Our citizens are waiting with nervous anticipation for Labour's big test at the autumn council meeting this week. If the Comrades succeed in their aim of denying our tenants a ballot over the Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO), bonfires will be lit for the ritual burning of their election manifesto, which is silent on this contentious matter. None other than Comrade Kate Hoey, the feisty Ulster-born Labour MP for Vauxhall, thunders in her latest newsletter that tenants must have a democratic say in the future ownership of their homes through a proper ballot. How will the Houdinis of the Labour front bench wriggle out of this one?

Labour hates Council meetings and Area Committees where our citizens can vent their spleen on their rulers. Whereas in their wildnerness years they brought delegations to the meetings now they are less keen on hearing the voice of our people. That is why the ALMO meeting was rolled into the regular council meeting to cut down the time for debate. In an almost incomprehensible document attached to Wednesday's agenda the popular Area Committees are to be scrapped: the smart money is a return to a 'local governors' system in Lambeth favoured by Labour in 1998-2002 and not dissimilar to how the Blair government runs southern Iraq.

This extract from Scottish civil servant Rory Stewart's account of a year as a governor of a province in Iraq post Saddam is instructive: "It was vital that WE selected the right councillors, for they would have to guide the province through the first few months of independence [for this read Labour rule in Lambeth] with very little support from the centre."

It would also be worth our people taking comfort by reflecting on Machiavelli's warning in The Prince Chapter 19 'What will make [the ruler] despised is being considered inconstant, frivolous, effeminate, pusillanimous: a ruler must avoid contempt as if it were a reef.'

Another piece of stealth attached to the back of the council agenda is the huge pay hike Labour councillors are proposing to award to their leaders with the Leader himself drawing GB pounds 38k plus GB pounds 10k in ordinary allowances. It is unlikely, in my opinion, to be debated but nodded through at the end of the meeting. While some of the 'payroll vote' within the administration are jobless a few are being tempted to combine well-paid part-time jobs in the real world with these new allowances. Rumours, no doubt untrue, reach me that up to a dozen Labour members have reservations about the size of some of the new allowances. What is sure is that the doubters will not have the strength of mind to vote against this sleight of hand.

Labels: Allowances, ALMO, Area Committees

Christmas, or is it Christingle, is coming early at Lambeth Council. Our Labour bosses are awarding themselves big pay rises in an inflation-busting package valued at more than one million pounds with cabinet member allowances rising from GB pounds 15,000 a year to GB pounds 26,816, plus a basic allowance of GB pounds 9,964 instead of GB pounds 8,000 now. Next year, our pensioners and our poor people on benefits will get just a 3.6 per cent. Our dear Leader will take home GB pounds 38,193, plus the basic, compared to GB pounds 25,000 now. Sure beats working for a living.

In the meantime, the tin men without any hearts who I told you about last week, dear readers, show little remorse. In a reply dated October 18 about Constance being taken to court not a word is said about the threat of legal proceedings against this 93-year-old woman who was taken to hospital anyway. Instead the writer says, "due to an oversight by the council [not by any person] her Council Tax Benefit was not reinstated from [the date of her husband's death]... Please convey my sincerest apologies to [Constance] for this oversight." Presumably, tin men are unable to write letters of apology themselves, but instead want elected councillors to take the blame. The letter goes onto make some other justifications, which have already been rebutted - watch this space. As far as the court officials are concerned well, be assured, they do have hearts. As a result of my representations, the summons has been stopped - the tin men have been thwarted.

And another thing that worries me. Community safety, an oxymoron if ever there was one, is an industry and Lambeth Council plays a major role in it. That's why the guardians of our streets were out last week issuing fixed penalties to cyclists cutting through from opposite the Tube Station to Blue Star House, avoiding death corner by the Brixton Academy. Only 100 metres away drug dealers were happily plying their trade at the bus stop by Iceland. It's good to think that our masters have the right sense of priorities. Perhaps they just can't wait for their Christmas/Christingle pay bonanza, which is, of course, pensionable.

You only have to go away for a week on a work assignment to recognise the 'holier than thou' approach our Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood habitually takes. She writes in the local newspaper advising one of our Conservative councillors to spend more time in his ward - it may surprise her to know that he lives in his ward whereas she has never lived in her constituency since her election in 1992.

Finally, as the Islamic festival of Eid starts on Tuesday October 24, on behalf of all our elected councillors can I wish Muslim readers 'Eid Mubarak' and look forward to being of service to them and our whole community whenever called upon to do so. Our helpline on the home page is now set up in Polish and Portuguese, and Arabic will follow soon.

Labels: Allowances, Community safety, Council tax benefit, Eid