So what about 2015?

I am taking a breather from opening boxes. Since we moved into our new house in Harrow I have opened and emptied well over 40 and there are still about 10 to go.

Remarkably we are running out of spaces to put the stuff we brought with us, even though the new place is officially bigger by at least 50%. I did not realise the old flat had a touch of the Tardis about it.

It has been a remarkable year. The first target for me was to buy a house with a garden. This should have happened in August but it went pear-shaped when my then buyer failed to get a mortgage. In the end we put in bids on 3 houses in the same area of Harrow, paid for 3 surveys, and ended up with the house with the biggest garden. Not that I am a gardener, although I have a romantic vision of myself growing things, which may be harder to achieve in reality.

The second inter-related target was to move my working space into the new house, so I can work from home again after an interlude of 3 years. This was achieved last Monday and I am properly settled into my new den surrounded by familiar posters and pictures.

I have joined the local municipal pool and had one or two conversations with fellow swimmers in the men's locker room. We have made friends with our new neighbours and have exchanged Christmas cards, so we have been making our first tentative steps to make roots in a new community.

In an earlier post I challenged myself, and my friends, to stop me becoming "content" with my life. I am still very wary that the suburban values that could be entrenched in the fabric of my semi detached house might still lull me into a smug attitude borne of a settled home.  So I am deliberately thinking about creating some new targets for next year.

We have some more works to do to the house next summer, and plans for a European trip by train to the south of France and into Spain. But a new personal challenge? Will learning the basics of gardening be enough?

I have switched my Liberal Democrat membership to the Harrow party, and learned at a recent festive gathering of fellow Liberals, that the constituency I am now living in has no parliamentary candidate in place yet for the May General Election. There may be other seats nearby in a similar position. Could I be tempted? My last General Election campaigns were in 1979 and 1987. Being a serious candidate involves a lot of hard work, but being a candidate in a non-target seat could be just a bit of fun, especially in the head-to-head public debates.

The only thing I miss about not being a councillor now is the occasional rant in the Council Chamber, and so being free to challenge the worst excesses of both Tory and Labour opponents in a General Election debate would be really rather enjoyable.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Isn't this just a flight of fancy? Surely I should be reviving the long stated ambition to write the novel? The rough plot has been in my head for over 20 years. Isn't it about time I started those first drafts? After all, tapping on a keyboard in my new office is a lot easier than pounding the streets, especially with my arthritic knees...

No need to make a decision yet. Let the festive season take its usual course. There will be targets for 2015 for sure, but we will decide when the calendar changes.

Happy new year, and watch this space...

I will soon be moving on....

We have been close before, but I think this time it is going happen. The exchange of contracts for my new house should take place tomorrow, and we will be moving on 25th November to Harrow Weald.

We have bought a house on what was an original 1950's council estate, where all have been sold on many years ago. It is surrounded with green spaces, and has a local library and swimming pool in walking distance.

We still have access to the inner city through the Overground line and there are enough bus services to keep me happy too.

But it has needed a change of mindset to accept the notion of becoming suburban again after so many years. When I was 18 and leaving home I declared I would not live in a semi-detached house ever again, because I always associated the "semi in the suburbs" as representing the values I most despised. Small-mindedness, inward looking, patronising attitudes and a kind of British arrogance borne from complacency and self-righteousness.

But now I have been convinced to find a semi-detached house to make a new beginning with some space to breathe, out in zone 5 no less, away from the bustle of the inner city.

I suppose what I am worried about most is becoming content. People who are content with their lives have really declared they are done, spent, with no more to do, no more ambitions, ready to fall into a gentle decline through retirement to an inevitable end.

I think I have insured against that by having a wife who will never let me settle, and who has driving ambitions of her own, which should keep me active for a long while yet. And yes the possibility of becoming a father in my 60's is still on the agenda. Being an old Dad on the school run (or school walk in my case) is still part of the plan.

So if you see me in the coming years, please ask whether I am content in my new house, and pull me up if I say I am.

Open letter to Nick Clegg

Nick

One of the legitimate criticisms of the decision to join the last Iraq war was that there was no plan on what would happen afterwards. Assuming the proposed air strikes weaken the ISIL organisation to a point where the legitimate ground forces of the Iraqi government can re-gain effective control of areas of Iraq currently under ISIL control, what happens then?

No doubt large tranches of infrastructure and buildings would have been destroyed. Civilians would have lost their lives and/or been displaced. The number of refugees moving around the Middle East in different directions has already moved into the millions, and that number will increase.

Despite the West’s best efforts ISIL will still be seen as a romantic and heroic organisation for rebellious Muslims from around the world to join, to then commit barbarous atrocities as acts of revenge against Western imperialists.

I believe the present problem is one for the Muslim Arab nations to solve. When the West intervenes with its weapons, first on one “side” and then another, it simply spreads the problem to the rest of the world.

