Our newspaper hounds sniffed out the news from this blog and 'named and shamed' Lambeth's 'tin men' who heartlessly summonsed 93-year-old Constance to court for alleged non-payment of council tax. The 'tin men' have once again hit the yellow brick road to West Norwood to oppress our people with their incompetence.

Patience is a single parent studying at a university in London, but has only been able to attend two lectures this term, which is the first in her final year. Lambeth housing refuses to take any responsibility for her 'health and safety' despite her being without electricity for the past month with her three-year-old child. Two years ago, Lambeth's lettings agency found her a flat in a multi-occupancy near the South Circular. Patience has paid all her bills, but the landlord, who is paid Patience's rent direct by the Council, refuses to pay for past bills from our old friends the utility EDF or for new separate meters for the flats.

Patience has finally lost patience having been pushed from pillar to post around the Council with no one accepting any 'duty of care' towards her. She is desperate for some light and needs to get on with her studies. This, of course, is how our people who wanted to better themselves and accept their responsibilities to society are treated by the 'tin men' who control our destinies. Will anyone be reprimanded, will anyone be fired, will anyone accept the blame or apologise. No, no, no! It's time to go into battle again. Once again names have been changed to protect the innocent.

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

Let's not mince words - Lambeth Council are like tin men and its bureaucrats have no hearts. They are planning to take 93-year-old Constance to court on October 27th at Camberwell for allegedly not paying her Council Tax. There's just one problem - Constance is in hospital and I'm going stop this nonsense once and for all.

Before the emotion - the facts. On August 15th Lambeth officers visited Constance at her vulnerable elderly person's bed sit. That's what you get in this country after serving your country in its various wars of the last century. An application form for benefits was filled in and taken away by officers with satisfactory supporting document and a request for stay of proceedings made. You'd think that would be the end of the matter.

Despite all that a summons was issued on October 10th for GB pounds 719.14 creating great anxiety for Constance who was taken into hospital at the weekend. According to neighbours, it was as a result of anxiety about this piece of incompetent maladministration. I'm glad Constance has good neighbours cause through them I've told her not to worry.

On Monday morning, I will be contacting the Clerk to Camberwell Magistrates Court seeking an adjournment of Constance's case sine die (without day) and for a wasted costs order to be taken out against the council, if it continues with the proceedings. I will then give the Directorate of Finance the chance to sort things out and if nothing happens take it to the Ombudsman.

Will anyone be reprimanded? Will anyone find out why pre-court checks did not reveal Constance's vulnerability? Will anyone apologise to Constance? No, no, no. To protect the innocent I have changed my constituent's name - all other dates and details are factual.

Local Democracy Week is one of those annual events in the civic year that pass most people by. Our beleagured residents living under the yoke of a recidivist New Labour administration are no exception.

It was encouraging that our democracy-loving officers invited elected members from all parties to join in an event for young voters called, 'I'm a Councillor Get Me out of Here'. What a disappointment when, despite volunteering, I found that only Labour councillors were invited to participate.

So what better than to go the extra mile for a little more inclusiveness of my own. First of all, dear citizens, let me tell you, there is no 'dress code' needed to attend Conservative councillors' surgeries in Lambeth unlike in one Labour MP's advice centre in north east Lancashire. Indeed, Saturday morning's visitors included a deputation of the suited and booted worried about yobs breaking into their gardens, a Croatian young man in a track suit, plus single Mums and their buggies - all are welcome. As usual, the boys and girls from B&Q came and purchased the surplus cakes from the adjoining coffee morning and jumble sale.

So having chucked a couple of brickbats at the Comrades, let me hand out a bouquet. The Planning Committee's Labour Chairman handled the difficult decisions for elected members over the new secondary school for Lambeth with admirable fairness. He was patient and persuasive. At one point, I wondered why, if the councillors were doing all the heavy lifting, we had highly-paid education officers at all. The members knew their onions, but very few of the rest seemed to know what a vegetable was. After three hours of debate, some effective compromises began to emerge. Finally, it ended at just before midnight. One member of the public, a retired civil servant who played a blinder in the meeting, asked me: "John, have you got a bottle of whisky in your office?" I wish. So I replied: "If you'd asked me beforehand, I could have arranged it - but not of course on the rates!"

By their words shall they be judged - our socialist masters and mistresses are bewildering our 'be-knighted' people in Lambeth with their 'all style and no substance' approach to community safety.

Labour words like candyfloss melt on contact with reality. How pompous, for example, to read the weighty sermon in the press from the comrades' cabinet member for community safety declaring that he would have joined my inspection of Brixton Road's drug dealers had be not been, dearly beloved, "at a faith event in Stockwell for Lambeth Peace Week, remembering victims of violence in our borough." This is the same man who admires Sherlock Holmes and belongs to the Sullivan Society when he is not pontificating about 'drug dealers and their vile kind'. No harm in admiring fictional detectives, especially for 'two pipe problems', but come to think of it I'm sure he could do an excellent rendition of 'a policeman's lot is not a happy one'.

More seriously, he pronounces with the myopia of King Canute that "one solution we're working on is an Asbo for every dealer" and that "those who breach Asbos will be heading for prison for much longer than a day."

Gosh, can New Labour really do this, as well as taking yobs to cash machines for instant fines? Where will they site the new prisons capable of holding a 'Noah's Ark' of dealers who come to Brixton from all over Europe? Is the cabinet member for community safety the new commissioner for Brixton, holding judicial powers to eradicate drug dealing? What's happened to our courts? It may be uncharitable to say this but is he the new Governor of California or just a contemporary King Canute trying to hold back the waves of crack heads?

A reality check now. Cut to last night when long after the New Labour cabinet had drunk its Fairtrade nightcap cuppa and retired to bed, I checked out Coldharbour Lane at midnight, following a Planning Committee meeting. Within a few metres of the Ritzy, I was surrounded by feral menacing dealers and pimps offering me mind bending substances and sexual proposals that the over 50s need to look up in a text book, but no sign anywhere of our community safety people.

In Tory Romford, they do things better with council workers, night club supervisors, taxi marshals, and uniformed people all wearing distinctive yellow jackets when policing the town centre - branding is effective and reassuring to the public. Me, I'm still waiting for a reply to a letter I sent a fortnight ago to the community safety bods about drug dealing in Brixton near Iceland. I won't hold my breath until it arrives, although I was pleased that a senior uniformed person went round to see one of my constituents last night to follow up on a letter she wrote at around the same time about the dealers.

And the reference to 'be-knighted'? It's probably not connected, but it seems that 'Red Ted' Knight who wrecked the council when Labour ruled Lambeth in the 1980s is regularly attending the Norwood Housing Forum. Perhaps he'll put in a bid to become the next Labour Minister for Asbos and New Prisons.