The Camden New Journal turns 40!

• I’VE lived in Camden even longer than the CNJ has been publishing, and I’ve considered the paper to be a key part of the local infrastructure for the past 40 years.

And it still is. If I had to pick out one of the many times I’ve valued the CNJ so much, it would be back in the noughties when Camden Council, being obediently “New” Labour (plus ça change…) was trying to push through an ALMO, arms-length management organisation.

This was a scheme to privatise the management of the council’s housing, as a half-way house to getting rid of it altogether.

It wasn’t just that the CNJ was, being on the side of ordinary people, intensely suspicious of the ALMO plan, though it was great that you were; even more crucial was the provision of a forum for the fullest debate of the issue.

The letters pages were open to everyone with whatever view they had of the proposal, including the council, of course; at least in those days councillors deigned to respond to criticism, rather than just blanking it like now.

So residents in Camden (unlike people in many other areas) were exposed to a wide-ranging discussion of the issue, week after week, for months on end.

And the result?

Camden was the first borough in the country to turn the tide, with people voting overwhelmingly to stop the ALMO before it started.

Thanks. And happy birthday CNJ.

ALBERT BEALE
Little Russell Street, WC1