London's Tories are using public money to fund cash hand-outs to defecting councillors.  At today’s meeting of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority Tory defectors Cllr Betty Evans-Jacas (Lambeth) and Cllr Bertha Joseph (Brent) were both given positions worth thousands of pounds in allowances. The defections give the Tories a majority on London’s Fire Authority for the first time.  They hope to use that majority to freeze fire-fighters’ pay and increase shifts to as long as 12 hours.  These are proposals London’s fire-fighters bitterly oppose. 

Cllr Joseph, who defected to the Tories in 2007,  is currently suspended from Brent Council for six months for taking charity money to buy herself clothes.  But that hasn’t stopped the Tories making her Deputy Chair of the Fire Authority with £19,000 in allowances.

Cllr Evans-Jacas continues to receive £16,259.  She quit Labour to join the Tories less than a week ago despite never expressing any discontent with Labour’s policies locally or nationally.  She had, though, come asking for extra allowances.  Cllr Evans-Jacas has a very poor attendance record at the Fire Authority and over the past twelve months put in only two pieces of casework on behalf of the Lambeth residents she represents.  She has now written to residents in her Brixton ward telling them if they want to see her in future they must travel at their own expense to Norwood where she lives.

The Fire Authority deal was stitched up by its controversial Tory chairman Brian Coleman.  Coleman was recently forced to admit claiming £18,000 in expenses for taxi fares – all of it public money. 

The Lib Dems, as ever, are all over the place.  While Lib Dems at the London level sought legal advice on removing Cllr Evans-Jacas from the Fire Authority, Lambeth’s right-wing Lib Dems sided with the Tories. Their leader even pointed out that in his party it’s not unusual for councillors to come along demanding extra allowances paid for by the public purse.

Speaking in Lambeth town hall last night, I warned the Tories not to take any steps at today’s Fire Authority meeting that could be interpreted as offering financial inducements to defect.  It could be that my warning prevented an even more generous hand-out to Evans-Jacas.  But today Cllr Bertha Joseph was elected Deputy Chairman of the Authority pocketing over £19,000 despite being barred from her own council, and Cllr Betty Evans-Jacas will take home over £16,000 despite a long record of failing to turn up and refusing to deal with casework from the people who elected her.  If this is what Tories are like in power I hope the country will learn before it’s too late.   

In the money: Evans-Jacas used Labour votes to get elected then joined the Tories