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If it ain’t broke, why try to fix it?
POLITICAL bullying is taking place at the Town Hall. In the sights of politicians are the elderly and the weak who are thought to carry little clout.
Those who fashion Town Hall policy – the leaders of the Lib Dems and Tories – have been working behind the scenes for months on a scheme that would see the end of four old people’s homes, including the home in Wellesley Road, Kentish Town, all to be replaced with two new and bigger complexes.
This was such a momentous project that the barriers of secrecy were put up around the Town Hall.
The outside world was not to hear of the scheme. Only a chosen political sect and a hand-picked set of officials were in on the secret. A similar sinister modus operandi lay behind the controversial decision to build a new school in Swiss Cottage. No one knew about it until the Town Hall announced it with a great deal of ballyhoo.
This time, however, the Town Hall couldn’t get away with it. A document outlining the end of an era for four old people’s home came into the hands of this newspaper.
In desperation council officials tried hard to persuade this newspaper not to publish the facts about the homes until next week. We put the public good first and decided to publish whatever the consequences.
As for the scheme, all kinds of persuasive arguments will be put to sweeten the decision – the new homes will be bigger and better, the old ones are not modern enough.
Lessons should be learnt from history.
Several years ago the former Labour administration wanted to close down the old people’s home in Wellesley Road, but protests by the inmates – supported by this newspaper – ended up in the High Court and the council lost the battle.
Where is the concrete evidence that the existing homes are so bad they must come down. As the saying goes, ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’
We suspect behind the proposal is a desire to sell precious land to developers at a high price, thus bloating the council’s funds, and allowing council tax to remain untouched.
Devious politics are at work. And as we said, the victims are the defenceless. That is why we regard this as an act of political bullying.
Where are the politics of consensual Conservatism and progressive Lib Dem ideology? All brutally by-passed in the name of progress.
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