26 October - You can’t leave Abbey Wood station without tripping over a wannabee MP
They
are all at it. I passed Labour shortlisted for Erith & Thamesmead Abena
Opong-Asare
on the stairs of Abbey Wood station yesterday with a man with a video camera by her side. Will Abbey Wood
station feature again, it has in all the other campaign videos?
As my cynical fellow blogger Darryl has remarked it’s an easy hop off point; on
the other hand it is central in the Erith & Thamesmead constituency.
The video he refers to was published yesterday by Denise Scott-McDonald. Who? No me neither,
but she is a Greenwich Cabinet Member who until recently showed no sign of
knowing where Abbey Wood was. There is little hard evidence that she exerted any
influence on Plumstead either let alone Erith.
News site publisher Murky Depths knows pretty much everything about how
Greenwich Council collects money from Abbey Wood developments and spends it in
the wealthier areas of town, a cynical ploy to keep the better off happy while
treating the residents of Plumstead, their part of Thamesmead and Abbey Wood as loyal voting fodder.
Leaving such criticism aside Ms. Scott-McDonald’s video is very different to
that of her Momentum backed rival. The latter has been deliberately scripted to
alienate everyone to the right of the soft left, and probably including them too.
Maybe the bare core vote is all she is looking for in E & T; if so Ms. Houghton’s
video should do its job but she sure scares me.
A bit silly of Ms. Scott-McDonald to feature libraries and criticise Bexley
Council’s library policy. Bexley opened a new one a short walk from the station,
Greenwich dropped their plans. In Bexley library use is up but as far as I know
Greenwich are too timid to provide figures. The last thing Bexley wants is a Greenwich
Councillor looking after their interests.
An interesting question is who will the Conservatives get to stand here. Will
they give up as in 2017 when a flop was ferried in from Westminster, against the
local party’s better judgment so I understand? However now that the local Tories
have a direct line to the Prime Minister we may see someone more appropriate to the area.
Denise Scott-McDonald, short listed by Labour for the MP vacancy in Erith & Thamesmead constituency.
