I'm delighted to announce that entries for the Sam Lloyd Town Hall Square Memorial Competition have been flooding in (see the panel on the right-hand side).
The conditions applying to nominees are:
1. They must have been deceased for at least 10 years.
2. They must have made an outstanding contribution to the Borough.
3. Many current & former Hackney residents must have good cause to remember them.
Amongst the women nominated thus far are:
Meg Hillier (1888–1965)
Meg was elected to Hackney Council in 1919 when the Labour Party won control of the Borough and in 1923 became MP for Hackney South, losing her seat the following year after a compromising letter from her pen-pal Grigory was leaked to the Press.
She held various cabinet posts including Foreign Secretary, Deputy PM and Home Secretary.
Her grandson Peter Mandelson was an advisor to Tony Blair when he campaigned in Hackney South and failed to be selected as a Labour candidate for Queensbridge Ward, as a result of hostile intervention by the (then) Labour Group leader John McCafferty and his enforcer, Mark Trotter.
Diane Abbott (1953-2093)
Diane Abbott & Denzil Xavier Costello were one of the most enduring partnerships and greatest comedy teams in the history of entertainment.
At Harrow Country Grammar, 'Princess Di' as she was affectionately known played Lady Macbeth to Denzil’s Macbeth. On leaving school the duo went in opposite directions - Diane teaming up with a trendy Islington folk singer to form the Abbott & Corbyn Roadshow (top of the charts with "Everywhere you go, I'm coming too"), while Denzil was reduced to busking on the forecourt of the Clear Bluewater shopping complex.
Following an unpleasant educational incident, Abbott & Corbyn split and Diane was reunited with Denzil. They went on to master the clown/straight man relationship, creating a magical chemistry that would take them from street corner soap boxes, to radio interviews, to Broadway Market, to Parliament and finally to TV. Their late night 'Richard and Judy' act on 'This Week with Andrew Neill' was watched by several people.
Eventually Costello faded into obscurity after losing his parliamentary seat, while Abbott went on to represent the voters of Hackney North and Stoke Newington for 106 years. She never met or heard of Mark Trotter.
Samantha Lloyd (1865-1947)
Samantha Lloyd was a local councillor in Hackney from 1899-1924 and represented Hackney Central Ward from 1902. For four years she led the Council’s successful effort to turn round the borough finances by selling off cemeteries, soup kitchens and drinking troughs and by privatising Hackney Council’s horse-drawn epidemic burial cart service - subsequently known as "Mark’s Trotters".
Later on, Samantha was appointed Vice-Chair of Hackney Workhouses, the organisation set up by Hackney Council to ensure that the common riff-raff remained at arms length.
She was a life-long advocate of outdoor statuary and it was her generosity as a benefactor that has allowed the impoverished authority to fund the Town Hall Square Memorial statue competition.
Next week - male nominations... plus Jules Pipe's comments.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Statue Competition Entries Flood In
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I'm Luke Akehurst..... aka. "Luke The Nuke".
9 comments:
Dear Cllr Luke (if I may be so familiar!),
That silly buffoon who tries, so unsuccessfully, to parody you and your blog site, has quoted extensively from Bevan’s observations of Morrison and appears to be making unfavourable comparisons with your good self. You can find the quote on this nice young man’s site:
http://newerlabour.blogspot.com/2006/07/nye-bevan-on-morrison-1942.html.
Luke, I believe that rather than be the “witch finder” for the Labour Party, you are, in fact, a very good Witch Hunter. Furthermore, rather than be the “smeller-out of evil spirits in the Labour Party”, you are instrumental in the effective cloaking of these odorous irritants. You haven’t built up your reputation by selecting people in the Labour Party for expulsion and suppression, you have merely carried out the orders of the collective majority in the LALALA Group[1]. I could go on, but I don’t want to irritate you.
[1] Luke Akehurst London Affiliation of Labour Associates
Yours, devotedly,
iLikeAkehurstFanClub
X
I’d like to propose a statue for Town Hall Square featuring both a male figure and a female (I think) figure. Standing resplendent in Christ-like robes, would be the figurehead of Hackney’s faultless past, Mark Trotter. Seated at his feet, in a devoted Mary Magdalene-like pose, would be the tearful figure of Cllr. xxxxxx xxxxxxx, overwhelmed with love and piety. The statue could carry the inscription, "Suffer the little children to come unto me."
Please let me know if you are interested and how I can make an application for the bidding process. (I’m a dab hand with chicken wire and paper mache).
