I am planing to interview Paul Foot, twice Journalist of the Year and Journalist of the Decade for the 1990s, about campaign to become Hackney’s first directly elected Mayor. Any questions or thoughts on the matter are welcome.

Here's what he's said so far:

Stop the war

“Local, national and international issues will all matter in this election. For instance, the biggest political issue during the campaign is almost certain to be Bush’s war on Iraq. I shall therefore be a mayoral candidate totally opposed to the war and prepared constantly to say so. By the same token I shall also be the candidate relentlessly opposed to the disgraceful treatment by the government of asylum seekers.

“But even on these issues we will get the message across much more clearly if we set out relevant local policies to explain where we stand. For instance, we will show that the government is prepared to spend billions on bombing the already shattered people of Iraq while cutting funding to schools, nurseries, home helps for the elderly, services for the disabled, and libraries in Hackney.

Defend asylum seekers

“I will explain how I will use the Mayor’s office and influence to demonstrate our commitment to welcoming asylum seekers. As Mayor, I would campaign to stop deportations of people who have fled persecution, and oppose the detention of people not accused of any crime. I would demand that Hackney’s social services and housing departments give asylum-seekers the benefits they are entitled to and are not dispersed around the country against their will.

Education

“Last week’s Hackney Gazette led on the terrible mess the council has got itself into on the issue of education. There will soon be only one co-educational secular secondary comprehensive school in Hackney. The result is a hideous pressure on that school and a growing despair and distress everywhere else. The council vaguely promise a replacement for Hackney Downs, but this is to be one of their swish “city technology” snob schools, pioneered by Margaret Thatcher, which will fit neatly into the Estelle Morris notion of “variety” in schools – a gross departure from Labour’s time-honoured commitment to comprehensive education.

“I therefore think that my first and most urgent commitment as Mayor will be to set in motion plans for the immediate construction of two new co-educational secular and comprehensive schools in the borough. This will run side by side with a categorical commitment to supply full-time nursery places for every three-year-old.


Housing

“The next issue is housing. The whole borough has been cursed with sell-offs of council estates. In a case also reported last week, a promise by a housing association not to increase rents has been reversed into a decision to raise rents. I will be committed not just to ensuring no more sell-offs but also to initiating discussions about how to take back into council ownership the estates already sold, how to re-furbish them and involve their tenants in their management. I would call for all council homes to be renovated so they are fit for human habitation, and would ask council officers to enforce the same standards on private landlords.

Funding socialist policies

“Where will the money come from? This will be a familiar question about every socialist policy. The government’s legislation on these elected mayors is very careful to insure against the election of a socialist. The mayor therefore has no money. The mayor’s policies will have to be funded out of the council’s budget. As we all know, central government has been starving local government of the money necessary to provide vital services and has declared Hackney in effect bankrupt. So if I become mayor, and the council or government says there’s no money for policies that Hackney people have voted for, I will not back down or call for local people to pay higher council taxes.

Hackney is one of the poorest boroughs in the country. Its people’s needs should be met by central government. But the government, in its determination to stick to Tory policies on tax and public spending, has cut millions of pounds from Hackney’s grant. If elected, I would be committed to a grassroots campaign involving tenants, parents, trade unionists, voluntary groups and so on, as well as asking for support from our MPs and councillors, to back the case for more resources for Hackney from government – and I would be starting with the support of the mandate of the people of Hackney.

Privatisation

“Another issue is privatisation. Taking the lead from the government and the Local Government Network, representing the corporate greedies who can’t wait to get their fingers on public enterprise in Hackney, the council has pushed their people further and further into the mire by privatising essential public services. The IT-Net transfer was one of the great council scandals of modern times. Now the council has had, at great expense, to reverse the privatisation of the refuse service. I will be committed not just to stopping all further privatisations, but to involving all public sector workers and users in discussions as to how best to run those services democratically.

Racism

“I will not tolerate racism or any form of discrimination in any of the council’s practices. One reason for Hackney’s vitality is its diversity, which in my opinion makes it one of the best places on earth to live. I will therefore make fighting racism a priority. I will commit myself to a full-scale inquiry into allegations of racial discrimination in the council, and to having discussions with the local police committees and the GLA about the habit of police, as rampant in Hackney as anywhere else, of stopping, searching and arresting people because they are black. I will campaign for real police accountability. I will also carry on supporting families of police violence who are seeking justice, such as the Justice for Harry Stanley campaign.

Other issues

“There are plenty of other issues that I will address during the campaign. Among these will be a call for the legalisation of cannabis, opposition to congestion charges, a demand for the tube to be brought to Hackney, and a commitment to policies that protect the environment.

“We will be producing during the campaign a series of leaflets as well as a broadsheet newspaper in which my policies as mayor will be more fully set out.”



The interview will be published on the Hackney sub-section of Indy Media.