St Janes’s Church in West Hampstead

CAMDEN’S finance chief revealed frustration traced back to a Conservative candidate’s letter in the New Journal 19 months ago as he recalled a row over the location of polling stations in West Hampstead.

Labour councillor Richard Olszewski said Ian Cohen had told a “pack of lies” ahead of last year’s Town Hall elections in a letter about Camden’s decision not to use  St James’ Church for election day.

Mr Cohen, the dry-cleaner to the stars, had said he believed the change had been deliberately kept from voters and that switch to the Brondesbury Christian Centre had been down to the controversy over the overhaul of the 02 Centre site.

“This is Trumpian voter suppression: secretly moving where people vote by over a kilometre to reduce turnout by residents who are angry at Labour’s actions,” Mr Cohen had written, asking for the polling station at St James’ to be restored.

He ended up polling 494 votes in the ward vote – behind all of the Labour and the Lib Dem candidates who stood there.

But during an all member discussion on polling districts last night (Monday), Cllr Olszewski proved he had a long memory and said Mr Cohen had come up with a “pack of lies” and the Tories had simply not read the paperwork in the months before the election.

“I just want to reiterate the importance of all councillors paying attention to what’s in this report and that councillors, regardless of their party, also tell the people within their parties about what is going on, because what we should not accept is a repeat of the scurrilous letter that was published in the CNJ from a failed Conservative candidate, alleging deliberate voter suppression and secret deals between the Labour Party and the Chief Executive, when nothing at all was the case,” he said.

“That’s because the Conservative Party was too lazy to look properly at what was happening into the review of polling stations. Not only can councillors still make representations about what has been proposed and make suggestions and so on, so too, I’m pretty sure, can the political parties, agents or authorised people as well, regardless of whether or not they hold seats in a particular ward.”