In May,
Cllr Gould's 'coronation' as Camden Council leader came with plaudits
from Lord Mandelson and other local Labour Party luminaries. The
Camden New Journal reported: "Town Hall boss says she will be judged on her own merits and not 'New Labour heir' tag."(1)
Yet
perhaps both her backers and her 'performance on the job' betray an
alienation between her 'leadership' and Camden's tower block fodder?
Glaswegian
trade unionist Jimmy Reid said in his inauguration speech as Rectorof Glasgow University in 1972:
"Everything that is proposed from
the establishment seems almost calculated to minimise the role of the
people, to miniaturise man [sic]. I can understand how attractive
this prospect must be to those at the top. Those of us who refuse to
be pawns in their power game can be picked up by their bureaucratic
tweezers and dropped in a filing cabinet under 'M' for malcontent or
maladjusted. When you think of some of the high flats around us, it
can hardly be an accident that they are as near as one could get to
an architectural representation of a filing cabinet.” (2)
As a
newbie council leader Georgia Gould might not be personally
responsible for the Health & Safety failings of Camden's Tower
blocks that came to prominence in the wake of the Grenfell Tower
inferno. I would argue though that her 'swift and decisive' attempt
to remedy those Health & Safety failings by means of delegated
turfing out of people at unsocial hours without consultation from the
tower blocks bears evidence of bureaucratic tweezers more than a
friendly, “I am here to help you at this hour of danger”
handshake.(3)
Notes
- http://camdennewjournal.com/article/proud-lord-mandelson-hails-new-council-leader-georgia-gould
- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/still-irresistible-a-working-class-heros-finest-speech-2051285.html
- http://camdennewjournal.com/article/georgiagouldexplanation
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