Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Lydia taking the leap--I'm a Tory now!
Hello Harringay,
A few weeks ago a good friend in the Conservatives asked me to run under their banner in the local elections and I didn't laugh right in his face.
My original excursion into politics was in 2001, when I joined the Conservatives because I was so angry about the Victoria Climbie thing but then I left them in 2005 because:
a) I got fed up of politics and
b) I got fed up of the Conservatives (mind you I was just as fed up of the other lot).
When, a few weeks ago, I was invited back to the treadmill, I wasn't any better disposed to the political life but there is so much sh*t going on in this borough that I decided I couldn't ignore it any more. I don't fit that well into a Party mold but seeing as the Conservatives are the only group really serious about opposition in this borough and seeing as I am an Angry Old Woman, I decided that *someone* has to do something. Don't talk to me about the LibDems. The place for nodding dogs is in the back of the car, not in the Council chamber.
*If you want to follow me on Twitter, the address is <@LoveHarringay>
*If you want to get in touch with me by phone, leave a message with Tottenham Conservatives on 020 8374 6305. I'll get back to you. Or email loveharringay@gmail.com.
*If you want to discuss political theory, ring the LSE.
And from now on, you can be as suspicious as you want about anything I say.
btw:
I and my two running-mates, Sean Rivers and Massimo Rossini (NB--Rivers, Rivlin & Rossini make The Three Rs, which all good Conservatives support) will be putting out a leaflet soon.
The local party have agreed to let us write up our own stuff, so we are actually going to be working hard on it, ourselves. At least take a look when it lands on your doormat.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lydia R on
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I didn't singlehandedly do that St. Ann's thing--Mario was the mover and shaker--but I felt very strongly about it and I could get away with more forceful action as a middle-aged woman than he could have as a young man. We made a good team, Mario and I.
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Maggie, there is a whole stock of cut-and-paste slogans anyone can bring out in these situations. I can't remember them probably because I have no respect for them. I can tell you how I feel about things but not having had my hands anywhere near the levers of power, the statistics are not quickly to hand--and if I did start spouting them you should be more suspicious of me.
I can tell you, though that I think it a disgrace that Haringey doesn't have its own hospital, while St Ann's is still standing there, all nicely ready to be sold to a 'developer'--and that is definitely not the Conservatives' fault. I am not insisting that they would NEVER have tried it on but the fact is they didn't have any opportunity so you can blame them only by contorting your brain into a Klein bottle.
Not that a humble councillor will ever have much effect on those "Trusts", though. This is a problem which Government of any stripe could sort out if they were prepared to be bold but most go chicken when they get into power. Perhaps if enough people with a high enough profile do enough speaking out, things will change. That is why I want the opportunity to speak out.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Et tu, Lydia?
Why? What have you got against the Koberites? Surely they are following all and every Tory policy you could possibly wish for?
But I'm intrigued that you've been given total freedom by your local Party to write your own stuff and think your own thoughts. So can I ask you to set out what we'd see in your first 100 days?- if elected not only by the voters of Harringay ward but to lead the Council?
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Oh Alan, I'm not big enough to be an elephant.
As for the Koberites following Tory policy, well if that is the case then people should definitely vote for me, because I don't.
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Thank you for your encouragement TBD--
but I don't lay claim to that much in the way of guts. What I do have is chronic Democracy.
However disillusioned I become with humanity, I cannot rid myself of the feeling that it is a personal obligation on everyone to support a democratic process. Just look what happens to countries that have populations wedded to a particular orthodoxy and intolerant of any other point of view. It's disastrous.
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Permalink Reply by 1rk254kmc0kqw on
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I think the message that both the true left wingers such as Alan, and the Conservatives such as Lydia (as well as the Liberal Democrats) need to convey to the Haringey electorate is to avoid voting for Haringey Labour like the plague! They are incompetent, not really in touch with how Labour should be, and people such as Kober are in fact much more right wing than the Centre-Right Conservatives.
In fact, if you can equate Claire Kober's actions and decisions on a scale with Margaret Thatcher, Claire Kober is more right wing! (Except she does all she can to cover it up and shift the blame!).
Put it this way: Haringey Labour are more right wing than the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher!
Whoever you vote for, don't vote Labour!
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Lydia, just out of interest. Where do you see yourself in the political spectrum - Centre (like Cameron); Centre-Right (like Osborne) or Right (like the Tories in the 80s)?
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I was described by someone on the SGRA newsgroup as a "non-aligned libertarian", which I found enormously flattering and fervently hope I can match up to that honourable description. I cannot categorise myself in terms of recent political parties. I think that must be why Justin calls me 'unpredictable'. In many ways I am more a Harold Wilson-type socialist but I don't even agree with him all the way, either especially the way he messed around with the borough boundaries. I reckon he got carried away by his visions of the 'white heat of technology'. It was enormously toxic and the legacy hangs around us like a dead albatross to this day. I suppose I hark back to that government because it contained a generation of politicians prepared to discuss the issues rationally rather than get all foaming-mouthed fundamentalist.
Frankly I think that in local government, no-one should belong to a political party. It shouldn't work that way and it is a shame that it does.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Wouldn't you be better to run as an Independent? The party backing advantage needs to be offset against the burning hatred for Tories around here.
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I tried running as an Independent, actually, after the Peter Connolly case. Poor old Fred Knight died and I ran in Seven Sisters -- principally on the social services issue. I didn't stand a chance because it was between elections and the LibDems and Labour had nothing else to do. Furthermore the Labour Party were bussing supporters in from as far afield as Manchester to help them leaflet. If all the candidates were Independents and had constraints on how much help they got then it would be a level playing field, otherwise it is not.
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