Local people were shocked to see Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Chris Nicholson putting out false information about the Livity special needs school in his recent political leaflet.
Nicholson comes from Surrey and has made a fortune working as a consultant to the global war industry. He is using his wealth to pump out propaganda in the hope of buying the parliamentary seat due to be vacated by Labour’s Keith Hill at the next General Election.
Nicholson claimed, untruthfully, that Labour has secret plans to sell off the Livity School site in Brixton Hill for housing. He claims I announced this at a meeting on the neighbouring Blenheim Gardens Estate where he was sitting at the back of the room after being made to sit down by the jeering audience after he attempted to make some rather crude political comments. No one else remembers me saying any such thing – and that's because I never said it. This was nothing more than a scare story this power-hungry Lib Dem invented for political reasons. He didn’t care how distressed his story would leave parents, teachers and children at the school. In fact, he knows nothing about the school – whereas I’ve been working with them for nearly ten years to improve support for the disabled children who go there.
The school itself has written an open letter to Nicholson taking him to task for his unprincipled political game-playing. The chair of governors of the school tells Nicholson in no uncertain terms: “The governors and head teacher were outraged to read the article on our school in your recent political leaflet. It is a great pity you did not care to step inside the gates and learn the facts from the head teacher or myself.
“The governors do not want the Livity School used as a political football. But I must point out to you that it was the Liberal Democrat-led council in the run-up to the last council elections which abruptly withdrew the site identified and previously offered to us by the director of education. As a result, the project to provide state-of-the-art education for the children in our community who need it most was set back by at least three years.”
I am still working with our Labour councillors to help the school find a new, bigger home, and we hope to see the present site used for a new and much-needed primary school in time.
I hope Mr Nicholson will now apologise publicly for making up stories that have terrified some highly vulnerable local children and their families. However desperate the Lib Dems are to fool people into voting for them, making up stories and using children as political footballs is surely wrong even by their low standards.
First published on www.stevereed.org.uk.
