Schools shakeup
Parents at Shacklewell primary school have been told that Michelle Thomas, currently head of Grazebrook school in Lordship Road, Stoke Newington, is joining as “executive head”. This caused some consternation at Grazebrook, where Thomas has been a success, taking it from a position where the previous head left in controversial circumstances.

As the letter from the chair of Shacklewell governors points out (PDF), she has “has brought the school from Special Measures to Good with Outstanding Features in a very short time”. Grazebrook parents (presumabbly including the most famous, Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper) thought they were losing Thomas for good – but the clue is in her new job title: “executive head”. This means she will be responsible for both schools. I have asked Hackney council for clarification on this and will post when I get it.

Roar of The Lion
Residents living near The Lion in Church Street are suffering from noise late at night. While the pub has always had a late licence, it seems that the previous owner didn’t make full use of it. Representations have been made to the new owners – I’ll have more on this in a few days, hopefully.

Junction news
Work on the junction on Amhurst Road and Shacklewell Lane is causing chaos at busy times. The junction is being “improved” to make it easier to cross. But the work is running late (surprise). Meanwhile a plan to make the junction between Evering Road and Brooke Road safer has also hit delays: residents wanted “artwork” in the paving, but the extra funding required for this has not been found. (Since you asked: “Circular rings of cobbles and text engraved in metal will be set into the street surface to give the notion of a pebble being dropped into a brook as a stream runs under Brooke Road.”)

Homa opens
This is *so* Stoke Newington. An organic deli, restaurant, and cafe with an outside terrace, selling all sorts of compulsory Stokey products – now open on Church Street where Booths used to be. I’ll post a full review when I’ve had time to go. I read that it has “child-height bannisters and a nappy changing room” – so I guess it knows its market.

And finally, happy birthday to Rosa, selling bras and pants to the ladies of Stoke Newington for 72 years. Rasa is the oldest surviving business on Stoke Newington Church Street – but maintains an informative and active Twitter account. And it’s not just about smalls.

The reports have meant Stokey has become something of a magnet for reporters. And it seems that a few of the street’s residents have been enjoying their moment of fame. Here’s an ITN report featuring some of them:

It’s an extraordinary yarn. I’ve been news editing on guardian.co.uk this week, and apart from the World Cup, it’s been our most clicked-on story. It’s not surprising – everyone loves a spy tale, and this one read like an episode of Spooks. (I even phoned up the TV show’s creator and commissioned him to write this article.)

Anyway, back to the Stokey connection. Anna Chapman’s father, who is alleged to have been in the KGB, once served as a diplomat in Zimbabwe. While the couple were in London, he helped them set up Southern Union, which, according to the Telepgraph. enabled Zimbabwean ex-pats to wire money home at a competitive exchange rate. In the Companies House records of Southern Union, Anna Chapman is listed as the manager and gives her Gibson Gardens address.

According to the Telegraph’s interviews with Alex Chapman, it was while the couple were living in Stoke Newington that Anna became more involved with her Russian friends. He said their marriage hit the rocks in 2005, when his wife started to become “very secretive, going for meetings on her own with ‘Russian friends’.

These meetings apparently transformed her, he said, from someone who had never been “materialistic” into someone “with access to a lot of money, boasting about all the influential people she was meeting”. She became “arrogant and obnoxious,” he claimed, and they divorced in 2006.

Chapman then moved to the United States, where she set up a property company. She resurfaced as one of ten people arrested on this week and accused of failing to register as foreign agents. Some were also accused of money laundering. Chapman and the others are now in jail – she has been refused bail. The court papers allege they were part of a spy ring that dates back to the 1990s – but the intriguing aspect of it all is that no evidence appears to exist of them passing any classified information on to the Russians.

Fascinating stuff. Anyone recognise and/or remember them?

The old Lion was a straightforward pub. Beer, football, chat. Not smart, but not dingy; no fancy menus, no expensive beers.  And on first glance, you would be forgiven for wondering what took the new guys so long: the first impression is one of vague familiarity. Everything looks pretty much as it did before.

