Members campaign for a Fare Deal

Members across the CLP came out on 3 January to campaign for Ken Livingstone’s Fare Deal.

Under Tory Mayor, Boris Johnson, fare prices have surged upwards:

• A weekly Zone 1-2 Travelcard is UP £1.60
• A single bus fare is now UP 50%
• Many commuters are now over £83 a year worse off as a result

Pimlico, St James’s, Westminster, Covent Garden and Victoria, were just some of the tube stations covered by our activists across the constituency.

Our local party election co-ordinator, Charlie Smith, said: “The campaign demonstrated a real energy amongst our local members, and struck a note with commuters who are outraged by higher than inflation fare rises under the Tory Mayor.”

Westminster City Council cuts hit disabled people hard – September 2011

Westminster City Council received a damning assessment by the independent think tank Demos, as one of the three worst performing councils in the country, ranking 150 out of 152 care funding councils in England for the very bad way it is coping with the cuts.

Tory councillors have allowed the true cost of the cuts to reach the pockets of vulnerable groups. Recently, the council raised the eligibility for care, from the lower ‘moderate’ to the higher ’substantial’ and ‘critical’ levels of need, which could leave up to 3,000 local disabled residents without the care and support they need to be involved in our community.

Despite the report and months of campaiging by disability organisations, disabled residents, carers and families, the Westminster City Council ploughed ahead with the closure of the Westminster Centre for Independent Living at the end of September 2011.

Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, Leader of the Labour Group on the Council, suggested that the Tory council “needs to take stock of the swell of public support for this crucial service in our community and recognise the important contribution that it is making to the lives and independence of over 300 local residents and their families or carers”.

TUC NHS Vigil – August 2011

The Coalition’s Health and Social Care Bill is unpopular because it threatens the future of the NHS and could lead to the privatisation of the service. It also puts thousands of medical professionals at risk, and threatens to undo all the progress Labour has made over the past decade.

The bill has required hundreds of amendments, and yet it still isn’t fit for purpose. That’s why the TUC “Protect the NHS” vigil was such a success – people gathered outside of Parliament with union leaders, parliamentarians, doctors, nurses and members of the public to voice their opposition against the privatisation of the NHS.

Pimlico and St James’s Branch Chair, Charles Smith, said that “I joined the vigil because of the hundreds of conversations I’ve had on the doorstep about the importance of the NHS to people’s lives” and “the NHS is something we should be proud of and it needs strengthening, not selling off to private interest groups”.

TUC stop the cuts march – March 2011

Thousands of people joined the TUC “stop the cuts” march to demonstrate their anger against the Tories’ regime of cuts.

People are seriously concerned that the Tories’ cuts are too much, too soon, and that this jeopardises the prospect of economic recovery.
The cuts are also hitting the most vulnerable in society the hardest. Cities of London & Westminster Labour members marched under Constituency and Branch banners.

Local member Marc Bush said that “the Labour Party will always stand up for hard working people, families and those on low income, and being part of this march shows the strength of our support”.

St James’s Library

Westminster City Council has recently axed the St James’s Library on Victoria Street.

Local Labour members had campaigned extremely hard to prevent the closure, including through a very successful petition which was presented to the Council by Labour Group leader Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg.

The Library served a central role in the community – it was used by local young people, the elderly, parents, students, and tourists, and offered educational support and visits to schools and nurseries. Conservative councillors failed to consider properly the impact of the closure, which will leave thousands of local people without this essential service.

Local Labour member and Pimlico and St James’s Branch chair, Charles Smith, writing in the Westminster Chronicle, said: “It’s outrageous that the council is spending over a £1million a year on eleven campaigners and expensive consultants, as this amount could keep the library open for the next three years.”

Labour urged local members and constituents to contact their local Conservative councillors, to hold them accountable for this bad decision.