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An offer we can reject
• THE invitation to the Independent Working Class Association to take part in “a united campaign with other parties to save Finsbury Heath Centre” is one we must decline (Will health centre sell-off actually save any money? August 29).
For, as the letter points out, the systematic removal of facilities that meet the needs of working class residents in Finsbury, including Merlin Street Baths, Finsbury Town Hall, St Luke’s Library, Goswell Road and Amwell Street post offices and local shops, and their replacement with luxury flats, galleries, expensive cafés and restaurants have been a central plank of the Lib Dem (and we would argue the former Labour) administration for many years.
Indeed, in the last local elections, the IWCA specifically warned that, should the Lib Dems be re-elected, their determination to social-cleanse Finsbury would likely accelerate.
The close links between Islington’s Lib Dem council and the Primary Care Trust (a quango established by and accountable to the New Labour government) were developed (boasts the PCT website) when Steve Hitchins was leader of the council. He is currently it’s vice-chairman.
Other Lib Dems on the PCT board include councillor John Gilbert. Accordingly, Mr Hitchins, Cllr Gilbert and their party would have been intimately involved with the decision to sell Finsbury Health Centre, long before the PCT publicly announced this in its Financial Report 2008-9, published in March this year.
Public declarations of desires to “Save Finsbury Health Centre” (such as that on the Lib Dem website) should then be regarded as little more than attempts again to hoodwink the public.
The Lib Dems are after all no strangers to this tactic. Many will remember how they gained their political base in the borough via their “Finsbury Declaration” to bring the Finsbury Town Hall back to the people of Finsbury, yet later sold it against the wishes of the very people who had given them their council seats. They campaigned against the closure of St Luke’s Library, but sold it when they gained control of the council.
They came up with the scheme to build 300 luxury flats on council estates in Bunhill, “in partnership” with EC1 New Deal, but when it came to the 2006 elections, because they did not want to pay the political price, it was suddenly nothing to do with them.
Earlier this year Clerkenwell councillor George Allan announced he was glad the “PCT had made up its mind about what it was going to do”, since he had “been waiting for six or seven years for them to do so”. His only concern then apparently was that the building might deteriorate once the services moved out.
Bridget Fox lays blame for the plan to sell Finsbury Health Centre at the feet of the New Labour government, just as Mr Hitchins did with regard to council housing privatisation. Again they will take on the flimsy veil of “nothing to do with us” when as usual they are not only happy to implement the New Labour policies they suggest they oppose, but are also intent on showing New Labour they can do it better than they can.
SHARON HAYWARD
Independent Working Class Association
WC1
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