COMMENT: Labour in a Spin over Spin

10.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 7th Mar 2007

Library Closures left Streatham with only one library when Labour was last in control

Labour Leader, Cllr Steve Reed, has got his knickers in a right old twist as Lambeth's burgeoning spin machine starts to resemble an 18th Century Lancashire Cotton Town.

Trouble is Labour's huge spin factory is churning out yarns at such a rate that poor old mill owner Steve Reed cannot make his mind up on what thread is best.

First he tries to blame all his current Audit Commission woes on the 2002-2006 Liberal Democrat-led administration saying how appalling we were despite the rather awkward fact that in four years we actually raised the Council from a zero-rated authority to a one star authority and then a two star authority.

Then he shifts gear and says that actually the Council is improving overall and that the Audit Commission says so. Well, yes Steve, Lambeth Council has been improving for four years - but you've just said it didn't. Right?

Then ' Spinning-Jenny' Reed says, ah but the bit that went down was in the two months we were not in power. Convenient that isn't it? With a flourish, Spinning-Jenny has cracked it. In two months the library service went down the tubes and that was what caused the Audit Commission to rain on his " Things can only get Better " parade.

Well let's take a closer look. Lambeth's libraries were marked down because the authority failed a key (Labour) Government measure that everyone should live with a two mile radius of a library. And those for whom history means a little longer than the week before yesterday might just recall that the1998-2002 Labour administration's Big Idea was - you've guessed it - CLOSING LIBRARIES.

Back then Labour tried to tell us (spin the idea) that libraries were actually old-fashioned - as out of date as some of those 18th Century spinning machines in fact. So they were going to close them. And a right old rumpus ensued. And people who actually quite liked their libraries, including many Labour supporters, marched on the Town Hall (sound familiar?) to beg them to stop such a malicious and short-sighted act.

The campaigners managed to stop the Carnegie in Herne Hill from closing, even though one of their own Labour ward councillors actually defended the closure. The campaigners managed to save the South Lambeth library from closure. And the equally determined library users in Kennington also managed to save the Durning library from closure.

But the Labour councillors of Streatham South and Clapham Park were made of sterner stuff. They managed to close the Streatham Vale library and the Clapham Park library.

Clapham Park library now has a block of flats on the site and anyone from the flats now has a very long trek indeed to find a library.

One of the Streatham South Labour councillor was praised recently by colleagues for his genius in getting a (private) day nursery into the building. What was so wrong with it being a library you may wonder?

The Audit Commission wondered the same and noticed that the Clapham Park and Streatham Vale library closures meant that Lambeth didn't meet the Government's accessibility criteria and duly docked Lambeth a star.

What goes around comes around..........