Yours, devotedly,
iLikeAkehurstFanClub
Fans will know that I am a committed advocate of free political speech in the great traditions of Hugh Gaitskell and Clem Attlee and of excess speech in the tradition of George Brown and Neil Kinnock. Unfortunately, however, I have been advised by my Manchester lawyers (see http://www.services-professional.co.uk/Retailer-Solicitors.html) that it would be unwise for me to name a female-like Hackney councillor who might or might not allegedly have given or accepted advice regarding senior Hackney Council officials and children. Regretably, therefore, I have been forced to censor the above comment prior to publication. This decision was made with a heavy heart and for the very highest of moral principles, namely the protection of my vast wealth and landed estates. Luke Akehurst.
There is absolutely no truth in the accusation above that I have developed a 'dodgy dossier' on Herbert Morrison by quoting extensively from the post-graduate thesis of a Manchester student Tom Miller (aka. El Cid). It is true, as I commented in my earlier article "Great News For My Fans", that I have an extensive student fan base in Manchester. However in the case of the piece on Nye Bevan on Herbert Morrison, every word was original and was penned by Linda on my behalf.
"Female-like"! you are too kind. I've worked out who you mean and the cordon sanitaire visible around him on the Town Hall steps is interesting. Wasn't he someone's landlord and was there a Crofton 'show-trial' presided over by pissed-up 'magistrates' who had pockets full of buffet-filched Becks? "Data Watson I need data". Jerry le Blanc
Anonymous - you must be confused about the picture because the only person with a "cordon sanitaire" as you put it is our great leader Jules Pipe. We certainly have no intention of putting his statue in Town Hall Square where louts on ASBOs can kick footballs against it and little old ladies can gob on it. Under the proposed development plans, Jules will have a 100ft statue tastefully located on the roof of the new building, near to the Union Jack flagpole.
As for your other comment, you are presumably referring to Hackney's despicable former Housing Director Bernard Crofton who used the feeble excuse of protecting millions of pounds of Council funds from fraud and embezzlement in order to launch racist attacks on our upright and decent former former head of personnel, Sam Yeboah.
These matters were exposed in Parliament - see Hansard 5 March 1996 which is readily available on the internet.
Four days earlier, Alan Howarth M.P. had told the House: "In the immensely valuable evidence that he recently submitted to the Social Security Select Committee, he [Bernard Crofton] threw much light on the circumstances in which fraud thrives unchallenged in organisations and the reasons why people keep their heads down."
Well if I were you - Anonymous - I'd take Alan's advice and keep your head down.
You are right Luke and I humbly apologise, my head hangs low. I had thought the picture was of the Harry James Orchestra but now see it is a different band.
The female-like person I meant seems to be wearing a cagoule, a man's car coat or a gardening jacket and is carrying a large sheaf of papers. Did this person play some part in Mr Crofton's removal from office despite the difficulties of reading. The papers on the Crofton case. They would have contained his murmerings of administrative irregularities within his directorate the Takoradi Job Centre. Jerry le Blanc
You've lost me there, Anonymous. Has the Councillor to whom you refer not already been nominated?
As for the Job Centre, surely Takoradi is in a neighbouring country to that of the person concerned and the 187 relatives he was libellously accused of employing on Hackney Council while they were claiming benefits.
In any event, I have no knowledge of any of this as my first involvement in Hackney was in Feb 1998 (unless you count a foray to the South Defoe byelection while I was working in Camden).
Gosh you are brilliant and so perceptive and helpful.
So could the two pissed Hackney councillors who attended the final meeting that sealed Crofton's fate have been trying to shut him up as the party was happier to endure the corruption than weather the publicity that tackling it would cause? Surely the two of them would have more worried about links with Voldemort. Jerry le Blanc
As for coverups of Labour Party malpractice in Hackney, I refer you once again to the independent Barratt report (January 1998) which rather burst that particular bubble (see http://www.hackney.gov.uk/servapps/pressrelease/pr6.htm and http://pcc.codecircus.co.uk/reports/details.asp?id=252).
Although Labour councillors may from time to time have made slightly inappropriate decisions over the years, they have never "covered up" their mistakes. Those who claim to have said nothing in order to protect their privacy and to avoid having their legs broken after tripping over broken paving stones are nothing but left-wing muckrakers trying to defile the excellent reputation of our wonderful council.
Unfortunately I am too old to have read Harry Potter and Augustus is too young to have read it, so the allegory has slipped me by.
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