The bar hasn’t moved, the scratched wooden tables look almost the same, there’s a big screen showing football.

But while nothing has changed, everything has changed. The downstairs area has been entirely refurbished. The floorboards have been renewed and revarnished (black), the bar has been carefully restored, and the furniture replaced.

Gone are the benches with their faded and failing upholstery, instead there are by firm wooden tables and chairs. Over in the corner where the TV screen used to be, there is a huddle of deep red Chesterfields.

The shabby old big screen has been updated to a higher-quality model and moved over to the staircase wall, supported by a booming surround sound system that clarions around the bar.

The colour scheme is dark: olive, chocolate and charcoal, which has the effect of drawing attention away from itself and onto the business of drinking and socialising.

It’s the detail that gives you a clue to what the new Lion is about. That laser-disc jukebox on the wall, the 197s0s sun clock, the range of crisps – Monster Munch, Quavers and Frazzles – the Chuppa Chips lollipops, the pie oven, the glittering sign outside, the prices. The owners – who also run The Lion and  were responsible for the makeovers of the Birdcage and the Londesborough – have given an old boozer the gastro treatment.

But it’s not a gastro pub. It’s a boozer with gastro edges. It’s almost a parody. It’s certainly a hybrid.

It would be unfair to judge the Lion on its first few days. It looks as if there has been a last-minute scramble to open not-quite-in-time for the World Cup. The (three) hand pumps are not yet operational, the beer garden, complete with an oyster stall supplied by The Fishery, won’t be ready until next week, food is not yet being served. (Yes, it seems that the old tradition of ordering from local takeaways has been dispensed with.) But the healthy crowd gathering for South Africa v Uruguay was an early sign of approval.

One feature of the old Lion will not be missed. The dingy toilets, regulars will be pleased to learn, have been completely replaced. Nosepegs no longer required.

Lara – the increasingly active Leswin Area Residents’ Association – believes the area in the middle of the one-way system, bordered by the high street, Rectory Road and the west end of Evering Road, is marooned  and would benefit significantly from its abolition. It has organised Thursday night’s meeting – details of which are here.

It believes that the whole area would be significantly improved by the restoration of two-way traffic, and cites the successful remodelling of the traffic system around Shoreditch a few years ago, which turned the area from a giant roundabout into a bustling community.

The issue isn’t a new one. A previous campaign was motivated, as I recall, by the desire to grass over the top end of Rectory Road and build a bridge over the railway line, in order to restore the divided sectors of Stoke Newington Common. That resulted in a feasibility study by Transport for London, which was published in 2008. It’s available in PDF form on the Tfl website.

The study examined two options:

1. Making the High Street two-way, with access for buses, cycles and loading only during the daytime with Rectory Road made two-way to accommodate all through traffic.

2. Making the High Street two-way for all traffic, with Rectory Road made two-way – with a complete closure  at the Common and traffic diverted around the edge of the green space, to discourage southbound traffic.

Both were rejected as not representing value for money. Among the many shortcomings identified were the considerable loss of parking and on-street loading faciltiies on Stoke Newington high street, which would be necessary to restore two-way traffic. The report concluded:

There are considered to be fundamental technical problems relating to the introduction of two-way traffic flow within Stoke Newington

According to Lara, Hackney council is conducting its own appraisal of the TfL study to look further into the options.

Lara believes the restoration of two-way traffic would lead to slower and more regulated motor traffic flow around the area, less rat-running, and better pedestrian connections. It cites many unsatisfactory elements of the current setup, including local rat-running along Lawrence Buildings and southbound drivers making an illegal left turn onto Brooke Road in order to continue along Leswin Road.

In principle, I think the idea of restoring two-way traffic is a great one. But having read the consultants’ report, it’s hard to see how it could work. The A10 is a busy north-south route, and vital loading and parking bays would be lost to accommodate the traffic flow. Many of the businesses on Stoke Newington High Street are accessed only from the front, and the removal of parking and loading facilities would kill them off, not encourage their survival.

