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By RICHARD OSLEY
 

John Sopel reads the CNJ on camera as part of Sunday’s Politics Show on the BBC which focused on the battle in Camden New Journal


Chief reporter Richard Osley


John Prescott claimed he was a CNJ reader
Jitters for Labour under spotlight

Election Special: one week before polling and Labour fear losing their flagship Town Hall for the first time in 34 years.

JITTERY Labour councillors are in the thick of a last minute drive to convince the party’s traditional support base to come out and save them from being drummed out of the Town Hall, the New Journal can reveal.
Reporters from this newspaper have been door-to-door in five close wards to see whether Labour supporters will stand by the party at next Thursday’s council elections.
In a rough straw-poll, of 500 voters they found:
• GOSPEL OAK – Labour leader Raj Chada is fighting against a Conservative surge as traditional supporters switch allegiance (see below).
• KENTISH TOWN – Liberal Democrats and Greens are closing in. Labour’s best chance might be a split opposition.
• HIGHGATE – Another knife-edge vote. Labour has pulled back support but still under pressure to hold onto three seats.
• CAMDEN TOWN AND PRIMROSE HILL – Labour support holding up better than in other wards but strong Lib Dem charge still being felt.
• HAVERSTOCK – Once a Labour fortress, the ward is now shared with the Lib Dems. Opponents hoping for a clean sweep.
Publicly, the Labour group are trying to stay cool but they know that they have their backs to the wall in what promises to be the closest election shootout in Camden for more than three decades.
Crucially, Labour only has to surrender nine seats – three wards – to lose control at the Town Hall.
On the surface, Labour should take heart in their long-held support in the borough and past success.
But a challenge for campaign managers is to convince grassroots supporters, that have served them so well in the past, to back them again.
The trouble they face is that significant tranches of that support are wavering.
On the doorstep, they are openly against unpopular national policies such as the war in Iraq, the spectre of privately-sponsored schools, the privatisation of council housing and the precarious state of hospital finances. Labour members locally are trying to pull the election fight back to local issues.
On Tuesday, in an unashamed election set-piece, Cllr Chada met Fiona Millar, the former Downing Street aide, for a photo shoot outside Gospel Oak Primary School at which they warned that the Conservatives would wreck Labour’s strong record on education.
But the New Journal research shows the Labour vote remains in danger of collapse with one-time supporters turning to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.
At the same time, the Conservatives have hit a surge of support and are clearly making ground in areas that Labour once took for granted. Conservatives are even making gains among council tenants in the closest wards.
• DEPUTY Prime Minister John Prescott has told voters that it’s not fair to punish Camden’s Labour Party for the government’s record on national issues.
In an interview with the BBC’s Politics Show on Sunday, Mr Prescott admitted that, two years on, Camden residents were still angry about the war in Iraq.
But he insisted that discontent on the issue was not grounds for traditional Labour supporters to revolt by booting the party out of the Town Hall at the May 4 elections.
Mr Prescott said: “Sometimes unfairly the national policy is interfering with the local. In Camden, they (Labour) have undoubtedly got a record you should be voting for. If they (voters) have difficulties about national policy, it’s not fair to put it on the local authority but its not unknown.”
He added: “It is said in Camden that people are upset with national government on Iraq and that might be the case. But we always hope that in local elections they will vote for a good local council. The fact is that if you put out that good council you will go to being a Liberal or a Tory one.”
On message, he trumpeted Camden’s response to anti-social behaviour and attacked Lib Dem Islington for being slow to use Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (Asbos) – effectively following the lead of Prime Minister Tony Blair who pushed the same line when he visited King’s Cross last week.
As Camden’s most incisive newspaper, the New Journal was asked to provide commentary in the same programme. Mr Prescott later hinted that he had genned up on local affairs by reading the paper, pointing to the New Journal’s letters page and the fact that some correspondents had written in favour of Labour’s record on education last week.
The New Journal was the first newspaper to point out that Labour would have difficulties matching past successes with analysis from the 2002 elections and the 2004 London Assembly polls spelling out trouble for the party in control.
The national media have since pounced on the problems that Labour are coming up against in Camden. The Independent, Evening Standard and Financial Times have all published stories suggesting that Labour’s grip on the borough is loosening. In many cases, information has been directly lifted from the pages of the New Journal including an article written by former Town Hall treasurer John Mills in which the veteran councillor urged voters to judge Labour on local issues rather than national disputes. More journalists than normal are expected to attend next week’s count in Somers Town in anticipation that Labour could lose out.
 
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