LETTER: Not the scent of a rose

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 16th Jul 2004

It has only been seven short years since New Labour and Tony Blair swept into power. Shortly after being elected, Tony made brash statements about how he was going to bring this country into the 21st Century. However, even at the stroke of midnight things started to go wrong; the Millennium Dome was doomed. It ended up costing the taxpayer nearly a billion pounds. As time marched on New Labour and Tony Blair's fortunes have waned. How thin this marketing ploy of New Labour has proven to be and how expensive!

His spin machine proved ineffective in the face of the Iraq war and during the following enquiries everyone was to blame, even the BBC. Whilst heads rolled in the private sector, in Government the punishment was promotion.

Labour's transformation from red flag to red rose has ended up as a thorn in its side and ours too. In an attempt to reinvent itself, Labour ditched the word 'New' and deleted Tony Blair from much of its literature, showing how deep the thorn has penetrated. In an attempt to salvage some credibility in elections, they even had to reinstate Ken Livingston into the Labour party. In the past few weeks we have had European, GLA, local council, and two Westminster by-elections, all a catastrophe for Labour. But the New Labour arrogance lingers on like a pungent smell, not the scent of a rose.

Power corrupts and it has manifested itself in Hounslow's Labour group. We see Labour voting itself a huge pay rise, lavishing money on new furnishings and employing more full time staff for it's new Executive. This increase was obviously not sufficient, as some of them are still reluctant to attend important meetings. We also hear of Labour members flouting planning laws, and their new amusement seems to be squabbling among themselves and reporting each other to the Standards Committee.

Under Labour we have seen Council services decline. However, there have been two large increases, Executive Councillors' salaries and the Council Tax. As a result of Gordon Brown's budget statement, future increases have been forecast of at least 8% per annum for the next three years.

After 34 years of Labour rule can we really afford, as a Borough, to allow this abuse of power to continue?

Cllr Peter Hills