So…Green Party leader Natalie Bennett was due to visit Cressingham Gardens in Tulse Hill, an estate threatened by Lambeth Council’s ‘regeneration’ plans. In the end her deputy, Amelia Womack, goes because Natalie Bennett has lost her voice, and the local party put out a press release thus:
Lambeth Labour/Lib Peck have, by this time, already jumped on Natalie Bennett’s absence describing it as a ‘u-turn’ here in this appallingly hypocritical statement:
So far, what have we learned?
1. That Chuka Umunna is scared of the Green Party (Cressingham Gardens is in his constituency and a good number of residents have worked with the Greens after Labour’s betrayal of them).
2. That Lib Peck has been asked to, or volunteered to, launch an opportunistic attack on Natalie Bennett/The Greens to come to Chuka’s aid.
3. That Lambeth Labour want people to forget that they unilaterally took refurbishment options off the table at the last minute, options favoured by most of the residents.
It’s no wonder that, on the same day, one of Labour’s own Lambeth PPCs, Kate Hoey (seeking re-elecion as the Vauxhall MP) thinks the council is ‘neo-Stalinist’
It’s just another day in the London Borough of Orwell where residents, consulted or not, might be heard but will never be listened to.
A petition exists asking for its leader and two cabinet members to resign, why not brighten up your day and sign it?