ALMO is Blackmail says new Labour Deputy Harman

11.32.37am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 25th Jun 2007

Harriet Harman has condemned Lambeth's ALMO as blackmail

In an astonishing slap in the face for Lambeth's beleaguered Labour-run administration, Labour's new Deputy Leader Harriet Harman has condemned their flagship ALMO policy as blackmail.

Harriet Harman has rounded on her local Labour colleagues by saying that Government policy is forcing people to transfer control of their homes to a private company if they want to attract funding.

Ms Harman told the South London Press, "I support direct investment in council housing and not false choices which blackmail residents into transfer."

Harriet Harman is the latest and highest profile local Labour Member of Parliament to round on Labour Lambeth's half-baked plans and she joins Vauxhall Labour MP Kate Hoey in criticising their bungled ALMO proposals. Meanwhile an increasingly desperate Lambeth Labour Cabinet has been driven to employing more expensive consultants to persuade tenants to vote YES in advance of a ballot they didn't originally want to run. Accused of not being even handed in their approach to the ballot at a recent Housing Scrutiny Committee, lead Housing member Cllr John Kazantzis snapped "of course we're going to be biased."

Lib Dem Housing spokesperson, Cllr Jeremy Clyne, said, "Once again this shows Labour is hopelessly divided on this issue even within its own local and Government ranks. Meanwhile tenants and leaseholders are picking up the tab for Labour's criminally wasteful spin. This is money that should and could have been spent directly on housing improvements."

And in another shock announcement that is guaranteed to leave Labour's spin doctors in a complete spin, a report in Inside Housing on 21st June suggests that the Communities and Local Government Department has been shocked by the sheer size of bids competing for what is the last round under the Government's current ALMO scheme.

Lambeth's bid, the largest of all the ALMO bids at £239 million, in the sixth and final round, is reported to be under close scrutiny by the department. Which isn't stopping Labour having a final throw of the dice while gambling with taxpayer's money on a ballot that's probably going nowhere.

The tragedy is that with Gordon Brown taking Tony Blair's house keys a complete reversal of the doomed ALMO policy may well be on the cards long before dopey Lambeth Labour wakes up to the new order.

When the whole ALMO fiasco comes crashing round their ears - all that will be left for them will be to count the cost of this monumental folly.

And that's an awful lot of kitchens and bathrooms.