Still, maybe Hackney’s re-assessment of the Tfl report will lead to improvements.

PS: I can’t go to Thursday night’s meeting. If you are going, it would be great if you report what happens in the comments below. Better still, if anyone wants to write up a full report, do contact me.

Nine-month-old Lola and Isabella Koupparis live on Lauriston Road, E9, which has also been described as Homerton (more accurate than Stoke Newington, granted) but whose residents would probably prefer the more verdant “Victoria Park”.

The mistake seems originally to have been made by the Press Association, a national news agency which supplies all the major news organisations and whose trusted reputation means that its reports are often not checked before they are published.

I should also point out that while I concede that urban foxes are a pest and a nuisance, I’m not sure I agree with the clamour for a cull. There are very few reports of children being attacked by foxes, But as Patrick Barkham reported in the Guardian this week, “in 2008/9, 5,221 people, including 1,250 children, were treated in hospital in England after being mauled by man’s best friend, the dog”.

Picture: Steve Punter

The council said the design for the turbine was different from the one being planned by the ODA, which scrapped its plan because of difficulties meeting safety regulations in relation to the internal lift access for maintenance staff.

Hackney has held a public consultation over the scheme, and says 87% of those who took part said it was a good idea.

But the borough had already backed away from its earlier claims about how much power would be provided by the two turbines, and today admitted that the power supply would be reduced even further. It now seems the scheme is little more than a symbolic gesture.

Here’s the statement issued by the council: “The council is continuing discussions regarding the proposed wind turbine on East Marsh. The decision not to have a turbine on Eton Manor does not affect the viability of the proposal for East Marsh although there will be a reduction in the potential amount of power available overall.

“East Marsh is a different site to Eton Manor and does not present the issues that have, in part, prompted the ODA’s decision. Any turbine considered for East Marsh would comply with all relevant safety regulations.

“The safety issues the ODA mentions are very specific and refer to internal lift access for maintenance workers, it is not a reference to the safety of the general public or risks to anyone in the vicinity of the turbine.”

On the Eton Manor decision, ODA chief executive David Higgins said: ‘We have carried out an exhaustive process with the industry and suppliers over the last two years to find a viable way of delivering a wind turbine on the Olympic Park site. However, the industry environment has changed and that means the project is no longer feasible.”

Alastair Duncan, Stoke Newington, N16

Diane Abbott, as the advertising line goes, is a Marmite politician. You either love her or hate her. She is often and openly criticised for not coming north of the border to Stoke Newington, (probably because Ed Balls lives here) and maybe this is really a plot to up her profile as a TV pundit.  I do think it’s great that she’s standing, even with little chance of winning, as clearly there should be more than one woman in the contest.

There have been two specific issues this year on which I’ve asked for her help. I wrote to her asking for a proper debate about the Digital Economy Bill (now a new law that criminalises filesharing) because it penalises new forms of creative business that are completely misunderstood in the political landscape obsessed with the BBC and big media. She was one of the few MPs, the excellent Tom Watson being another, who ignored the whip to stand for a principle of new and evolving forms of creativity.

I have also asked for her support with an education campaign for children with Special Educational Needs (see more at http://www.sensay.co.uk)  One in five children struggle with learning difficulties. The system – support in schools; inadequate numbers and types of special schools with the right capacity to cater for every child – needs radical overhaul. In Hackney, dreadfully unfair decisions are made about children that set them up to fail, and parents are often left bewildered by the distressing legal processes Local Authorities use. Let’s see if she makes that a campaign topic.

Penny Rushby-Smith, Clapton, E5

During the election campaign, a bright girl in my daughter’s year-five primary school class asked why there was no woman running for prime minister. I was helping out in the class that day, and I pointed out that, while there was no female choice for PM, there was a woman who was very likely to retain her Hackney constituency. And she did.