We are not learning from history. If we are to stop the numbers of home-grown Muslims travelling to the Middle East to get involved (and trained), the answer to the domestic terrorist threat (which should be your first concern as the Deputy Prime Minister) is to support a Muslim narrative led by Muslims here to explain why ISIL is not the romantic heroic organisation it is depicted to be. It is and should be seen by Muslims as an un-Islamic organisation which distorts the faith for the pursuit of fascism.

So stop the bombs - provide technical expertise and training to the Iraqi government forces if you must - but let’s think about an alternative strategy to make our country stronger, safer, more peaceful and more inclusive than it is now.

With best wishes

JOHN BRYANT
Member and ex-councillor
Camden Liberal Democrats

My property conveyancing nightmare...

My closest friends will know that I am an impatient man. Once I have decided to do something, then implementation needs to be swift. No hanging about. What's the point of waiting, or doing something slowly?

So the frustrating, longwinded, and excruciating process of selling and buying property in this country appears to have been set up just to test me. And yes, through this summer I have been truly tested.

Selling a property listed on HS2's "Schedule A" was not a great start to the year. Although there was only the slimmest chance of a compulsory purchase once the works to be undertaken were properly investigated, that scared off a number of potential buyers.

Having an official church with a disputed planning permission on the ground floor of my building also put off some others, but eventually my friends at Foxtons found a commercial buyer who could see the benefits of buying a flat with an extended lease in a prime location in Kilburn.

On the buying side, our preferred house in Harrow appeared to have slipped through our fingers. We were compromising and ready to buy a second choice, but a stroke of luck and another resourceful estate agent from the Foxtons' family contacted me mid-morning two months ago to say that our preferred property was back on the market, and was I still interested? Within three hours my fresh bid was accepted and it was taken off the market.

Progress at last?

Well not immediately, because the Bank of England decided to bring in tougher procedures for mortgage providers. I had to reveal my gym membership, travel spending and outside interests (yes supporting Coventry City on my days off, but I think they took pity on that), and my accountant had to confirm my earnings from my business.

Meanwhile my mortgage provider had its own rules and would not accept my wife's earnings as part of the household income because "she has not lived in the UK for three years" even though she has indefinite leave to remain. Another case of institutional racism, but I won't reveal which provider it is because they eventually offered me a mortgage, and the deal is not yet complete.

Then we find that Camden Council has long delays on searches. In steps a councillor of my acquaintance and we reduced the expected delay from 7 weeks to 18 working days...

Then it transpires that the solicitor instructed by the vendor of the house I am buying has taken several weeks to issue a draft contract.

The latest conversation with my solicitor suggests I will not likely be moving before the end of the school holidays, which is annoying to say the least.

Can we do things differently in this country? Yes we can and should.

Although I find Kirsty Allsop's TV programmes immensely interesting, I think her campaign to stop the Government introducing a compulsory vendor's pack to quicken the conveyancing process was misguided. So much of the paperwork could be done in advance of a sale and could make sure the time between the acceptance of a bid and moving day could be foreshortened to about 2 weeks.

Unfortunately other issues will dominate the manifestos of the parties next year and the consequential legislative programme in the next parliament. So I doubt if any significant progress will be made on this issue. Which is why I have declared that the next house will be our home for at least 10 years. By then the anger and frustration of selling and buying should have subsided a bit....

Not so much scorching but melting.

My current office in Wembley is very hot today. Even with the fan on, my desktop thermometer says it's 29 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately my office is situated in a secondary school and the dress code is such that I must wear long trousers to work rather than shorts, which would be my more preferred attire on days like these. My ambition to return to working from home is now a probability for later in the summer, but not until heat waves are likely to be a happy memory for most of us. So I will continue to melt in front of my keyboard.

As a natural Liberal I prefer to exercise choice on all aspects of my life which is partly why I describe  myself on my Twitter page as a spirited contrarian. I am happy to be the odd one out, to take a minority view, to wear clothes which are either out of fashion or never were in fashion in the first place. Nearly all my interests are what could be described as minority ones.

As a paid up Liberal Democrat member and former councillor, I continue to be a Coventry City supporter, and enjoy regular visits to the fringe and pub theatres of London. I am married to a young Ghanaian woman and enjoy family weekends on the Isle of Wight. Each of the above characteristics is not on its own totally bizarre, but as a combination I think they make me a pretty unique individual.

So it was was with some incredulity that I opened the door to a plumber on Monday morning. I had a problem with my toilet cistern that needed fixing and I needed an expert to fix it. As he came in the door he asked, "aren't you a councillor?". "Yes, I used to be" I said. Whereupon he started a long conversation, while sorting out my cistern, on his current thoughts about the political situation. Remarkably this was not anywhere close to the archetypal taxi-driver diatribe about immigration, but a reasoned acknowledgement that the Lib Dems had stopped the Tories doing some pretty unpleasant things in government.

As I warmed to my companion I realised that his accent was familiar. This man was from Coventry! I introduced him to the delights of the Coventry City London Supporters Club, and he promised he would see me at the MK Dons away game.

