COMMENT: Labour's Christmas Message (Lambeth Liberal Democrats)

COMMENT: Labour's Christmas Message

December 15, 2009 10:29 AM

The tidings of great joy and general festive merriment that usually accompany any Christmas message are this year tempered by the knowledge that bad times are just around the corner. Only Labour tries desperately to convince us that things are still rosy - but as they hang up the metaphoric mistletoe there's no large queue forming for a Christmas smacker from the great British public.

As one of the most inept, undemocratic and divisive administrations in history they are now hunkering down for their final few months in office and desperately hoping that further bad news does not escape that might actually finish them off for good.

Hang on. Are we talking about the Council or the Government? Well, if truth be told, we can't tell the difference. But then Labour nationally and locally is just about as closely intertwined as the traditional Holly and Ivy.

Remember, Gordon Brown was royally feted by Lambeth's Leaders, during his anointment campaign, as someone who would lead us towards the Promised Land. Labour is good at promises by the way - and even better at breaking them.

Instead Gordon Brown has led us all up the economic garden path and landed us with a level of national debt that is eye-watering in its sheer magnitude. He currently has no idea about how to solve this and expects you to take on trust that after May he may have worked it all out - if he is re-elected that is.

Yet he has already warned darkly that he expects local government to bear the brunt of future cuts. So what does this really mean?

Here in Lambeth, Labour has not exactly been the watchword for financial prudence and has racked-up its own considerable debt mountain. Without these levels of debt Council Tax would be way lower than it is.

Labour politicians in Lambeth have already declared war on the sick and vulnerable by introducing the highest care charges in London if not the country.

Labour has hit tenants on low pay with scandalously high rent increases, unprecedented service charge hikes and totally unjustified heating bills, forcing many families onto benefits in the process. And at one and the same time it has managed to produce one of the worst performing and most debt-ridden housing services it is possible to imagine, while failing to improve the appalling backlog of disrepair.

There are now more Lambeth homes that do not meet the Government's Decency Standards than when they came into office. Anyone seen all those promised new kitchens and bathrooms by the way?

Labour has clobbered motorists with an army of wardens dishing out some very dodgy parking tickets and using tactics that have even brought censure from the independent parking watchdog. Despite losing literally hundreds of appeals, Labour Lambeth hangs on to the money like a limpet. Then to cap it all, despite raking-in millions, we now learn that loads of that ill-gotten money has gone missing from the accounts.

Labour Lambeth is currently robbing Peter to pay Paul, shuffling accounts around like a card sharp deals playing cards, and clamping down on repairs on its crumbling housing estates. It was also recently exposed by the BBC for having fire certificates for only two out of 114 high-rise council flats which were mandatory three years ago and thus shamed now seems more concerned about tearing out tenant's window boxes to show that it takes their welfare seriously.

Don't even think about going for a swim if you live in Streatham - Labour's just closed your swimming pool. If you live in Clapham, you'd better hurry up because - guess what? - Labour is just about to close your swimming pool. They've also broken another promise made at the last election in doing so, by the way.

And what of the Brixton Wreck - sorry Rec - even that's closing over Christmas. And it will be standing room only there soon afterwards.

So if Labour can make such a complete and utter hash out of running Lambeth in the good times, just imagine what they could do to you when the forthcoming arctic economic chill arrives sometime after May 6th.

Lambeth Liberal Democrats