Celebrating Conservative Success in London
Conservatives are often rather backward in coming forward to celebrate their progress in local government. London is no exception. Yet it is becoming clearer by the day that Labour realises we are now the dominant party in both London and local government nationally for the forseeable future. The actions of the Labour government in adding to Mayor Livingstone's powers show how desperate they are - only through Livingstone's mayoralty can they retain any dominance over London politics.
But Labour is also losing its grip. At last week's meeting of the London Fire Authority Livingstone's chairwoman - the GLA Assembly Member for Lambeth and Southwark - had the rug pulled out from under one of her pet projects - the GLA Labour Brussels Office. Taking advantage of an absence of two Labour members, Conservatives voted to withdraw funding on the basis that the authority is about fire and rescue services in London not Belgium.
Indeed Conservatives now control 16 out of the 32 London town halls with a joint Conservative administration with the third party of national politics in three more. If you look at the political map of London, Labour has retreated into its fortress boroughs in parts of East and North London. In East London they are under threat from an extermist nationalist party, largely because of decades of taking absolute power for granted. There is no Labour council west of a line drawn between Sutton and Barnet.
As for the 'Ming Emperor', his Party has very little to celebrate. In May, in their three flagship boroughs, Liberal Democrats narrowly held Sutton and Kingston, but lost overall control of Islington. As the Kingston and Sutton results show, Conservatives can go head to head with Liberals and win.
Londoners have only a bleak outlook to face from City Hall with a huge increase in fare rises on public transport in London - 33 per cent in the past year alone. Essentially, by shunting NHS costs onto London's boroughs, the Government has turned the council tax into a health 'stealth' tax.
In Lambeth, the elderly are facing a 132 per cent increase in the cost of social care. The new Labour zealots at the town hall are enthusiastically enforcing the philosophy of Gordon Brown before he has even moved next door to No 10. It won't take long before the voters see that the promises made last May were as worthless as the manifesto they were written on. And as for the Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, instead of living in South Africa under the stars for her long Christmas holiday working on a sports project, it might be a good idea to spend the odd night in her constituency visiting a multi use games area.
But Labour is also losing its grip. At last week's meeting of the London Fire Authority Livingstone's chairwoman - the GLA Assembly Member for Lambeth and Southwark - had the rug pulled out from under one of her pet projects - the GLA Labour Brussels Office. Taking advantage of an absence of two Labour members, Conservatives voted to withdraw funding on the basis that the authority is about fire and rescue services in London not Belgium.
Indeed Conservatives now control 16 out of the 32 London town halls with a joint Conservative administration with the third party of national politics in three more. If you look at the political map of London, Labour has retreated into its fortress boroughs in parts of East and North London. In East London they are under threat from an extermist nationalist party, largely because of decades of taking absolute power for granted. There is no Labour council west of a line drawn between Sutton and Barnet.
As for the 'Ming Emperor', his Party has very little to celebrate. In May, in their three flagship boroughs, Liberal Democrats narrowly held Sutton and Kingston, but lost overall control of Islington. As the Kingston and Sutton results show, Conservatives can go head to head with Liberals and win.
Londoners have only a bleak outlook to face from City Hall with a huge increase in fare rises on public transport in London - 33 per cent in the past year alone. Essentially, by shunting NHS costs onto London's boroughs, the Government has turned the council tax into a health 'stealth' tax.
In Lambeth, the elderly are facing a 132 per cent increase in the cost of social care. The new Labour zealots at the town hall are enthusiastically enforcing the philosophy of Gordon Brown before he has even moved next door to No 10. It won't take long before the voters see that the promises made last May were as worthless as the manifesto they were written on. And as for the Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, instead of living in South Africa under the stars for her long Christmas holiday working on a sports project, it might be a good idea to spend the odd night in her constituency visiting a multi use games area.
Labels: Elderly, GLA, Ken Livingstone, Labour Lambeth, NHS, Val Shawcross
posted by Cllr John Whelan on Sunday, January 14, 2007
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