IT IS not often that a former Labour Lord Mayor stands up in a council leans towards procialis. has happened is that this council has gone through a process of VOW were the words of Patricia Bradbury, mayor of the London borough housing waiting list, to which over 100 people are being added around 12,000 private sector tenants lack their own self-contained homes and basic amenities.
In the early 1970s a young, chic, radical wing of the local Labour Party gained control of the council. Their was to eradicate the deprivation.
Lenin Symbolising the Mayor Bradbury instructed that a discarded bust of Lenin rescued from the town hall's cellar and placed prominently outside the council chamber.
Today Lenin is back in the cellar, and the Labour right, consisting in the main of older, more working class councillors, is back in charge Sensible moderation is the order of the day, to which the radical left form an unofficial opposition. two Tory councillors offer somewhat bemused support to the moderates.
The particular occasion June began spectacularly. Bill Bayliss had barely risen to his feet when a public spectator did the same to shout 'You're a traitor to the labour movement, Bayliss.' While the heckler was thrown out a journalist from London Radio attempted to record the fracas. The right described his attempt to report as "provocative', and he too was tarown oul.
Protests That started the protests from the When they ran the council their big thing had been 'participation', with all meetings of any description public and consultation all along the line.
Such schemes find little favour with the right. Most of the bodies which formulate. the CHL carry mysterious titles like advisory group' or 'special working week; group'; they are held behind closed doors; councillors not on these bodies are prohibited from attending Since — - the £10 million worth of housing cuts proposed by Islington Labour is only the beginning, surprising that in policies secrecy better part of valour.
What may appear odd is that the vision, Labour right argues that its policies are actual vote-catchers.
be alternative, the logic goes, is rate rises and they would ALOUS It is all very similar in tone to the arguments Denis Healey used when motivating his cuts. appear to have sunk in to Southgate and his like is that Healey is out of office.
At the council The opposing the policies of cuts and secret government, the left advocated participation and..what? That was their quandary.
Criticism good. 'We are saying to quickly Howe', noted 'don't cut allocation, we'll do it for you' In the same speech she listed the right's double-speak, how cuts were disguised in a new vocabulary 'abatements', 'rephasing', and 'slippage.
despair than anger. priorities all wrong', complained one 'it fills me with great sadness', said was an alternative.
financial crisis at all, others agreed there was and proposed a rates rise, 'policy but none of this matched the rhetoric Demonstrating against the cuts outside Islington Town Hall on 19 June instances even according to Southgate hardly formulating the is considered The only prove electorally does not meeting, in the right right numerous Certainly the left's criticisms were Geoffrey Margaret Watson, LiC VUlC Islington's housing interest of Others on the left spoke more in policic.
'We've got our
But what was missing in all this secured their Only suggested there was nc CUTS?
CUrs To MEAN