Tag Archives: Greenwich

Liz Truss can be beaten. I should know: I’ve defeated her twice

Posted on July 13, 2022 by Alex Grant

As I write, the field of candidates is being whittled down. It is Rishi Sunak’s contest to lose, and the best-placed “Stop Rishi” candidates, according to Westminster consensus, are Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss. Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch have caught … Continue reading →

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Inside the echo chamber: the nasty side of Facebook’s traffic jam groups

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Alex Grant

In 2019 the New Statesman reported how local history groups on Facebook – normally innocent networks where older people swap yellowing photographs and reminiscence about the good old days – have a darker side, sometimes acting as a magnet for … Continue reading →

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Why the new London Bridge station doesn’t deserve to win the Stirling Prize

Posted on July 28, 2019 by Alex Grant

News that the redeveloped London Bridge station has been shortlisted for the 2019 Stirling Prize will be treated with bemusement by many of its commuters. The reconstruction began in 2013 and was all but finished in 2017. It was officially … Continue reading →

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Critics who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones about anti-semitism. Chaos arrived at Labour HQ before Corbyn did

Posted on July 11, 2019 by Alex Grant

Holocaust denial at Labour party meetings. Jewish members being called “dirty Zionists”, or worse. Party staffers being made to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements to stop them speaking out against the lack of action against the culprits. Interventions by Jeremy Corbyn’s office, … Continue reading →

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Five reasons why cutting the number of MPs from 650 to 600 is a bad idea – and one silver lining

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Alex Grant

Constituency boundary changes don’t just matter to map anoraks or political obsessives (I’m a bit of both). And the proposals won’t just mean a cull of MPs: they will reshape our politics by disenfranchising millions of voters. With no suggestion … Continue reading →

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Inside the planning committee: it’s not enough to say it’s all fair and impartial. You have to show it is, too

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Alex Grant

What goes on at Town hall planning committees these days? In theory it works like this. A committee of about a dozen councillors, politically balanced to match the composition of the council as a whole, assesses planning applications based on … Continue reading →

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Greenwich Peninsula: how a council own-goal took the heat off greedy developers, and the Tories who let them get away with it

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Alex Grant

Hats off to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for its new exposé of what’s been going on at the Greenwich Peninsula: a billionaire developer reducing levels of affordable housing from 35% to just 21%, and the local council’s attempts to … Continue reading →

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In the last days of the election campaign Labour should talk about three things: housing, housing and housing

Posted on May 2, 2015 by Alex Grant

“We are not in principle opposed to right to buy but the Tory plan doesn’t work,” said Ed Miliband at the leaders’ debate on April 15th. “Any plan based on right to buy has to mean there are more houses, … Continue reading →

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So long, Greenwich. I predict that by 2050 you’ll swallow up Lewisham and Bexley. The Thames Barrier will be a boutique hotel. And everyone will be mad as hell about air pollution

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Alex Grant

I’m moving out of London later this week, with my partner and our daughter, after 35 years living in the borough of Greenwich – the last 16 of them as a Labour councillor here. There are few things more boring than ex-councillors … Continue reading →

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The supporters of new roads across the Thames are stuck in the past. Without rail links they’d be a disaster for east London

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Alex Grant

The new road link would, the experts say, create a “corridor of opportunity”. It would “relieve congestion”, “improve accessibility” and “be of inestimable benefit to the capital”. It will, one supporter argues, “take longer-distance traffic off the existing main roads… … Continue reading →

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