For Immediate Release

Call on Tuesday 06 April 2010

Former Scotland Yard Detective standing as a prospective Independent Council Candidate for Catford South

David MICHAEL, a resident of Catford South Ward for over 27 years and overall, a resident of Lewisham borough for over 37 years, is to stand as an Independent Candidate in his home Ward at the Lewisham Council elections on 6 May 2010.

After exhortation by locals, David has responded to the call to seek election as one of the local Councillors to serve the residents of Catford South.

David began his 30 year policing career in Lewisham and served at Catford, Brockley, Deptford, Ladywell, Lee Green and Sydenham Police Stations. David served both as a Police Constable and Detective Sergeant in the borough. He enjoyed a prolific policing career in both the uniform branch and the CID. David investigated murders, serious sexual offences, International and Organised Crime, was Head of a Police Child Protection Team and investigated complaints against Police Officers. David retired as a Detective Chief Inspector at New Scotland Yard.

For the past five years David has been Chairman of Lewisham Community Police Consultative Group working closely with Lewisham borough Police, Lewisham Council Crime Reduction Service, community groups and organisations on Policing and Community Safety. He was one of the original members of the Catford South Safer Neighbourhood Panel and the Daneby Road Neighbourhood Watch scheme.

David moved seamlessly from 30 years serving the community as a Police Officer to serving as a strong Community champion and advocate. Case work and problem solving is second nature to him. Some of his greatest attributes are his tenacity to challenge bureaucracy and obstruction and to be a strong, passionate and Independent voice for the community.

As the Special Adviser to the Mayor of Lewisham and Lewisham Council on Community Cohesion and Community Relations for many years, David has experienced the importance of everyone coming together as a united community.

David is standing as an Independent Candidate so he can be a strong, passionate and consistent voice for his neighbours and residents of Catford South, free from constraints of party politics and other vested interests. David believes it is very important that the needs, wishes and views of Catford South residents are represented vigorously and with determination, to their advantage.

To find out more about David’s campaign and for immediate interviews, phone 07930 302 809 or email: info@dmichael.co.uk

Are you using the word in the Orwell sense, i.e. “totally meaningless”, or in the Garton Ash sense: almost meaningless?

I think we do have to be realistic though and admit initiatives like the IWCA do sometimes feel like it’s like pissing in the wind because of the sheer size of the odds stacked against success, combined with the rather energetic and almost paranoid responses that any kind of successes that are delivered by such an initative are met with - the oxford branch of the iwca can speak at length about such things that they have encountered as a result of the inroads they have made over the years - labour respond brutally and efficiently to the threat of a good example and that’s exactly what oxford iwca was doing

Also have to be realistic and accept that over time the amount of energy, time and resource that people can put into this kind of project will to an extent decline as they move through life - these are not professional politicians or navel gazing academics/intellectuals who have the luxury of working on things as a full time job with the organisational resources in place to support them , these are people doing what they can to balance the various pressures of everyday life with maintaining some kind of commitment to a project they believe in - the problem does seem to be that the IWCA approach does not have the (relatively) sexy & glamorous appeal to youngsters and students that the impotent cobweb left and liberal activism has - the allure of the mysterious and exotic goings on in far away countries that offer people the chance to become ‘political’ without actually doing anything while fetishising far away struggles while being blind to those in their own back yard, seems to suck up and render impotent most ‘fresh blood’ that could otherwise keep genuine political initiatives on the go

I still don’t agree however with your conflating of whether something is the right/wrong approach with the observed success (or otherwise) of the IWCA as an organisation - as i mentioned earlier the IWCA approach is far more important (and wider reaching) than the IWCA as an organisation, but also if something is wrong because it hasn’t universally succeeded then that implies that any kind of hankering for social or economic justice is wrong in itself because of it’s increasing non-existence in the world around us today - the fact that something is right doesn’t follow with it a guarantee of success - i realise though that this can just be seen as an excuse to defend any kind of position and then insulate ourselves from the reality of the world by just keep repeating that we are right, we are right etc.. , but we have to accept there are very strong practical obstacles in place which prevent good things from spreading/taking root, so i don’t think a simplistic reasoning that if it hasn’t already worked then it’s the wrong strategy can be applied here - there is however lots of things that can be learnt from past mistakes but that’s all part of the process and a process is what is going on here

I would say that the geographical areas where the IWCA are active have been successful (and the areas where they where active but not any more were sucessfull), the problem is obviously both maintaining and building on that success within those areas and even more problematic to somehow spread that success much more wider, therein lies the problem - the successes of the IWCA have come from a combination of a very sharp and prescient political analysis alongside a genuine deep rooted involvement in the local communities , you can export the former but not the later - it has to be built slowly and painfully through thoroughly unglamorous work over huge periods of time and it takes a huge amount of commitment and resolve by the people involved to do such a thing - the BNP, depsite the numerous failings of a lot of their local activists, have been able to build something like this in communities up and down the country, largely through the infusion of the BNP brand built and maintained from a well organised and financed central party organisation - the IWCA has something like 3% of the membership as the BNP so the difference in scale especially given the way the BNP is building the party from the centre is monumental - I’d say given the very small resources that the IWCA has and the limited areas where it has painstakenly built successful community activity then it has been successful, obviously beyond this it hasn’t been successful - although over the last decade we’ve had numerous attempts at top down initiatives, socialist alliance, respect, etc… all have come and gone and failed as a result of their own contradictions - like it or not the IWCA approach is the last man standing and the ability to apply this approach from the left rather than the right as the BNP is doing is what’s crucial. It may not seem like much in the way of success, and i admit it isn’t, but any other kind of approach weighed down with ideological ball and chain of the 19th & 20th centuries seems even more doomed to failure when trying to confront the problems of the 21st century

On the other hand, they were a small organisation with little money, a slightly secretive aura and poor media/propaganda skills.

In other areas of life, it’s quite common for people who have good ideas to find that they are not able to capitalise on them.

The IWCA experiment should be studied and learned from, not dismissed.