Barnes police station for the diplomatic protection corps has closed but we still have to pay...

There used to be a police station in Barnes just for police to escort diplomats, but, when the money ran-out it closed and that's surely a good thing. A few years ago there were riots in Clapham, partly because of lack of money spent on policing; word went around that shoplifters could get away with it if they all did it together under cover of riot.

Unfortunately there is still a lot of money spent on diplomatic protection police and an extra-huge amount spent today. Today the cabinet state that they will cancel police leave and ask volunteer speical constables help guard an un-necessary visit by a foreign dignitary. So they are spending other peoples' volunteer time and chances of leave as well as money, as well as holding up the traffic and preventing people from doing business and paying taxes, but mainly they are spending money.

I'm off the subject of elections in Richmond Park because most parties seem to to have the same fault, so maybe nobody will read this but I'm curious.

What part of "no money" does the cabinet not understand?

http://www.richmond.gov.uk/independent_person

If you apply for a job, check for typos and include your phone number when using the contact email for information. That's what I didn't do.

Anyway I asked the contact about being an "independent person", on condition I could do something about the lack of criteria for sacking council members, and have no response.

The job is almost a volunteer job but has up to a few hundred quid in expenses that might be more than I could earn in other ways in the time. A bit like being a school governor, paid not-a-lot to nod.

The job does not come with a forensic or detictive budget. There is no money for finding-out the contradictory stories behind what the "independent person" is told on a committee about a council member who is faced with this stuff. It looks as though the council member thing is just a lure go get someone to attend staff disciplinary meetings and be hoodwinked, if that is the right word. It looks as though the "independent person" will end-up on a lot of staff disciplinary committees, with the same lack of budget for forensic work.

About council members. There is nothing to say where the boundary lies.. So if a councilor says "Councillor right", and I think
"Councillor wrong", thi
there is no case law, no text, no links list, no nothing. Which is daft because there are loads of things anyone might think wrong that are perfectly legal, If a council member does something tabloid-ish and bizarre, I might approve and others might disapprove. If a council member - or several in committee - cut core services to fund street furniture that people notice more - is that wrong? I think so, but there is no point turning-up on a committee after the event to tell someone with the opposite opinion, and then maybe be over-ruled by a committee, all for expenses. I think that people like Latfur Rahman and Shirley Porter got caught-out eventually for this kind of stuff, but not by any independent person on comittees at Tower Hamlets or Westminster Councils.

The headline is about judging Councillors who have crossed the line into badness according to the Localism act 2011 and local detail as laid-out in the Richmond Constitution, which just repeats introductory words like "good" and no more. No links to detail. Nothing like "same as local government association", or "same as Birmingham" or "same as ministerial code". Nothing about the Councillor who does a number of bad things I could list. It's obvious. Pushing for contracts to be done by members of your family is the oldest one, I think. Pushing for members of groups who talk to each other and their associated organisations to get lots of grants and approvals is another. That's what Latfur Rahman did in Tower Hamlets before being found guilty of trying to use public spending in order to fix an election. He wasn't pushed out by the Independent Person in Tower Hamlets, whoever that was, who must have known what was happening. No such system existed in at Westminster City Council when Shirley Porter did things before emigrating and trying to avoid summonses. I forget what she did, bit minimizing the core insurance-like services that are trusted to local government and maximizing the obvious services like street furniture were part of the deal.

I wrote that I would apply if there is a chance to write the section of Richmond's constitution that covers conduct of Councillors.

There is an odd thing about the job that it starts by talking about Councillors, but it looks as though you'll be roped-in to staff disciplinary meetings instead if you apply.

I added something about the union recognition agreement, to make sure that union members (like people with legal insurance or anyone else - it's a long story) get the same kind of help as dismissing managers get from their human resources department. Things like help going to the government's Advisory Conciation and Arbitration Service would be good. The current system is that most unions and legal insurers want to get commission off a no-win no-fee tribunal lawyer, so there is no way for the parties to try and settle the real problems via ACAS.

