In one of the closest election contests of recent times, the
Conservatives have narrowly retained control of Barnet council. The current
state of the parties is Conservative 32 seats, Labour 27, LibDem 1. Labour’s
tally is expected to rise to 30 after the Colindale election due next month.
This will leave the Conservatives with a majority of just 1 seat.
Given the swing to Labour across London, the blame for their
failure to win Barnet rests solely with their Leader Alison Moore who must now
surely fall on her sword given that this is her second successive defeat at the
polls (third if you count her general Election defeat to Mike Freer).
Labour correctly identified East Barnet and Underhill as
target seats and won both wards. They picked up an additional seat in Brunswick
Park by ousting Andreas Tambourgreedy – one of the worst troughers in the last administration.
They also unseated Kate Salinger in Coppetts ward, which was never going to be an
easy seat for the Tories to hold.
In Hale, which used to be a split ward, Labour picked up
only one seat, when this should have been a target ward if they wanted to win outright
control. Instead, they adopted an insane policy of targeting the LibDem ward of
Childs Hill. The LibDems have spent
years building up their support base in this area and all Labour’s efforts achieved
was to split the anti-Conservative vote which allowed the Tories to take two
seats and secure a majority.
If Labour had left well alone, the LibDems would have
retained all three seats, resulting in a final composition of 30 Conservative,
30 Labour and 3 LibDem councillors. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to
realise that the LibDems would have jumped into bed with Labour to force the
Tories out, as they did in 1994 and 1998.
Alison Moore must accept full responsibility for this catastrophic
error of judgement. If she has any honour, she will resign and join Mr &
Mrs Tambourides, who will both now be forced to go and find a real job instead
of sponging off the taxpayers of Barnet.
1 comment:
I couldn't agree with you more.
Indeed Labour Cllrs I bumped into on the streets of Child's Hill were also uneasy about it. Only a hundred or so votes in Hale would've sealed it but their arrogance in symbolically wiping us out got the better of them.
Moore fool them.
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