Kilburn carnage both sides of High Road
WINNERS and losers at last week's council polls agree that national troubles for Labour and the slickness of the Lib Dem vote-gathering machine have transformed the political landscape of the Kilburn area.
Once a Labour stronghold scattered with isolated Conservative outposts, the A5 corridor has gone orange from Queen's Park through to Fortune Green, leaving only a sprinkling of Labour survivors and a Tory hardcore in Swiss Cottage.
The two Kilburn wards that straddle the Brent and Camden border along the Kilburn High Road, have been caught up in the Lib Dem tide, with Cllr Mary Arnold in Brent the only survivor of six Labour incumbents in wards that were once seen as rock-solid.
One of the Lib Dem candidates to benefit from the Labour collapse was new Camden Cllr Janet Grauberg. Asked to explain the dramatic shift, she said: "I don't think there is a demographic issue. I've lived in Kilburn on and off for 15 years and I haven't noticed any changes in the people who live here.
"I think this is more a case of Labour not listening to the people of Kilburn and not being seen to be working for them.
"People in Kilburn felt that they'd been taken for granted by Labour - that whatever the town hall did or didn't do for Kilburn, they would vote Labour anyway.
"There were a number of issues for Labour voters - the Iraq war, the NHS nationally, the ALMO for Camden - and the Lib Dems had become a credible alternative. Sarah Teather (Brent East Lib Dem MP) had a positive impact on the Lib Dems in north west London."
Cllr Arnold surveying the electoral carnage that had stripped her of colleagues, acknowledged the effectiveness of Lib Dem campaigning while stressing Labour's horrific week in the national press.
She said: "In terms of the council's performance, nearly everybody on the doorsteps agreed that services were OK - but they were not happy about other things. There were quite a few Green votes - which could be people fed up with politics and politicians.
"We have strongholds, especially in South Kilburn, but reaching that support was made harder by the coverage in the national press.
"There is also the Teather factor - there's a machinery that the Lib Dems have got for producing leaflets and campaigning, for bringing people in to canvass."
Although reluctant to agree that Labour had been complacent in Kilburn, she acknowledged that progress on the Kilburn Partnership, designed to boost the High Road area, and the Kilburn youth forum had not had the effect on voters that it could have done.
She added that work in partnership across the borough boundary would continue to be essential whatever the political make-up of the area.
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