Anyway, if anyone wants to apply for the volunteer job of independent person, as not-described, this is the link
http://www.richmond.gov.uk/independent_person

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Apply to be an Independent Person, promoting standards in public life

We are looking for Independent Persons to assist in promoting and maintaining high standards of conduct amongst elected councillors and co-opted members of both the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, and Wandsworth Councils.

About the councils

Both councils are supported by a single officer team, but remain sovereign with their own members and decision making. We are therefore seeking potential candidates who can serve either one, or potentially both councils.

About the role

The role of the Independent Person is to support the work of the Councils’ Standards Committees and, on occasions, to consider complaints against members and advise members and officers on appropriate action to be taken in respect of the complaints.

The Independent Person may also be involved in disciplinary matters in relation to the dismissal of the councils’ statutory officers.

Attributes and experience

Successful candidates will be able to demonstrate:

Experience of reviewing information to reach evidence based conclusions

Strong personal ethics

High standards of probity

Good committee skills

Strong communication skills

Experience of mediation or dispute resolution would be helpful, as would knowledge of public sector ethical governance issues. 

Who should not apply

Current and former (within the last 5 years) councillors, co-opted members or employees of Richmond Council and/or Wandsworth Council, or their close relatives, are not eligible to be appointed to these positions.

As this is an independent position, you should not be a member of any political party.

Payment

The Independent Person is not a salaried position but an allowance of £300 to £400 per annum is offered to those who wish to claim.

How to apply

Please read the full information pack (pdf, 227 KB) before submitting your application (MS Word, 124 KB).

The closing date for applications is Tuesday 29 May 2018. Interviews will take place in June.

Contact

For more information, contact:

Paul Evans, Monitoring Officer for Richmond Council and Head of the South London Legal Partnership

Phone: 020 8545 3338

Email: paul.evans@merton.gov.uk

White Hart Lane level crossing

Afterthought:
there is a call for names to stick on the bridge, or to call it if anyone ever wants to call to a bridge.

Vegetable Bridge would be a good name, because it is in a vegetable patch. Commuters see the veg patch out of their train window. School pupils see it on the walk to school.

So many people meet each other at the White Hart Lane level crossing, that I feel I am interfering in what some lobbied-for, which is a no-left-turn with traffic cameras, but people from other postcodes use the roads too, and that's why the idea of consulting little groups of "local people" is not a good idea. People from other postcodes matter too.

People should turn left over the white heart lane level crossing from Worple Way

The other flawed idea is that cars should not turn left over the crossing. You do not have to visit to guess that railways have relatively few road crossings, and so a chance to use on it a useful thing. It's useful to the motorist and to people who use other crossings, otherwise more congested.
If you do go to the area you will see some old NHS buildings, being re-built. It isn't obvious, but there is still an NHS clinic on the site with 700 outpatients, mainly older people with brain impairments and younger people with learning difficulties. There are only two out of the hoped-for three psychiatrists there at the moment, with none of the activities they would like to encourage on site, and I am not quite sure what the office staff there do, but the point is that a lot of people with bad concentration bob in and out of the place by car, some of them diagnosed with dementia, and the last thing they need is a traffic fine. My mum, in that position, got two.
There are builders bobbing in and out nowadays as well, and the more they are chanelled onto one particular route, the more congestion they cause.

What I understand of the other agument

I understand that primary school children for the school over the tracks, prams, patients, mums, and anyone waiting for the crossing gates to open can in theory be squashed if a long vehicle turns left and cuts the corner where they are standing.
I understand that a bollard or a post with some tyres round it would prevent the problem, as would a bigger cut out of Railtrack's land that I hope they would grant for the safety of people waiting. All it takes is the moving of a fence.
I think that is the end of the other agument, but unfortunatly I can't meet the councillor consulting at 4.30 today - I am not in the area - so have posted this. I am happy to meet any of the people who lobby the other way so that the councillor can watch us disagree politely, rather than being caught in the middle. Or maybe there could be a boxing match to settle the issue.

J Robertson
2 Avenue Gds, London SW14 8BP - about 200 or 300 meters from the gates on foot and slightly further by car, son of a patient of the hospital 50 meters away from the gates.

Hammersmith Bridge and Hammersmith Social care alternative

Not enough people read this to justify a new post, but some information about Hammersmith Bridge cropped-up.

