Aileen Hammond

• YOUR fine obituary of Aileen Hammond recalled a period some two decades ago of intense and productive political energy in Camden, (A rebel without a faction, Aileen did what felt right to save our libraries, February 25).

Aileen played a central role in the preservation of the borough’s libraries – some of which came within an inch of being closed and sold off by the Labour-controlled council after its decision in 1998 to follow a private consultancy firm’s recommendation to axe several libraries.

Together with such councillors as John White, Gloria Lazenby, Ernest James, Gerry Harrison, Ann Swain, and other brave voices, Aileen persuaded 13 of her comrades from the Labour Party (to which she was intensely loyal) to overturn this misguided decision.

Aileen’s ideas were, and remain, hugely topical for a political age when we have a government which (to quote the former French ambassador to the United Kingdom) is built on lies, chumocracy and a post-Brexit retreat from relations with neighbours and the rest of the world (think Yemen) and an opposition seemingly unclear about its sense of direction.

As chair of her constituency’s Co-operative Party, Aileen shared her ideas widely across the political spectrum. What did she stand for and why are her views so topical now?

Her own words (taken from her writing for the Co-op) speak for themselves.

First: “…it makes one weep when in one news bulletin the improvement in air quality from the lockdown is mentioned as a good thing and, on the next, the reduction in car sales and shrinkage of air travel are reported as disasters”.

Second: “…post Brexit we are on our own and do have a big problem in not being self-sufficient in food”.

Third: “we believe in an economy where wealth and power are shared”.

Fourth: “A Labour government needs to be founded on a clear commitment to co-operative values and principles in which people are helped to work together in the interests of the whole rather than in competition with each other in pursuit of the chimera of never-ending and unsustainable economic growth”.

Fifth: “…we take the strong view that trade union rights should be enforced, particularly for the self-employed and in a landscape of precarious employment”.

Sixth: “At a local level council services should be reorganised as social enterprises. We should do for the whole of social care what Beveridge did for health”.

Seventh and finally: Aileen stood for the struggle for knowledge, truth, and evidence (hence the central role of libraries) and also for an end to factionalism.

The constituency Labour party would remember Aileen best by following her lifetime’s words and deeds.

TOM SELWYN,
Founder & Former Chair, Camden Public Libraries User Group