Why Harrow could still (just about) go either way on May 5

In the London borough where more religious faiths are observed than any other, Harrow Council’s Labour leader Graham Henson and two fellow candidates attend a birthday celebration for the Hindu monkey god,?Hanuman. Nearly 500 people were at Wealdstone’s Siddhashram Shakti Centre over the course of the day-long event, reciting or clapping to a devotional hymn.

Outside, making a video for social media,?London Assembly Member Krupesh Hirani, who represents Harrow and neighbouring Brent, explains that Hanuman, sometimes called?Lord Hanuman, is a symbol of strength for Hindus, and therefore of particular relevance at this time of international and domestic energy crises. He might a good talisman for Harrow politicians too.

There is a feeling that this?roller-coaster borough?could go either way. Despite the problems assailing Boris Johnson’s government and Labour’s commanding leads in London-wide opinion polls, Harrow’s Conservatives believe they have a chance of overturning Labour’s small majority by concentrating voters’ minds on local issues.

They have been drawing attention to the borough’s council tax level: the second highest in London after Kingston’s and increased for the current financial year by more than any other in the capital. It now stands at?￡2,042.09 for a Band D property, including a ringfenced ￡188.74 precept for adult social care and the ￡395.59 Greater London authority levy collected for use by Sadiq Khan.

Frank Leonhardt of Harrow Council Tax Campaign says the levy is much less fair in certain respects than the hated poll tax. "Consider retired people, hit with the same bill as a working family of six, regardless of their income. Or a hard working couple, with or without children, who are currently unemployed. Politicians will argue they should sell their house and move into something cheaper, which means move out of London. How can this be right?"

Henson says Harrow's high council tax rate is a consequence of receiving smaller government grants than inner London boroughs and an absence of big local employers, meaning less income from business rates. Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics observes that outer London boroughs were presumed by national government to be relatively well-off when local government finance was reorganised three decades ago, and notes a general incentive for councils in politically-marginal areas to spend more.

Defending his administration’s record, Henson says, “We’ve done all the savings, all the efficiency work. We’ve got to manage a number of things and invest in the borough too”. The previous Assembly member for the area, Navin Shah, who is also a former Harrow leader, acknowledges that voters identify council tax as a top issue in local elections. But he adds: “We have faced the worst of the austerity cuts. When they look at our grant funding, people realise it is not all the Labour administration’s fault.”

However, Conservative group deputy leader Marilyn Ashton dismisses such arguments as feeble. “I’ve never seen a council so badly run,” she says. Ashton argues that Harrow was particularly well-supported during Covid and accuses Labour administrations since 2010 of wasting tens of millions on unsuccessful IT and regeneration programmes. “We will do all we can to try to freeze council tax at least,” she says.

Both Ashton and her colleague Stephen Greek, who is Harrow Tories’ shadow council member for performance and customer services, accuse Labour of concealing wasteful spending. They, along with?Harrow East MP Bob Blackman, are making the most of allegations,?first reported?in?The Sun, that four council employees took “kickbacks” in return for the award of a contract to repair pavements which was not properly fulfilled. A police investigation was launched last summer. No one has yet been charged. On the strength of this affair, Ashton accuses Henson and his cabinet of incompetence and suggests there is a wider management problem.

“Harrow council wastes money," says Leonhardt. "Those in power make excuses; those in opposition claim they'd do it better. I believe it's more to do with the officers, who have always been difficult to control. Whether it's much different in other boroughs I wouldn't like to say”.

Conversations with voters around Harrow indicate that bread and butter local authority responsibilities are major election themes.?Rohini, a voter in the newly-created Centenary ward, shows a phone photo of a pile of flytipped rubbish sacks. Neighbours Karen, Ros and Janice chorus complaints about litter: “The alleyways between our houses – it’s disgusting.” Janice wants offenders sent on litter-picks.

The council has publicised what it says has been successful enforcement action against flytippers at camera-monitored hotspots and a ￡300,000 investment in its enforcement team. But Conservatives claim there has been a 63 per cent rise in fly-tipping in the past five years and that Labour has repeatedly blocked their proposals for a fly-tipping taskforce and free bulk waste collection. Ashton speaks of a “dirty borough” with “no effort made to get owners to clear land”, overflowing drains and “lots of rats”.

Housing and other development plans are also a touchstone theme. “If they don’t put up any more tall buildings, it will be fine,” says Abina, carrying her shopping bags, who lives in the marginal North Harrow ward. The Conservatives are running under a “homes not towers” banner. “They’re trying to warehouse people,” says Ashton, referring to?proposals?for replacing Harrow’s Civic Centre with 1,000 homes. “You can’t put families in tower blocks.”

