Looking back over the last year, I realise that the two biggest news stories from my area of Hackney broke very much for the wrong reasons. The most recent, the murder of Etem Celebi, made headlines because he was said to be a friend of X-Factor star Leona Lewis. The headlines became much less intense when that turned out to be untrue.

The second story, about migrants sleeping in the public toilets in Stamford Hill kicked off an orgy of Pole-bashing, with lots of muttering about people who spoke “little or no English” fighting over the cubicle for disabled people. It was only a matter of time before Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn just happened to be in the area, and just happened to need a leak, and just happened to use his column to scaremonger people into thinking the rough sleepers could be granted squatters’ rights.

Even though the media woefully missed the point with both stories, each series of reports did the area some good. The fact that Etem Celebi’s murder was (albeit accidentally) so high-profile has really helped to rally the community in support of the boy’s family and got people asking questions about how such a killing could happen - much more so than when other people have been murdered round here. The fact that the toilet saga whipped up acres of negative, national media coverage meant that the council - quite uncharacteristically - did something about it, sharpish.

Sadly, it often takes a story with the “X” factor to get real change happening round here. It’s all very well soul-searching about why our local estates produce a murderous gang culture, but how many of us really give a shit that the council-appointed landlords of these estates often fail to do what they promise about decay and dereliction, or that many kids are living in seriously overcrowded conditions, or that estate residents often receive a poorer quality of service than the rest of us? Do we ever stop and think what message we are sending to the kids on those estates (not to mention cutting them off from vital resources) if we can’t be bothered to provide them with decent “cultural services” (libraries, museums and leisure centres)? Why aren’t we getting angry that gang members even raise flags in public squares to signal their ownership of crack houses?

Of course we don’t: most of us who aren’t directly and obviously affected by the gang problem on the estates aren’t going to stick our necks out. Why should we?

Sadly, the answer is that if we don’t, we all suffer because none of us will have the power to change anything without the national media whirlwhinding through the borough. We certainly can’t rely on our local political parties even listening to us, never mind having the courage to rise above inter-party politicking and act for the long-term good of the entire community.

Take for example the forthcoming council by-election which will be held in Springfield Ward, an area that covers Stamford Hill and the top end of Upper Clapton. It’s the neighbouring ward to the one in which I live, so obviously I’m keen to know what each of the main parties plans to do to improve the area. A search for “Springfield” on the Hackney Conservative Party website throws up “Total 0 results found.” The same search on the Hackney Labour Party site gives you “Your search returned 0 matches.” The Lib Dems do have a piece on their candidate, Brian Stone, who points out local problems and offers no solutions beyond “I have a track record of real action”. The Green Party appears to have nothing to say about the election at all.

Frankly, with nine days to go before polling day, this is disgraceful. Prospective councillors should be telling the world - not just the ward - why they care for the place and want to fight its corner. If they get voted in regardless, we end up reading stories like this one (from here):

I even had a chat with one of the councillors from the Springfield Ward outside my estate about the condition of Clapton Common and the fool said he didn’t know where Clapton Common was, so I pointed across the road as he had his back to it at the time.

And, stepping across into my own ward, we might as well consider the real story about the public toilets, which the media in all its Pole-baiting missed. Eight years before those loos were opened, the underground ones on the opposite side of the street were closed down. By 31st July 2004 - five years later - they looked like this:

As you can see, the water at the bottom of the steps is stagnant, filled with litter, and over knee height.

By this afternoon, nearly another two-and-a-half years later, they looked like this:

Now you’ll spot the water is even more stagnant, filled with even more litter, and well over shoulder height. Interestingly, someone appears to have removed the remaining handrails.

Of course, local people have complained about this disgraceful situation. There has even been a piece in our local paper. But the sad truth is that most of us have taken the line that it’s someone else’s problem - including Hackney Council, which has gobsmackingly said that “there was some confusion over who owned the old toilets”.

And that’s the rub. If we can’t get our representatives to listen, we need to get angry on other people’s behalf as well as our own. Because if we don’t, we’re not just going to get rancid public toilets, we’re not going to get respite care for the people who need it, or make sure that members of our community don’t have to sleep rough because the council has failed them. And if we can’t do any of those things, how do we really imagine we’re going to improve life on those gang-ridden estates? As recent, tragic events have shown, that’s an “X” factor that’s far too important to be left simply to the officials.

Similar posts on this blog

• No crap
• He who controls the past controls the future.
• Hackney Eurostar
• The Nature of Hackney
• Whose law is it anyway? (pt 3)