Lambeth Council axes Vauxhall Nine Elms community forums in favour of expos costing £7500

If you want to know more about the VNEB and the intensive development to take place in the area over the next 20 years, I recommend you take a look at the gigantic Mayor's Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area Planning Framework.

Back in May, I wrote a post about why the Kennington Association Planning Forum think the VNEB proposals are fatally flawed.  Essentially, they think they've identified a £588 million funding blackhole in the infrastructure. £200 million of that is the value of land that the developers might have to purchase to ensure the area is brought up to Lambeth's minimum green space standard.  We've yet to hear how the issue of green space might be addressed...

In the meantime, a community forum for consulting the local community about the whole VNEB area was launched by Lambeth's Nine Elms Vauxhall Strategy Board.  An initial wide-area-community forum meeting was held in Jan 2011.  It was discussed briefly at the Kennington Oval Vauxhall (KOV) meeting in April, where Maureen Johnston noted that she'd been involved in discussions on behalf of KOV about the possible shape of the forum.  Later, a second community meeting took place in May 2011, (announced by Princes Ward Labour councillers) here.  I didn't make it to that, but the minutes indicate that much of the meeting was taken up with strongly worded requests by residents to remove the Vauxhall gyratory (more on that in the next post) and residents' opposition to the Northern Line Extension.  The Friends of Vauxhall Park also wanted to engage with working groups on the matter of the linear park. 

In the meantime, PAPER NO. SB 11 - 35 from the VNEB Strategy Board meeting in June allows:

"The previous approach for community engagement presented by Lambeth to the Strategy Board on 26th January 2011, involved setting up an area-wide community forum that would meet a number of times of year."

Sounds good.  Sounds sensible.  Area-wide meetings ensure that lots of stakeholders meet together to ensure that no area is getting a better deal than another.  And even better, as was agreed by the earlier forums...

"The proposals also suggested establishing themed community working groups alongside the strategy board’s working groups, that would then have representatives from the community sitting on them."

Perfect.  It would be possible just to go to meetings about areas of the strategy that you felt affected you eg. transport or school or health.  The experts in the community in each area would be able to attend specific themed working groups.  But, that is no longer to be because...

"There would... be an onus on community representatives to attend numerous working groups covering technical matters that may not deal with key policy issues and concerns they are most interested in."

Umm, no.  That was the whole point of the themed groups.  The report does note, correctly, that community groups don't work according to strict borough boundaries (thank goodness). It also cites resource issues, but aren't we all trying to learn to do things co-operatively and on a shoe-string?  The new idea doesn't look cheap.  Consequently...

"It was agreed that establishing a formal Community Engagement Group with community representatives and others partners should not be progressed."

Oh dear.  What might the real reason be?

"The likelihood is that such a Group would involve a small number of the more active community groups." and "it would risk excluding hard- to-reach groups."

Well, yes.  That's democracy.  That's co-operation.  If you're active and engaged, and attend meetings, and track what the council is doing, and submit feedback on planning matters, and attend library seminars etc. etc. etc. then, yes, a group is likely to contain engaged citizens who have something to contribute to their local community.  How dangerous!  How radical!  I acknowledge that the Council needs to work hard to contact and dialogue with hard to reach groups, but that shouldn't be at the expense of those who conscientously show up to meetings and participate...  So, what's the new plan?

"Therefore, an alternative approach is recommended where the Working Groups would present to the community at a variety of ‘events’ in or close to the Opportunity Area."

A long-term die-hard community activist friend of mine said to me, "oh yes, councils love Expos, where everybody turns up at different times and note inconsequential views on little post-it notes that people stick up on a board. These are often off-topic and later ignored.  It allows the Councils to say that they've consulted, but not have to sustain any deep level of engagement, participation or criticism with community groups".  Does that sound about right?

"The events would tend to be more informal than a conference or committee meeting with presentations but more like a ‘symposium’ with the aim of collecting the views on a key topic from a wide range of people..."

We can now look forward to two tiers of events.  Cross-borough VNEB expos and community style events costing £5000-£7500 a time (tier one).  Tier two (at least at the Lambeth end) seems at first to be slightly more acceptable, with a localised "Lambeth Community Forum" which will be shaped by existing forum leaders (probably Kennington Oval Vauxhall forum) until you find out that attendees are a rather select band of people... "by invitation to existing forum leaders and leaders of recognised community groups."  Great.

