When the going gets tough - Labour just doesn't turn up

2.34.04pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 6th Oct 2008

Crisis? What Crisis? The Sun's famous headline was aimed at Labour Prime Minister ' Sunny ' Jim Callaghan's as he arrived back from the West Indies to financial turmoil that led to the infamous winter of discontent and electoral defeat in 1979.

Reel forward to 2008 and we have the striking parallel of Labour Lambeth's 'Sunny' Jim Dickson exuding bon homie and cocky confidence while all the evidence emerging around him is anything but inspiring.

We're not the only ones, it seems, to be a tiny bit sceptical about Labour's supposed economic miracle. Word reaches us that a hastily convened Labour Group Meeting early this month (yes, it's that recent) to discuss the deepening financial crisis was notable by the absence of more than half of them.

They couldn't all have been spending more time with their families. What about their duty of care to the many hard-pressed residents of this borough in a crisis both in its totality and in particular to their own constituents?

Were they not elected for this purpose? Are they not paid to take this worsening financial situation seriously?

Such imperious disregard for the plight of ordinary folk rather smacks of Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

Mind you, when you know that the current caucus running the show is hardly likely to do the decent thing and fall on their swords and that they'll actually make the poor pick up the tab for their own incompetence there is not much of an inducement to go down to the Town Hall and miss a good night on the Telly, is there?

Maybe constituents themselves should ask their Labour representatives a simple question? Where were you on the night of October 2nd?