As I was saying, I think I am a unique individual, but occasionally I come across someone who thinks on my wavelength and enjoys similar minority interests. So being a Coventry born Liberal Democrat fringe theatre goer with a Ghanaian wife is not such a lonely state to be in after all.

But I still wish I could wear some shorts in my office today. Perhaps I should start breaking some rules tomorrow?

What is Google doing?

It appears my old bloodspot page has been withdrawn, and now I have changed its name it still does not appear to be generally available to the wider public. Trying to work out what to do next!

Labour's Shame

This is the letter that was printed in a prime position in the Ham & High recently but was turned down for publication by the CNJ. 

Dear Ham & High

Camden's Labour councillors have regularly blamed the Coalition Government for any shortfall in the Council's performance.  "The Government cuts are to blame" is the regular mantra your readers have learnt to expect. 

But the true nature of the Council's finances was revealed in a written answer to my question to the Cabinet Member for Finance at the last Council meeting before the elections. 

In the last four years the Council has underspent its set budgets every year. The total underspend over that time is £19.2 millions. Most of that money was transferred into "earmarked reserves" but mysteriously most of these reserves have simply grown over time and have not been spent. 

During that same time Camden has closed libraries, cut spending on street sweeping and refuse collections, and cut the grants to the voluntary sector groups that do so much to maintain the social fabric of our borough. 

In total the Council is sitting on reserves and balances that have now reached over £100 millions. Some of this is rightly set aside for capital programme schemes like investment in our schools.

But most of the money is not saved for such items. For example there is enough cash to restore spending on the street sweeping to its former levels, (a source of regular complaints in West Hampstead), and we could better fund voluntary sector groups, plus a lot more besides. 

So the next time you hear Labour's excuse - "it's the Government's fault" - don't you believe them! As my colleague Cllr Matt Sanders tweeted at the Council meeting - "Cllr John Bryant uncovers  a £19m underspend. Labour slash services and blame government, while hoarding taxpayers money." 

That really does say it all. 

Cllr John Bryant
West Hampstead ward
LB Camden

Labour gets it wrong...AGAIN

On Tuesday 21st January Camden Labour abused the scrutiny system to push through an ideological policy to extend Kingsgate School against overwhelming evidence that the case was flawed. 

Labour members ignored the fact that the decision to extend the school by placing an infant and nursery building half a mile away on an industrial estate would put children and parents at risk when travelling to school on West End Lane. They ignored the fact that adding a further transition to pupils' lives when switching from Infants to juniors could impact on their progress. 

Labour also relished the fact that the site would have to be cleared of the current local businesses occupying the site, shipping out well over a hundred jobs from the area. They also ignored the fact that the housing scheme designed to pay for the scheme allowed for no affordable housing, breaking the Council's own planning policy. 

And the final insult to the West Hampstead community was the realisation that although the school could now be paid for by £6.7m funding allocated by the Coalition Government, the current proposals proceeded, unchanged by the scrutiny committee, to make the Council £9.7m profit to spend elsewhere in the borough. 

So West Hampstead gets a potentially dysfunctional school, (with some Kilburn parents losing out on places when the admission point moves northwards),  an over intensive private housing development, no affordable housing to sweeten the pill, and a decimated industrial estate no longer providing local employment. 

The alternative case would be for a stand alone all-age primary school to serve the bulging pupil numbers in West Hampstead, which will grow further on the back of already committed housing developments. The Government money should be earmarked for the school and the rest of the site development could provide for a bigger industrial estate than the one currently proposed. 

Why can't Labour consider this alternative? Because they are ideologically opposed to finding an acceptable partner to lead a Free School or Academy on the site, which is why they were not prepared to use the scrutiny committee for its intended purpose. 

West Hampstead needs a new primary school that will be in place for at least 100 years, but we should not accept this flawed proposal. 

The Co-operative Bank is still getting it wrong

I have been a Co-operative Bank customer since 1975. I opened my first current account with them when at University. Over the years I have opened more and more accounts and I now have a credit card, a joint current account, a mortgage and two business accounts with them.

I have just over three years left on my current mortgage and yesterday asked for a further modest advance to purchase a lease extension. The total outstanding debt would rise to around 15% of the property's recent valuation.

I was turned down because the bank had made a "top-level policy decision" not to extend mortgages like mine that were taken out before 2004. I enquired whether I could apply for a new product to replace my existing mortgage and was told that I had to seek another provider.

So a loyal customer of a bank with an ethical investment policy was being turned down on spurious grounds because of a "top-level policy decision". I am not a high risk to lend money to, and the bank's exposure would be to a modest percentage of a property in a highly desirable part of London.

The decision to withdraw business from me is nothing compared to the "top-level decision"  to withdraw banking facilities to a range of local authorities including Camden which has a turnover in excess of a billion a year. Why would a bank want to deliberately reduce its trade with safe customers?

Something is definitely going wrong with the Co-operative Bank.

Next stop for me is the Nationwide, a traditional mutual, which suits my own ethical stance.