crashed THE DEPTH of the Tory humiliation in the local elections is revealed by the figure - more than 800 seats lost, only 15 councils won out of 189 contested.
Projections for June's European elections give the Tories as few as 12 seats against 54 for Labour and 14 for the Liberal Democrats.
Up and down the country The main gainer in terms of seats were the Liberal Democrats. Three factors come into play here. First, they were starting from a low point - during the 1990 local elections the Lib Dems were still suffering the fall-out from the collapse of the Alliance and the Liberal-SDP merger. Labour was starting from a high-tide in local government but still increased its vote by three per cent.
By former Lambeth Labour councillor Greg Tucker DESPITE Labour gains from the Tories across the country, where Labour ran councils they often lost seats to the Liberal Democrats particularly in inner London. Nowhere was this more gains against those in power, marked than in Lambeth where whether Tory or Labour.
Labour lost control in the worst Against the trend of Liberal election results for Cover 25 Democrats gains they lost years. Tower Hamlets to Labour folThe results were the culminalowing the scandal over Lib tion of three years of attacks on Dem racism. While BNP counthe local CLPs by the Labour cillor Derek Beackon was Party nationally and on council thankfully defeated and the workers by the Labour group. In threat that the fascists could and the unions Labour effecDogs never materialised, this tively committed suicide. doesn't mean that the BNP have gone away. The Liberal Democrats made massive gains winning the most In fact their votes in two of the three (Labour votes went up, and they got 10,000 held) parliamentary constituencies; Labour being pushed into votes overall in the third place in Streatham. East End. The LaWhilst Tory voters stayed at bour victory and home, many Labour supporters the defeat of the from council estates switched to BNP and racist Libthe Liberal Democrats in protest eral councillors at the council's failure to deliver was won by the moa repairs service. bilisation of local Labour's campaign was awanti-racists and the ful, campaigners were few on labour movement, in particuthe ground and the central orlar security measures taken to ensure that Asians could ganisation was incompetent.
The national party imposed vote without racist attack.
manifesto, this time based on a After the local elections the Tories are a chronically theme of 'support our new divided and weak govern- team', explicitly attacked the previous Labour councillors ment. They will now, sooner and derided council services or later, be forced into anand workers. other humiliating change of All this strategy for failure leader. did was validate the criticisms The whole labour moveof the council made by the Libment must now campaign for eral Democrats instead of puta general election to force ting the blame where it was the Tories out.
required - with the imposition of Tory policies from central Much was made of reports of 'corruption'. Though the main evidence of this has been accounting methods common to most local authorities.
All three parties united to blame Labour councillors for this 'corruption' making it the excuse for a failure to deliver housing repairs.
The service had broken down but mainly because of massive privatisation recently forced through by the Labour group on the instruction of the party nationally.
We have warned throughout the witch-hunt against us that electoral defeat would be the inevitable consequence.
In previous elections the platform has always been opposition to the Tories with Labour winning in 1986 in the aftermath of ratecapping on a platform of defence of jobs and services; in 1990 on a platform of confronting the Poll Tax.
In the wake of ten years of struggle against the Tories Labour won all three parliamentary seats in 1992 gaining Streatham from the Tories.
It appears for some on the right, both locally and nationally, that losing control of Lambeth council was a price worth paying if it helped smash the left.
We now face an uphill task of keeping the 'new team' of Labour councillors from doing further damage to Labour's credibility by doing deals with the other parties on the council, of rebuilding the local parties in the face of further attacks from the right trying to blame us for their failures whilst having to defend council services and workers' jobs abandoned by Labour's leaders.