I welcome Diane Abbott’s decision to stand for the Labour leadership – I voted for her, after all. Perhaps now she will be known more widely for something other than her choice to send her son to a fee-paying school.

While I doubt she will much distract from the inevitable rise of David Milliband, she is right to widen the debate and choice. Perhaps the younger generation will find that, when they come to vote, there will be better representation of women in Westminster.

Nigel Whitfield, Clapton, E5

I fell out of love with the Labour party over wars, and that nasty habit of cozying up to the agenda of the Daily Mail. I let my membership lapse, but carried on voting for Diane Abbott; I may not agree with her on everything – we have very different views on Europe, for instance – but her willingness to vote against the party line on key issues was, I’m sure, a big factor in her re-election.

After a general election that was all style and offered little more analysis than  whose worm trended up in the debates, it seems to me that we need some substance and ideas in the party leadership election.

I hope that Diane’s candidature will help ensure that’s what we get; that it’s not a choice between subtle nuances of Blairism from a range of identikit men, or a kneejerk dismissal of her as a token.

Diane may not have much chance of winning, but I hope that by standing, she can at the very least remind people that there is more the Labour party than Blairism, and more to politics than a choice from three different versions of a post-Thatcher consensus.

Hugh McCallion, Stoke Newington, N16

I live in Diane’s constituency, and i’m still laughing about the whole thing. Here’s a roundup of the reaction on Twitter after she anncouned her leadership bid live on the Today programme. I thought the reaction of many Today listeners was summed up well by Hackney Wick resident Matt Woods:

“Must admit, as I sat in nothing but a towel listening to @r4today at my laptop, I snorted Rice Crispies over keyboard at Abbott’s announcement”

New Labour Leadership rules published. To stand for leader, you have to be called either ‘Ed’ or ‘Milliband.’

also, abbott isn’t going to win the leadership (and prob knows it) – this is a warm-up for the ldn mayoralty, a job she’s said she wants

Happy #Labour moved the noms deadline back for the #LabourLeaderelection. Can Abbott and McDonnell both get 33 names? Or will neither?

Abbott, 56, becomes the first woman to enter the race and the first black person ever to stand for the leadership of a political party in Britain. “We need to speak to our supporters and speak to our members in a way that we are not speaking to them up until now,” she said.

The initial view is that she has no chance of winning, but I don’t think that’s her purpose in standing. It will take the debate in different directions and force the party to address issues – such as the background of candidates – that might not otherwise have been discussed.

And there’ll be lots of mentions of Stoke Newington in the media.

I’ll post more later. In the meantime, what do we think?

The Citizen revealed how council staff were ill-informed about the candidacy of Andrew Boff, who stood for the Conservatives in the election for Hackney mayor.  In a telephone call to the council helpline,  Boff, who did not reveal his identity, was told there was no Tory candidate for mayor.

In fact, Boff’s name was on the ballot, although  his campaign message had been excluded from the official  booklet sent out by the council in advance of the elections. That’s the subject of another dispute between Boff and the council.

Boff recorded the phone calls, and the Hackney Citizen published them on its website. In a letter from the director of legal affairs, the council says the Citizen acted illegally because the council employee was not aware the calls were being recorded and did  not agree to publication. It says the recordings were “disclosed to a third party without consent”, which suggests that it believes there is a breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers act (Ripa).

My understanding is that there is no public interest defence to Ripa, but it’s a complex and controversial act, and I can’t be sure about that. Perhaps Stokey Talk’s lawyerly readers can put me right.

If it is decided that Ripa doesn’t apply in this case, then the right to privacy enshrined in the Human Rights Act would come into play – and the Citizen’s right to freedom of expression would have to be balanced against this.

The Citizen claims it is in the public interest for the calls to be exposed, and has launched a fighting fund to raise money for the legal battle.

Hackney council has defended its actions. It told journalism.co.uk:  “The council has taken this step due to concern about how a recording was made of a conversation with a junior staff member without their knowledge and then circulated without their consent.  We have therefore asked that this recording be removed from the website concerned.”

