Four more years? Labour warned against complacency ahead of council elections
Thursday, 15th May 2014
SEVEN days from borough-wide council elections, the gossip among Labour members, particularly in safe seats, has begun to centre on who will be elevated to a cabinet position once victory in Camden has been secured.
The battle is not yet won, but in little asides and whispers here and there, it is possible to detect that the jostling for position has started already: so-and-so wants one particular brief, an ambitious backbencher believes their loyalty should be rewarded with a more significant role.
Maybe it’s sensible to plan ahead and just a natural reaction to the lead they’ve held for the last four years, but all this talk might just be a clue to the supreme confidence with which Labour is heading in to next week’s polls. They are expecting another four years in charge and go into battle knowing any other outcome would be a long-odds upset.
It’s a different feel from the past two cycles of council elections: the party’s embarrassing collapse into opposition in 2006 and the all-out wrestle to be restored four years later. There are mini-battles all over the borough next week where seats may be picked up or lost, but Labour remain favourites.
Leader Councillor Sarah Hayward was, as to be expected, playing down any accusation of complacency last night (Wednesday).
“Just over 20 years ago, everyone assumed Labour would romp home against Major’s embattled government,” she said. “Don’t let the same thing happen in Camden – elections are always close here.”
The leader of the opposition, Liberal Democrat councillor Keith Moffitt, is buying into the same narrative, rather than the suggestion that his party will be punished for a national coalition with the Conservatives.
“I still think there’s everything to play for and we’re finding on the doorstep that our supporters are staying with us,” he said yesterday (Wednesday). “With Labour only having a majority of three at present and the Lib Dems fighting hard to take three seats off them in Kilburn, not to mention other wards where they have a challenge such as Highgate from the Greens and Bloomsbury from the Conservatives, Labour have no room for complacency.”
The maths of Cllr Moffitt’s argument rely on his own party holding the line against a Labour push.
Tricky assignments await in defending Cantelowes and Haverstock, while the decision of sitting councillor Chris Naylor to step down in Camden Town has made the job there even harder.
You won’t find any Labour councillor saying it publicly, for fear of being charged with arrogance before the event, but the potential jackpot for their party next week would be taking control of the entire south of the borough. It is not so unthinkable.
Conservative councillor Claire-Louise Leyland said control of the council was still at stake next week, however, and that she was finding on the doorstep that the results were not as predictable as they might seem. “I’m looking forward to seeing what people choose,” she said. “It would be some level of contempt if Labour have already assumed victory. I’ve found them arrogant from the start. The last time Camden voted, almost half of the people in Camden did not vote for Labour, but they have acted as if only what Labour thinks matters – that there is only one point of view in the borough. That’s why our manifesto is meant to be about listening to what people want, rather than telling them what they want.”
The problem for Labour’s challengers is that the perfect storm of the party’s 2006 disaster is not necessarily brewing in the same way. Then, local candidates were bloodied while defending unpopular Tony Blair policies – the Iraq War chief among them – and national government decisions. That weight has transferred to both the Tories and the Lib Dems this time around, and their local campaigns run the risk of being distracted by doorstep debates over what their national representatives are announcing at Westminster.
Amid it all, the final weeks of campaigning have highlighted the danger for all politicians of becoming bogged down in blaming each other – your government’s to blame, no it’s your council at fault – in the hustings and leaflet wars.
It’s not unique to Camden, but whenever Labour are attacked, say on street cleaning cuts, a familiar response is to blame coalition government-ordered cuts, which are then in turn blamed by their rivals on Gordon Brown’s governance.
The idea that the council chamber on the other side of the polls will simply be rows and rows of Labour councillors, meanwhile, has actually been an angle for the Greens in Highgate, where its candidates are asking voters to ponder what another Labour councillor can really add to the equation compared with the retention of some form of fourth party presence at the Town Hall.
Sian Berry, the local branch’s election organiser standing in the ward, said: “I do think people in other wards will help keep Labour’s majority this time. It should definitely not be too large as that’s unhealthy, especially under the cabinet system.
“It’s about having a diverse council with different voices speaking up , not just lots of ‘nodding’. We’re finding plenty of normally Labour supporters in Highgate see the worth in having Greens on the council so that Labour get effective scrutiny.”