How the survey was done
abasurveying.co.uk/portfolio-items/hammersmith-bridge/

Why the bridge is thought too weak for traffic: "critical faults" is all it says. here
lbhf.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/roads-bridges-and-pavements/hammersmith-bridge-closed
Someone has started some freedom of information requests on a site that shares replies
whatdotheyknow.com/search/hammersmith%20bridge/all

What the £40 million is for.
I guess that the problem is council-speak. The right decision has probably been taken but councils can't explain why they need £40 milllion; they don't see the need to explain or guess what voters want to know. Richmond council changed a load of street lamps for probably very good reasons to do with cost, but couldn't explain why. The circular said the old ones had "reached the end of their working lives".

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Hammersmith & Fulham Council will abolish home care charges for elderly and Disabled people, it was announced last night (3 December 2014).

Speaking at a packed public meeting organised to celebrate the United Nation’s International Day of Disabled People in Hammersmith Town Hall, H&F Council leader, Cllr Stephen Cowan, said: “I am pleased we have found the money from back office cuts, such as from the council’s PR and admin budgets, and today announce that this administration will abolish what has rightly become known as a tax on disability.”

The final decision will be voted on at the council’s annual budget-setting process in February. If approved, the changes will take effect from next April.

The council says that abolishing care charges will cost £324,000 a year in lost income but that the scheme is being funded by £400,000 cuts in PR, council publications and lamp post banners.

There are 1,266 people in H&F who need help to carry out everyday tasks, such as having a bath, cleaning or doing the shopping. H&F’s home care charges are currently paid by 313 people in H&F. The current home care charge is £12 per hour and for some residents this vital service can be as much as £281 a week.

 - quote from Hammersmith web site December 2014

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I don't know much about this but it sounds good. There is a lot I don't know!

I do know the Richmond council list of social care agencies, annotated with care quality commission reports and personal notes for one client here

http://bit.ly/homecarerichmond

I imagine that Hammersmith, as an inner city area, has more budgets floating-about than Richmond - budgets that can be transferred to social care or PR, council publications and lamp post banners. On the other hand Richmond has money for Villiage Plans including cutting down trees, anti-cruising lights, anty-gypsy gates, a £5,000 grant to a brass band, and the things written on blue signs saying "I am voting .... for.... ". I'm told that 58% of Richmond spending is on social care, so it only takes a small change in social care spending to fund or cut a lot of the things that people notice more, like pot-hole mending or sixth forms in schools or weekly bin collection or a brass band. Which seems a terrible system.

I don't know how many people fund their own care, un-known or barely-known to the council in Hammersmith - maybe there are community care plans for both boroughs somewhere online with estimates on them, although they could be among the back office costs and publications that are cut-back to fund more care.

I don't know how much money Hammersmith saves when a client can postpone their move to residential care, with its expensive 3-shift costs, and so postpone the time that they run-out of money for fees and ask the council to pay. It could be that free home care (at the point of delivery) on presription or social worker referral saves money rather than costing money. I imagine that there are charitable trusts and central government organisations that would fund this kind of research if it hasn't already been done. At the time that Richmond Council ran-down its respite care daycentres, they admitted in a public meeting that the work hadn't been done; they had no idea how much money the spending saved them.

Clearly the cost of means-testing is reduced if people qualify for care whatever their means. There's an implication, without detail, in the Hammersmmith system that the council  manages the care. So maybe there is an opt-out or opt-in system. But if people can manage their own care on a subsidy, there's complexity again in the extreme case of someone who exploits an ill person or fakes illness in order to get money for another purpose. So, broadly, it saves a lot to have no means-testing but I don't know how the detail works.

I don't know the party politics of Hammersmith Council.

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Talking of Hammersmith, in case someone from there reads this, it would be good if they could get experts from Bucharest to look after Hammersmith Bridge. I understand that there is a bigger one to the same design in Bucharest so there might be someone who is good at maintaining the things.