It had earlier told Hackney Citizen that the employee had initially given the correct information. “The exclusion of Mr Boff’s election address from the booklet was a complicated legal issue, and though the staff member gave the correct information at first, unfortunately as Mr Boff persisted in asking the staff member to say whether or not he was a candidate, the incorrect response was given as this was a technical issue beyond the knowledge of the staff member.”

The Citizen has clashed with the council before: Jules Pipe, the Labour mayor of Hackney, once called the paper a “lying little rag” in a council meeting. Pipe’s preferred reading, of course, is Hackney Today.

Polling stations throughout the borough were affected. Here’s a picture from Clissold Leisure Centre at 10.01pm, where the count for the Stoke Newington central ward was taking place. Almost all the people in this queue did not get to vote.

The same story was repeated at other polling stations across the borough. This video is from Triangle Road, E8, in the neighhbouring Hackney south and Shoreditch constituency.

As you can see, police were called after electors who had been denied a vote after 10pm refused to leave the polling station.

The law states that all ballot papers must be handed out by 10pm – there is no room for discretion and anyone who does not have a ballot paper in their hand by this time is not allowed to vote.

By all accounts, the vote all across  Hackney was shambolic as the 10pm deadline approached. Hackney council blames the problem on a high number of people turning out to vote late. The turnout in Hackney north and Stoke Newington was just over 62% – well up from just under 50% in 2005. The count was delayed – Hackney had earlier said that results would be declared in the early hours of Friday morning but not a single balltot paper was counted before it 10am on 7 May. The parliamentary results were not declared until mid-afternoon.

So who’s fault is it? Here’s how it works. Incredibly, there is no national system for organising elections. The reponsibility for the vote is down to local councils, who appoinnt returning officers. There is an overseeing body, the Electoral Commission, but it does not have powers to direct councils to hold a vote or count in any particular way.

Often, the returning officer is the council chief executive. That’s the case in Hackney, where Tim Shields is the official in charge. Diane Abbott, who was returned as Labour MP for Hackney north and Stoke Newington with a substantially increased majority, has blamed Shields for the debacle – it’s reported that at least 270 people who intended to vote were unable to do so. There are now suggestions that Shields may forgo his fee: the returning officer in Sheffield, where there was similar chaos, has decided not to accept the £20,000 he would have been paid.

An inquiry has been launched by the Electoral Commission. It’s clear, however, that there was one almighty screw-up in Hackney.

Results

So what of the results? Abbott won an astonishing 55% of the vote, up from just under 49% on the notional 2005 result (adjusted to take account of boundary changes). She doubled her majority from the second-placed candidate, Liberal Democrat Keith Angus. Suzanne Moore, the Mail on Sunday columnist, came top of the list of independents, but polled only 286 votes (0.6%). The turnout was 62.9 %, well up on the 49.6% in 2005. Full results of the parliamentary election in Hackney north and Stoke Newington are here.

Labour’s Jules Pipe won the mayoral contest, again with a significantly increased majority, taking 51.6% of the vote. The Lib Dems’ Adrian Gee-Turner was second with 16.7%. The Conservative candidate, Andrew Boff, was  pushed into third, with 13.2%. Full results of the Hackney mayoral elections are on this page.

Labour extended its domination of Hackney council, with 50 councillors – up six. The Conservatives lost three seats and now have four councillors,  and the Lib Dems remain on three. The one Green councillor lost his seat. Full results of the Hackney council elections are here, including ward-by-ward breakdowns.

Swing to Labour

The swing to Labour in the parliamentary and council elections was signficant – and against the national trend. Why so? Did Diane Abbott’s reputation as a rebel help her? Or was it her increased media profile with a seat on the sofa next to Michael Portillo on the entertaining political show This Week? Did Labour in Hackney benefit from a sense that they have managed the borough well under Pipe’s administration, improving the schools and the efficiency of council services? Or was it all an anti-Tory feeling in Stokey? Only you, the voters, know for sure.