Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea, May/June 2026, Newsletter (# 204)

1. Thanks to all of you, who voted for me, and my colleagues Vicky Asante and Daria Hass on the 7^th Unfortunately, we did not do well enough to get Daria elected. The result was:-

• Vicky Asante (Labour) – elected              1766
• Tony Belton (Labour) – elected               1680
• Claire Davies (Conservative) – elected  1673
• Joanna Hall (Conservative)                        1601
• Daria Hass (Labour)                                    1528
• Isabel Losada (Green)                                   986
• Ben Koh (Green)                                            930
• Matt Madden (Green)                                   794
• Antony Abell (Reform)                                 508
• Lucy Jones (Reform)                                    456
• Jonathan Aldwinckle (Reform)                  433
• Alexandra Ames (LibDem)                         288
• Elizabeth Watson (LibDem)                       279
• Teresa Norman (LibDem)                           255

Across the Borough the Tories won 29 councillors, Labour 28, with one Independent, who has already declared that he will vote Tory on major issues, and most significantly on the election of the council’s mayor. Why is the mayoral vote so important? Because on any tied vote, s/he has an additional casting vote, effectively giving the Tories 30 votes. Hence, whilst the media declared the result as No Overall Control, the reality is that the Tories won. The oicture shows the count at 4 am the next morning.

Ironically, Labour won a comfortable majority of the popular votes, 33% to 31%, but not of the seats – hence, if we had had a proportional representation system, Labour would have been the largest party, and would probably have been in coalition with the Greens. But that is crying over spilt milk territory. Unfortunately, thus ends Labour’s first four-year term of office at Wandsworth Town Hall this century.

2. Let me record, in passing, some of our achievements. They included:-

• Starting a meaningful council house building programme for the first time since the 1970s
• Using our powers under Council Tax regulations to relieve the 10,000 poorest Wandsworth households of the need to pay Council Tax at all
• Having the most generous Covid relief fund in the UK
• Being London’s Borough of Culture in 2025
• Encouraging and supporting the largest group of Ukrainian refugees in the country – and becoming a Borough of Sanctuary
• Opening in Springfield Park, the largest new park in London since the 2012 Olympic Park
• Introducing a generous ‘Access for All’ scheme enabling families on benefits to access swimming pools, leisure centres, and other facilities
• And all whilst keeping the main element of Council Tax frozen.

It will be our job in opposition to defend that record against any and all Tory attempts to cut services.

3. Our defeat will hit some of our fellow residents very badly and we owe it to them to consider lessons to be learnt.

• First, as always, is to have luck and timing on our side. As it happens, we could hardly have faced an election at a worse time than when Keir Starmer’s unpopularity is at its depth, whether deserved or not; or at a time when the American President decides, at Israeli bidding, to fight a disastrous, illegal war against Iran; or when the economy was more on its knees, recovering from Covid, Ukrainian and Iranian wars. Of course, we have also been lucky to the extent that the Tory party is as unpopular, as is Starmer – even whilst he’s doing the difficult job of keeping us largely out of the war in Iran.
• Then, of course, we have failed to counter the Green charge. Which reminds me that 2 weeks before the election, I bumped into the Green’s most successful candidate here in Battersea Park, Isabel Losada. I suggested to her that their intervention in Wandsworth could mean that the Greens would take votes from Labour and, as a consequence, let the Tories win Wandsworth. She summarily dismissed that argument, but actually the 100 odd extra votes she won, compared to her colleagues, and probably from Daria Hass, Labour’s losing candidate, was sufficient in itself to give the Tories the one seat they needed to be in the majority and to win both ward and Borough – from the Green’s perspective a Tory victory – and no Green councillors – was absolutely not the result they would have wished.