Richmond Council elections Thursday 3rd of May

https://www.richmond.gov.uk/council/elections_voting_and_registration/electoral_data/scheduled_elections/local_council_elections_2018

UPDATE
Councillor Brian Marcell from the majority party has just canvased me about voting on Thursday 3rd of May. He is on the social services committee of the council, which apparently spends 58% of the budget. "It should be more", I said, and mentioned Mears Care as well as spending on nasty anti-gay-cruising tactics on Barnes Common. And I promised to email him some alternatives to Mears Care, so this is the Writetothem.com email. I wish I'd written "spend more on the niceness budget and less on the nastyness budget", but I got close. You can see that the niceness budget is under-spent if you read the bit in red further down the page.

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MEARS CARE ALTERNATIVES

We met on the doorstep at 2 Avenue Gardens just now and I promised to email some alternatives to Mears care. 

My googled notes of care quality commission reports on agencies in the council booklet of local care agencies are on http://bit.ly/homecarerichmond 

They quote the care quality commission reports on any that did well or badly, and the ones contracted to the council do badly. 

Some newer agencies have spent money on public relations and got themselves quoted in newspapers, claiming that more automated management allows more money to go to the carer and provide a better service. The names I googled are 

• https://supercarers.com/ 
• https://supercarers.com/ https://myhometouch.com 
• https://vida.co.uk/ 

BARNES COMMON NASTYNESS

On another subject, the council had found tens of thousands of pounds for car park security off Rocks Lane, and work by Continental Landscapes for Friends of Barnes Common to cut down trees and clear undergrowth in the area. 

Looked-at closely, the work is a very expensive project to discourage gay cruisers on Barnes Common at night. Trees hundreds of years old have been felled to reduce shadow. Large areas have been cleared of smalller plants. Search lights are installed on the car park and the sports ground next door. There is also a hieight restriction on the car park to stop gypsies. And an account of Friends of Barnes Common visiting Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetry to compare notes, which are quite clear on the Tower Hamlets site: they want to discourage gay people from cruising. 

I really think the council should spend less on nastyness and more on social care. After all, the kinds of voters who ask for anti-gypsy gates and anty-gay search lights are probably not marginal voters anyway. 

I will try to take the subject up with Richmond and Hounslow parks department and find out if they can take gay peoples' opinions into account and save a bit of council spending at the same time.
Yours sincerely,
John Robertson, 2 Avenue Gardens, London SW14 8BP 0208 286 9947

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Someone has just knocked on my door to ask about "local issues", which always sounds like something out of League of Gentleman.

I came-up with one or two, starting with the idea that "local people" can vote on what council money is spent on, even if is is earmarked for an insurance-like service that people have paid-for over decades. Such as social care. I think this is a bad thing.

The candidate looked like someone forced to be patient, so I got specific to social care in Richmond.
He wasn't a candidate for the party in power, so I don't think I bothered him too much. It would have been more embarrassing to say this to the face of someone from that party, so maybe, if you're mixed-up with that party, you don't hear about this....

Council social services offering a legal minimum minus what the council can get away with.
Assessments don't always happen unless a high priority. The chance of an elderly person getting an assessment like this...
http://www.housingcare.org/information/detail-1621-housing-options-for-older-people-hoop-a-selfassessment-.aspx
... are low

For example if you don't have the money for social care, the council contractor gets this report from the care quality commission. Not many agencies get bad reports. One or two are "outstanding". So presumably the council has picked the worst ones because cheapest, although even that may not be true because worse home care will increase demand for residential care so it's a false economy financially.

Care Quality Commission report on Mears Care

Mears Care 114b Power Road, Chiswick W4 5PY
Tel: 020 8987 2350
Email: richmond.care@mearsgroup.co.uk
Web: www.mearsgroup.co.ukhttp://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-138291078

Some aspects of the service were not safe.

There had been improvements in the way in which the staff were deployed and care visits were scheduled. However, further improvements were needed to make sure people always received the right care at the time they needed this.

Some aspects of the service were not responsive.

Some people did not receive care visits at the right time to meet their needs and there was variations about the timings of calls each day. In addition the provider did not communicate when care workers were running late or when there were changes in care workers.

Some aspects of the service were not well-led.

There had been improvements at the service and these had made a difference to people's care. However, further improvements were still needed to make sure people received a consistent service which always met their needs.

