The London borough elections saw a definite ‘London effect’ with one in five Labour councillors losing their seats,
a lot more than the thirteen percent Labour lost nationally.
London faces particular problems flowing from the growth of its population and the concurrent under-investment in its public services over the last fifteen years. London has absorbed a population the size of Sheffield over the last decade and a half, during which time the number of police fell, the number of new homes being built declined, and under-investment in the transport system reached chronic levels.
London is projected to absorb a population the size of Leeds over the next ten to fifteen years. Inevitably, therefore, issues such as crime and transport are felt more sharply in the capital than elsewhere. Labour’s drive for delivery needs to be particularly robust in London where the challenges are unusually difficult.
The challenge for Labour is to tackle this London effect. This means eliminating any remaining sense that the party is at loggerheads with the capital, which was established during Labour’s selection process for mayor and then reinforced throughout the PPP debate. Dealing with the London effect requires working with the mayor to carry through the necessary reforms to improve the public services Londoners rely on. It also means making progress now on the medium-term major infrastructure projects London’s economy will depend
on, such as Crossrail.
Labour is currently unable to take the full credit for many of the improvements being pushed through at a London level because of the mayoral fiasco two years ago. Over 1,000 extra police have been recruited. Bus fares have been cut. Affordable housing has been increased. The bus system has seen its most substantial improvement in decades. All these policies and others are good solid Labour issues which go down well with voters.
These strong messages were not fully integrated into Labour’s campaign in London during the local elections because of the legacy of the mayoral battle. As David Clark, a former special adviser to Robin Cook, argued in his Guardian column on
7 May: ‘That Labour is unable to take credit for these improvements simply illustrates
the folly of its self-inflicted wound.’
The lack of ‘joined-up’ campaigning
on such delivery means that Labour is not extracting the most from the benefits of devolution. In the overall battle to isolate the right and keep conservatives out of power this is simply unhelpful to Labour and, ultimately, its voters.
One recent example was the environment, where my office and Michael Meacher’s have worked closely over several months to agree an extra £21 million for recycling projects in London. It is good news for Labour. But this strong story was not integrated fully into the party’s local election strategy, meaning that Labour missed golden opportunities to get its message across to Londoners.
In London, Labour cannot afford to
be responsible for dividing the non-Conservative majority, which would only assist Iain Duncan Smith’s overall onslaught on Labour’s values. If the party put itself in such a position in the elections for the mayor and London assembly it would be handing the Tories an excellent opportunity one year away from the general election.
This point was driven home by a statement signed by leading mainstream London Labour politicians in The Guardian after the local election results. Amongst them was Paul Kenny, regional secretary of the GMB, London assembly member Val Shawcross and MPs Jon Cruddas and Iain Coleman. They argued: ‘The real question in the next mayoral election will be whether policies reflecting Labour’s values continue to be carried out in London or whether they will be replaced by Conservatives ones.’
My strong message to the government after the local elections is to shift London up the agenda: invest in the major infrastructure projects; work with me to integrate the successes of the London mayoralty into Labour’s message; and end
all the unnecessary divisions in London.