COMMENT: No Plan B for Lambeth's Housing

9.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 13th Sep 2007

Labour say they have no Plan B when the ALMO fails to deliver

One the many tragic aspects about the whole Lambeth ALMO debacle is that the Labour Administration has stated categorically that there is no Plan B. Do I detect shades of Mrs Thatcher's TINA here? ("There is No Alternative).

The Labour party that once rallied so proudly around the red flag have now, effectively, run up the white flag over housing in Lambeth. And that really is a complete disgrace.

When they went to the electorate in 2006, and particularly when they courted the estate vote, did we hear a squeak from them about their intentions to take the housing maintenance contract out of Council control? No we did not.

That was a fundamentally dishonest act. And it was an act of utter betrayal to council tenants, many of them loyal Labour supporters.

And so, what now, following a less than overwhelming vote of support? What now after all the bitterness that Labour's gross manipulation has caused them?

Labour is, apparently, still operating on remote control when all the signs are there for anyone to see that this is an ALMO heading nowhere.

Cllr Kazantzis, Labour's executive member for Housing is simply flying on a wing and a prayer - as early aviators used to say. Labour leader Councillor Reed - a pilot with far loftier ambitions after just eigthteen months in the cockpit with Air Lambeth - seems to me to be flying into the unknown merely on the prayer.

After all the misery and expense of selling the ALMO dream door to door like dodgy kitchen and bathroom salesmen, Messrs Reed & Kazantzis, now have to join the back of the longest dole queue in ALMO history waiting for the Government to provide them with a parachute.

Meanwhile, there is just the tiny matter of satisfying the Government that Lambeth's failing housing department has suddenly acquired two star status. And pigs might fly.

Even if Labour finally succeed and the Lambeth ALMO eventually gets set-up, is there any guarantee that it can deliver on the lofty ambitions made for it by the very same people who have peddled the dodgy deal thus far?

Sadly, the track record with ALMO's is not without blemish, and an ALMO the size of Lambeth's - with all of its historical baggage - will surely struggle to get off the ground rather like the ill-fated Bristol Brabazon.

(An underpowered 1940's propeller-driven prototype aircraft the size of a modern Boeing 747, built for the transatlantic run, and doomed to failure. The runway at Filton had to be extended just to get it off the ground requiring a whole village to be demolished. No airline would buy it as it could only accommodate 100 passengers despite the huge cost ) Editor's note: Something for Labour's Princes ward councillor and Bristol parliamentary candidate Sam Townend.

Councils on the whole, even Councils as badly run as Lambeth, do not go bust. But, let it be said, badly run companies do.

If such a calamity were to occur, if the Lambeth ALMO could not keep to its commitments, this new body outside of all Council control would then be forced to sell-off its property portfolio to a housing association.

That makes the ALMO a one-way bet, so far as Lambeth Labour is concerned.

After all the gloss and froth about Ideal Home-style Kitchens and Bathrooms, that's another ugly truth conveniently hidden away in the small-print that Labour's happy band of door knockers simply didn't bother to allude to.