Breaking news from Mumsnet!

Here's some breaking news from Islington Green Party...

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas today became the first leader of a national political party to give a commitment to save the Whittington A&E and maternity units.

In a live webchat on Mumsnet, the country’s most popular meeting point for parents on the internet, this afternoon (Friday 26 March), Dr Lucas committed:

-to halt with immediate effect the current process to close the Whittington A&E and maternity and ensure that all future plans are evidence-based, transparent, made publicly available and subject to extensive and meaningful public consultation
-not to close any A&E and maternity unit in North London until alternatives are firmly in place, have been sufficiently tested and proven by independent analysis not to have any averse effect on the treatment of patients

Sara Hall, expectant mother and local campaigner who is the author of the ‘Whittingtonmum’ blog, said:

"It is fantastic that Caroline Lucas has given us her commitment to halt the current proposals to close the 24-hour A&E and maternity services at the Whittington hospital. Local people are dismayed by the proposals: They are not based on evidence, not led by clinicians and not transparent. They must be stopped. I hope that Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown and David Cameron will follow the lead of Caroline Lucas and assure us, the residents of North London, that they will not allow our lives to be put at risk. We need their commitment to not close the Whittington A&E and maternity services should their party form the next government – our lives depend on it.”

Emma Dixon, Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Islington North added:

“Politicians from all four parties locally have been working really hard to save the Whittington. Now it’s time for the party leaders to make it clear where they stand. Voters will want to know before the election what their votes will mean for the Whittington.”

Winkball

Click here to see the video wall

A few weeks ago I had the rather unnerving experience of recording a video interview for Winkball who are aiming to record video messages from all the 2010 general election candidates.

Winkball's slogan is 'communicate happiness' - perhaps rather a tall order when screening a lot of politicians telling us how wonderful they are! Anyway, my Labour and Lib Dem opposite numbers have now recorded their contributions so you can have a look and see what you think. We'll let you know if and when the Conservative candidate has a go!

A Million Voices for Public Services

I recently signed up to Unison's excellent campaign, A Million Voices for Public Services. Celebrities including Jo Brand and Ken Livingstone as well as hundreds of ordinary people are speaking up for local public services now - before it's too late.

There are real, credible alternatives to cuts and privatisation of public services - like a Robin Hood tax on banks and financial institutions, and measures to make our tax system fairer by ending tax avoidance by the very wealthy. Economists and the IMF are warning that large cuts now could push the economy back into recession. And Britain is one of only two G20 countries which is not planning a fiscal stimulus - investment in job creation to boost the economy - this year. In France for example, the government has set up a huge investment fund to stimulate the growth that can bring jobs. And we in the Green Party have set out our plan for creating a million jobs through investment in renewable energy, housing, public transport and social care.

We're already seeing threatened cuts to local health services at the Whittington. But cuts could hit people performing all kinds of other vital local public servies, from lollipop ladies to police community support officers, from school cooks to hospital porters. Please add your voice to Unison's campaign today!

Cllr Donna Boffa - a tribute

The sad death of Cllr Donna Boffa on Friday, following a long illness, is one of those moments when we are reminded of the dedication of all those who take time out of their own busy lives to serve their community. It is a time to pay tribute to all those who work tirelessly for others, as Donna did.

We are about to start the election campaign which will decide who runs Islington for the next four years. Candidates from all parties will try to highlight their own party's achievements and claim credit for the things that are going right in Islington, while attempting not to recognise the contribution made by activists from other parties. But underneath the confrontational facade that is electoral politics in Britain, there will be over 200 individuals offering themselves to their community to spend four years as their representatives in the Council chamber.

Most of those individuals will not be elected, but many of them will continue to work for their communities - day in, day out - as Donna Boffa did for years before she became a councillor. As we begin this election campaign, let's take a moment to remember Donna and to celebrate the commitment that she made and hundreds of others continue to make to communities across Islington.

Highbury Green News, Safer Streets for Blackstock Road

We had a large team out yesterday delivering the new edition of Highbury Green News and we'll be out again today, so look out for it on your doormat.

Thanks to all the volunteers (some of whom are pictured, right) who helped.

Meanwhile, some of us were out collecting even more signatures on our petition to make sure that Blackstock Road, Highbury Park and Highbury Grove are included in the borough-wide 20-mile-an-hour zone.

The Council adopted Cllr Katie Dawson's plan to become the country's first 20-mile-an-hour borough earlier in the year, but they've excluded some roads including Blackstock Road, Highbury Park and Highbury Grove.

Given that there are four primary schools, two secondary schools and two important shopping areas on this stretch of road - not to mention the hundreds of people who live here - we're getting great support for our campaign to bring the benefits of safer of streets to this part of the borough.

Gordon's Mothers Day Promises

On mothers' day, Gordon Brown went online with Netmums to make a series of 'promises'.

The first was that maternity services 'should definitely remain a priority'. But the reality is that health cuts of £4 billion this year, with the Treasury looking for a further £10 billion cuts thereafter, are already leading to the closure of maternity units across London. Just last week the general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives warned that these closures, driven by financial considerations, would lead to 'large and impersonal' birth 'factories'. And here in Islington, the Whittington hospital's maternity unit is threatened with closure despite having been rated one of the safest places in Britain to give birth.

Brown's second promise of a right to a home birth for anyone who wants one is similarly unachievable: home births can only happen with the support of a nearby hospital from which midwives can travel with potentially life-saving equipment for mother and baby, including oxygen. (I should know - I had two babies at home with the help of Whittington midwives!)

If Gordon Brown is serious about gaining mothers' votes, he should start by guaranteeing the future of vital local health services. NHS officials have recently confirmed at a meeting of Islington Council's North Area Committee that Ministers could save the Whittington now if they chose. Enough warm words - it's time for action!

Graph Fix!

Graph abuse. We've seen it before and no doubt we'll see it again, but when the Lib Dem leaflet pictured right popped through letterboxes in Highbury East this week even we seasoned local election campaigners gulped a bit. According to the leaflet it's a 'two-horse race' between the Lib Dems and Labour in my ward.

I'm a mathematician by training and maybe for that reason I am a bit sensitive about this sort of thing. Squashing or expanding the odd column (as the Lib Dems have done here and elsewhere) is bad enough - but missing one party off altogether reaches a new low.

Here's the true vote in Highbury East last time.

As far as we're concerned, Highbury East is a four-horse race, which any of the parties could win if they gain the electorate's confidence. I for one don't believe that graph abuse is the way to do it.

PS if you have access to a scanner, please do add any election leaflets that come through your door to the collection of The Straight Choice, the live election leaflet monitoring project. One aim of that project is to try to keep these leaflets honest!