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Quitting: Anna Stewart |
Old guard poised for polls return
Labour looks to experience as leader bows out ahead of next year’s bid to regain power
THE Labour Party is considering bringing back a host of former councillors for the daunting task of seizing control of the Town Hall at next year’s council elections, the New Journal has learned.
The move comes as the Camden branch’s current leader, Councillor Anna Stewart, announced she will not head the party as it goes into the boroughwide polls next May. Her decision to quit as leader was broken by the New Journal in a web
exclusive on Monday night and transformed the Town Hall into a melting pot of gossip as councillors met for a full council meeting.
Cllr Stewart will be replaced at the branch’s annual meeting in the next fortnight, with Councillor Nasim Ali – a former mayor widely known across the borough for his youth work – tipped to take over.
Cllr Stewart said she would be concentrating on her career as an NHS manager when she leaves the council altogether next May.
“I’ve reached the position in my work where there is a good chance over the next four years I will be going for promotion and working in roles in the NHS which would be politically restricted,” she said.
“I wouldn’t want to get elected next year and then say a few months later that I have to stand down. I am of the firm conviction that if you are elected for four years, you do the job for four years – you don’t go off to Texas or something like that.”
Cllr Stewart was Labour’s first leader of the opposition in a generation, taking up the reins in the aftermath of the party’s defeat in Camden in 2006. She declined the opportunity to form a three-way coalition with the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives currently running the council.
“We had to go away and think about where we wanted to go after that result, what had gone wrong and my job was to stitch the party together at a difficult time,” said Cllr Stewart, who describes her spell as a councillor as “the best privilege of my life”.
She added: “What I am proud of is that we have stuck to Labour values and have held the current administration to account.”
Her departure has been considered within the party as a conscientious decision which will give the new leader fair time to organise a campaign for the steep task of winning back power. A couple of grumbling members still remember Dame Jane Roberts’ late exit from the leadership just months before her party lost control of the council for the first time in more than three decades.
Nevertheless, while Labour has been unable to win a series of by-elections, supporters remain optimistic that, if the local elections are held on the same day as the general election, the party will see a bigger show of support.
Several Labour councillors who lost their seats in 2006 are said to have shown an interest in getting back into action and have made tentative enquiries about whether they could be given a ward in which to fight the Lib Dems and Tories.
Former leisure chief Phil Turner is among names mentioned in whispers at the Town Hall. Opponents have suggested anybody explicitly linked with the perceived failures of the last Labour administration could struggle to make an impact. The Lib Dems are certainly confident they have done enough work in Labour targets such as Kilburn to repel the challenge.
They are within sight of winning overall control of the council, needing four more seats to edge into that previously unchartered territory.
Their Conservative colleagues in Camden, meanwhile, have moved to bolster their campaign for next year’s elections by recruiting candidates at an open evening held at Councillor Rebecca Hossack’s gallery in Bloomsbury last week.
Conservative leader Councillor Andrew Marshall said: “It doesn’t show a weakness to be advertising for candidates. It shows we are an open party. It isn’t our only method but we advertised at the last elections and, through that process, people came forward, got involved and are now councillors.”
He warned that if Cllr Ali was made leader of the Labour group, it would be a danger to “underestimate” him.
But Cllr Marshall added: “His challenge would be reaching out to people that are not part of what you would think his normal territory is. He is broadly associated with youth work and the south of the borough – and we’d have to see what he has to say about the north and north-west and issues such as planning.”
Lib Dem leader Councillor Keith Moffitt said: “Anna Stewart took over the Labour Party at a very difficult time for her party and she took on the challenge.
“If you are looking at another four years in opposition or four years working on your career, I think the choice is pretty clear.”
CNJ first... via Twitter
In a first for Camden, exclusive news of Anna Stewart’s resignation filtered around the Town Hall and Camden’s political parties after updates on the New Journal’s Twitter feed. You can keep in touch with breaking news in Camden by following us at twitter.com/newjournal |
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