Enfield
| TOP STORIES |  | | | | | | | FEATURES | | | | | | MAYOR NEWS | | | | TRAVEL | | | | COMPETITIONS | | |
|
|
|
Foreign Secretary on Mayoral election trail
 |
| David Miliband in Palmers Green last week (EL7710-431) |
THE FOREIGN Secretary met members of the Turkish community in Palmers Green in a bid to prevent the Labour Party from losing ground in the mayoral elections last Wednesday.
David Miliband, who, according to William Hill is the 2-1 favourite to succeed Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour Party, conceded there was a "real battle for the vision for the future of London" and warned that London's reputation as a "world class" city would be "frittered away" if Boris Johnson were elected.
He said: "I go all around the world and London is a source of great admiration and envy.
"I think people are asking what would a Boris Johnson Mayoral team be like - should London be his toy?
"London needs strong leadership from Ken Livingstone, not entertainment for Boris Johnson."
After spending an hour chatting to members of the Green Lanes business community on how business was going, Mr Miliband also revealed that a resolution to the Cyprus conflict was a "top priority" for Europe.
Mr Miliband was there to boost the campaign of Greater London Authority (GLA) member Joanne McCartney, who holds the GLA Enfield and Haringey constituency seat.
Ms McCartney has herself admitted that she expects the contest to be a close-run thing, having scraped to victory four years ago by just over 1,500 votes - the lowest majority of any GLA seat in London.
Her main rival, Conservative candidate Matthew Laban, has called his campaign for election an "easy sell".
Mr Miliband also did little to quell fears that the British National Party (BNP), which has been targeting such Labour strongholds as Edmonton in recent weeks, could gain the five per cent of the London-wide vote they need to gain a seat on the GLA, after clinching 4.7 per cent of the vote four years ago.
He said: "I am here because every vote counts - the BNP are running in these elections."
But he added: "Being realistic, 96 per cent of people are not voting for the BNP."
He also gave hope to Enfield's Cypriot population, estimated at nine per cent to be the largest in the country, calling the election of the left-wing President Demetris Christofias in February a "real opportunity" for a peaceful solution to conflict in the divided country.
He said: "Europe has made it a top priority, and the reason is there is a political commitment to achieve it on both sides. Both sides want to get on with it.
"What Britain can do as a member of the security council, EU and Nato and as a guarantor power, is to support both sides in seeking a solution."
3:42pm Thursday 24th April 2008
Print 
Email this
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
