Who do you want in charge of your local services?
Along with the rest of London and sundry bits of the rest of the country, Enfield is today voting for a new council. There are 63 seats up for grabs, three each in 21 wards. The outgoing council comprises 39 Conservatives and 24 Labour. What will the new one look like?
It seems fairly clear that the Conservatives will retain control. Despite protests from some, particularly pensioners, at the scale of council tax rises, the Tory administration has avoided major blunders, and is facing a Labour Party struggling to distance itself from an ever more unpopular government which also appears bent on electoral suicide over the last few weeks. To their unenviable record of starting an unpopular and possibly illegal war, misleading the public and a series of illiberal measures which have horrified their own supporters, must now be added a succession of 'sleaze' stories surfacing at just the wrong moment. There is also the question - a burning one in Enfield - of their mishandling of the NHS. The current Labour adminstration looks to this commentator like the worst government in living memory - and no, I haven't forgotten the milk-snatcher. While Enfield Labour Party are more 'Old Labour' and thoroughly uncomfortable with all that, they have had an uphill struggle on the doorsteps - local elections are often more about giving the government of the day a good kicking than local issues anyway.
With the Labour vote likely to decline, the opportunity may be there for other parties to make progress. The Lib Dems, fairly moribund in Enfield of late, have woken up following their win in Hornsey & Wood Green at the General Election last year, and are putting in a strong challenge to the Tories in Southgate, and to Labour in Lower Edmonton. The Greens too are making serious headway in Bowes, which, even if they do not take the ward, could take enough of the Labour vote let the Tories through the middle. Labour are certainly afraid of that - and it would mean decapitation for them as leader Jeff Rodin is one of their defending councillors, while the other two are also senior figures.
What of the Save Chase Farm campaign? It is difficult to see why anyone should vote for them, given that all the other parties want to save Chase Farm too, and the absence of any direct council say in the matter anyway, but electorates do not always behave logically and 'Save Chase Farm' has a good ring to it. I suspect they will not get very far, but I could be quite wrong. If they do succeed, they are standing almost exclusively against Tories, in the hope of holding the balance of power. That looks beyond them even if they are all elected.
Don't forget to vote, if you haven't done so already, and we will all wait with bated breath for the outcome.
Here's an idea that will end poverty forever and unite the world in peace. It originates from the CIA, and has been worked on for years in conjunction with myself.
The idea is simple. Asset price growth is the source of most of the last century's economic growth. A 0.5% tax on foreign exchange transactions is proposed. This would raise £1.25 trillion per year. This money is then used to build houses in less developed countries which are then given to poor people. Say it costs £10,000 to build a house then there is a budget for 100 million houses per year. There are 1 billion very poor people (income less than $1 a day) in the world who could be employed to build these houses. The initial effect would be a massive input of income into poor economies, stimulating business and job-creation. Over time house prices rise. The poor people would then become rich having a house as an asset.
The idea originates from looking at post war growth in the UK. The Labour governments built council houses for the poor. These were later sold off to them by the Conservative government. There was a house price boom and now the UK housing assets are worth £2.3 trillion. This has had a major impact on the economy allowing people to create businesses that create jobs. The problem for rich countries like the UK is that house prices have reached a peak. It is already too expensive for many people to buy a house. Where does future growth come from? The answer is to support this project to build houses in developing countries and give them to the poor which would make these countries rich. The developed nations can then find new growth by selling products to the less developed countries. There are many other processes and effects involved. To find out more, please see www.boutiquebrighton.info
Please get involved. Tell your friends. Email everyone in your address book. Write to left wing groups and tell them about this idea. Contribute your own ideas on this by writing to [email protected]
Posted by: Tahir Iqbal | May 04, 2006 at 03:04 PM