Titbits – Diane Abbott’s a modern day Disraeli, but what’s Hackney Council’s view on graffiti?

■ Wine and cheese straws flowed last month as Hackney Conservatives hosted an evening in celebration of that extravagantly dressed, name-dropping gossip who was ‘almost certainly’ expelled from school: Benjamin Disraeli. Lord Hurd and David Cameron’s former speechwriter Ed Young were at the event in Stamford Hill promoting their biography of the flamboyant Victorian-era Tory Prime Minister who entered politics because he was “obsessed with becoming famous.” Taking Boris Johnson as a given, what modern day politician can hold a candle to ‘Dissy’s’ brand of unstudied showmanship? Labour’s Diane Abbott, the audience affirmed.

■ Gone are the days when Councillor Alan Laing – who resigned in 2012 after serving several years as the council’s neighbourhoods chief – bestrode the Town Hall waging war on all manner of graffiti, including some world class street art. Since then the council has softened its stance, and a review of its graffiti policy carried out under Cllr Laing’s less pugnacious replacement, Cllr Feryal Demirci, has struck a more conciliatory tone. But changes made as part of the new, less bellicose policy have gone unreported in Hackney Today despite the paper’s supposed informational function. And when the Hackney Citizen asked the council for the old graffiti policy in order to compare it with the new one, the response was a deafening silence. Council embarrassed by its graffiti U-turn? Perish the thought!

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