The first official hustings today. The Pensioners' Forum is always a great gig - you're guaranteed a good argument, but unusually it wasn't the LibDem council coming in for most of the flack.
Emily Thornberry, Labour candidate for neighbouring Islington South & Finsbury, self-destructed in spectacular fashion during her introductory remarks. She mentioned that she would be speaking to Gordon Brown this afternoon and wondered if she could pass on the thanks of Islington pensioners for the one-off £200 Council Tax rebate he announced yesterday. The answer was a resounding no. Well, could she tell him "thanks, but it's not enough"? Again, no.
Instead of seeing that she had misjudged the mood of the meeting, Emily ploughed on regardless - "So, should I tell Gordon that pensioners in Islington don't need the extra £200 and he should take it back?" At this point the meeting briefly descended into chaos as the pensioners told Emily what she should say to Gordon Brown (in essence, restore the earnings link and give us a decent basic pension, not loads of means tested top-ups).
After that the rest of the meeting seemed quite calm with a few surreal moments as the Tories pledged to restore the earnings link and cut pensioners' Council Tax. Don't they realise that pensioners are all old enough to remember the Tories idea of fair local taxation - it was called the Poll Tax.
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