It wouldn’t be the first time the local Labour Party’s dropped its own official candidate, so there was more interest than surprise yesterday, when the Party’s official Twitter account appeared to be calling on members to help them STOP John Biggs being elected as Mayor.
Whether they mean to tweet “help us to get [him elected]” or that the first “step” was to get Biggs elected isn’t clear, and perhaps the answer is not to tweet in the early hours of the morning. There’s nothing like a good night’s sleep to get those fingers working accurately on the keypad (we’ve been told). As the tweet has disappeared from Labour’s Twitter account, we’ll probably never know.
However, it’s not just the Freudian slip that makes the Tweet interesting.
The exchange began with Labour’s Tarik Khan passing on the news that John Biggs had pledged to make free school meals available to all primary school pupils in Tower Hamlets. This was a pledge contained in the Labour Party manifesto in the May 2010 elections, in which they retained control of the Council. Despite running the borough, Labour did not implement this pledge.
In the autumn, Labour’s candidate for Mayor stood on the same manifesto, originally used in May. Lutfur Rahman (chosen by local members to be the Labour candidate, but then chucked out by Labour’s national party bosses) stood on the same manifesto. Mayor Rahman’s first budget came in May 2011: Labour found fault with it, but did not call for the introduction of free school meals. Mayor Rahman’s second buget came in May 2012: again, Labour did not rebuke him for lack of free school meals. Finally, in 2013, Mayor Rahman announced that he would use some of the public health money to fund free school meals for, initially, pupils in Reception Class and Year 1. Was Labour jubilant, rushing to congratulate Mayor Rahman for implementing part of their manifesto? No.
Labour had a commitment to free school meals (for primary pupils) in its 2010 manifesto, but did not take any steps to implement its manifesto commitment. Now that commitment is in its manifesto all over again. So now it’s there again, surely Labour will rush to implement it? How do we know? Literally, how do we know – because although Labour has said it will provide these free school meals, it hasn’t said what other service it will cut. Clearly there’s no great surplus in the budget to fund free school meals: more cuts are coming from central government, and Labour has in any event claimed there is a “black hole” in the Council’s finances which they say will need to be filled. Without knowing what will be cut to fund the free school meals, how can voters judge Labour’s pledge? Labour has an excellent record at promising to provide free school meals, and Mayor Rahman has actually provided some, which Labour has studiously ignored.
But we were examining the twitter account. Comrade Khan’s announcement of the old policy being trundled out again was picked up by @conormmcauley, who teased that the Tower Hamlets Labour Party was now “catching up with Newham”. And Tower Hamlets Labour replied “We’re trying!”
Does Labour really mean that it is basing its Mayoral campaign on catching up with Robin Wales?
Probably not: it’s probably just another slip of the fingertip or a similar late night failure to engage brain before tweeting. Or is it the most sinister explanation of all: that Labour is just churning out what it thinks people want to hear?