ISLINGTON

INDEPENDENT WORKING CLASS ASSOCIATION

Finsbury Health Centre - more Lib Dem hypocrisy

17th August 2008

Islington's Lib Dems are ‘campaigning' against the sell-off of Finsbury Health Centre. But who agreed to sell it off in the first place?

The Lib Dems are renowned for their opportunistic and unprincipled methods of politicking, with policies varying from one authority to another. They've previously claimed to oppose privatisation or council house sell-offs in Camden whilst enthusiastically doing just that in Islington. Depending on how the wind is blowing, they are also apt to change policies even within the same borough.

In Islington they gained their political base via their ‘Finsbury Declaration': to bring the Finsbury Town Hall back to the people of Finsbury.  They later sold it off, against the wishes of the very people who helped them to gain their seats in the council. They also campaigned against the closure of the St Luke's Library, but once in control of the council, sold it off.

Then they came up with the scheme to build 300 luxury flats on council estates in Bunhill, ‘in partnership' with EC1 New Deal, but when it came to the 2006 local elections, it was suddenly nothing to do with them.

It seems their sudden ‘campaigning' against plans to sell-off the Finsbury Health Centre has them equally attempting to mislead the people of Finsbury.

Steve Hitchins, who was the Lib Dem leader of Islington Council from 2000 to 2006, joined the board of Islington Primary Care Trust in 2002. He is currently the Trust's vice-chair (link). He, along with other Lib Dems on the PCT board including councillor John Gilbert, would have been intimately involved in the decision to sell the building, long before the PCT announced that it would do so in its Financial Report 2008/9, published in March this year.

Earlier this year, Clerkenwell Lib Dem councillor George Allan announced that he was glad that the ‘PCT had made up its mind what it was going to do', since they had ‘been waiting for six or seven years for them to do so'.  His only concern at that time apparently was that the building might deteriorate once the services moved out.

Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate Bridget Fox lays the blame at the feet of the New Labour government - just as Hitchin's did before with regard to council housing stock transfer, PFI and setting up the ALMO (Arm's Length Management Organisation, a stepping stone to full-blown privatisation of the management of council housing).

The Lib Dems again will again say ‘nothing to do with us' when, as usual, they are not only very happy to implement the New Labour policies they claim to oppose, but are also intent on showing New Labour they can do it more efficiently than they. 

17 August 2008 08:26