Anti-racism isn’t a luxury for a city as diverse as London, it’s a necessity, built on the importance of keeping the city together and promoting understanding and unity. By itself Rise couldn’t stop racism but as part of London government’s consistent approach of saying no to discrimination and prejudice it played its part. Under that positive approach London saw racist attacks down even when n the rest of the country they rose.

It also formed part of the great range of events that added to the civic and cultural life of the city. A city authority must be many things but one of those is fun, and Rise had plenty of it – putting on acts as brilliant and different as Buzzcocks, Run DMC, Courtney Pine, Desmond Dekker, Suggs, De La Soul, Graham Coxon, the Duke Spirit and CSS.

It is to the enormous discredit of Boris Johnson that Rise has fallen foul of his administration. He can find £100,000 to celebrate US culture but a great free gig like Rise has been axed. Some may feel that such things don’t matter in the scheme of things but the dumping of Rise is symbolic – symbolic of an administration that does not make anti-racism a priority but also symbolic of a small-government mentality that removes London government from people in many different ways, one of which is taking away the many great days out people enjoy.

UpRise was started as a spontaneous response to the mayor’s vandalism towards Rise. It aims to revive the festival, starting this year in Finsbury Park. It’s organised by Londoners and relies on the support of Londoners if it’s going to happen. You can donate to the festival here and read more about how it came about here.

It’ a great example of a grassroots response to the bad decisions that flow from City Hall.

Here’s to a future mayoralty that will be proud of its anti-racism not hostile towards hosting the biggest anti-racist festival in Europe in its city.

Despite this limitation one thing came through crystal clear. The alliance the Tories have formed in the north of Ireland with the UUP places them in the same place as their alliances in Europe – well outside the realm of good judgement. In Europe they’re firmly in a bloc with parties beyond the mainstream centre-right forces of Sarkozy and Merkel. In Ireland they’ve jumped into a coalition with a party that unlike the party of Ian Paisley will not work to deliver the next phase of the peace process.

Cameron’s judgement and his ability to govern in the interests of lasting progress in the north of Ireland is rightly – once again – under the spotlight this evening.

It’s a welcome return, adding an extra dimension to online City Hall-watching. Here’s her take this week on the confirmation hearing for Kit Malthouse’s appointment, and possible future directions for the MPA.

Read Pippa’s blog here.

“Three-quarters of Conservative prospective parliamentary candidates want to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with the EU as a matter of priority and 91 per cent back a cap on immigration,” says the NS, adding: “The survey shows that the shadow of Margaret Thatcher still looms large over the Tories only weeks before a general election.”

The poll of 101 Tory hopefuls shows that nine in ten want to tackle the Budget deficit with cuts in public spending rather than increases in taxation – and six in ten want the Tories’ inheritance-tax cut (which gifts £1.2bn to the top 2 per cent of wealthiest estates) immediately. A third of the respondents cite Margaret Thatcher as their political hero.

Only 28 per cent believe that the next government should legislate to make people behave in a “greener” way, while 59 per cent disagree and 13 per cent don’t know.

Twenty per cent of PPCs seek the return of the death penalty.

One of the problems David Cameron has is with public perceptions of his party. Many voters are unconvinced the party has changed. The New Statesman survey shows they have plenty to worry about.

Dave looks at the recent resignation of Bob Purkiss from the race and faith inquiry, amid questions over Malthouse’s role in that affair.

Meanwhile in the Standard Pippa Crerar reports that the incoming chair has a poor attendance record at MPA meetings, despite being the mayor’s lead on policing.

Broken promises are now a defining feature of the Tory mayor’s administration but today’s appointment of someone else as chair of the MPA must be one of the clearest, given how much priority he gave to the issue in the election.

The idea was supposed to be that Boris Johnson assuming the chair of the MPA would be a beacon for the Tories’ policy of elected police commissioners. Performing a u-turn and handing the job to someone else blows something of a hole in that plan.

