Anchors and Whips

Down to New Cross for the Deptford Labour Party May General Committee, now a members meeting. The business was as expected, you know, minutes, matters arising, reports etc; although we raised the excitement level by debating the Parliamentary Whip on the NHS S75 vote in the Lords; we think those, i.e. Lord Warner of Brockley that broke the Labour whip should have the whip withdrawn,  and then we debated last month’s workfare vote and Labour’s abstention in the Commons, where we agreed that the whipping instruction was inappropriate and embarrassing.

There was even more excitement when I raised the issue of the Deptford High Street Anchor which has been moved from its home while some road works and redevelopment are being done. There is some fear that it might not return and the story has been covered by the Deptford Dame and Brockley Central. Jimi Adefiranye, one of Brockley’s Labour Councillors spoke passionately about how despite its recent provenance the Anchor belonged in the High Street and that he’d start to work with other members of the Labour Group  to ensure that Deptford’s history and heritage remained available to the public and that the Anchor will return to the High Street.

ooOOOoo

I have hyperlinked to a Lewisham Council published picture of the anchor which they have kindly posted on Flickr but placed an “All Rights Reserved” copyright notice on. This is wrong, the Lewisham residents and taxpayers across the country have already paid for this “property”, we shouldn’t be restricted from using it. If they’re worried about revenue loss or commercial opportunity leakage, they should use a creative commons, attribution, no commerce, no derivatives license. If there are any litigious staff from the militant photographers brigade, or Lewisham council staff, hyperlinking is legal, and republishing an image to discuss the image itself is not a copyright breach. …

This House, or when whips served the Party

I went to see “This House” earlier today. It’s the story of the Labour Whips who kept the Wilson and Callaghan government in power for 4½ years, without a majority for much of the time, from 1974 to 1979. It brought back many memories as I had joined the Labour Party in 74 and of course much of my politics was learned and established in the next 10 years. …