The Lurker isn't impressed.  Anybody know what's going on?  Well word on the ground is that it was due to Cllr Sally Prentice's move from Regeneration and Planning to Employment and Enterprise.  The new Regeneration and Planning Committee member is Cllr Nigel Haselden, so perhaps he's the one to ask.

Can anybody offer a defence?  The expo idea appears to me to weaken community group input and atomise attendee participation.  It will be difficult to establish consensus or disagreement, as people will just turn up and leave again without having to listen to one anothers' views.  Difficult questions and hedging answers won't be heard by an entire room of people, and it's not exactly possible to minute conversations at the Expos.  Very convenient.

Lambeth Council turn down £2.7 million Community bid to purchase Beaufoy Institute

(Photo taken from a thread on Beaufoy Institute on Urban 75 here)

Lurking about SE11 has learned that a "community" bid to purchase the Beaufoy Institute on Black Prince Road from Lambeth Council for £2.7 million has failed.  The Heart of Kennington Ltd represented the coming together of a number of local organisations, The School of Communication Arts, Lady Margaret Hall Settlement, South Bank Mosaics, Stark Investments Limited and two other potential arts based schools learned on Monday that their bid had not been successful.  Since the bidding process was largely anonymous, the winner has not yet been announced and the local community are beginning to ask questions.

At a Kennington Oval Vauxhall forum AGM meeting on 7th June, David Toothill, (Southbank Mosaics) introduced Marc Lewis who runs the School of Communication Arts and he introduced the bid to all present.  You can see various community messages of support recorded and videoed, and the Heart of Kennington Ltd were the only people who appeared before the local community to discuss their bid.  Local councillors were present at the meeting, but perhaps felt that another company's bid would be more beneficial for Kennington and Vauxhall.  Or, more likely, it was felt that somebody else's bid would put more cash on the table.  Is a much-loved community building being sacrificed for short-term financial gain for the Council, as it rapidly attempts to shed its assets?  Or, does the would-be purchaser have plans for the local common good of which nobody is aware?

The School of Communication Arts, we were informed at the meeting, are a not-for-profit social enterprise organisation funded by the advertising industry, preparing young people for a career in the creative sector.  Whilst a private enterprise, a large percentage of their students are backed by grants and scholarships.  The school is currently based in Worgan Street in the Methodist Church hall, but is Vauxhall based with roots in Graphite Square.

The Heart of Kennignton partnership were hoping to take the building at the back of the Beaufoy and build 250 student rooms, in clusters of six and make it the only dedicated art student accommodation in London, where students and artists could work together.  The accommodation was intended to fund the rest of the enterprise.  Once the main 1907 Beaufoy Institute had been brought back to Grade 2 standard, it would have been gifted to the Lady Margaret Hall Settlement.  LMHS would have guaranteed a place for the London School of Communication arts in the building so that the school (about 50 students) was ensured a lasting legacy in the area.  LMHS would then have helped choose two similar schools in areas pertaining to the arts eg. design, photography, acting, journalism to bring three creative schools under one roof.  Space was to have been ensured for other partners such as the Southbank Mosaic project and it was envisaged that the partnership would provide creative arts services for the community.

The project might never now come to fruition.  The community and all involved would probably do well to wait for further details to be announced, but at present, nobody has publicly identified the successful bidder (or even whether they exist).  I will say one thing.  If this is the way that the co-operative Council intend to work, with utter lack of consultation and reception of community views, its methods are not to be favoured.  Lambeth residents would do well to advise residents in other areas not to advocate the Co-operative Council vision.  It may just be that the Council have chosen a bid partner with whom to develop something that will benefit locals, but they have shown complete disregard for involving the local community in a frenzied last-minute sales process.

See Vauxhall Society's article on the Battle of the Beauyfoy here.

The Ongoing adventures of the Triangle Adventure Playground... (Lambeth Council still seeking to evict)

I received a highly informative poster from the Triangle Association last week, updating us with the current status of the Triangle Adventure Playground.  Unfortunately, Lambeth Council are still seeking to evict them, but the case has been adjourned until February 2011 (great news).

