Going out from slavery - most Haringey LibDems not to stand again in May

[Adrian Essex]

The local elections for all the London Boroughs will be held on May 22nd this year. See this government local election announcement for the reasons why.

The Ham and High Broadway has published an article headed 

"Exodus of Lib Dem councillors in west of Haringey confirmed for May..." setting out that 12 of the 21 current LibDem councillors will not be standing for re-election.

That's a bit like a Premier League club losing a whole team and one reserve from its squad. How would Tim and Arsene cope with that? 

As far as Crouch End and Hornsey are concerned, we currently have 5 LibDem councillors, and the former LibDem Lyn Weber. Of the 5 LibDems 4 are not standing for re-election so we will no longer have the individuals we have come to know, Councillors Gorrie, Whyte, Strang and Winskill. The article does not set out who will be replacing them and I have not found the minutes of the selection meeting. Maybe they don't know yet.

But it seems to me that such a wide ranging change will have some effect on voters, which might well cause a shift in voting patterns. The shape of the borough lends itself to a political divide, there being definitely two sides to the tracks, with the West being markedly LibDem and the East Labour. Given that the East is slightly bigger than the West we currently have a Labour majority on the council, and indeed have had for over 40 years. Lynne did a pretty good job of setting out how badly Haringey has been run in those years. If voters react badly to the loss of so many familiar faces, and apply their feelings about the coalition to local politics then the 40 years, could push on towards 50.

Will this "exodus" affect the way you vote? Please answer our anonymous (and unscientific) survey on the right of this page.

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[NaughtyIrish75]

We just had a Lib-Dem canvasser knock on the door. My husband sent her away though before I could get any information from her. Sorry.

[Charles Wright]

Well Lynne would say that wouldn't she? And it seems perfectly reasonable to hold the Lib Dems to account for the impact locally of their decisions nationally. I don't know about any Lib Dem candidates, but details of the Crouch End Labour candidates are here: http://www.hornseyandwoodgreenlabour.org.uk/crouch_end_ward and Labour's Hornsey candidates are here: http://www.hornseyandwoodgreenlabour.org.uk/hornsey_ward

in my view as a Labour Party member i think these are two strong teams who will represent the area well and provide a positive contrast to the relentless negativity we've got used to over the past years of Lib Dem control in Hornsey and Crouch End. 

[Adrian Essex]

Just because Lynne is compelled to criticise by our tit-for-tat, punch-and-judy, adversarial political system, does not mean that she is not right. 

And I'm not so sure about the conflation of national and local policies - there's just the tiniest spark of hope left in me that local councillors might find it in themselves to act in the local interest, rather than toeing the party line. 

But if we are going to conflate the two then the things I'd look at would be unjustified wars, unjustified doubling of public spending, a massive and overwhelming debt burden, and the massive failure of supervision leading to a banking crisis, all arising out of the Blair/Brown years.

[twin spark]

 Lib-Dems pretending they are the only ones that can deliver 'grown up' politics, despite

having traded away all their totemic policies e.g,  a 40plus year push for PR commuted to a vote on AV,

and promoted the thin end of a coalition wedge as the only way to govern - they have shown us that it is a breeding for duplicity for sure. We suffer disproportionately in N8 with Featherbrain as our our rep. - she is beyond an embarassment  when she speaks in the house, bumbling inchorent.