A capital plan

Labour needs a joined up political strategy to keep its support in London

London, unlike say Barcelona or Berlin, is not an intrinsically ‘red’ city to the left of the rest of the country. Furthermore, there is a history of local government performance in the region affecting General Election results. So Labour needs a joined-up political strategy across the capital, incorporating its MPs, the borough council Labour groups and the mayor and GLA group to maintain its support.

Part of the solution is organisational. This was illustrated by the differential in results within London in both 2005 and 2006. In both cases, well-organised, motivated local CLPs were able to buck the national trend - Mitcham and Morden and Enfield North in the general election; Islington, Lambeth and Hackney (and again Enfield and Merton) in the borough elections.

In most cases these are CLPs where activist morale is high because there is an acceptance of local responsibility for results, rather than an abdication of responsibility and a culture of blaming the national party, and because the CLPs combine campaigning and social activity to make party activism an enjoyable experience.

At the national level, we need policies that recognise the particular strains facing London as a world city: the lack of affordable housing for key workers; the need for investment in transport infrastructure; the need for a managed and strategic approach to immigration in a city whose population absorbs most inward migration to the UK; and the security needs of a city that is a major target for terrorists.

At a regional level, even those of us who opposed Ken Livingstone now concede that he is doing a good job as mayor. But Ken is a one-off – there is no left-winger with similar charisma and personal popularity who could win the mayor while encumbered by similar hard-left political baggage. Moderates in the London Labour party need to start planning now for ‘life after Ken’, whenever he decides to go, and identify a suitable mainstream potential Labour successor.

At the borough level, those boroughs where we are now in opposition need to adjust to that role and go on the attack. Experience in half a dozen boroughs shows that exposing the misgovernment of the Lib Dems once they are running a town hall (and their propensity for going into coalition with the Tories) can lead to their vote going down just as fast as it went up.

In the seven boroughs Labour still controls we need to address the lack of quality secondary education options in inner London with support for city academies; push the respect agenda to tackle the anti-social behaviour that blights peoples lives, particularly in the poorest communities; use the opportunity presented by arms length management organisations to involve tenants directly in housing management and unlock the hundreds of millions of pounds available for the Decent Homes programme; and work with central government to tackle underlying issues of child poverty and urban deprivation.

All this is a New Labour agenda, and unashamedly so. Londoners are not tribally Labour, and they had little time for the extremism exhibited by some Labour councils in the 1980s. They will vote for us only if we address their practical concerns, prove that we have earned the right to govern, and if we go out and campaign and tell them what we are doing and expose what our opponents are doing.

This article will be published in the November 2006 edition of Progress magazine

Luke Akehurst is a Labour councillor and chief whip in the London Borough of Hackney

Comments

Posted by Graeme Kemp on 16 October 2006, 9:14:39 PM
Why is everthing so London-focussed? Surely the UK has other cities?! We need to focus on them too.

Posted by Cllr. virendra Sharma on 27 October 2006, 7:52:08 PM
Loosing elections are not an issue but to analyse then addressing those points is important. Labour loosing in London and as general opinion is that we may not achieve much in the next May both in Wales and Scotland alongwith local elections out of London, the activists needs to understand the reasons behind it. There are three areas we need to look at: Party Organisation at all levels particularly the support given by the Party Officials; Candidates and training and above all campaigning issues. Unless we address those issues and take decisions based on facts rather than favourtism we will not be able win back those councils we have lost. This is an issue which should be discussed outside the traditional political framework.