This little thorn in the flesh has the potential to become quite embarrassing for the Council because, as you might have noticed, Cllr Edbrooke name checked the Triangle Adventure Playground as being a "well run" example of a co-op style project at the last Kennington Oval and Vauxhall forum meeting.  This is great (I think) because it demonstrates that she has the guts to resist the Council's line on the matter.  Consequently, the Playground is now /finally/ receiving support from the three Councillors of Oval Ward; Jane Edbrooke (Lab), Jack Hopkins (Lab) and Ishbel Brown (Lib Dem) and I'm hoping that they're making strong representations to Cllr Robbins against closing it down (see below).  In addition, they've promised to fund the playground from the Oval Ward purse.  Now that's fighting talk, and it's a demonstration of the resistance that might be needed in the up and coming months....

There's other good news in the pipeline...

The Triangle Association committee have found a fund which might match funding from the Ward Purse, and would potentially pay for a solar power electricity system.  Heads up to the Triangle Association for their pioneering (and green) co-operative work!  Unfortunately, the solar power system requires a minimum lease of 10 years, so Lambeth Council will have to agree to cease eviction proceedings.  In addition, the Triangle have gained potential access to further funds for the next 18 months, but they'll need a longer lease.  I hope the Council do the right thing...

Is Mutuality privatisation by the back door? Co-operative Council Q and As - (KOV meeting update - Part 3b)

This post is a commentary and write-up from the KOV meeting that took place on 1st November at Vauxhall Gardens Community at which the Council Officer, Mike Wiltshire, was present to explain the purpose and end of the proposed co-operative Council for Lambeth.  The first post (which is basically the Council's elaboration of what the Commission have been reviewing) can be found here.  This post is a compendium of questions that were put forward by bemused Kennington, Oval, Vauxhall forum audience members (otherwise known as the Kennington Massive) to Lambeth Council about how the co-operative council might eventually appear.

Questions are often unclear and mumbly, and like in all public meetings, consist of the half-baked views of some quite strange people.  I've ruthlessly cut, summarised and de-waffled so that broad summaries are in single quotes, and direct quotes are in doubles...

Qn: 'I'm concerned... There was a lot of jargon....  You're consulting on things you should really be doing any way... You're looking at spending money on consultation on answers that should be relatively obvious...'

Mike Wiltshire:  'I wouldn't disagree that we should be doing this as a matter of course.  When we speak to people from different parts of the Borough, the ways they want to be consulted are different.  The point of this piece of work is to find the ways that people want to work.  Some prefer using area forums. Others want something more innovative eg. a local community group to come and manage a process.'

Questions: 'It would be useful to have more information about how this will run in practice and how we could contribute to the ideas about how it could be run... Could we hear about how local people get involved?' and 'We can organise collectively in neighbourhoods, but what does the council think we can personally and collectively contribute... What sort of interaction do you want between the public and yourselves?'

At that stage, you can see that the questions above (and more) concerned what a co-operative Council might look like, with all of these services effectively sub contracted-out, and poor Mr Wiltshire, who had suffered at the hands of the Kennington-massive was looking a bit drained, so Cllr Jane Edbrooke jumped to the rescue...

"These Co-op ideas were in our Labour manifesto.  This officer is taking a lot of questions, and I hope to come in with some answers... We're trying to say that we don't assume that services are run in the best way that they can be run.  We know that there's some great expertise out there.  We're saying that if you can run a service better, we'd like to catch that... It's about making people realise that services might not be run by the Council any more or that they can run them themselves...."

And then, controversially, Cllr Edbrooke went on to note that we have an excellent co-operative venture in our midst, at the heart of the Oval Ward...

"I know that people have been speaking to those that run the [Triangle] Adventure playground.  It's a controversial subject at the moment, but the playground is run very well.  How can we run that elsewhere?"

Controversial subject?!  Well, yes.  For those that don't regularly read this blog, you ought to know that Lambeth Council are currently taking legal action against the Triangle Association to evict them from the site, in order to make room for a school expansion.  So, that might not have been the best example to choose re. co-operative working!

But before anything further could be said, Mike Wiltshire grabbed the reigns again:

MW: 'At the moment, we provide youth services through youth clubs in the Borough.  The new process would be to review available funding and decommission the service if it's ineffective.  We'd then begin a new commission process and say to residents; "This is what's currently provided.  This is how it's working and these are the problems with it.  What expertise and what knowledge do you have to improve youth services, and how would you like youth services to operate in this area?"'

And then a question about whether any of our services are protected...?

