Haringey Labour's AGM : 'changing deckchairs on the Titanic' - Hinchcliffe 16/05/07

At Haringey Labour's Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday, May 15th, a number of councillors swapped around their Council Executive positions.

Justin Hinchcliffe, of Haringey Conservatives, commented:

"Once again Labour has shown it has nothing new to offer the people of Haringey. After this AGM, it's a case of the same bums - but on different seats. But the same old failing policies carry on, regardless of which executive member is tasked with implementing them.

Justin was particularly scornful of two appointments - that of Cllr. Dhiren Basu, now Lead Member for Leisure and Culture and Cllr. Sheila Peacock, now Deputy Chief Whip and Lead Member for Planning.

"No-one on Haringey Council is ever held to account for their failures – they remain in office and get given new jobs or promotions.

For example, Councillor Basu was responsible for the £15m overspend on the TechFresh iT budget. In any normal organisation, he would have been sacked. But in dysfunctional Haringey he gets promoted - he should have been booted out ages ago.

Another example is Councillor Sheila Peacock. She has been 'had up' before the Chief Whip and reported to the Standards Board of England & Wales on a number of occasions. Yet she is allowed to remain Lead Member for Planning even though her conduct in that very role (her handling of a planning application from property developer Paul Simon) has been the subject of the latest Standards Board investigation into her own conduct.”

ENDs.