Most care quality commission reports on Medacs Healthcare offices are bad on more than one point. The web site is mainly about recruiting staff.

My source for this is the care quality commission and the booklet listing care agencies. The booklet which is about all you get off the council if your savings are about £23,500. If you or someone you know are learning how the system works, there is a set of notes that I did for myself here which may be useful. It is basically the council list of home care agencies plus annotations from the care quality commission, and I think it might include a link to housingandcare.org list of residential care options
http://bit.ly/homecarerichmond


Oh and I mentioned that gay cruisers on Barnes Common now face cut-down trees, cleared undergrowth and floodlights at council expense.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 07.4.18 Local people are against dogs: official. Kennel Club’s Worry Over Richmond’s Restrictions on Local Residents and Visitors The Kennel Club is concerned that following its Public Spaces Protection Order consultation, the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames is still planning to introduce measures which will seriously restrict not only the freedom of dog walkers, but also of any other member of the public who chooses Richmond’s large open spaces for recreation. London Borough of Richmond upon Thames has consulted with its residents on Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPO) to help the police and council tackle anti-social behaviour on public land. A PSPO is a new measure which replaces existing legislation and introduces wider discretionary powers to deal with any particular nuisance or problem that is detrimental to the local community’s quality of life. The orders can be enforced by fixed penalty notices or prosecution by police or council officers. When Richmond opened up its consultation period earlier this year, it was met with great concern from many dog owners in the area especially in regards to restrictions on the number of dogs which may be walked at once. A large petition was carried out by residents of Richmond, which gained over 1,700 signatures, and 59% of respondents to the consultation also disagreed to the council limiting dogs being walked at any one time to four. However, Richmond has still taken the decision to impose a four dog restriction on dog walkers. The council is proposing a 12 month pilot scheme to license up to 15 people to be exempted from this restriction; however, there appears to be no obvious reason why this number has been decided upon. This potentially leaves some dog owners having to take their dogs out on separate walks. The Kennel Club is further concerned by some of the other byelaws that are being suggested. For example, a byelaw is being proposed that a person in charge of a dog on any of Richmond’s open spaces where dogs are permitted, must not cause or permit annoyance to any other person or animal, or cause damage to any council structure, equipment, tree, shrub, plant, turf or other such council property. The Kennel Club is in complete agreement that dogs should always be kept under suitable control, but is concerned that there is no clarification by the council to what constitutes an annoyance. Would the occasional bark be constituted as an annoyance, and how will annoyance to another animal be measured and assessed? There is concern that annoyance to people is a very low bar to pass. The second clause about damaging turf and trees is also very ambiguous and worded so that any typical dog behaviour could fall under this. While the Kennel Club wouldn’t expect enforcement in this manner, it cannot be taken as a given and tough enforcement could take place under these new protection orders. There are many other restrictions to be put in place, such as restrictions on anyone disturbing any animal, digging, damaging or disturbing the ground or removing or displacing any stone, soil or turf. Questions need to be asked to what these restrictions would include, for example, would swatting a mosquito, shooing away a pigeon, throwing a skimming stone, feeding the ducks fall under this? Would walking across a park disturb the ground, especially if wearing studs if playing sport? Other clauses include not throwing or using any device to propel or discharge any object which is liable to cause nuisance, injury or damage to any other person, animal or structure. This would therefore include throwing a ball or frisbee around a park, which could lead to injury or nuisance. Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club Secretary said: “While the Kennel Club can support reasonable PSPOs and is happy to help work with councils and advise on dog issues to try and ensure responsible dog ownership, we are very concerned to read Richmond’s proposals which seem not only extreme but very restrictive on its many residents. If enforced to the degree it implies, it will seriously limit any enjoyment that members of the public can enjoy in the London Borough of Richmond.” A meeting by London Borough of Richmond upon Thames is being held on Tuesday 11th July to provide the opportunity for the councillors to review the proposals and consultation responses, and the Kennel Club will be present to voice its concerns. For further information on the results of the consultation and the proposed PSPOs, please go to https://consultation.richmond.gov.uk/environment/pspo/. The Kennel Club runs KC Dog which is a dog owner campaign group, free to join, which keeps members updated on dog access issues, and other relevant Kennel Club campaigns, which may affect dog owners across the country. Visit www.kcdog.org.uk for more information or join us on twitter @KC_political.