Qn: At what point would the Council welcome applications?  Are there any no-go areas, or is any Council service open to that?

MW: Lambeth Council are currently drawing up a list of pilots to commence in February 2010.  The mechanisms of applying haven't been worked out in detail, but each year the council should be looking at specific service areas as part of the Council's budgeting cycle.  The last word from Steve Reed was that there are no no-go areas, including social care.  If you have an idea as to how a service can be delivered better, the Council want to hear about it...

And then somebody raised the question about whether the Emperor was wearing any clothes...

Qn:  What if the community don't step up, and they say "we'd like to see the Council continue to provide the service they have been providing.  We don't think, on any given matter, that we can do any better".

MW: 'Then that's fine.  That's part of the conversation."

But I wonder... is it fine?  If the community don't step up, and the Council don't have any money, then we're not going to have any local services.  Could we end up, I wonder, in a position where 3rd sector organisations (or, more likely, the private sector) run everything with just a thin layer of accountability connecting them with the Council?  I'm astonished that this move is coming from a Labour Concil since I cannot see how it's any different from Conservative/Lib Dem central government policy.  Today's Financial Times notes Unison's position on public sector workers being given the "right to provide" by selling back services. "Unison, the health union, attacked the ideas as a route to 'backdoor privatisation', claiming big business was likely to take over mutuals that failed or move in as contracts were renewed".  Well, precisely.  Here's what I think will happen.  Lambeth Council will make all (or most) youth service (or whatever) employees redundant.  The employees will be invited to form not-for-profit mutuals and put together ad-hoc youth provision.  The on-the-ball types will form small organisations, sell their services back to the Council, but won't have to pay their workers anything like minimum wage, and will have to reduce their services to skeletal because the Council will end up under funding them.  If the mutuals fail to perform (or make a living), the Council will not be easily held responsible, but will re-tender and the service will privatise.  Naturally, larger providers will be preferred because they're better able to keep costs  low.  I hope I'm proved wrong.

Mike Wilkinson clarified that the move towards co-operative working is more complex for statutory services eg. education.  Non-statutory services such as arts, culture and sports services offer more co-operative flexibility.  One of the "big ideas" that the Commission undertook to review was "time banking".  Apparently, in Cardiff, you become involved in the local children's centre, health service or youth service and then, as a result of giving time, you accrue credits on discounts for leisure services, cinema and theatre, "so you can have a menu of rewards to choose from.".

Val Shawcross who was also present (not sure why, but we had no Hoey) stood to made a quick comment.  She acknowledged her membership of the Co-operative party, and added that she felt the word "mutuality" had been absent from the conversation. She added that the presentation had been wrapped up in traditional "officer style speak" about consultations (she was right there).  But then she amusingly noted, "There are lots of goods models of how people run things amongst themselves.  Some of them are officer models.  Greenwich Leisure, one of the most well known leisure providers in Lambeth was set up from amongst the staff of Greenwich Leisure Services department, and was set up as a co-operative..."

At that point, I couldn't believe my ears!  The second suggestion for a co-operative (after the Triangle, which Lambeth are trying to close) was Greenwich Leisure, who are not exactly flavour of the month at the moment.  A quick glance at their website reveals... the Astroturf in Kennington park is still not fixed.  The Onionbag was not happy, having bought their leisure card, only to find many GLL leisure centres closed.  It might not be GLL's fault, but leisure would not have been my first choice to illustrate how co-operativeness might work..

Val Shawcross finally added, "We've got some great models of co-operatives in Lambeth."

I think here that it might be worth highlighting a piece questioning the co-op that I glimpsed back in the Streatham Guardian in August.  I quote, "...Jeff Jeffers, chairman of Lambeth co-operative development agency, said of 49 co-ops formed in the borough in 1971, only three still existed."  I don't necessarily doubt Val's word, but we probably need to ask questions about longevity.  Perhaps 1971 is too far back, and institutions aren't meant to last that long.  Perhaps the co-op route is a reasonable option for short-term initiatives.  My fear is that co-operative groups and mutualisation is just privatisation by the back door.
I don't want to throw a spanner in the works.  I'm not against co-operative working or co-operative societies.  The Council may well be /opting in/ to a very positive model of working.  It would be great to have local people taking additional responsibility for the wellbeing of their communities, but...  I don't want the Co-op Council or Big Society rhetoric to prevent people campaigning against cuts.  I'm afraid that the word "co-operative" is being used to cover up a covert privatisation without even those who are passionately involved realising that they're on a hiding to nothing.  Take a look at the words of.the Chief Executive of the Co-op group, Peter Marks, who admitted to the Guardian last year that he was a capitalist...

