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Real scaremongers named and shamed
• ONCE again the Tribune has come up trumps. By publishing one particular letter last week you have given your readers a priceless insight into the minds of Islington Liberal Democrats. I refer, of course, to Councillor John Gilbert’s diatribe on the Freedom Pass (Our Pass meddlers, September 7).
He excels at the tired old Lib Dem tactic of blaming everyone else to mask their own deficiencies.
In the case of the Freedom Pass, the Lib Dems on the London Councils group have joined forces with the Tories – surprise, surprise – to spread a little poison on the people of London and on the Mayor whom they dared to elect.
Thanks to Mayor Ken everyone over 60 and disabled people are able to move freely around London. The finance for this comes from the people of London via their local authorities. This is described by London Tories and their Lib Dem buddies as a “stealth tax”.
Many of us remember how the Tories scuppered Ken’s original Fares Fair scheme back in the early 1980s. This was a scheme to increase bus and Tube travel by cutting fares in London. The Tory government, with pressure from the roads lobby, engineered a legal fight by Bromley which ended in the scheme being scrapped.
The Tories were responsible for putting back progress in London’s public transport system by decades.
Now we have 21st century clones up to the same tricks… and this time the ranks of the Tories have been swelled by eager Lib Dems.
For standing up for the rights of older and disabled people and for believing in more extensive use of public transport in London, Councillor Mouna Hamitouche and I have been pilloried as scaremongers by Cllr Gilbert.
When it comes to scaremongering, the local Lib Dems and their failed parliamentary candidates are trying to scare people about Post Office “closures”. This is the same Lib Dem team which cares so little for older and poorer people that they have stopped taking cash at council offices and give people a gift of £20 if they can pay their council tax by direct debit.
Why doesn’t Cllr Gilbert trash his yellow badge and come out as a real Tory?
Cllr WALLY BURGESS
Labour, St George’s ward
• ACCORDING to the national electoral council of Venezuela, out of a turnout of 74.75 per cent of the registered voters 62.84 per cent (7,309,080) voted for Hugo Chavez in the 2006 elections.
In the 2006 local election in Islington 36.46 per cent of the electorate (2,763 people out of 7,579) in Highbury East, Councillor John Gilbert’s ward, voted.
Of these, Cllr Gilbert received 836 votes (30.25 per cent of those who voted or 11.03 per cent of the electorate).
So it is strange for Cllr Gilbert to call Mr Chavez a “South American dictator”. I would suggest that he do more research in future and qualify his statements with facts, something that most learn at school.
RANJANA PIERIS
Beversbrook Road, N19
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