SIMON EMMETT . net

If there is one thing the my local Labour party is good at, it is starting non-campaigns. “A what?” I hear you ask. Greenwich Council’s ruling Labour party has in the past been seen to start up campaigns, that are basically, political spin. I’ll give you an example.

Last year Greenwich Labour ran a campaign attacking the Mayor of london, accusing him of wanting to scrap the Thames Clipper service. The fact was that the Mayor was not considering it, and was actually looking at ways of funding it better, before adding the use of the Oyster pay-as-you-go system to it. So the spin that Labour put on it was that their campaign had been a success, even though there was nothing to actually campaign about. This was described at a recent full council meeting, Cllr Nigel Fletcher as “It was like campaigning for Christmas, to then announce in the New year that your campaign had been a success”. In layman’s terms, it was a political stunt to try to score a few points over Boris Johnson.

Well, according to the NewsShopper, Greenwich Labour is at it again. The report states that Greenwich Council (ie Labour), along with Eltham’s Labour MP, Clive Efford are campaigning for a new DLR station in Eltham, and for a DLR link at North Greenwich. All very noble on the surface of it, but when you look at the detail questions as to the motives of the feasibility study become apparent.

Mr Efford is quoted in the paper as saying:

“TfL are burying their heads in the sand. If anyone at TfL wants to stick their head out of the window at their shiny new offices on the peninsula they’ll see the problem right under their noses – so sort it out.”

However, as pointed out by Conservative ward councillor and Greenwich & Woolwich PPC, Cllr Spencer Drury, this campaign is “just hot air“. The reason being that the deadline for submissions to the Mayor of London’s transport strategy has already passed!

If Labour were really serious about improving the transport link they should have started this feasibility study months ago, so that the findings could have been submitted.

However, that is not how Greenwich Labour works. It is well documented that the ruling Labour party do not want to work with the Mayor of London, and have regularly voted for motions criticising the Mayor, and even failing to attend many panel meetings. It is clear from the timing of this “campaign” that they had no intention of working with the Mayor, and actually improving transport links. Instead they wanted to hold this study, submitted it with the full intention of being told “sorry it’s too late”, and then blaming the Mayor for not improving the transport links. All spin, and political point scoring, just in time for the local (and general) elections.

Unfortunately that is what you get from Greenwich Labour at the moment, shameless electioneering.