A Letter From A Labour Activist
By Mike Ashworth | February 14, 2012
A few weeks ago, our local planning committee made, in my opinion, a horrendous mistake by approving a new Asda store in Cheylesmore, Coventry.
What follows is a letter from a young man called Richard Walls, a Labour activist in my local community, to Councillor Kevin Maton (Lab), the chair of the Planning Committee at Coventry City Council (under labour control)
Richard has been kind enough to let me reprint this so that others can understand what has transpired and how he feels this decision has let down both the residents of Cheylesmore and those that support the Labour Party. Here is that letter.
Dear Cllr Kevin Maton,
I am writing to you, as an active member of the Cheylesmore Labour Party, to express my severe disappointment at your decision to cast your decisive vote against the views of the majority of residents in Cheylesmore and support the development of an ASDA supermarket on the site of the former Cheylesmore Pub. As somebody who has canvassed opinion on this matter for well over four years I can assure you that you have done the residents of Cheylesmore a permanent disservice and in so doing paved the way for the community’s decline.
My dismay is exacerbated by the fact you are a Labour Councillor. Now I am all too aware that the planning committee is not a politically partisan body, but when such a contentious and controversial issue as this comes before you one would expect an elected representative to be guided by the values and standards on which they stood for election. May I kindly remind you of Clause IV in our constitution:
‘[The Labour Party] believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few.’
Sir, for many years now, residents have campaigned vigorously against these proposals and so I cannot overemphasise the overwhelming opposition. Were you at ASDA’s presentation at the Cheylesmore Community Centre you would have seen as such. Indeed, as a local survey of over 900 people showed, Cheylesmore wanted nothing to do with ASDA. I therefore respectively ask you to explain why your casting vote was against local wishes in favour of vested corporate interests?
You will of course fall back on ASDA’s argument that the community is served best by increased competition. Councillor, how is it in the interest of Cheylesmore to have a gargantuan profiteer, with a store only a mile away, bleed a much loved community parade dry? People may very well use the ASDA store frequently in the future, but it will not be because they are ‘voting’ with their pockets; it shall be because they are being coerced to do so by the squeeze in living standards enforced by the very people our party is supposed to be protecting them from. By casting your vote for ASDA you have fired the starting gun on a race to the bottom which will only serve to undermine the sense of community our party is striving to save. How can we in the Cheylesmore Labour Party seriously stand on the doorstep come election time and argue that we are ‘On your side’ as we propose to be? I would very much welcome you to attend our next meeting and offer suggestions.
Indeed, may I remind you of Ed Miliband’s words only yesterday:
“My speech today is about values, and it’s about values in tough times, and it’s about how you deliver fairness in tough times…the Labour Party stands for fighting for fairness and fighting injustice and these commitments are now more important than ever…I believe in a simple truth; that politics can always make a difference.”
As one of the 16-24 year olds who has known what it is like to get a university education and then spend months on job seekers allowance after graduating looking for even the most basic job, I do not underestimate how difficult the economic situation is and how attractive ‘forty jobs for local people’ might sound. However, your role as an elected official is to see beyond the front of your nose so to be able to see the long term implications of your decisions. Increased competition is not merely about shops; what about the competition between community facilities which was so damaged by the loss of the Cheylesmore Pub? What about the competition between our youth facilities? What about the competition between competing visions of what that site could be used for?
It is often a criticism posed at this society that we all know the cost of everything and the value of nothing, but how are we in the Labour Party supposed to counteract such criticisms if we then go on to personify them whilst in office? Cheaper bread may make life easier but it does nothing to enrich the quality of life and nor does it address the underlying issues of why so many people feel disenfranchised. When politicians give up listening to the people then you can’t blame the people when they stop listening to politicians. Your casting vote essentially made a mockery of the very democratic process which was supposed to protect us.
Ultimately, none of this matters very much. After all, it’s not your children who are growing up here and it’s not your community that’s being eroded. That said, it should concern you that someone from a new generation of Labour will be having to argue on the doorstep come election time why our chosen candidate is so very different to the opposition; an opposition which consists not of Conservative councillors, who rightly fought to have their residents views heard, but of a Labour councillor who has violated the very principles he claims to uphold.
Councillor, remembering the past and building the future are indeed one of the same thing. It is my suspicion, that in forgoing the very values which brought you into office, you have condemned the community to which I owe my upbringing to a slow and gradual decline into sterility. True poverty exists not in a lack of bread, but in the abundance of loneliness and isolation that permeates societies where the price of milk shall always trump the price of true happiness, quality and opportunity.
Your loyal conscience,
Richard Walls
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