Lambeth Country Show

Record attendance for this morning’s surgery, with around 30 residents passing through. I was hoping to sit outside in the sunshine but the numbers meant we were better off sitting down inside instead, where we had what amounted to an impromptu public meeting.

The main issue was a planning application which seems to have been sprung on residents at the last minute, in the inimitable way Lambeth’s Planning Department seems to operate. I had a wander down the road after the surgery to look at the proposed site for myself. It seems a ridiculously small and cramped space for the building proposed in the plans.

I jumped on a 255 bus to get from the surgery to the St Leonards church fete, where local children had just finished their parade along Streatham High Road, turning many a head and prompting many a smile in their wake. Not an everyday sight in Streatham, local children in tinselled costumes with painted faces and banners. All part of the annual revelry that is the Streatham Festival, which continues to develop with every passing year, thanks to the hard work of the many people who organise events, and the growing enthusiasm of local people who attend them, whether they are comedy nights or jazz concerts or Shakespeare in the Rookery.

Off then, on the Thameslink from Streatham to Herne Hill, to help mind the party’s stall at the Lambeth Country Show, selling books donated by party members. I had a flick through a book called Modern Political Thought, which I’ve no doubt it could claim to be when it was published in 1928. Some interesting views on Bolshevism.

Blazing hot afternoon, with thousands of people in Brockwell Park having a good time. Lambeth Country Show is a real unifier. John Whelan, leader of Lambeth’s Conservative Group, shimmered into view from nowhere, like the shopkeeper from Mr Benn, to exchange pleasantries (and a few unpleasantries about the Lib Dems) with Neil Sabharwal and myself before turning round and disappearing into the crowd, revealing the words Team Whelan on his back. I wonder if all Lambeth’s Tory councillors have to wear those.