POLITICS
Fraud and mismanagement stalk Labour councillors across the land
BORIS JOHNSON
They're loony! They're Left! And they're back! Not even the most incompe- tent Tory spin-doctor could fail to make something of Labour's recent record in local government. In Walsall, we learn of `Citizen Dave' Church, 47, the new Labour leader who has decided to sell off the build- ing and break up the council into a collec- tion of community coffee-morning soviets. Labour-controlled Birmingham council is so corrupt that anyone desiring a particular grant is apparently offered two forms, one for the grant, and one for joining the Labour Party.
Nepotism is so rife in Monidands that 33 council employees turn out to be close rela- tives of Labour Party members, allegedly including a window cleaner who refuses to climb ladders and a gardener who does not know how to use a hoe. In Coventry, we hear of a scheme (This is a classic,' they must chortle in Tory Central Office, as they reach to telephone the Express) to teach three-year-old girls about sexual equality.
As for Lambeth — Lambeth! In the words of Elizabeth Appleby QC, the Labour administration there has produced a catastrophic litany of fraud, mismanage- ment and left-wing dogmatism. No less than 500 Lambeth employees have been discovered to be dishonestly claiming hous- ing benefit and income support, while the council is owed about £200 million in unpaid council tax and rents.
And so it goes on, across the land: from Bradford, where the fraud squad is looking into 'mismanagement' of the highways department, involving a missing £1.1 mil- lion; to Hackney, where the director of housing was accused of 'racism' when he tried to discourage the sharing of jobs among family members; to Sheffield, where the cost of staging the World Student Games means Labour council's debts exceed that of many African countries. And all of this at the taxpayer's expense! Oh me, oh my, they must say as they hug them- selves in Tory Central Office.
If this does not bring the colour back to the jowls, the flecks of indignant foam back to the lips of our natural supporters, noth- ing will. No wonder Dr Brian Mawhinney, the new Tory party chairman, went to Wal- sall this week, like a rubberneck at the scene of some great natural disaster, to crow over Tony Blair's discomfiture. It is all very well for Blair to say he is different, that he represents 'New Labour'. But this is the Blair who was rejected as a candidate for Hackney council in 1981 on the ground that he was 'unforgivably right-wing'. What we are looking at now, says John Gummer, the Environment Secretary, is the 'real face of the Labour Party'. And, do you know, to some extent, I think he may be right.
Oh, come off it, Labour may say. There is nothing new about local government idiocy and corruption. In so far as it exists in this country, the problem is bound to be largely a Labour problem, since successive mas- sacres have left the Tories in control of only a couple of handfuls of councils. And while we are on the subject, Tony Blair's allies might continue, what about Tory Wandsworth? What about Tory Westmin- ster, and the naked gerrymandering of Dame Shirley Porter, attempting to keep out the wrong sort of voters, in a kind of ethnic cleansing?
Indeed. Touché. And yet without wishing to apologise for Dame Shirley, I somehow think the corruptions of Labour politicians are more sinister. The odd Tory councillor Bloodworth may have his hands in the till. Tories may sometimes use unscrupulous methods to gain and keep power. But what is unsettling about these Labour characters is that their deviancy is driven chiefly by ideas. This may take the form of 'political correctness' — the chilling way Islington council failed to root out paedophiles in its childcare departments, for fear of being seen to discriminate against minority groups of one kind or another. Or it may be the ideologically rooted refusal to pursue compulsory competitive tendering, with the result that bins are emptied and parks swept by expensive in-house firms rather than by private contractors. As a broad `Sure, I want to move out, but I'm caught in a negative equity trap.' rule, with admitted exceptions, efficiency is less likely to be a dirty word in a Tory coun- cil than in a Labour council.
Now, if the Tories seriously wanted to rein back the extravagances of these Labour councillors, and the alternative gov- ernment that is taking over in Britain, they could do two things. They could cease to cap council taxes, so inviting voters to make a more genuine comparison between the value for money offered by Labour, Con- servative and Lib Dem politicians. And at the same time they could comfortably find in local government the savings necessary to pay for the £5 billion tax cuts which, as John Redwood and everyone else point out, are a necessary (though hardly suffi- cient) condition for Tory survival at the next election.
Central spending on local government is a quarter of all government spending: it is inconceivable that Mr Waldegrave, the new Chief Secretary, cannot find some fat here, as he and the Chancellor prepare for the November Budget which must, repeat must, be a tax giveaway. As the National Audit Office pointed out earlier this year, local government could save £500 million a year on better administration alone.
There is no sign, alas, that the Govern- ment will be quite so bold. For the cost might be a damaging see-saw in the all- important presentational battle. Yes, Labour councils might put their council taxes even higher, an appalling prospect for those of us who live in Islington. But it would be too simple for Labour to blame the Government for this expedient. More- over, any attempt to cut back the obviously wasteful budget for local government would be met with the cynical response that we saw earlier this year.
Labour would bring forth what Chris Pat- ten once called 'the parade of bleeding stumps', the teachers sacked, the netball lessons cancelled, the nursery schools forced into extinction as a result of the heartless Tory cuts. The story would change. We would no longer be talking about loony-Left councils. We would be contemplating the martyrs to the social injustice of the Tories. It is great propagan- da, this rash of `loony-Left' stories. It is propaganda, nevertheless.
Boris Johnson is assistant editor of the Daily Telegraph
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