My Time As A Member Of Lewisham Council Is All But At An End. A Few Thoughts.

I failed to be selected in the new Deptford ward, which was set up following the recent review carried out by the Boundary Commission.  This means that my 24 year stint as a Member of Lewisham Council will come to an end on election day, May 5th.  If I were to have the opportunity to make a valedictory speech and chose to take advantage of it, it would have probably gone something like this, after stripping out the usual niceties that are obligatory on such occasions:

Having failed to be selected by the Labour Party to contest next month’s Local Council elections in Lewisham, my political career will therefore shortly be coming to an end.  Over the past month or so I have thought about my 24 years on the Council and the manner of my departure.  I would like to offer a few of these reflections now.

I feel some gratitude to the Labour Party Members of Deptford ward.  By choosing not to select me to be one of their candidates they have given me a gift.  They have removed the burden of public office from my shoulders.  I have not had to decide to lay it down.  My conscience is clear.  Perhaps you have to have been a Councillor for some time to fully appreciate and have sympathy for what I say.  During my time on the Council, the role of Councillor has become far more demanding and the process of selection far more competitive.  It is difficult to excel and be seen to do so in this environment when you see the holding of public office as something of a sacrifice, especially when you are up against people who view it as a cherished ambition, if not something akin to drawing first prize in the lottery of life.

‘Salus Populi Suprema Lex’

This is the motto of Lewisham Council which roughly translates as ‘the welfare of the people is the highest law’.  I have always taken this to mean ‘put the people first’.  I have tried in my time on the Council to make this my guiding principle.  To me, everything else was of secondary importance.

Some people over the years and especially in the last few weeks, have privately said to me that I have the reputation of always speaking the truth as I saw it and doing it with unremitting frankness.  I am not entirely sure if they feel this is something to be praised or pitied.  To the extent that this is true, how can I explain myself?  Do I suffer from some kind of illness?  Perhaps.  Do I come from a long line, on both sides of my family, of working class, contrary, perverse, Mavericks who could not ever encounter any authority without wanting to kick against it? Absolutely.

The Bible says that the truth will set us free.  Lying, deceit, double dealing and trying to be all things to all people, by contrast, poisons the heart, binds the spirit and troubles the mind.

So, if I told the truth as I saw it or told a truth that I thought needed to be said and if I did it at times and in circumstances when wiser and better people would have had more sense, and if I did it with scant regard to the personal consequences, then I did it because I wanted to be free.

My father, sadly now dead for some years, was a Christian leader all his adult life.  As I get older, I realise that he has been my guiding star.  He used to have his own benediction which he would often perform at the end of church services.  He would raise up both his arms as he stood in front of the congregation and he would simply say with a big smile on his face, ‘We wish you all every blessing’.  What I understood him to mean by that was that ‘We’, the church, wish to one another and to our friends and family, to our neighbours and our communities and to the whole world, every good thing that life has to offer. Peace, joy, wealth (but not too much!), health and good fellowship.  But above all, love.  Love in your life that is pressed down and running over.  So much love that you can’t hold on to it all, so it flows out of you and enriches the lives of others and makes the world a better place.

I am not a preacher.  I went into politics as I didn’t feel that I was a patch on my father.  But as I get ready to take my leave from this particular stage as the curtain falls, I wish to say to the Mayor, to the Cabinet, to fellow scrutiny Councillors, to Officers of the Council, to all residents of our borough, to friend and foe alike, ‘I wish you all every blessing’.