CNJ Comment - Days of Mills and boom are over – but what next?

Published: 10 June, 2010

LABOUR’S ex-finance chief, John Mills, was chided for building up the council’s piggy bank to around £80million in 2006. “We’ll need it for a rainy day,” he argued.

Number crunchers at the Town Hall this week are expected to announce that savings of £6-9m will be required for this year.

Though this will only make a small dent in the council’s kitty, councillors fear that next year and part of the following year will truly be “rainy days”, so rainy that the balance of £70m could be swallowed up. At that point, John Mills’ most prudent stewardship of Camden’s finances would have provided a safety net.

And then what? How will the accounts of the subsequent years be balanced? If the current national coalition is still in a cutting mood, and that is a probability, won’t Labour in Camden then face a whirlwind?  

Labour should get down to serious accounting now – to work out a strategy encompassing the whole term facing them.

We would hope this will be laid before the council soon.   Undoubtedly, old hands from the past will be brought in to help.  Perhaps, John Mills will be among them. But, admittedly, all this is fanciful conjecture. 

No one can predict what cuts the national coalition will insist on from local authorities. 

It may be a case of anything goes.  Except the unmentionables and untouchables – defence, Trident and tax rises for the super rich.

In a Newsnight discussion on Tuesday, in which two Camden residents, Gail Cartmail, senior Unite union official, and Tim Coates, library campaigner, faced a panel including Tory MP John Redwood, the prospect looked bleak.

It may be assumed that some Labourites in Camden fear they picked up a poisoned chalice on May 6.

Lansley's baby

THE new health secretary appeared to announce yesterday (Wednesday) his intention to end the four-hour waiting target for A&E and other hospital targets. Andrew Lansley, the soundest health chief since Frank Dobson occupied the chair, emphasised the need to concentrate on clinical care and “outcomes” rather than targets.