HearFromYourMP

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• Posted by Dr Kat Arney, 12:03, Mon 8 March 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #

  I am concerned that rather than bringing more affordable housing to the area, it will only make housing more expensive and further price younger people out of the market. What's the betting that any legacy housing will be far too expensive for first-time buyers?

• Posted by Kate Smurthwaite, 12:07, Mon 8 March 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #

  I heard Tessa Jowell speaking about job creation for the Olympics and she proudly suggested that as many as one in five of the new jobs would go tot women. Not sure if I was supposed to have applauded. I'd like to know what is being done to ensure that Olympic jobs are organised in such a way as to promote gender equality. This is particularly important given that we know other Olympics have led to huge upswing in the exploitation of women by the sex industry in the area. I'd like to see the criminalisation of the purchase of sex in time for the Olympics, and that law enforced. I'd like to see a deliberate effort to make Olympic jobs available to women in the borough (women-only recruitment days and training sessions in the most traditionally male areas, child care provided in all roles and equal pay audits conducted in all departments). I fear otherwise we are going to see the Olympics mean nothing more to women in Hackney than the time they were co-erced into a life of exploitation.

• Posted by Jed Keenan, 12:19, Mon 8 March 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Hello Diane

  My concern is over the number of local market traders that will be trained and supported to be able to populate the section of the Olympic Park designated for local suppliers of goods & services representative of the 5 Borough's diverse peoples.

  I am up to about 80 excuses for not being able to achieve incredibly low targets. We need some serious stomping down corridors, and being 'unreasonable' and asking to receive finalised and agreed action plans, simply because the next excuse is lurking just a year from now and I have really just about had enough of excuses. So as a good place to start, please give 'em hell in this 'debate' Diane. They have to squirm now or will worm their way out later.

  Yours sincerely

  Jed Keenan

• Posted by John Callon, 13:05, Mon 8 March 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #

  You've been very assiduous recently in asking various ministers what good their departments had done for Hackney in the past few years. (Preparing your election literature at our expense, I presume.) Why not ask what benefit in terms of employment the Olympics has been to Hackney residents. From what one reads in the press, the construction phase has been of more benefit to East Europeans. That may reflect what they have to offer as a workforce - that could include skills, hard workers, not too demanding on employers in terms of wages and standards. Do the Hackney residents (other than those that might be East Eurpoeans) seeking work with the Olympics have the same offering?

  The key questions is: What jobs are going to be on offer and what skills are there in the Hackney workforce to match. If there is a commitment to provide locals with job and they don't have the skills then they need to be skilled up. However EU employment law precludes the giving of preferential employment opportunities! ("British jobs for British people", I think, was the watch cry!) Are those who have the skills that might be sought and in employment willing to give up that employment for a short term opportunity? There is no simple answer.

  An interesting illustration of the experience of one unemployed skilled person: My neighbour who was made redundant a year ago from a publishing house is a skilled worker but is openly told by the local job centre that they have no idea how to deal with someone with her skills! That doesn't give much encouragement to any programme to get skilled unemployed into the Olympic workforce.

  The Olympics will not affect me in the slightest. I think there will be a big impression made on the young people of the borough - what that will be is not clear yet. The legacy of a 10 day sportfest can only be very limited. While there might be buildings left, their symbolic importance will have faded within four years. On an individual basis, maybe a sense of pride, maybe a sense of having been around something special. The only thing I can relate to in a similar way was the legacy of the Queen's coronation on me personally - no doubt due to my being at an impressionable age at the time.

  By 2016 when the next Olympics are in Rio de Janeiro, the London Olympics will be but a memory as will many of the claims made for what it would have achieved.

• Posted by James Cherkoff, 13:10, Mon 8 March 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #

  How long after the event will the Olympic Park be made available to the public?

• Posted by Steve Brownjohn, 22:02, Mon 8 March 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #

  How will the Olympics affect me? Disruption from now to 2013, I imagine, with loss of amenity (the quixotic East Marsh windmill) and heightened "security". As to the fortnight of the games, I plan to be far away!

  More jobs for Hackney people? A training levy on every contractor that's looking to cash in, for real skills - not MacJobs in hospitality and catering. When ministers talk of X% of workers being local, do they mean "local" in the sense that they moved here to work on the site? How many went to school in Hackney?

  Olympic legacy? More debt and a few paltry acres of manicured, privately-owned parkland next to the privately-owned Stratford City.

• Posted by Gail Chester, 01:07, Tue 9 March 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #

  On a personal level, the Olympics has already affected me very badly, as one of my closest friends, who lived near Hackney Marshes, was so upset by the disruption being caused to her life that she left London altogether to live in Scotland. And as she was a key worker in the NHS, this was also a great loss to the community.

  I have a lot of friends who work in the Arts, and they have seen their grants from the Lottery, etc, siphoned away towards the Olympics over the last couple of years -- another loss of work and amenities to the area.

