• THE signs are that the voters of Camden are about to inflict a democratic disaster upon themselves with a landslide for Labour on May 3.

Labour doesn’t need your votes because it’s certainly going to win by an arguably unhealthy margin. I find it deeply depressing that the Labour Party is so tribal as to target to defeat valuable and effective local opposition councillors.

It is distasteful that a Camden cabinet member ridiculed Highgate’s Green Party councillor Sian Berry and her reasonable suggestion to Tory and Lib Dem voters that they expediently lend her and the Greens a vote to keep her in situ.

Who can doubt that Cllr Berry (and Cllr Flick Rea) are proven to have performed enormous service to Camden’s voters by holding the controlling Labour Party’s feet to the fire on issues that the Labour cabinet would have preferred to quietly sweep under the carpet?

I suggest that your readers would be wise to consider lending at least one of their votes to whoever is the strongest opposition party candidate in their ward, whatever party colour.

The situation has been further blurred by Jeremy Corbyn inciting voters in the local elections to send prime minister Theresa May a message. But that’s not what our local elections should be about. We’re electing representatives to stand up for our local neighbourhoods.

If, after sleep-walking through the election, Camden wakes up on May 4 to a council without the likes of Sian Berry, Flick Rea (and Catherine Hays) Camden will, in my opinion, have shot itself in the foot.

PAUL BRAITHWAITE
Bartholomew Villas, NW5