Saturday 24 March 2018

Much done, much more to do - and an awful lot to lose.

I know I speak for all of us
when I promise we won’t let you down
It hard to believe that this BBC News report was filmed four years ago. But it was. I know that, like me, my fellow Labour councillors and our candidates, remain as determined now to make our residents proud as we were that election night, when local people across our borough hired us to do their bidding - and when I gave that interview.

These are challenging times but there’s much we’ve done: we’ve hired the best lawyers and health advisers in the country to join our fight to save Charing Cross Hospital. We’ve put the largest ever amount of council-funded police onto our streets in the borough’s history and we are the only administration in London to cut council tax over the last four years.

People sometimes think politicians are all the same. I understand why. But since our residents elected us into office in 2014 my colleagues and I have been striving to prove we’re different - by our deeds, not words.

In a few weeks time, on May 3, there is a real and stark choice on what happens to our community over the next 4 years. For many decades now our borough has only ever elected Labour or Conservative councillors. 

Whatever the rights and wrongs of our voting system, no other political party stands even a close chance of getting any of their candidates elected. A vote for any of them will help let the Conservatives back in.

The Conservatives are hoping you’ll forget what they did last time, so they can do it all again. So just a quick reminder of some of the things Conservative councillors did when they ran Hammersmith & Fulham just 4 years ago: 
We know that if we lose our hospital, our parks and our genuinely affordable homes, we will never get them back.

Some of the change we've brought
From the start, we sought to be ruthlessly efficient with taxpayers’ money. 

We took a tough approach to negotiating with property developers and won an initial £52.15 million for our residents by re-negotiating deals the Conservatives had already closed. Now, at this point, our hard-nosed stance towards developers has won our borough a record £310 million. 

We have cut £70 million of wasteful council spending. And we have built partnerships with residents, businesses and local institutions so we can get more things done together. So:
My colleagues and I are seeking to run a different kind of council, one that listens more and works with our residents to find smarter, more creative ways to take us forward. The Conservatives will just take us back.

The outcome of your vote on 3 May will have a huge impact on our borough and this neighbourhood for the next four years. There is so much to lose.

So on May 3rd,  please vote for all our Labour candidates. I know I speak for all of us when I promise we won’t let you down.