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News and Comment April 2010

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6 April - The election campaign starts

The election campaigns have kicked off in earnest and for the first time ever I have not decided who I should vote for, nationally or locally. I shall have to pay special attention to what the candidates say. A communication received yesterday is from Teresa Pearce, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Erith and Thamesmead. In it she berates Bexley council and omits to mention national issues at all. Nothing about Gordon Brown’s achievements, the economy, the EU, immigration or any number of issues worrying people. Perhaps she has forgotten that she is trying to become an MP not a local councillor. More likely she is trying to confuse and deceive her electorate.

It’s easy to understand why a Labour politician would want to overlook the present government’s record in office but criticising Bexley Conservatives for raising council tax by 9% over four years smacks of desperation. The previous Labour administration raised taxes on average by more than that amount every single year they were in office and their leader told me personally that he was proud of that record and wished he could spend even more.

Bexley’s Tory council has proved to be a grave disappointment in many ways and has the whiff of corruption around it; surely a Labour candidate anxious to avoid talking about the mess the country is in should be able to criticise Conservative councillors for something more serious than doing four times better than her own party did?

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