Labour Lewisham’s bear traps

The “forget democracy its election time” mindset has already kicked in Lewisham’s Labour party. At the full council meeting last night the council cabinet member for education put forward a motion that basically said - well done to us for securing a large central government education grant and for knocking down Ladywell Leisure Centre to build a new school on the site.

The Labour party loved it because to vote against the motion would look like councillors were opposed to the investment and to vote for it would look like they were in favour of knocking down Ladywell. I can almost see the leaflets now.

All the Labour party members present, and there were quite a few who chose not to attend, voted for the motion. All the opposition parties abstained. There were a series of opposition speeches that basically said, - we are very happy with getting the funding but we oppose the premature demolition of Ladywell.

The Labour response to this was very telling, a surprisingly personal and vitriolic attack on the opposition councillors by a series of Labour councillors, not very civilised at all.