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Will the Last Labour Councillor Kindly Put Out The Light?
June 8, 2010 4:04 PM
A character in Shakespeare's great tragedy Hamlet laments that "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" and, curiously, there seems to be something equally amiss about Lambeth's New Labour regime at the present time.
Even before the May elections there was considerable disquiet bubbling away under the highly polished surface that led one Labour councillor to defect to the Tories claiming that her party's equal opportunities agenda was just so much wallpaper covering some nasty cracks of prejudice.
Then, immediately after the election, a senior councillor in Tulse Hill ward resigns his seat at the request of the Labour Party itself in the wake of a police investigation while another in Vassall ward, on a completely unconnected matter, is summarily suspended for four months from the Labour Party.
What on earth is going on? We can only really speak here for legal reasons about the situation of the Vassall ward councillor who appears to have been a victim of an elaborate sting set up by his own party.
So far as we can tell, they suspected him of leaking politically sensitive information to those who are not exactly on Lambeth Labour's Christmas card list. So his email account was apparently secretly trawled looking for a specially planted story which might expose the dastardly mole.
Quite apart from Labour politicians asking for council officials to trawl private emails for their own purposes - and a possible breach of the Data Protection Act as a result - the Labour councillor himself denied any wrongdoing and, so far as we know, no incriminating evidence has actually been published to show whether he had indeed passed on false information to the newspapers.
Yet such is the level of mistrust in Labour ranks that he was suspended anyway. So within weeks of electing him - and presumably with the Labour party officially singing his praises to the electorate - said councillor has just been sent to 'Coventry' and now serves his four month sentence as an independent.
The people of Tulse Hill and Vassall ward must now be wondering how well served they have been for trusting Labour to represent their interests at an election of barely a month ago.
However, there are other ominous dark clouds scudding across Lambeth Labour's clear blue post-election sky that hark back to the aftermath of the pre-election defection of that Brixton Hill Labour member to the Tories.
In the wake of her defection, certain things were said (or written) by her ward colleague and one-time friend, who just also happens to be the Council Leader, and also by his Deputy, that would, frankly, have been much better left unsaid.
The unholy row that followed even caused an early day motion to be laid down in Parliament by Anne Widdecombe MP, a strong rebuke from Operation Black Vote and an open letter of condemnation of Labour by the Chair of Acre Lane South London Black Business Association.
Potentially far worse for the people of Lambeth, though, a referral was then made by the injured party about the incident and the language used to The Standards Board for England and Wales. This watchdog has the power to investigate whether a councillor's words or actions may have brought themselves or the Council into disrepute. Among the sanctions it can take if the allegations are upheld includes suspension and even disqualification from office.
The Standards Board Enquiry was originally meant to report by March 2010 but was then delayed until after the May elections. We understand that a draft report has already been circulated but the clock is now ticking and we all await the outcome with interest.
Were a highly adverse report to recommend suspension any time soon, there could well be Labour councillor vacancies in Brixton Hill ward and Knights Hill ward as well as those in Vassall and Tulse Hill.
In which case, would the last Labour councillor out kindly turn off the light?