"At heart I am a capitalist as we have seen that other systems don't work. But the trust in banks has gone. The Co-op was not deemed sexy - we were old-fashioned because we took deposits before loaning money. But old-fashioned is the new cool in banking."

With one breath, it seems that "old fashioned" is cool again, both in banking and in local authority government, but in the next breath (same Guardian article)...

"If another person says to me 'I can remember my granny's divi number', I could get arrested for physical violence.  That's old baggage, people are always looking back. We are a modern business now."

The question is, can Lambeth Council be "cool" and "old-fashioned" without "looking back" at "old baggage"?  Cam Lambeth be a modern co-operative Council, or will it end up ushering in a greater era of privatisation under the noses of an unsuspecting public, who think that co-operative means, well, co-operative.

Is the Council Opting-In or Selling out? The Co-operative Council - (KOV meeting update - Part 3a)

Several months ago, Jason Cobb, prior to his move, highlighted the risks of the co-operative council for the entire Borough.  Now that he's left for the wilds of deepest Essex, I'll try and keep tabs on how it will affect our hyperlocal patch, but trust me, this won't be the most exciting of posts...

I was hoping for clarification when I learned that Lambeth Council Policy manager, council officer Mike Wiltshire addressed was to address the KOV on the co-op proposition at the beginning of November.  Mr Wiltshire clearly knew his stuff, having been involved with the co-op council project since its starting point in February 2010.  After he had given a run-down of work performed so far, I'm not sure that anybody was more practically informed about what the co-op council might look like.  Question time proved a little more illuminating, but only a little...  Here follows a summary of what we heard (with my commentary added later in square brackets []):

The co-op idea was introduced due to Labour's desire to change the way services are provided and develop them more collaboratively, as well as being a way to provide quality services, despite the budget cuts from central government.  A white paper was published in May 2010 showing the Council's initial thoughts.  After that, a committee was set up chaired by Head of Lambeth Council, Steve Reed, which consists of residents, other councillors and members of national organisations. [I'd have said it's a little light on residents, but never mind...] They've received evidence from community groups, national bodies, private/public sector companies etc. to learn how the co-operative council should be delivered and are now deliberating on that evidence.  A final report, setting out the Commissioners' recommendations is due to be published in January 2011.  That report will start another 3 month consultation process.  At that point, they'll say, "when we talk about the Co-op council we mean these specific things" and see whether their recommendations are supported.  Lambeth Council will produce its response to the commission in May 2011 and will set out any recommendations it might want to accept, reject or amend.  [Any the wiser?  I wasn't.  But it seems to work quite well if you're involved in providing "consultation" services, something that's probably quite lucrative in these times...]

According to Mr Wiltshire, the commission has obtained evidence on 5 key areas, as follows...

1.  Leadership:  Two important questions have been asked: "What type of leadership should the council provide politically?" and "How can the Council be a better leader of civil society?"  The majority of people who have responded to the Commission have provided a clear message.  I quote...

"You're fine giving political leadership, but actually, you're not a particularly good community leader.  You don't listen particularly well...  If the Council are serious about this, there has to be some fundamental change to the way the organisation works... in partnership, as opposed to an organisation which attempts to consult, but doesn't do as well as it should do".  

It is thought that addressing such a matter will be a major challenge for the Council.

2.  Services:  At present, there are problems with the way services are commissioned.  Partnership is not handled well.  Commissioning and  procurement processes would need to be changed, so that the Council could be a "co-producer".  Questions arise about whether the council should be providing services themselves or whether they should be moving to different providers?  Might a social enterprise, charitable or 3rd sector organisation be more effective at delivering a service?

If an organisation shows they can deliver a service more effectively eg. youth services, under a co-op model, the council should support the organisations as opposed delivering it themselves.  To give an example, the Council has commissioned a gang intervention service named Exit.  Apparently, having a third sector organisation working intensively with children has been far more effective in drawing them away from gang involvement than traditional youth services, so the council are asking whether, if a 3rd sector group can be far more innovative, the council might commission such providers directly?  [It all sounds great, but one wonders what will happen to traditional youth clubs that are not "in vogue" at the moment, but are valuable because they're institutional and not fleeting.]

