Islington Green Party has this week exposed an event aimed at encouraging women to become councillors in the borough as little more than a recruiting exercise for the local Labour Party – paid for by taxpayers’ money.
Islington’s Labour party councillors have been promoting the ‘Be a Councillor’ event which they claim is aimed at “all women who live or work in Islington”, apparently funded with council tax payers’ money and being held on Council premises. A full-colour flyer for the event promotes four Labour councillors including Councillor Catherine West and a Labour councillor from outside the Borough, plus an Islington Lib Dem councillor, presumably for ‘balance’. There are no representatives of other political parties, still less are any independent councillors included in the event. In reality, this seems to be a recruiting exercise for the Islington Labour Party.
What is more, the event is to be held from 3.30-6pm on a weekday – a time when women who work full-time will be at work. And when women who care for school-age children will be collecting them from school and feeding them.
Caroline Allen speaking for Islington Green Party said “While it would generally be a good thing to encourage more women to become councillors, Islington already has one of the highest percentages of female councillors in the country. Not only are Islington Council wasting taxpayers’ money on what appears to be a recruitment campaign for the Labour party, they are doing so at a time when the vast majority of ordinary women will be unable to attend.”