Social Services and the new Richmond Rapid Response and Re-ablement team

(Update - Greater London Authority's contribution is dance)

There is no money for social services, housing benefit or health but there is still a National Tennis Acadamy down the road and, I read £100 million for one of several unpopular higher education colleges to build a Cultural and Education District in Stratford. That's University College London that is 79th most popular out of 83 colleges for teaching economics. University of the Arts is the least popular of any higher education institution on unistats, using the Complete University Guide or Guardian University Guide to the figures. And Saddlers Wells, who dance apparently. Don't you want to string these people up from a lamp post? It's still illegal, but if you did it in artistic form to an orchestra you might get a grant for it.

You could write to them - there is a web site to find your GLA member who is probably Tony Arbour and send an email, or it can find london-wide assembly members as a list that you can compare against the GLA budget committee membership. I found one with a long-term interest in the arts who is on the committee and wrote to her. No reply after a week.

I have suggested to the GLA that they get their lobby briefs from these agencies checked and put them up for comment by the public before believing every word about public benefit and repeating every world class cliche.

Social services don't exist on a scale to match demand

It turns out that neither Richmond council's social services nor Richmond Rapid Response and Re-ablement Team exist on a scale to match demand. Council social services can find private visiting help and send a list of details, or manage it for a £50 weekly admin fee. They might offer a free assessment, and they can post a list of agencies which provide home visiting staff, leaving a patient or carer to check them against care quality commission reviews and find out the price.

Richmond Rapid Response and Re-Ablement team, part of a new local NHS trust, was unable to make appointments or keep-up with requests for decisions from West Middlesex hospital for most of 22nd of December 2017.

There used to be some kind of home service run from Barnes Hospital, but this doesn't appear to exist either

In a country that can afford Trident, MI5, and the Commonwealth Games with a local council that can afford new street furniture as part of a local village plan.
Can I have my tax back, please, if it is not going to be spent on sensible things?

Social care without social services

From someone who has to do a little bit of work as a carer, I understand this

There is a machine called a pivotelli that can open a pill box, ring a buzzer, and text a carer if the person who needs pills forgets to take them.

A simpler version from a couple of suppliers has no mobile texting system built-in

There is a flat-screen clock that displays day, date, and time in a simple way once set-up.

An offer of these, free at the point of delivery, to anyone suspected of bad memory problems by hospital staff or a GP, could automate some of the problem-solving that social services are asked to do. Patients differ, but if the things are doled-out to the wrong person, that's only about £100 cost and no great human stress, except maybe to the patient who has to turn the thing on and can't work-out how.

If anyone who works in social services could try to get together a list of tasks that need automating or simplifying by making free at the point of delivery, then I am sure a lot of the work could be reduced.

Lifts: I am no so sure about this idea but think there is something in it

Another relatively cheap solution is the fitting of a straight-line stair lift. These things are not very good. They are slow. They are beige. Frail people can fall-off them, so in some situations a carer could be needed as well as a lift. Wheelchairs do not slot-on to the things as far as I can see. But they are often available second-hand for next to nothing, and the ones that go round corners are only a few hundred pounds more.

I suggest that everyone over the age of 70 or who is thought at risk of needing a stair lift should be offered one, with fitting, free. That way, when the time comes, they can come home from hospital with less work from social services (who don't exist) to get a lift fitted.

More practical is a through-floor lift, or one fitted out of doors. The price for a through-floor seems rather elastic. I heard of a quote of £11,000 for one delivered months after payment and after much pushing from an unstable company (British Homelifts), but the cutting of the hole in the floor and the assembly of large macano-like devices is contracted-out, and the lifts themselves from Pollock, Terry, Wessex, or ? Dolphin often come-round second-hand for free. About half the ads on ebay say in the small print that they are from contractors and that you can contact them for a quote to install.

http://www.for-sale.co.uk/through-floor-lift

There is a UK firm that makes in China called Stiltz as well. A lot of the skill seems to be assembling local contractors willing to cut a hole, install a lift, and check it works; the cost of the lift itself is not the problem.

https://www.london.gov.uk/in-my-area/richmond-upon-thames

On another subject I should mention this in a future post some time. Greater London Authority's page for Richmond on Thames

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other posts on one page

voterpower.org.uk/richmond-park

I started a post about voter power a year ago and though it wasn't worth pressing "publish", but my next post about absent services makes it important.

