The Tories should clean up their act

Conservatives have voted against cleaners receiving the London living wage. How exactly does this fit into their 'progressive' agenda?
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The leadership of the Tory party is attempting to do everything possible to nationally camouflage itself as a "progressive" party. David Cameron claimed that they are: "making this party the true force for progressive politics in Britain today." The core of this "progressive" agenda was spelt out precisely: "That's why we've spent the last few months setting out, patiently and consistently, the big idea on which we'll build our plan for government. That idea is social responsibility."

But as everyone knows it is actions that count, not honey-spun words. If anyone throughout the country wanted to know the reality behind carefully crafted phrases they need only consider the whole series of actions and policies currently being adopted by the London Tory party - it would, of course, be very interesting to see the situation with the rest of the country as it would probably present a similar picture.

A good starting point was this Thursday's meeting of London's fire authority, which voted on the Fire Brigade cleaners' pay.

Here it was proposed to pay the cleaners no less than the London living wage. The living wage has been published for the last three years and takes into account the higher cost of living, above all, housing, in the capital. Currently it is £7.20 an hour. No one has contested the figures in that entire period. Payment of this London living wage has been supported not only by the churches and trade unions in London and the bodies answering to the Greater London Authority, but by a large list of London institutions led by such names as KPMG, the London School of Economics, HSBC, Canary Wharf Group and Credit Suisse.

The Tory group on the fire authority however voted not to pay it to the brigade's cleaners - declaring that paying such a living wage to them would be "ridiculous". I've put that word in quotes so that you understand that this is their actual stated view, not just my interpretation of what they have said. Following the finance committee of the fire authority the Tory deputy chair of the authority Brian Coleman said: "Paying London Fire Station cleaners the London Living wage of £7.20, as Labour's Val Shawcross suggested, is just ridiculous."

It is of course a great example of "progressive" policies to describe the proposal to pay cleaners, one of the lowest paid groups of workers in London, a living wage as ridiculous. But at least Londoners now know what a vote for this "progressive" agenda means - a vote to cut cleaners pay.

Nor was this merely an issue for the Tories in London. David Cameron remained carefully silent on this matter when challenged on it by Tony Blair at prime minister's questions last week.

Interestingly the composition of the very fire authority that took the decision has also become a further illustration of the character of Tory policies in London. David Cameron has rightly taken to explaining that a party cannot truly represent the interests of society if it does not reflect its make up. Hence his repeated declarations that the underrepresentation of women and ethnic minorities in the ranks of Tories is unacceptable. However when it came to the make up of the Conservative nominations to the fire brigade board that took the decision on pay there was not a single black or Asian member and six out of the seven were men - a position the London Tory party has continued to defend.

As women and ethnic minorities are, of course, far more concentrated in low-paid employment than white men, the make-up of the Tories on the Fire Authority Board may well affect their view that paying (overwhelmingly female and ethnic minority) cleaners a living wage is "ridiculous".

Nor is it just from cleaners that the Tories want to take away money in London as part of pursuing a "progressive" agenda. London suffers one of the highest rates of child poverty in the country - disgracefully 41% of London children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. As I have almost no powers to redistribute income in London one important measure I have been able to introduce to attempt to alleviate poverty among those with children is free bus and tram travel for under-18s. As a further part of their progressive agenda the Tories have voted to abolish it.

If the poor, women, black and Asian communities, and children in London can expect to get it in the neck from the Tory party what about the other progressive touchstone the Tories have attempted to claim: the environment?

Here the most consistent Tory policy in London has been to oppose the congestion charge - the policy that has helped produce the shift of Londoners into using public transport, and is therefore one of the most important environmentally-friendly policies in the capital. Tory policy has now extended into opposition to the new development to the congestion charge, whereby it is graduated to charge a higher rate for cars with very large CO2 emissions.

In a similar move the introduction of a low emission zone to cut down on pollution has been described by London Tories as "a tax on business."

Finally, just to add to the picture, the Tory deputy chairman of the London assembly, Brian Coleman, demanded that the park next to Tower Bridge be turned into a multi-storey car park.

With such policies it is little wonder that the Tories voted in the House of Lords to introduce term limits to prevent Londoners voting for who they want in 2008, that they have suffered repeated fiascos in their attempt to get a candidate for Mayor in place, and that they want to discuss everything except the most important issues in London.

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