The hearing is at 15.30 today.

UPDATE: There’s a Facebook group campaigning against Boris Johnson’s cuts to police numbers and calling for London’s safer neighbourhood teams to be defended after Boris Johnson refused to guarantee their future. Join the Facebook group ‘Stop Boris Johnson’s Police Cuts – Keep Our Streets Safe’ here.

(For different reasons – largely because it’s easier to explain and more personally dramatic – much of the media prefer that terrain too. And some of it’s just cynical). 

That’s the real context of the frenzy over the last forty-eight hours: endless coverage of personalised claims instead of say, discussion of the economy or the cancer guarantee. 

Adam Bienkov was first out of the blocks last night with his post raising serious questionss about the National Bullying Helpline.  If Adam could do it, why couldn’t – or wouldn’t – the BBC?  There are excellent further contributions on this from Socialist Unity and Toby Harris amongst others.

True to form David Cameron’s objective is to keep media attention firmly focused on the bullying claims. So now he’s calling for an inquiry  – aiming to bog things down in more process. Big surprise.

Cameron wants the election fought on process and relentless attack on Gordon Brown, not a choice between the two parties, because he is scared of that debate. Every time the debate is about the Tories’ plans his party is forced onto the back foot.

The real bullying operation is the attempt to browbeat the entire political discourse into one that has absolutely no relevance to the most important issues that will determine the future of the country.

Things like investment versus cuts, economic recovery, peace in Ireland, marriage tax, the health service and Tory plans for an inheritance tax cut for the richest estates.  

The irony is that the sustained attempt to divert the election debate from the real choice about the future of the country only shows Cameron is out of touch with the serious issues that have to be decided.

It’s mildly rubbish, unfortunately.

In case we haven’t got what he’s trying to say, the artist helpfully provides an dummies’ guide.

“In this piece, he is ‘morphed’ into an image of Hitler! Of course it is provocative, but if you think about it, there are strong similarities: Both started out as chancellors, both bullied their way to the top and seized power without being democratically elected, both tried to rig the electoral process, both prone to flying into uncontrollable rages and both caused huge economic damage to our country etc…”

Of course, if you actually think about it - as he suggests we do – Sidoli is talking nonsense. Even bothering to argue with his silly claims is a waste of time.

Sidoli also provides an explanation for his second piece of self-defined ‘pop art’-style caricature (sorry, portrait).

The second piece called ‘Psychologically Flawed’ is not a caricature, it is a portrait derived from an actual photo. I have not distorted it in any way other than through the use of colour to symbolize his personality and mindset. In this piece, influenced by Warhol, he gets the ’satan treatment’ with demonic lurid green face clashing with bright orange background, which hints that this person is truly diabolical! The red hand and cufflink symbolises the budget deficit / the red hand of socialism or ‘being in the red’.

So, no need to worry about interpreting it for yourself, you’re now privy to what the cufflink represents. It wasn’t worth knowing really was it?  

Didactic, over the top, pleased with itself and not at all incisive, it is the opposite of good political art or even effective propaganda. It’s a visual represenation of all that “Zanu-Lab” paranoia that passes for political comment in the comment sections of many blogs.

The closer we get to the election the right’s thinking appears shallower and more obsessive by the day. The current Tory wobble will probably bring more of it out into the open.

As an art antidote to all this hysterical right wing nonsense try Bob and Roberta Smith whose latest work invites the public to take part in politics themselves. Try the one on the 20th March…

I caught Clifford’s excellent talk in the new media session at the Progressive London where he warned there was a danger of overstaying the welcome. “Drag it out too long and it will become the Oasis of viral campaigns.”

Alex Smith of Labourlist, who was gutted when Noel quit Oasis, looked on disapprovingly during this comparison and tweeted accordingly.   But on balance Clifford is right – if he’d started to repeat himself there was a danger of diminishing returns. The odd reminder of past glories but nothing to match the early promise.

mydavidcameron has been successful because it was fresh, amusing and didn’t take itself seriously. But while mydavidameron has swerved to avoid Oasis’s fate, the Tories have been trying to catch up and get in on the act with Tim Montgomerie’s spoof site mylabourposter.