  With the clearing away of "dirty" factories from the Carpenters Road area, there has been the permanent loss of several hundred jobs in the area, and locally-owned small businesses have suffered to increase multinational corporations' profit. Since 1985, the Olympic Partner Programme, managed by the International Olympic Committee, has been the sponsorship programme of the Games, allowing 40% of revenue to be generated from multinationals, who in turn gain exclusive marketing rights to use the Olympic logo. This means that small businesses will be prosecuted if they use the Olympic logo, and try to financially benefit, quite legitimately, from the Olympics being on their doorstep.

  One area of job creation, which I find very worrying, will be the development of a massive surveillance industry. Alliances between private companies and the state regarding 'security' are already being generated which will stay afterwards. For example, EADS is a company working on a CCTV system for the Olympics control room, which is said to be illegal. General surveillance in the local area will be massively increased due to the Games – increased CCTV, ID checks, and perhaps worst of all, the deployment of Drone aircraft, like the Army uses in Afghanistan, to spy on us all from a great height.

  In the meantime, 'security' on the site has involved intimidating construction workers who are union members (see http://london.indymedia.org.uk/system/file_upload/2009/06/24/73/olympic_report_jun09.pdf), and all the jobs seem to be temporary contracts.

  You asked about the impact of the Olympics on jobs, so I have concentrated on that, but it seems to me that the Olympics will badly affect every aspect of local people's lives for many years. It has already done so, for example, with the forced eviction of Clays Lane, the largest housing co-op in Europe before its destruction, and the loss of allotments and many other environmental amenities. If you want to find out more about all of this, please look at the website of Games Monitor - http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk.

• Posted by Steve lane, 11:01, Wed 10 March 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Dear Dianne

  What an earth are you doing about all the problems posted so far? Probably as much as you did for me when I had my home destroyed by corrupted council officials Femi Nwanzi and co.

  I gave you clear evidence of their corruption which lead to (in the councils own words)

  "The proposed development would be detrimental to the amenities of nearby residents by reason of overlooking, loss of privacy and the obtrusive form of the development".

  The above statement was of course, omitted and mislaid and the council proceeded with the project 4 days before the deadline they gave to objectors. (100% loss of light/privacy/dignity for me) I looked into the case and found all kinds of evidence of corruption (which can still be seen today).

  When I tried to question the unaccountable council criminals involved, they tried to smear my reputation.

  When I contacted you,you did absolutely nothing, stating (through your assistant) that you didn't know who to believe???

  Meanwhile I was forced to leave my home.

  I think you know your position is relatively safe, it enables you to do as you please and you are certainly not interested in representing the people that your paid to represent.

  These questions that you email out are probably not even written by you and you probably don't even read them.

  Your only interest seems to be in self promotion (how are you representing the people of Hackney? by getting paid to sit on a sofa for the BBC?).

  Whilst you sit there, the people of Hackney are being burnt and (as you have shown in the past) you couldn't give a damn.

  Most of us will not be able to afford a ticket to the olympics (even if we wanted one), we can be happy in the knowledge that we will be paying, through taxes,for the event anyway. The disruption caused to the Leybridge road area by London Transport stealing half the road for its bus lanes, has already brought us to a stand still.

  The Gridlocked roundabout is a daily occurrence and the Olympics is 2 years away, when the event arrives I imagine we shall be forced to not use our cars.

  When you attend the meeting on the Olympics, why don't you suggest canceling it and use the billions of pounds of our money saved, to plug the black whole that your government have created in mis-managing the economy?

  It doesn't make sense at all, we are in a dire financial place where we are told many will lose their jobs. But we can find billions for the banks, billions for the war, billions for the Olympics. Millions for mp's expenses.

  All of which we have no say in. Surely this money would be better spent guaranteeing and creating real jobs, starting up manufacturing etc etc.

  Dianne why don't you let somebody else represent the Labour party in Hackney? Somebody that really cares for the people he/she represents. Then you could concentrate on your budding career as TV presenter, which you seem to do a better job of than as an MP for Hackney.

  Regards

  Steve Lane A victim of unresolved Council Corruption

• Posted by John Callon, 13:58, Wed 10 March 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Wide ranging speech this morning, Diane, as reported by TheyWorkForYou.com (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2010-03-09a.54.0&s=speaker%3A10001#g54.1)

  No pictures, but was it just you and Tessa there?

  This was Tessa's funniest line, I thought: "She [meaning you] should not for one moment doubt the commitment and determination of the ODA, the Government Olympic Executive, this Minister and all those associated with the development of the great Olympic project that the young people whom she represents, and about whom she is so concerned, should have prospects for a better future, long-term employment and skilled jobs as a result of the Olympics."

  We saw from the figures you presented how many young people's lives are being changed by this commitment and dedication - so few it is hardly worth the bother. That is the legacy. It's all waffle.

  I bet Sebastian Coe is pocketing more each month from this than all the Hackney workers on the Olympic site put together. That's his legacy.

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