Friday, May 23, 2008

Am I a victim of Boris' cut down on crime?

Over the last couple of years we have seen the shocking rise in knife and gun crime in London, which during the recent elections Boris promised to crack down on once he became Mayor.

Yesterday, I was one of the first people to face this crack-down, when I was stopped and searched by the police.

Boris promised to introduce knife detectors at tube stations across London. Yesterday on my way home, one of these detectors was in place at Edgware Underground Station. Like every other person I had to go through this detector, and when I did my keys set of the alarm.

Therefore, as the police are required to do, they decided to stop-and-search me. This took about 5 minutes of time. While it may have slightly delayed me I pleased to see this policy is being rolled out across London to catch people with knives and guns, which will hopefully see the level of crime fall.

Well done to Boris and the police team yesterday.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

When will they meet their promise?

Back in October of last year the Labour Party were proudly saying that they had agreed to provide extra funding to ensure security from Jewish schools. http://www.andrewdismoremp.com/c4b915fd-c74a-c1f4-cdc7-a0c5c73d59fd


I welcomed this, because sadly and worryingly Jewish schools, such as in Barnet do face anti-Semitic attacks.


However, as with promises from this Labour Government, I didn't believe it would be true until schools received this money.

It therefore came as no surprise to me to see that three-quarters of a year later, this money seems to be non-existent and the Labour MP for Hendon, seems to have to beg for this promise to be met. http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.2287376.0.mp_calls_for_security_cash_for_jewish_schools.php


When will the Labour Government meet their promise and help protect the school children in these schools.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Yom Ha'atzmaut, the BNP and all that

Last week was Israel’s 60th anniversary of its Independence Day. This has provided an opportunity to look back on the successes of this small country which was created for the Jewish people.

To mark the 60th anniversary I was pleased to attend both a service at Kinloss Synagogue in Finchley and a celebration at Wembley Arena. Both these events made me realise how lucky we are to have a country in the world in which we the Jewish people can have a country which we can call home.

For 2000 years the Jewish people were scattered around the world and faced virtually constant anti-semitic attacks. This culminated in the Holocaust when 6 million Jews were murdered because they had no where to call home where they were able to escape from the Nazis.

However, we now have Israel, which was created just 3 years after the destruction of the Holocaust and over the past 60 years has been built up to become one of the strongest and most successful countries in the world. This is a great achievement, which for which we should be truly thankful.

Not least because as a resident of London, I now have a BNP politician claiming to represent me on the London Assembly, but who really wants me and many other people to leave this country, because we are not really British. However, if the BNP G-d forbid are to grow into a major force in this county, unlike for the past 2000 years, we Jewish residents will at least have Israel to escape to a place we can really call our home.

Mr Dismore what are you so frightened of?

I thought readers might be interested to see this article written by Robert Halfon and published on ConservativeHome yesterday http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2008/05/what-are-labour.html#comment-114229570

Some weeks ago, Conservative Friends of Israel was invited by Hadley Wood Jewish Community to speak in a Dimbleby Question Time-style debate. We readily agreed. I myself was due to appear on the platform with a representatives from other parties.

Last Thursday, we suggested to the organisation, that given the Labour Panelist was a local MP, Andrew Dismore, and the Liberal Panelist, a Barnet Councillor, Monroe Palmer, that instead of myself doing the debate, it might be more apt to have Councillor Matthew Offord (Deputy Leader of Barnet Council and Tory PPC for Hendon).

The organisers were initially pleased with this idea, particularly since Hadley Wood Jewish Community is in Barnet. Moreover Cllr Offord readily agreed to do the event instead of me.

On Friday, matters suddenly changed. The organisers, asked if I would stand in again because Andrew Dismore MP refused to share a platform with Matthew Offord. Astonished, I asked why, particularly given that, although Matthew was Mr Dismore's opponent, they would not be discussing any issues to do with Hendon. Moreover I argued that Matthew was not only Deputy Leader of Barnet Council, but was a member of CFI, had been on a CFI visit to Israel and had a wide knowledge of what was happening in Israel.

The response was clear and I reproduce it below for the benefit of CentreRight eaders:

"The difficulty is this. Andrew Dismore has a rule against debating with parliamentary opponents. He tells me this is standard practice. He is quite firm about this".

This really is a remarkable response from the Labour MP, particularly since no such rule exists and PPCs and MPs regularly share platforms up and down the country. In the last few weeks Boris and Ken debated on numerous platforms.

Out of courtesy to the Hadley Wood Jewish Community, and because of the incredible and kind efforts of the organiser, CFI agreed to do the debate this evening as originally agreed and I will appear on the Platform with Messrs Dismore and Palmer this evening.


For a local Labour MP to be frightened and refuse to debate with his opponent - on matters of a serious nature - just shows what has gone wrong.