The battle on the streets

Published in the Evening Standard 27 April 2006

A week from tonight, you won't be able to move for post-mortems of the local elections. Switch on the TV, open up a paper and you'll be stampeded by pundits explaining what the slew of results from London and around England mean. But be warned: these sages will not be talking about the impact for you or your area. They won't tell you whether your streets will be safer or your neighbourhood cleaner.

No. The Westminster village and the national media will interpret next week's local elections the way they always do - as a glorified opinion poll. As if your vote for a local councillor or mayor was really just a chance for you to express your views on national politics.

Politicians and journalists alike will wonder whether the electorate was keen to give a bloody nose to Tony Blair, a leg up to David Cameron or a helping hand to Menzies Campbell. I know this will happen - and I may well be as guilty of it as any of my colleagues.

But it is an insult. To the candidates themselves, fighting hard to do their bit for their community - yet seen as if they were ciphers, mere flag-carriers for the national party leaders. It's an insult to the voters, who won't make a trip to the polling station next week because they want to be part of a national focus group but because they actually want to do something about the state of their local school, swimming pool or roads. It's insulting to the very idea of local democracy, to treat it as a mere shadow play for the real drama in Westminster.

For local democracy is a more colourful affair than the conventional wisdom allows. Take my own area of Hackney, where the incumbent Labour mayor is seeking re-election. He is facing the predictable Lib Dem and Tory opposition - but also Communist, Green and Respect candidates. And what's true of Hackney is true of London. For this city, which already has more people, more shops, more theatres and more money than any other city in the UK also has more politics.

There are boroughs torn between every possible permutation: Lib Dem vs Tory, Tory vs Labour, Lib Dem vs Labour. In Tower Hamlets, Labour faces a serious challenge from Respect. The Greens threaten in several wards; the BNP are pushing hard in Barking. Whatever happens with turnout, the May 4 elections will be fiercely contested in London - a veritable festival of political pluralism. In this city, Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems all have a serious presence; each party controls boroughs. That's not true of the rest of the country: in Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle there are no Tory councillors whatsoever.

Nothing typifies London's pluralism better than the rise of the political independent. We have one in Hackney, a former Labour councillor by the name of Hettie Peters. She wants the police to "slap down unruliness" and promises to banish rubbish trucks, preferring to carry Hackney's garbage by barge down the River Lea instead. Sure, she's not about to become mayor, but elsewhere in the capital there are non-aligned individuals or groups that could make a big difference. They are fighting on intensely local issues, like the Enfield independents determined to stop the move of key hospital services to Barnet. Or the eight Lambeth parents who want to become councillors so they can create more school places for their kids.

These candidates are not just adding to the colour and variety of London politics; they are campaigning on issues that will have a genuine effect on their neighbourhoods. In the process, they're challenging that Westminster village view of local democracy. Their very stance declares: this is not a dress rehearsal for the next general election - this is a real battle that counts.

I'm glad to see Ms Peters and her like on the ballot. If I was a voter in Enfield or Lambeth, I can even imagine voting for one of those single-issue campaigns, just to get an urgent problem fixed. But independents cannot be a long-term answer.

For running a council is not a single-issue business. Yes, Lambeth need to sort out those school places - but they also have to worry about transport and parks and social services. What would the independents do on those issues? Voters might like the Enfield campaigners' views on their local hospital, but do they have any idea what they would do on, say, planning and building? The truth is voting for an independent is like writing a blank cheque - giving away a lot of power with too little knowledge.

There is a solution, one all the mainstream parties are looking at. It's the citizens' initiative, widely practised in several American states. Here's how it would work. Let's say I finally had enough of those accursed speed bumps which now seem to blight all but the widest main roads in my part of London. I could draft a petition. If I got enough signatures, it would go to the local authority which would then have to debate it. If the authority refused to act, I would have to get more signatures, so that eventually the question was put to people in a local referendum. Keep the bumps or take them down? If my side won, they'd be gone.

That should be possible with a hospital in Enfield or schools in Lambeth. To remedy one issue, you shouldn't have to take over the whole council.

Either way, this is the ground on which next week's elections should really be judged: what difference will the results make to everyday life? Will Tory victories in, say, Croydon or Hammersmith and Fulham bring lower council taxes but fewer services? Where Labour hold on, will victory mean the reverse? Will our streets be cleaner, our neighbourhoods safer? This is what should be at stake on May 4. Not the careers of Messrs Blair, Cameron and Campbell - but the places we all live in.

Posted on April 27, 2006 03:02 PM

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