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Are the
voters in a punishing mood?
IF – and it is not such a big if – Labour sink
like a stone in Camden at the coming local elections the finger
of blame can be pointed at one place: No 10 Downing Street.
According to a growing number of polls, there need only be a
four per cent swing against Labour in London for Labour in Camden
to face two possibilities – either a hung council or surrender
to either the Tories or the Lib Dems both of whom are clamourously
talking up their chances.
If the Labour administration at the Town Hall had been unduly
inefficient or simply asleep during the past few years this
could be said to be justice served. But by and large Labour
has been running the borough reasonably efficiently for the
past decade.
But, unfortunately for Labour, local good management is just
one of several factors that determines the outcome of a local
election.
At this particular time in the life of Tony Blair’s New
Labour things could not be worse.
Not only does the spectre of the failed adventure in Iraq refuse
to go away but in recent weeks the government has begun to smell
as sleazy as the Tories under John Major in the mid-1990s.
If the political climate were different, perhaps it would be
possible for Labour’s good story in Camden to be heard
– and in many cases it has a good story to tell.
But the people may be in a punishing mood – determined
to punish the government for the lies it has told, and the corruption
it has allowed to spread.
Traditionally, Labour has always benefited from a big turn out.
But it is hardly likely that the polls will be better than in
the last election in 2002 when only a third of the electors
bothered to vote. A double whammy of a low poll and a calamitous
political climate now face Labour in Camden.
An easy ride for Way
THE council’s ‘probe’ into the savage economies
being made at the Royal Free Hospital, in Hampstead, ended up
as a damp squib on Tuesday.
Under the spotlight was the Free’s chief executive Andrew
Way. But he must have known as he left the committee room that
he had had an easy ride.
He could have faced a tide of withering questions but apart
from sceptical probing by Andrew Mennear (Tory), John Bryant
(Lib-Dem) and Peter Brayshaw (Lab)he was hardly bothered.
Matters were made even easier for him by the benign chairmanship
of Janet Guthrie who fudged the issue by putting off a decision
until June. |
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