Author Archives: Gary Malcolm

Tory centralisation has failed us on Coronavirus. It’s time to consider the local alternatives.

By Gary Malcolm | Thu 25th June 2020 - 9:53 am

We have seen how the government has acted too slow to implement a lockdown and not given councils enough resources to be able to help people locally.

Coronavirus has also shown us how the Tory government believes it is best to deal with the Coronavirus centrally rather than making more use of local government. As a Liberal Democrat I believe strongly in localism – one of the party’s founding principles.

In Ealing, despite the Council being run by the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats have managed to take a more active role than many opposition parties. Liberal Democrats in Ealing have been able to make decisions locally that affect the people we serve during the Coronavirus period.

To deal with Coronavirus effectively, we need money and support from the national government – not dictates. It is important there is trust in the local government partners. Yet this Tory government has done exactly the opposite of that.

Firstly, on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): if we had waited for the government’s supplies to arrive, our care homes would have run out very quickly. Instead we bought large supplies alongside other West London boroughs so that our care homes had regular supplies.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged councils and Local government | 5 Comments

Opposition councillors can achieve real change in our community

By Gary Malcolm | Fri 1st May 2020 - 7:16 pm

In Ealing I lead a small but proactive team of four Lib Dem councillors who provide real opposition to the Labour-run council.

In these times where we are all trying to deal with Coronavirus, there are many ways we can help the community by promoting advice to our constituents, holding virtual meetings in our wards to answers residents’ concerns and scrutinising what the Council can do differently or better to help residents and users of Council services.

By campaigning in an active and smart way consistently, you can be an effective opposition party by getting the Council to listen to you and to introduce policies that will help people in your local area. Some of these include:

Reversing changes to Council Tax Support scheme that were causing harm and greater levels of Now more vulnerable residents are exempt.
Leading the campaign to stop Charing Cross Hospital’s Accident & Emergency ward from closing.
Highlighting a £1.1 million IT blunder causing the telephone system to stop working for a week and then leading the charge to enable changes to stop this reoccurring.
Extending the use of powers of local Ward Forum meetings which have a budget to spend on local matters including play facilities for teenagers, care facilities for the elderly and providing cycle training.
The introduction of one of London’s first ward wide 20 mph zones and other road safety initiatives.
Persuading the Council to be opposed to an expansion of Heathrow airport.
Forcing the Council to introduce a large number of policies which will help reduce the negative impact on our environmental from the Council and its contractors.