• The Green vote, across the Borough, was so large that it was probably the main reason six, or so, other Labour candidates lost to the Tories – without the Greens becoming the force that they are, Labour would have won Wandsworth with a comfortable majority, probably some 34 to 24. It is not good enough, however, for Labour to vent all its anger on the Greens. They have every right to stand for election and to win, as they have done in neighbouring Lambeth. We have to beat them in the ballot box; denying their right to stand and objecting to their very existence is not the way to victory. It is just calamitous that Labour Wandsworth, with its excellent record on green issues, has fallen to the Tories because of this intervention by the Greens.
• On election day itself, I realised that things were not going well when a traditional Labour-type elderley man, and his wife, announced that they had already voted, and they had voted for Reform. I am pleased to say that Reform did not do well in Wandsworth. Their literature was so uniformly negative, I wonder how anyone but the most miserable misanthropes could ever wish to support them. It’s surely indicative that the parts of the country, where Reform candidates were most successful and took control of councils, are precisely those parts of the country finding it difficult to cope with the modern world. Those, generally the most depressed, areas of Britain need massive suport from the rest of us. In my view the Government are right to distribute money away from the wealthy south-east, and to mitigate the north:south inequalities across the country. Until this regional inequality is addressed, the Reform Party will continue to be a threat.
• And as for the Liberal Democrats, the day really was almost as gloomy for them, as it was for the other two traditioal parties. They were beaten into fourth or fifth spot in nearly all Wandsworth wards – fifth in Battersea Park, well beaten by Reform. The major, shining exception was Thamesfield – essentially the Putney riverside – where they were within 100 or so votes of beating the Tories.
  

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4. The overall result was, of course, in many ways a triumph for Wandsworth’s Labour party. No political analyst would have forecast in 2022 that Wandsworth would be the fifth strongest Labour Borough in London by 2026. Traditionally we have been more used to being the 18^th or 19^th strongest – but now we have more Labour councillors than in traditional strongholds such as Lambeth and Lewisham and the same number as in Southwark. Amazingly, we are now second to surprisigly Labour’s strongest south London Borough – Merton, where Labour had a comfortable majority, with their 32 councillors.
   

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5. But the bitter truth is that we lost, and now we are going to have to defend our achievements of the last four years and defend civic services against the inevitable cuts, that we know the Tories will try to introduce. We know that we will get support from the many of you who voted for us last Thursday and so once again a heart-felt thanks from Vicky Asante, (on the right) Daria Hass, and me, Tony Belton.
   

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6. On Saturday 9^th May, Penny and I went to The Arding Rooms Open Day, in the old, now converted and modernised Arding & Hobbs building – and my word what a fantastic job ‘they’ have made of it. The jewel in the crown is the roof terrace, which on this occasion, with great views over Battersea, beautiful gardens, and on Saturday wonderful weather, was magnificent – though this picture doesn’t really do it justice. The rest of the building is full with meeting rooms, a bar, a restaurant, lounges, and an exercise area. It is Battersea’s version of a private London club. It is a bold and classy venture. I wish it well but I wonder whether the local population and business community can sustain it.
   

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7. Monday 8^th was our first induction day as newly elected or re-elected councillors, full of all the form-filling and pleasant introductions that you might expect on such a date, but at this point you must be wondering why this newsletter is appearing so early. The reason is because in a few hours’ time Penny and I are off to Rio de Janeiro and will not be back until next month. Pen was invited to give a lecture both in Rio and in Belo Horizonte(about 400 miles inland from Rio), and as someone had to do the job of accompanying her, I volunteered.
   

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My June Programme

My June strangely enough starts with a couple of days in Paris, as Pen has a Conference there, and once again I have decided to make the sacrifice of ensuring the she doesn’t get lost. But subsequently my programme is in the lap of the gods, or rather the Tories, who are yet to announce their plans for Council activity in the coming months.

Did you know?

Last month, I asked, “just where was Battersea’s specially built Temperance Billiards Hall – built in 1922 and used for many years for bingo and snooker – and what is its current use?”

The answer is this splendid rather unremarked building on Battersea Rise. It is, of course, now The Goat, a successful pub, making an attractive addition to the local scene. Two people gave the correct answer, both claiming it was easy! 

And this month?

We know from the above that this year’s council election was one of the closest votes in Wandsworth’s history, with 29 Tory, 28 Labour, and one independent councillor elected. But there has been, in Wandsworth’s history, an even closer result. Do you know when that was? And what the result was? And what was the way out of the ensuing conundrum? Big clue – in those days there were 60 councillors as opposed to today’s 58.

PS For back-dated numbers, web-search ‘Tony Belton’ to access my blog: to sign on for future copies email tonybelton99@gmail.com.