For my vote, I think we have this PR system now:

• Vote for one of the top two candidates in any marginal constituency
• Vote for a favourite candidate in a non-marginal constituency, just to save their deposit and encourage.

The current system has no chance to say who I would like to be the runner-up candidate in a marginal constituency; it is down to tradition. There is no chance to encourage a new splinter party, or for a big old party to split in two. There is no signal for a non-marginal constituency, where the two runners-up get more votes than the winner, to know that it should vote like a marginal constituency with nearly all votes cast for the top two.

Voters in Richmond Park are used to this and you see "Labour for Lib Dem" posters or similar at elections. The Labour vote of 5773 was less than the party membership in the constituency.

MPs are used to putting-up with large political parties that don't reflect their views.
They simply remain silent about views that the party does not want known.
Labour MPs have had to work with Blair and Corbyn; Conservative MPs have a Brexit split. One group can become the majority in a party, or another. The more right wing group in each political party, I think, are rather similar. They don't want the state to run compulsory insurance-like services such as social care or non-emergency health or unemployment pay or anything like that, but they keep quiet about it. Here's the proof:

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24911/zac_goldsmith/richmond_park/votes#welfare

Anyway this post was saved and not posted a year or two ago, and it seems relevant to the next one
http://election-richmond-park.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/social-services-and-new-richmond-rapid.html
I think it's a problem that

• council social services don't exist for most of us (nor pay a decent care home fee for those who run out of money)
• NHS services for people with dementia or learning difficulties barely exist, and the home support part of the service seems not to exist. That's the service based at Barnes Hospital which is being redeveloped for housing - the subject of the last post
• The new Hounslow and Richmond health trust and it's Rapid Response and re-ablement service for people leaving hospital in Richmond doesn't seem to exist either, or at least not on a bank holiday when West Middlesex hospital tried to use them

If any of the 5773 labour voters change their mind in the next election, and want one less MP under the Conservative Party whip, I hope they come out and vote.

Here is the stuff I wrote a year or two ago without pressing "publish"

MP Election results in Richmond Park

voterpower.org.uk/richmond-park

electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/seatdetails.py?seat=Richmond%20Park

cabnet.richmond.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?XXR=0&ID=82&RPID=19098753

The voter power people seem very keen on more proportional representation between parties over a large area like the UK . An aim which, at the Greater London Authority, has led to party list candidates who refuse to do any work for a voter unless "a constituent", as the green list member's secretary fed-back to me, so I'm not keen, because he did nothing. (All I needed was a way to meet British Fashion Council to suggest how to help UK manufacturers. He needed to come-along. The conservative directly elected member and the liberal party list member turned me down as well)

The UK Alternative Vote referendum in 2011 was about more proportional representation in each constituency, achieved by giving fringe party voters a chance to re-allocate their vote after voting Labour or Green or whatever candidate is a likely number three four or more in each constutuency. Sadly, an expensive party advertising campaign blasted voters with untrue facts, each made clear as nonsense in The Independent at the time, but blasted loudly enough to win them the vote. I think it would be great to get alternative votes at least in the areas that voted for them in the referendum. Southwark is the example I know. There are probably others. Meanwhile, all UK MPs are elected by one constituency with third and fourth candidate voters unable to say "I wanted number 1 or 2 but also wanted to help choose who comes second next time".

Some people think we don't have a constituency PR system, including some of the 5,773 labour voters last time. I don't understand their reasoning - is it to cheer up the Labour cause and save the candidate's deposit? Or do they see Liberal and Conservative as so similar that there is no point encouraging one over the other? Maybe they see the Swingometer on TV and want to show support for a party that doesn't get in in their constituency. All sensible reasons to vote, but I just don't understand why 5773 people voted that way when the Lib / Con margin is so narrow.

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