|
|
 |
| |
John Sopel reads the CNJ on camera as part of Sunday’s
Politics Show on the BBC which focused on the battle in
Camden New Journal
Chief reporter Richard Osley
John Prescott claimed he was a CNJ reader |
Jitters for Labour under spotlight
Election Special: one week before
polling and Labour fear losing their flagship Town Hall for
the first time in 34 years.
JITTERY Labour councillors are in the thick of a last minute
drive to convince the party’s traditional support base
to come out and save them from being drummed out of the Town
Hall, the New Journal can reveal.
Reporters from this newspaper have been door-to-door in five
close wards to see whether Labour supporters will stand by the
party at next Thursday’s council elections.
In a rough straw-poll, of 500 voters they found:
• GOSPEL OAK – Labour leader Raj Chada is fighting
against a Conservative surge as traditional supporters switch
allegiance (see below).
• KENTISH TOWN – Liberal Democrats and Greens are
closing in. Labour’s best chance might be a split opposition.
• HIGHGATE – Another knife-edge vote. Labour has pulled
back support but still under pressure to hold onto three seats.
• CAMDEN TOWN AND PRIMROSE HILL – Labour support holding
up better than in other wards but strong Lib Dem charge still
being felt.
• HAVERSTOCK – Once a Labour fortress, the ward is
now shared with the Lib Dems. Opponents hoping for a clean sweep.
Publicly, the Labour group are trying to stay cool but they
know that they have their backs to the wall in what promises
to be the closest election shootout in Camden for more than
three decades.
Crucially, Labour only has to surrender nine seats – three
wards – to lose control at the Town Hall.
On the surface, Labour should take heart in their long-held
support in the borough and past success.
But a challenge for campaign managers is to convince grassroots
supporters, that have served them so well in the past, to back
them again.
The trouble they face is that significant tranches of that support
are wavering.
On the doorstep, they are openly against unpopular national
policies such as the war in Iraq, the spectre of privately-sponsored
schools, the privatisation of council housing and the precarious
state of hospital finances. Labour members locally are trying
to pull the election fight back to local issues.
On Tuesday, in an unashamed election set-piece, Cllr Chada met
Fiona Millar, the former Downing Street aide, for a photo shoot
outside Gospel Oak Primary School at which they warned that
the Conservatives would wreck Labour’s strong record on
education.
But the New Journal research shows the Labour vote remains in
danger of collapse with one-time supporters turning to the Liberal
Democrats and the Greens.
At the same time, the Conservatives have hit a surge of support
and are clearly making ground in areas that Labour once took
for granted. Conservatives are even making gains among council
tenants in the closest wards.
• DEPUTY Prime Minister John Prescott has told voters that
it’s not fair to punish Camden’s Labour Party for
the government’s record on national issues.
In an interview with the BBC’s Politics Show on Sunday,
Mr Prescott admitted that, two years on, Camden residents were
still angry about the war in Iraq.
But he insisted that discontent on the issue was not grounds
for traditional Labour supporters to revolt by booting the party
out of the Town Hall at the May 4 elections.
Mr Prescott said: “Sometimes unfairly the national policy
is interfering with the local. In Camden, they (Labour) have
undoubtedly got a record you should be voting for. If they (voters)
have difficulties about national policy, it’s not fair
to put it on the local authority but its not unknown.”
He added: “It is said in Camden that people are upset with
national government on Iraq and that might be the case. But
we always hope that in local elections they will vote for a
good local council. The fact is that if you put out that good
council you will go to being a Liberal or a Tory one.”
On message, he trumpeted Camden’s response to anti-social
behaviour and attacked Lib Dem Islington for being slow to use
Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (Asbos) – effectively following
the lead of Prime Minister Tony Blair who pushed the same line
when he visited King’s Cross last week.
As Camden’s most incisive newspaper, the New Journal was
asked to provide commentary in the same programme. Mr Prescott
later hinted that he had genned up on local affairs by reading
the paper, pointing to the New Journal’s letters page and
the fact that some correspondents had written in favour of Labour’s
record on education last week.
The New Journal was the first newspaper to point out that Labour
would have difficulties matching past successes with analysis
from the 2002 elections and the 2004 London Assembly polls spelling
out trouble for the party in control.
The national media have since pounced on the problems that Labour
are coming up against in Camden. The Independent, Evening Standard
and Financial Times have all published stories suggesting that
Labour’s grip on the borough is loosening. In many cases,
information has been directly lifted from the pages of the New
Journal including an article written by former Town Hall treasurer
John Mills in which the veteran councillor urged voters to judge
Labour on local issues rather than national disputes. More journalists
than normal are expected to attend next week’s count in
Somers Town in anticipation that Labour could lose out. |
| |
|
|
|