Planning committee decisions over the past 18 months include the rejection of a 12 storey apart-hotel on a car park site that the council sold to a developer without going to auction, and a vote against a seven story development on Canon Park Tube station car park when Labour’s Cllr Simon Brown sided with the Conservatives.

Henson argues that the Tories began the consultation process on intensifying development when they?ran the council between 2006 and 2010?and that the dilemmas they were trying to address then are unchanged. “If you don’t build higher, do you go out into suburbia or onto the Green Belt instead?” he asks. Shah, an architect by profession, dismisses as “nonsense” assertions that only Labour allows tall buildings. The party will only back towers “in appropriate areas, in full consultation with local communities,” he says.

Another hot topic is the management of traffic on local roads. Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens and Independent candidates are for different reasons critical of the council's approach to emergency traffic-reduction measures introduced – without prior consultation, as government policy required – at the start of the pandemic. Four low traffic neighbourhoods and three pop-up cycle lanes were?removed?in May 2021 after operating for six months.

The decision followed a lack of support in surveys of residents, hostile media coverage and concern from some Labour councillors, such as Kenton West’s Ajay Maru, about the impact on retailers. Another Labour councillor, Peymana Assad, who represents Roxeth ward, thinks the council could have done better at making the case for the measures: “How can we convince people that it’s not about making life more difficult, but about the future – investing in electric vehicles and cheaper and more efficient public transport, and not having to wait ten minutes for a bus?”

International issues also influence political preferences in Harrow. During the 2019 general election campaign, Hirani had doors slammed in his face due to voters’ unhappiness with a Labour conference motion about the?conflict in Kashmir.

There’s optimism among Labour figures that Hindu voters who felt alienated have now returned to the party, with Keir Starmer's different stance to his predecessor on foreign policy issues, and following engagement work with temple congregations. However, there may be an ongoing trend of Hindu voters towards the Conservatives, for socio-economic reasons and thanks to the efforts of the exuberantly pro-India Bob Blackman MP.

Personal standing in a community can count for much in Harrow. The Conservatives hope this will assist them in Rayners Lane ward, where one of their candidates is Thaya Idaikkadar, once a Labour councillor then part of a breakaway Independent Labour group. He led the council for a while with Tory support.

Idaikkadar enjoys backing among fellow Tamils – a significant minority in the ward – having gone on hunger strike in 2006 over the?conflict in Sri Lankan of that time. However, one of his local opponents is Krishna Suresh, known as “London Baba”, a part-time actor and film director who has starred in a string of Sri Lankan movies and?speaks up for Tamil heritage. His councillor wife?Sasi Suresh?is Harrow’s deputy mayor.

As well as candidates drawn from the biggest minority communities, there are efforts to truly diversify Harrow local politics, which has been criticised as fusty compared to other London boroughs. Eleven graduates of a local Labour Party training and mentoring programme set up by Cllr Assad are standing, including hopefuls aspiring to be Harrow's first Bengali and Somali councillors.

Which party will come out on top on 5 May? Hatch End councillor and London Assembly Tory group leader Susan Hall said at Easter she thought it would be close. Maru, facing a tough fight to defend his seat, reached for a cricket metaphor: “Until the last ball is bowled, you don’t know”. There are mixed reports about the effect of national issues, from habitual Tories telling Labour campaigners they are dismayed by Partygate to Marilyn Ashton's assessment that in spite of the little affection they might have for the government, voters recognise that electing Conservatives locally is the only answer to many of their gripes.

Boundary changes, including a reduction in the number of seats by five, add further uncertainty. Politically, control of the borough is split roughly along the lines of its two parliamentary constituencies, Harrow West held by Labour’s Gareth Thomas since 1997 and Harrow East by Conservative Bob Blackman since 2010 (three Conservative-held wards fall in neighbouring Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner). Harrow-on-the-Hill ward has lost some Labour voters to the Grange Park Estate regeneration, but its former local councillor and Conservative deputy group leader Barry Macleod-Cullinane has sensationally urged residents to back the Labour candidates. "I can't stand by and watch as Boris Johnson destroys?the Conservative Party that I've supported all my life," he writes in an open letter.

The Tories say they are better co-ordinated across the whole borough than before, while Labour internal ructions have seen Blackman’s defeated general election challenger Pamela Fitzpatrick expelled. The 2018 local elections were a record performance for Labour in Harrow, party figures caveat. At the same time, Harrow is not immune to Greater London’s long-term pro-Labour trends, which?may not yet have peaked. Both main parties will be hoping for help from Hanuman tomorrow.