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I was both aware of and interested in politics both local and national in the 1980’s. One of the big stories at the time was that of Lambeth Council in South London which was embroiled in a massive dispute with Margaret Thatcher’s government over limitations to local government budgets. The leader of Lambeth Council at the time was a man known as ‘Red’ Ted Knight who had been involved in far Left and Trotskyist politics since the 1950’s and who had during his early period in politics been expelled from the Labour Party because of the Trotskyist activities of Knight and those like him.

He eventually was allowed back into Labour and went on to become leader of Lambeth Council from 1978 until he was disqualified from local politics over a rate revolt conflict with the Thatcher government. Knight died in 2020 and was eulogised by former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, but his name has resurfaced in connection to what must be one of the biggest local government child abuse scandals ever to hit the London area.

According to an interim report released by an investigation into child abuse in Britain, during the time that Knight and some of his Labour predecessors and successors were in charge of Lambeth Council over 700 children were subjected to the most awful racial, physical and sexual abuse. This abuse took place in Lambeth Council run children’s homes and due to the demographics of Lambeth at the time many of the children who were abused were of Afro-Carribean heritage. This fact is horrendously ironic when you realise that Lambeth was one of the most leftist of the left of British councils and had a very prominent equal opportunities policy.

Throughout the early 1980’s the Left wingers of Labour run Lambeth put an enormous amount of political and fiscal effort in countering the policies of Margaret Thatcher. They had policies that were the progenitors of today’s ‘woke’ movement and Lambeth Council along with other similar Labour Councils were described in the tabloid press as ‘loony left’.

According to what is starting to be revealed about Lambeth Council in the early 1980’s is that they have had a significant problem with paedophiles gaining access to children in Lambeth Council care, but doing absolutely nothing to stop it. They seemed to be more committed to engaging in political fights with the then Conservative Party government than they were in ensuring that children were kept safe.

Even taking into account the fact that the past is a different country where they did things differently and that child protection is so much more advanced now than it was then, what happened in Lambeth was truly terrible. Lambeth Council didn’t even live up to the standards of the day when it came to caring for vulnerable children, let alone today’s standards. There are even claims that Lambeth children’s services allowed a man whose paedophilia crime had been uncovered, to remain working with children.

The scale of the abuse that has occurred in Lambeth is absolutely astonishing. It’s probably on a par with or even exceeds the levels of abuse that went on in Islington another London Labour council during the 1980’s and early 1990’s. In the Islington case members of social work teams started to hear allegations of abuse by council workers but when they took their concerns to the senior elected members of the council, their concerns were rebuffed. The initial reason that the concerns and the request by social workers for an investigation were budgetary. Also as I recall the Labour controlled Islington Council had, like Lambeth, an equal opportunities policy that heavily advantaged gay men and ethnic minorities there were concerns by some in the political management of Islington that exposing a paedophile ring in Islington would lead to the Conservative Government and the right leaning Press to attack the council and their equal opportunities policy. When the council did eventually investigate it put barriers up to a full investigation including blocking the investigation of gay and ethnic minority staff. Eventually after many years and other investigations it was found that although there wasn’t a paedophile ring in operation or ritual abuse going on, there was a culture of abuse in the council’s children’s homes.

Slowly but surely, even though it is taking decades to uncover, Labour’s dirty little secret of child abuse is being revealed. The situation in Islington has long since been uncovered and put in the public eye and now it is time for the situation in Lambeth to be revealed.

Whilst abuse can happen in children’s services run by council’s of any shade of political opinion, the Sir Cyril Smith case shows us that, it seems that Labour are mired in sexual abuse cases far more than might be the case if it is all just down to bad management as bad management can happen in any local council of any political shade. It’s notable that alongside Lambeth and Islington many of the councils where Islamic Rape Gang activity and other forms of organised child sexual exploitation are also Labour run and have been Labour run for decades.

All parties have or can have within them individuals who are nonces and all councils no matter which party runs them can have managerial failures that put children at risk. However, it is Labour councils that seem to have the biggest problems with such sexual abuse and Labour councils where abuse has either been ignored, overlooked or deliberately suppressed for political reasons. We should ask ourselves why sexual abuse and terrible management failures that put children at risk of abuse, are so commonly and so often linked to the Labour Party?