 19.
• On the corner of Carlton Drive and Upper Richmond Road a 20-storey building is being proposed to replace the Capsticks building - I wrote last year about loopholes in the council's planning rules that enable developers to leave office buildings derelict and then convert them into windfall residential blocks
• And in Wandsworth town on the Ram brewery site, another set of twin towers are being planned that, hard to believe, will actually dwarf the blocks on the Arndale Estate, which currently hold the record for the highest towers in the constituency

My views on these so-called "landmark" building are the subject of my latest Putney SW15 parliamentary report, which you can read here.