3.  Incentivisation:  People need to be encouraged to become more involved in local public service provision.  The Council want to know whether more citizens can be involved in such delivery and are trying to identify a "range of mechanisms" that would suit people.  Mr Wiltshire admitted this would be challenging because surveys so far have shown that a lot of people are already quite active in the community and the people that aren't have made the choice not to be involved for various reasons.  Consequently, it was acknowledged that trying to find a way to incentivise such people will be tricky.  [It does beg the question of whether, in the end, it might not be quicker, easier and cheaper for the Council to just run the services themselves.  But I suppose the answer to that is that there will be no money... I really dislike the idea of incentivising for voluntary work, as it seems to me akin to bribing.  Perhaps the Council would claim it's just a way of saying "thanks".]

4. Public service management:  How can the Council  manage services more effectively and enable front line officers to innovate and find new ways of delivering services?  At the moment, apparently, Lambeth Council  have "quite a controlling risk-averse culture".  The commisioners are looking at ways to try and change the culture.  They're also looking at joint-management, and asking questions such as; how can the Council more effectively join up services with the police or health providers?  Much work is already performed with Lambeth First partnership, but the Council seek to integrate services more widely.

5.  Financing:  At present, the Council try to co-ordinate budgets with other public service providers. The co-op council hope to try to centralise funding so that council, health services and  police don't just align budgets, but pool them centrally.  It seems that some of the ideas coming out of central government are broadly supportive of the notion.  [Which makes me wonder whether it's all just about cuts, cuts and more cuts].  The Commission is also looking at alternative way of funding/financing services considering a reduction in public sector funding. The Council are looking at ways of drawing in social and private sector finance to continue to fund services.  [All Council services will have to be financed somehow.  Note today a report that suggests Lambeth will consider proposals for an "opt-in" paid-for garden waste removal service and charges for bulky waste collection.  I fear a return to fly-tipping, so I'm hoping they've some kind of social finance scheme up their sleeves.  I've not a clue what "social finance" might be!]

I've split this post in two because despite editing, once I've added the question-time and some of my comments, we're looking at an essay-length write-up!  Continue reading if you want to see the questions that were asked as a result of this presentation....

Advanced notice - KOV Co-op Council Discussion & Thames Tunnel Consultation and

This is just a quick post giving advanced notice of three community gatherings.

Firstly, in view of the announcements of the Government's Spending Review, and the speculation that Lambeth Council will lose £70 million, some notion of Labour's Co-operative Council will soon become a reality in Lambeth.  Local public sector job cuts are likely (but we probably won't know the detail for a few months) and whether you call it Big Society or Co-operative Council, the result will be fewer services spread over the same (or greater) number of people.  According to Local London, considerations about pooling services such as road repairs, social care, rubbish collection, libaries and adult education between Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark Councils are under way.  I've no idea what any of this might look like, but there will be opportunites to ask questions at the next KOV meeting on 1 November at 6:30 for 7pm.  The venue is to be the Vauxhall Gardens Community Centre, 100 Vauxhall Walk, SE11 5EL.  Also announced at the KOV meeting with be "interesting news" about the future of the former Lilian Baylis school site (not sure how that will fare with all of the cuts) and apparently, some discussion of improvements planned for Vauxhall overground station.  It seems to be a rather full agenda so expect the meeting to run late.

Secondly, thanks to the good Cllr Harrison, a consultation will take place re. the Vauxhall Thames Tideway Tunnel ventiliation shaft etc. on the Albert Embankment in Vauxhall.  The consultation will be held on 6th November from 10am-4pm at Park Plaza Hotel, 18 Albert Embankment.  For more information about the tunnel, see my article "What is the Tideway Tunnel is, and how does it affect Vauxhall?".

Lastly, thanks to a commentator earlier in the week, some of you might be interested to know that former MP and local resident, Chris Mullin will be speaking at the Durning Library on Thursday 21st (tomorrow) at 6.45pm.  £2 is requested as a donation for refreshments.  The Times' Rod Liddle noted that Mullin's recently published diaries (A View from The Foothills) were "The most valuable set of diaries to emanate from the now interred corpse of new Labour; the most revelatory and also…the most entertaining."  Make of that what you will.