Camden News: Chris Huhne | Rhianna Ramdeen | Zahnah Hajjaj Brown

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Camden News - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 14 August 2008

Chris Huhne meets young people at the Haven Youth Café: Rhianna Ramdeen, Zaynah Hajjaj-Brown, Lusamba Tshilumba, Koryn Ferdinand and Shanice Okolo

Lib Dem’s crime pledge is undermined by ‘gaffe’

Party launches ‘Life’ plan at youth club where it slashed funding Party launches ‘Life’ plan at youth club where it slashed funding

THE Liberal Democrats have been accused of a major political blunder after senior party figures launched a youth crime manifesto at a Camden Town club whose budget has been slashed.
As visiting MP Chris Huhne claimed the Lib Dems had the answer to the recent surge in high-profile youth crime, party members from Camden were forced to answer awkward questions about why the Haven Youth Café had lost its funding.
Eleanor Botwright, the chief executive of the club in Castlehaven Road, pleaded with Camden Council leader Keith Moffitt for more help.
She said: “It’s becoming more and more likely we are going to have to start looking at redundancies or downsizing what we do.”
Labour ministers and rival politicians then seized on the chance to paint the event as a “gaffe” by accusing the Lib Dems of not doing their homework.
Mr Huhne, who has twice stood for the Lib Dems’ party leadership, used his visit on Thursday to launch “A Life Away From Crime”, which includes recommendations that teenagers should only be prosecuted for petty crime as a last resort.
He described Castlehaven as “a very good example of how kids can be caught at an early age and a good example of the kind of project that we would like to see across the whole country”.
He appeared unaware that it was the Lib Dem-led council which recently cut the club’s grants in a move which has left the future of a recently launched community radio studio run by the club in doubt.
Labour’s schools minister Jim Knight said: “I’m amazed Chris Huhne is choosing to highlight the Castlehaven youth centre today, when it was Lib Dem-controlled Camden Council who cut the centre’s budget by £25,000. Castlehaven is a fantastic project and the problems it faces in funding because of council cuts is further proof that the Lib Dems aren’t serious about tackling anti-social behaviour.”
Camden Lib Dem leader Councillor Keith Moffitt and his deputy Councillor Janet Grauberg praised the club, which serves the second most deprived ward in Camden and falls into the top six per cent of most deprived areas in the country.
Critics of the Lib Dem budget allocation have previously accused the them of boosting funding in wards that voted for them.
While spending overall in Camden has not been reduced, key services in the most deprived areas lost cash earlier this year. They included the Fresh juice bar in Highgate Newtown, the Samuel Lithgow centre in Regent’s Park and Queen’s Crescent Community centre in Gospel Oak.
Councillor Moffitt blamed Castlehaven’s loss of funding on the government after they cut Camden’s budget by £9million. He said: “I don’t have the power to conjure up more money from nowhere when the government’s just taken nine million quid from us – money that’s aimed at deprived areas – the Labour government has said we don’t deserve to have.
“It’s because we know there is a lot of deprivation we are putting more money into youth funding overall.”
Labour councillor Theo Blackwell described Lib Dem claims of a lack of support from the government as a “red herring”. Only two months ago, schools minister Ed Balls visited the club and called for more funding.
“It’s odd,” said Cllr Blackwell. “In eight months he (Cllr Moffitt) hasn’t mentioned it and now he does. Would that money have gone to Castlehaven anyway?”

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