The only problem is they’re a poor echo of the Clifford Singer idea, dull and lifeless and often crass by comparison.

If mydavidcameron is early Oasis, the Tories are the Menswear and Shed Seven of poster spoofs.

The desperation and nastiness of some of the spoof ads from the Tories highlights the wobble in Conservative quarters as the polls narrow and Cameron’s act falters.

* (Read Clifford’s five lessons from mydavidcameron here).

The greatest force in delivering a peace process must ultimately be the people and parties on the ground – but the commitment that has been shown by the British government to bringing lasting peace to the north of Ireland over the last thirteen years is one of the best examples of what a Labour government can mean.  (In fact I thought one of the many positive and moving aspects of the recent film with Julie Walters about the life of Mo Mowlam was to reinforce just how much work has gone in to the peace process in order to get where we are today).

The Good Friday Agreement continues to enjoy overwhelming support in Ireland, north and south, and in Britain. It has brought positive and deep change, not least in relations between Britain and Ireland.

The agreement delivers power sharing in the north and guarantees machinery for equality and rights but also enshrines the principle of self-determination.  It is not particularly widely understood that Britain is now signed up to provisions that could deliver a united Ireland, should a majority wish it.

So the lively debate that’s been taking place in the run up to tomorrow’s conference at Congress House on putting Irish unity on the agenda is very welcome. It is a debate about the prospects for Irish unity that raises economic, demographic, and political developments.

Irish unity is a real possibility and the debate stimulated by the conference aims to make a contribution on how that might happen. As an example, deputy first minister of northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness argues here on CiF on why a discussion about Irish unity is now necessary whilst here Lord Bew discusses what obstacles may exist.

When I first became interested in politics the possibility of a peace process seemed remote in the extreme, despite the overwhelming strength and reasonableness of the case for a different course to the one being pursued by Thatcher’s government. One of the most decisive factors in shaping where I stood as someone becoming involved in politics was the lead that was given by Labour politicians – like Ken Livingstone – in the 1980s, a body of opinion that refused to accept the consensus that the situation in the north of Ireland must be resolved militarily and that political solutions involving Republicans were not possible. The bone-headed foolishness of refusing to recognise the political causes of the conflict and ruling out peace talks led to many unnecessary deaths on all sides. That we can now have a discussion in London about Irish unity with nationalists, Unionists and others in the context of power-sharing in the north of Ireland that includes the parties of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams is an indication of the extraordinary transformation that’s taken place.

The general election will of course determine the government of Britain but it also impacts where there are devolved arrangements. Recent coverage suggests that the Tories may seek to tamper with the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. As The Times reported last week:

“Owen Paterson, the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, has promised to review the way in which the post of First Minister is awarded, which could lead to Sinn Féin being frozen out. ‘There is no timetable on this and there is no hurry,’ he said. ‘But it has always been my party’s intention to negotiate the review mechanisms with all parties in Northern Ireland. This could be a long time coming but it would be done in close contact with all the existing parties and I think if it happens it would lead to a better Northern Ireland.’ Speaking to the BBC, he added: ‘We would like to move towards voluntary coalition.’ That has raised fears that the pro-United Kingdom UUP and DUP might join forces to create a Unionist ‘block vote’ in the assembly, undermining efforts to leave sectarianism behind.  Gerry Kelly, a junior Sinn Féin minister in the Province’s executive, said: ‘There can be no tampering with the institutions. There will be no return to Unionist one-party misrule in the North of Ireland’.”

The continued progress in the north on the one hand, and the issues thrown up by the choice taking place in the Westmister elections on the other, make tomorrow’s discussion particularly timely.

* Putting Irish Unity on the Agenda – Congress House, 20 February 2010. Registration details here.