Bucking the trend

Posted by: Jules Birch

07/05/2010

Two of the biggest surprises on an election night of surprises came from two West London MPs who put housing issues at the heart of their campaigns.

Labour did better in the capital than elsewhere and the 2.8% swing to the Conservatives was the smallest in the country. However, the Tories still took six London seats from Labour and two from the Lib Dems from the list of 116 gains that they needed for an overall majority. 

Logically, Karen Buck in Westminister North (61st on the Tory hit list) and Andy Slaughter in Hammersmith (78th) should be joining the MPs packing their desks at Westminster today. Instead both actually increased their vote and the swings to the Conservatives were less than 1%.

Both had campaigned against regeneration plans by their Conservative-run local authorities that they claimed were an excuse to move council tenants out of the area and adopt a more market-driven approach to social housing.

Slaughter linked regeneration plans in Hammersmith & Fulham to a Localis pamphlet co-written by council leader Stephen Greenhalgh advocating the deregulation of social housing and used the Freedom of Information Act to reveal that senior Tories in parliament had met to discuss them.

The revelations were a key part of the attack on the Conservatives by housing minister John Healey that prompted David Cameron to explicitly deny that security of tenure and affordable rents were under threat. 

Buck has highlighted redevelopment plans by Westminster and accused Tory councils of trying to make homelessness disappear into the private rented sector. ‘Clearly, there is something being driven, particularly by inner-London councils, and from their point of view it is being driven by land values and a deep political dislike of having poor people in what they think should be expensive city communities,’ she told The Guardian last week. ‘I am absolutely convinced there’s a political motive too. They know [people in] council housing [are] not particularly politically sympathetic to them.’

The Conservatives hit back by accusing them of scaremongering and pledged to protect tenants’ rights in their manifesto. And Buck and Slaughter faced strong challenges from Tory candidates Joanne Cash and Shaun Bailey. Cash is close to Cameron and was even tipped by Tatler as a future housing minister while Bailey was brought up on a council estate.

I wouldn’t want to over-play the importance of housing in the campaign but it’s noteable that only two other London seats on Tory hit list failed to go blue.

Clive Efford held his Eltham seat for Labour while Paul Burstow retained his Sutton & Cheam seat for the Lib Dems. However, defeated Tory candidate Philippa Stroud could still have a big influence on any Cameron government as executive director of the Centre for Social Justice, the think-tank founded by Iain Duncan Smith that has advocated the end of security of tenure. Could she end up a key player working for IDS if he takes charge of welfare reform?

Elsewhere in London, Lib Dem housing spokesperson Sarah Teather was facing an uphill battle against Labour MP Dawn Butler for Brent Central after boundary changes abolished her old seat. She has just won it - could she be a contender for housing minister if there is a coaltion government?